Sportin Llamas

good morning orem utah. not gonna lie im exhausted from playing soccer all morning so i dont think this will be a very detailed or long update.

this morning we got up early so we could play with some other elders and members from our ward in the soccer court at the church. well actually first we played basketball but ill be honest i dont even know if we can classify it as basketball. it was seriously like a whole new sport haha. but it was a good time and some good excersize!

so we had a couple of peruvian investigators that went back to peru, but before they left they left elder swindler and i with some presents. two alpaca fur sweaters! haha the only problem is that one of them is awesome and hte other one looks like its for a girl. so we decided to do a nerf gun shoot off and with a very dramatic finish i came out on top! it was the best thing ever. i rock my llama sweater seriously like every night its so warm.

this week we failed to find new investigators. it was bad. we have kind of hit a wall in that sense and we are working so hard for the espejo family! we have done so much and thursday night we set up a family home evening in the church with the bishops family and it went awesome! afterwards i played javier in ping pong cuase he has been talking garbage for awhile now! we tied 1-1 on the games and didnt have time for a third but his game style is a lot like steve´s. i was impressed. who knew chileans could play ping pong?

however they did not end up going to church tomorrow and were not sure why. in another lesson witha  member she happened to mention that part of the law of chastity is that you have to wear a skirt to the chruch. it was rough. we think they might not have come because monica doesnt own a single skirt. with a lot of faith and work theyre going ot progress this week!

on friday i went on intercahnges with elder johnson, a greenie from another sector that doesnt speak very much spanish. so we go to lunch and the sister that served us lunch is pretty fat... okay really fat. but anyway her and her husband are talking about how far away their new home would be from the church and i was like probably 5 min walking.. and her husband who is not a member was like oh yeah 5 min for me and like 30 for her. haha i would be lying if i said i didnt laugh out loud before covering my mouth. haha it so funny because here everyone just points out that people are fat to their face. its good stuff. but at the end of lunch they did give me a new mate cup made out of pumpkin! its sweet.

in my bible study this week i came across a scripture that i really liked. lucas 9:25 - ¨for what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away?¨ i started to think about how many times i have yielded to letting the world or myself get carried away in things that dont matter. in the future i know it will be important that jobs and money, positions, popularity, or anything distracts me from an eternal perspective. the moment we start worrying about worldly things more than spiritual things is when we are losing ourselves.

love you guys all so much, know that im extremely happy where i am at. obviously i miss every one of you, but i know now more than ever the course i was meant to take in life. god bless you, everyone. -tiny tim

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

i hate chilean computer viruses. pics coming next week hopefully :/

bien in the hood

hey folks whats crackalackin? im holding the fort down here in chile but from what ive heard sounds like the states are whipping up a bunch of shananigans. cut it out with all of the hubbabaloo wouldnt ya!

we had a good week here in the bay. lots of fun times, lots of things happened, but i dont really have that great of a memory... but anyway this week we had our own personal zone conferences! so president came to coquimbo and did interviews with everyone while his wife and the assistants did some good presentations. the interview was... different. i felt a lot less intimidation from president diaz compared to president kahnlein haha! but it was really good and the guy has so much love for everyone especially considering teh fact that for 2 weeks straight he was traveling to all of the zones and conducted over 200 interviews! and if it is anything like a baptismal interview i know that it really takes it out of you! president diaz also gave a presentation on the holy ghost that was incredible! i seriously learned so much from it and he told us how he came to know the gospel was true... when he was 21 he heard the missionaries and after like 3 or 4 months of not knowing he climbed to the top of a volcano in santiago and prayed.. he said he practically ran down the volcano after and called the elders to get baptized the next day. good guy.

the espejo family took some ups and downs this week. it was a crazy week with them! on monday we had the plan to teach the word of wisdom because we knew that they drink tea and smoke a little. so we brought some herbal tea to give to them that night but right as we were about to get to it in the lesson this guy from javiers work came in and talked with him for so long! so we finished up and planned ot do it the next day.. the next day we get to the same part... and the same fetching guy yells outside their door! it was serisouly amazing its like satan has perfect timing always! i cant tell you how many times in my mission i have been interrupted while telling the first vision! but yeah anyway long story short we didnt teach it till saturday and we figured out that javier drinks 8 cups of coffe a day, they both smoke like 5 cigarrettes, and they both drink like 2 cups of tea a day... and in spite of the fact that they couldnt go to church yesterday they improved a ton! in one day they cut everything in half so that was awesome! theyre advancing in the book of mormon and looking for an answer, now we just need a baptism goal! but a couple days a go we passed by to see monica and she started telling us about all the problems that she has had with her son martin.. and then she started thanking us for the friendship weve developed with them and the help weve given their family and she just started balling! thats one of those times that you realize the mission is the best thing in the world

a quote by elder pearson that i loved from the last gen conference is taht casual obedience and luke warm committment weakens faith. pretty profound right? if a missionary gets home from his mission and jsut starts to coast he makes it pretty hard to progress and be happy... ill be honest that quote hit me hard. it applies in everything. we can never be complacent with giving a half hearted effort. in the mission, after the mission, and for the rest of our lives. in 1 nefi 22:2 it says that the prophet receives all direction for us and knows all the things that are going to occur. i dont think it is any coincidence that this last conference about 80 percent of the talks were about families and marriage. its obviously something that the world could work on.

in my interview president diaz challenged me to start learning a new language... so yeah there is that. in a couple months i have to give a talk in a language that isnt english or spanish. das coo pres.

sepan que les queremos muchisimo. que tengan una buena semana todos. chauito!

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

so my camera got another virus. i hate chilean computers.

i wanna scream and shout and let it all out, and scream and shout and let it out! i miss will i am and brittney spears. theyre so good together!

anyway so this week was pretty awesome... because were gonna be baptizing this month! last monday night we had a lesson with the espejo family and we put baptism dates with javier, monica, and their son martin! it was one of those lessons that by the time the baptismal invitation came around there was just no doubt that they were going to accept it because the spirit was so strong! we are so happy because we have worked so stinking hard for this family and i want them to be happy so bad! the only bad thing is that martin couldnt come ot church yesterday so his date fell, but monica and javier are good and were going to work with their three sons as we go along!

so yesterday it rained in coquimbo for the first time in a long time... well it rained in all of chile, but it almost never rains here! last weekend all the members in chile fasted so that it would rain, and yesterday we were pretty much walking in rivers up to our ankles it was raining so hard! the lord always answers our prayers and fasts.

earlier this week we had an appointment with a 93 year old lady that we talked to in the street named julia. so we went back the next day with this kid from our ward named cameron and it was one of the funniest lessons ive had in my whole mission. so shes 93 and she looks great and everything, but she repeated the exact same thing like 15 times to us. ive never had to try to guess an old ladys age so many times in my life. we seriously had the same conversation so many times but we were dying when we left it was hilarious.

elder swindler and i decided when the rules changed last week that we wanted to be cool. so we bought a mate cup and a bambilla and we have been drinking mate like everyday this week. ill be honest... i dont even really like it, but i feel really cool drinking it and conversating in spanish about latin american topics.

ive been loving the bible study that ive been able to do this week and yesterday i finished the book of matthew! i have the goal to read the whole bible in spanish before i get home. keep me accountable. but anyway a phrase that i love that christ constantly repeats is that many are called but few are chosen. many if i had a chilean peso for every time i have seen that on my mission i would have like 2 dollars (thats a lot of chilean pesos)! i feel like lots of times as members of the church the minute we think our testimony is fine we fall into a routine and tend to forget about the constant need of spiritual growth until we find ourselves worse off than before and have to make our way back up.

what does the word chosen mean? among many things i think more important than anything is to continually increase our humility. we will never recognize our own faults unless we are humble and therefore we can never progress if we are not humble.

thats what i felt impressed to share this week, but i love you guys and hope youre all doing well. know that i am happier than ever here and seeing the lords hand in every aspect of my life. he loves us, we are his children, and we have the responsiblity to help others find the way. the world isnt doing that great. look up from the cellphones and do something about it. and dont let your nine year old kids get into minecraft please. that is the plea from chile for the week.

<3

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

Woah

this week was crazy, i have like no time, and i have a billion thoughts in my head so ill try to organize them right quick!

so our new mission president got to this mission this week, president diaz! hes a baller. friday we went in to viña to have mission council and i got to meet him. now i wont lie, its really really different. like everything is changing. but that is all good because he is our new president and he recieves revelation for us. for all the strictness and sternness that president kahnlein had implemented, president diaz seems to have the love and patience. like i said lots of things are changing including rules, but i love the guy already. he has such an extreme desire to serve the lord. at 21 years old he was a convert to the church and was a counselor in the stake presidency of santiago for 8 years and then the president for 10 years before coming here as mission president. great guy and im really excited to be working with him! it was also such a good experience to see old buddies and comps from before!

one of the things that president diaz did that kind of blew everyones mind was allow us to watch the championship of the copa america saturday night between chile and argentina and also we can drink coke now. pretty cool right?! haha it was awesome. we went to alexis´s house, our second counselor in teh ward and watched chile beat argentina and then witness the entire country go nuts for the entire night. the noise really jsut did not stop it was nuts and even though we were in a pretty calm area we still saw fights and vandalism and all kinds of stuff. soccer is crazy.

also on saturday to celebrate the fourth of july we had lunch with our bishop that is in love with the united states! haha everyone calls him gringo even though hes browner than anybody. he made us burgers, fries, and onion rings and bought us dr pepper too which has been impossible to obtain! i love the guy. ill send you guys some pics of our celebratory lunch.

we had a tough time finding new investigators this week, but matias got confirmed, and javier the dad of this family weve been teaching went to church! of course in our second hour class we talked about our potential to become like god and he went nuts. haha we have a lesson tonight and were hoping to put baptism dates with the whole family! theyre awesome and if the dad gets baptized, he´ll be such a good leader in teh church! i want them to get baptized so stinking much because theyre such good people!!

we also said goodbye to luis and eliana two investigators that we have been teaching for about a month in the apartment of a recent convert. they are returning back to their houses in peru and there they are going to keep listening to the missionaries. theyre so cool and as we were leaving they said we´ll send you guys pics of the baptisms! its unreal the joy that comes from missionary work.

everyone in chile fasted yesterday so that it would rain in chile becuase they ahve had an extreme draught! after church we got the news that it was raining in santiago. pretty cool right? our testimony meeting was so powerful. i love the member and converts of this ward they really have changed my life! a couple of the converts remind me of the verse in matthew 13:44 i think it is about the treasure of the kingdom of god. they have literally given up everything inlcuding their own families to be part of the church of christ! 

love you guys sorry this wasnt very detailed. cant remember much, but jsut know more than anything that i am very happy. this is the church of christ i know it without a single doubt in my mind. 

-elder allred - chilean street raptor