They see me rolling, they hatin

woah my mind is blown that i suddenly am on the downward slope..! thats seriously crazy.. twas a good week though and i got to celebrate the one year mark i my favorite guys house we burned a shirt and tie and ate some pizza and coke it was a good time! but for real how does one slow down time in life?

for as many new investigators that we found last week, we lost the same amount this week. it was seriously a tough week. we just had appointment after appointment fall through every day. we still worked hard, contacted a lot of people and helped others progress a little bit, but in terms of new peeps it was a bit of a struggle. thats really probably one the hardest things about missionary work.. when all plans fail jsut starting over and filtering out the ones taht arent going to progress to find the diamonds again. the diamonds exist, theyre just super tough to find! yesterday as the day was finishing up we did a contact that pretty much summed up our week. we were walking and we go up to contact this guy that had a skateboard in his hand probably like 30 years old and right when we start talking he just lifts up his shirt and shows us this tat of satan and walks away while staring at us. haha that pretty much sums it up.

one of our diamonds is christian this 15 year old that went to church with his mom last week and this week he went to mutual with some of the young mens which was awesome, but he had to travel to see his dad in santiago so he couldnt go to church! but he gets home tonight and were gonna help him accept a baptism date! his mom has been really enthused to come back to the church even though she never really had a testimony. however she does remember primary and how she felt back when she was just a little kid in the church. funny how that is huh? even as little kids one can see the difference that the gospel can make. like it says in alma, lots of times kids feel and do things that even confound the learned and wise!

on tuesday we did service with this one ward member and we just took out dirt from his lot with shovels and wheelbarrows for like 3 hours. it was serisouly so exhausting im like still kind of sore from it. but this last weekend we had stake conference here and it was one of , if not the best stake conference ive ever been to! president diaz and his wife came to gave a talk and they were both amazing and then to top it off a seventy from the north of chile came down and gave one of the most powerful talks ever. in his talk he made all of the young men stand up in the congregation and told them it was a commandment that they serve a mission and not to put it off for anything. haha it was awesome!

other than that not much happened... on saturday we had auditions for the christmas concert that were going to be doing as a mission. haha so i decided to try out and it was tons of fun but super hard! they tested so many things and then i had to do a solo and i pretty much nailed it if i say so myself but i dont know what they thought. haha nah they are only choosing 10 elder from the whole mission, but hey it was fun to try out adn just chill for a little while talking with other elders. very very very rarely do you ever just get to chat with people in the mission... i really miss it ill be honest. i feel like when alex told me that i would miss all of the small things like a car ride with di, or watching tv with steve i didnt understand it. but now i get it. just stuff like family dinners or things like that are taken for granted way too often. dont take anything for granted!"

love you guys hope you have a great week. the church is true. go to it. and get there on time.

-elder allred- chilean street raptor

the one year mark

Meet Me Halfway

hey guys whats up. we had a pretty stellar week here in coquimbo! we caught tons of pokemon and were looking to making it to the elite 5 pretty soon with brock on our side!

so yeah anyway this week was awesome because we found more new investigators than i have in any other week of my mission! every day we were finding new people and one of them ended up coming to church yesterday and as of now has a baptism date! his name is christian and he is fifteen years old. his mom is an inactive member for many years but shes came with him and they seem excited to learn more about the gospel!

but yesterday we were walking at sunset to their house which is like on the beachside and we get outside and suddenly mother earth just got really ticked off and there was a big earthquake! haha me and my comp stayed pretty calm, but this mom and christian start screaming bloody murder inside the house as they ran outside. she almost had a heart attack. but it was strong it shook the house pretty good, and then there was another one last night that woke us up and almost threw me out of my bed.

but anyway this week i went on interchanges with elder savaria this chilean that is a stud and i went to his sector. we had a great day and talked peoples heads off in the streets but we had a really cool experience at the end of the day too. it was like 14 minutes before we had to head home and we knocked the door of a future investigator and out came a different person. we started to talk with him and figured out it was this ladies cousin and he was staying there but really we were not paying much attention. there was like a huge party going on right next door, a bunch of drunks saying things to us from down the street, and some thugs kicking a soccer ball next to us too. but suddenly its like the spririt just shook us awake and told us to pay more attention! so we started following the spirit more and got inside his house and even with the music blaring loudly from next door we could feel the spirit super strong as we taught him about the restoration of the gospel! it was amazing. it was a great lesson learned taht throughout the day satan is always trying to distract us with little things to prevent us from accomplishing great things!

alma 37:6 is one of the favorite scriptures. through small and simple things the lord can work miracles among the children of men!

ever since we inherited the sector of the sister missionaries we have kind of been exposed to a richer and different environment. its like a whole new thing over there to try and adjust too. but its been cool to see how riches in this life can sometimes affect a persons perspective on who they are. its hard to remember sometimes that we are not from this world when we get caught up in the things of the world. i had the chance yesterday to give a surprise talk in church. i dont know if anyone was listening to me but i know that i learned through the spirit how important it is to pour out our hearts every day to god in prayer. it gives us so much strength to overcome the adversary and i swear ive seen it a million thousand times in the mission. is that a number?

last monday i went to the cross here in coquimbo for the first time with elder brock. the cross as i have been told is the largest statue in south america. and even though its pure apostasy it was kind of cool to see the entire bay and city. ill try to attach some pics but lately its been kind of dumb... also one night this week there was like this big parade that was SO LOUD of all of these like dancers and trumpet players carrying a big like statue thing of the virgin mary everywhere and receiving the remission for their sins. i wish i could party to have my sins forgiven.

sorry i cant think of anything else to write. im exhausted from playing soccer this morning and really all i can think about right now is eating a big old chorrillana. a chorrillana is lots of fries, eggs, chorizo (like a better version of hot dogs), meat, and peppers. its seriosuly the best thing ever.

hey i love you all and i know this is the true church. i can feel it everytime i testify of it to other people. 

................................i have one year in the mish on thursday................... wut?

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

well i have another virus soo..... hopefully next week!

Brock the Rock

heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, hows it goin? we just got done playing soccer with a bunch of elder and members from our ward... it makes it kind of tough to want to sit down and write things but oh well here goes nothing.

this week was really good, but were just struggling to find that golden investigator. all the people that we find that are really good almost always live together. its seriously a major problem in chile. everybody gets married, and then separated, but since the divorce laws are so complicated here nobody gets married again. yes i know its not ideal to have to get divorced and remarried but i swear its a very uncommon thing to find someone that has been married to another person for more than 20 years here. but anyways were in the search for some solid new peeps who are ready to accept the gospel, there really is nothing more exciting than finding somebody that has real intent and is receptive to the spirit!

were right there still with oscar, the bishops dad, and the espejo family. this week monica, the mom, came to church and loved it and then later in the afternoon came back with martin her son to a baptism for another ward with us.. its so frustrating. a different person from that family comes to church every week and its not even for good reasons. they just get lazy and stay in bed or watch tv all day and lose the motivation. sometimes it gets old being the cheerleader but i love them and i really want them to progress as a family! oscar is a little bit down becasue of the constant fight he has with depression, but he is still showing signs of progress. he gave up tea, coffee, and on friday he committed to stop smoking! i want that old man to get baptized so much. i know as soon as he does it he  would receive a stronger answer about the gospel than ever!

on friday this week i did my first replica as a zone leader. a replica is just taking everything that we learned in mission council in viña with president, and holding a conference in our zone to teach them teh exact same thing. but its laid back and a lot of fun and its cool to do something different every now and then.

other than that theres not much going on. i cant believe were already in week four of this change... seems like elder brock just barely got here to coquimbo. its crazy how time works in the mission... i seriously just cant even comprehend it sometimes because its different than anything else ive experienced! 

but it was hilarious becaue this week we decided to pass by fernanda, this one 16 year old atheist whose mom is a member. and before with elder swindler we serisouly ALWAYS talked and joked with her and tried to get her to open up and nothing worked. but anyway we get there and she opens the door and instantly she was just completely different! haha she told us to come in even though she knew we couldnt without a member, and then she gave us her phone number and todl us to come back the next day. haha it was ridiculous. my comp is working miracles. must be the spirit.

so yeah thats the week. but hey i love you guys and im thinking about ya every day. check out this steam room pic i took with the shaquille oneal jersey i bought in the flea market for like 2 and a half dollars.

yall have a great week now.

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

if you look really close you can see tony starks beachside house in teh backround

Hurricane Pablo

well we survived the hurricane that hit central chile this week so thats good huh? but seriously it was crazy i thought it was a hurricane. we got back from viña in pouring rain at like 2 in the morning saturday, and then the storm woke us up at like 4 in the morning the same day. it sounded like there were giant boulders landing on our tin roof and i thought our house was going to slide off of the other house that its built on top of. it was a good time though, we had a good time getting soaked and going hard in the work the next day!

on friday we were in viña all day for our mission council, and even though its a lot different with president and sister diaz its still really awesome! theyre still kind of getting used to the mission and everything but it was sweet because they bought popeyes for us for the lunch! i was pumped. also president chose me to give a talk in front of all of the leaders of the mission and i almost crapped my pants but i think i did an alright job. who knows, i dont even know what i said! president diaz is such a baller though, hes just the most loving and sincere guy ever! there really wasnt any big changes in the mission this time, but tomorrow were going to have zone conference and elder brock and i will relay everything they taught us in viña to our zone here in coquimbo!

last monday elder brock and i visited the muslim mosque that we have here in coquimbo so that was pretty tight. we had to take our shoes off and be all quiet and everything as we toured it, but it was amazing, the architecture inside of it is pretty cool. i still prefer the temple but its whatevs ya know?

also that night we had a family home evening with the bishops dad oscar. and it was amazing! we really thought hard about what he needs to learn and so we were focusing all of our studies on him and monday morning before the lesson we got the answer! we realized he didnt understand what a testimony is so we decided to talk about light and i remembered the video by elder bednar about revelation, and elder brock came  up with this boat architecture analogy (thats what oscar does) and compared it to taking steps of faith and the lesson jsut came together perfectly! i feel like were almost there with oscar! we were planning on having another family home evening with him today but since the power is out in almost the whole city we dont know if it will happen...

also this week we had a cool experience in interchanges! i stayed here with my colombian friend elder farfan and as we were planning for the day we were making goals. we didnt have a single appointment set so we decided that we were going to contact like animals and find three new investigators! well as it turned out after a full day of hard work we still hadnt found a new.. so just before heading back to the house we decided to try one more and she answered and tlaked outside with us! we said a prayer, introduced the book of mormon adn talked about baptism! she was really interested and it was a great testimony builder that the lord always tries us and doesnt give us the fruit until after we have proved our faith ether 12:6

i wont lie though even though its been a fun week, it has also been really really hard. i just started getting super down on myself this week and it was tough. our second counselor who has pretty much been the best friend that ive made here is ticked off at us right now and doesnt want to forgive us for something so dumb. hopefully we can turn that around but sometimes the work gets tough when you have non relating things bothering you in the back of your mind. i really felt the lord help me get through some little things this week and for that im grateful. 

recieving an email from the castillo family back in viña has changed me lately. jacob and romina got married and baptized and jacob told me he wore the tie i gave him for the wedding. now brother and sister castillo have calling to organize the cleaning schedules of the church, romina is a counselor in the young womens, and jacob is a ward missionary. i feel like crying when i think of the blessing that it was to find and teach that humble family that was prepared by the lord to receive the gospel. it makes me desire to do it a hundred times over.

i know that through christ i can do all things. this is his church, im his representative, and i have the authority to tell people to change their lives for two years so i am going to take advantage of it. love you guys, have a great week, and know that im doing well!

- elder allred - chilean street raptor

Changes and Pokemon Trainers

before i forget if anyone wants to check out the new blog for our mission the website is vamosvina.blogspot.com ... :)

this friday we have mission council in viña so ill be making the trip down to viña and theyll post photos of it up on the blog.. and ill be making the trip with my new companion elder brock! 

on wednesday elder swindler headed out to valparaiso. ill miss that guy we had some really good times together and he was one of the best missionaries ive ever met.. at 2 o clock in the morning elder brock arrived at the bus terminal! elder brock, ex pokemon gym trainer, famous for his use of rock pokemon, is from las vegas nevada, likes to play soccer, hes 21 years old and has 4 months left in the months, and is a boss. hes got a whole lot of confidence and loves to get out and work but have a good time with it too so its really been good couple of days together! i really admire his work and im excited to learn a lot of things from him, we already get along really well so it should be an awesome change!

the other thing that changed is that in our zone they took out a sector. and it just happens that this sector were the sisters who were working together in our ward. our ward is pretty much the entire coast of coquimbo. driving from the beginning to the end is like an hour and a half, and now all of it belongs to us. they gave the entire sector where the sisters were working and handed it over to us, and even though they havent had a baptism there in a year and a half were pumped to get it going. we have already met a lot of good people over there and were starting to work one day there, and one day in our sector, cause you have to take a bus to travel between them.

the espejo family has been lacking a little bit lately. this whole week they have been a little bit down on energy and stopped reading and didnt come to church. its not like were giving up on them or anything,  but its tough to see people stop progressing when they were doing so well before. we´ll see what happens. 

the cool thing is is that the bishops dad, oscar, who weve been teaching for quite a while now has started to progress. on thursday when elder brock got here we went to visit him and realized that the bishop had left an ensign of the conference talks on his table. so after talking for a few minutes we were leaving and started flipping through the liahona and it just landed on the talk by whitney l clayton titled choose to believe! haha so we marked it and sunday when oscar arrived at church he told us that he had read it like three times and it was starting to make sense to him. he told us he felt like he had recieved an answer but was still unsure about making a decision to get baptized! ahhhh! hes so close but we have a family home evening tonight in the bishops house so hopefully he gets there!

we have got a lot to work to do this week but were pumped to get started. seems like there is always like too much to do. its pretty fun actually. hopefully we can find lots of new people to teach!

in luke 17:10 it says this ¨so likewise, ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you say, we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do¨. everything that we do while in the service of our lord is our responsibility and nothing more. at the end of everyday after working we should get back and say we did what the lord expected us to do. missionary work and humility go hand in hand, as well as any position in the church. the spirit directs us and touches the hearts of the people, we simply just get to the appointments or do the contacts and open our mouths.

i love the lord, i love the gospel, i love the mission.

have a great week everyone. <3

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

i fixed my camera :)

Lunch in Downtown Comquimbo