Black Suits and Blue Ties

well after 7 days of no sleep and a long process of preparing everything for transfers and mission council, im still alive! im so tired though guys, so tired. last night i hit the pillow and it felt like i blinked my eyes and i was up again without feeling any different. its been so much fun though and it was an incredible week!

first off my new comp among his many nicknames is known as "the most interesting missionary in the world". We also call him Ryan Reynolds sometimes, and the Ukranian Hammer. Hes a boss. His name is Elder Rogerson, but his official name when he was born was Constantine Alexandervich Dovjenko. Hahaha. Sick right? he was found in a Ukranian manufacturing plant and adopted by his parents that he now has. He`s live in over 20 countries and is the most diverse person ive ever met. what a guy! just when i feel like im getting to know the guy, I DONT KNOW ANYTHING. were gonna finish these six weeks and im gonna look back and realized i know less about Elder Rogerson than i did at the beginning when i met him. The MOST interesting. really though im happy hes my comp and hes doing a really good job in the office. he learns really fast and loves the Lord. 

We havent even gone up to our sector this week, ill stay one more change here in forestal alto, but regardless, its been a fantastic time. we welcomed the new couple missionaries, the Gould`s who are working with us in teh office. theyre tight. on Monday we had teh last dinner for those going home which was amazing and i said goodbye to a lot of good friends, and two of my best companions, Elder Swindler from Coquimbo, and Elder Larsen from the office. Really good group of missionaries. On Tuesday we got up at about 4 after having gone to bed at about 2, and headed to santiago. We welcomed the new missionaries with a presentation we had to come up with in about 15 min, but it turned out well, and then we had tuesday and wednesday to be with them in the mission home and do a lot of stuff, all accompanied by amazing food by Hermana Dìaz. it was solid!

Thursday was our only day to prepare everything in teh office and all of the stuff for mission council on friday! we got it done pretty late again and thursday night me and elder rogerson picked up elder frampton, and elder horton from the bus terminal to stay with us for the night. it was a good time, and of course we got our traditional màte in!

Were starting to cool things down and this next week should be a normal week. Catalina didnt come to church last week becasue it was raining, so and the Relief society president just didnt pass by her house to get her liek we had planned out. Frustrating stuff. Its all cool though. This week shes coming and shes gonna keep progressing. We had an amazing lesson with our Elders quorum president that went with us last week and he got in and just starting talking about soccer and chilean stuff with the dad, then he got the mom involved too and really helped us to open the family up and share with us. theyre gonna progress i know it!!! 

Jacob from the Castillo family emailed me this week and told me that hes been going through the temple classes with his wife he got married to about a year ago... AND IN AUGUST THEY`RE GETTING SEALED!!!!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! i was so pumped to hear about it, im gonna do everything i can to talk President in to letting me go for it!!! theyve come so far, and im so happy for them. the gospel is the key to happiness, never been more sure of it in my life. spiritual barriers and limits can be broken when we start trying to make good actions, become good habits. I know God and Christ live. this is they`re church. i love the mission, ive never been happier, nor felt the spirit so strong in my life as when i see somebody in the process of conversion. and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them—Helaman 15:7... 

ive felt a change of heart in multiple ways and i dont ever want it to end. Have a great week yall, love you.

-Elder Allred - chilean street raptor

proselyting in the storm, and eating out at ruby tuesdays. First time ive had free refills in a year and 7 months.

The Hammer Wammer

this week was amazing guys. we had a miracle occur!!! a real christmas miracle.

i didnt have any schizos yell at me during sacrament meeting... but we did have an investigator come to church for all three hours AND stay for the baptism of an 8 year old girl in the ward after!!! LESS GOOO. its so hard to get people in our sector to go to church, and even though joaquin came to general conference, it had been a long time since somebody had gone to a sacrament meetting. like multiple months.

speaking of joaquin... haha. so we went to our appt with president last Tuesday.. and he ended up dropping him basically in the lesson! hey we went down swinging. he was our last chance of baptizing this change adn we wanted him to progress so bad. But president got in with us and after teaching the plan of salvation he just wasnt opening his heart up to the spirit. President pretty much told him look Elder Allred and Elder Ammirati are going to pass by in 2 days and you are going to decide if you want to find out if the church is true of not. its not their decision its yours. so you can pray and find out, or never know. but its your decision. the guy was super super prideful. when we asked if he wanted to be with his wife again who died a few months ago, he was pretty much indifferent about it. so we passed by again adn he hadnt prayed and still didnt want to. it was an amazing experience. At the beginning Pres. Dìaz basically just hammered him with about 15 questions and pinned down exactly what it was we needed to teach. hes a machine. i love him. the spirit was so strong, but like it says in 1 Nephi 33:1 we can only invite the spirit into the room, we cant force anyone to allow it into their hearts.

we did however see the blessing of trusting in the Lord this week. we dropped joaquin, we dropped Leo (same problem), and we dropped Jorge and karen(they think theyre going to live in Miami but theres no way). which left us with pretty much zero investigators. we almost didnt teach this week, but we worked hard to find better investigators that God is preparing for us. And thats when we found Catalina. 

The Calderon family was baptized in concepcion, active for about ten years, endowed, sealed, and 3 of their 4 kids were baptized. then the two oldest daughters went inactive, so the parents stopped going, their 16 year old son came out gay, and they went went completely inactive. but when we passed by last week the dad let us in and in teh middle of the lesson catalina, who is 10 years old, told her dad that she needed to be baptized. he works in santiago 7 and 7, so he wasnt there, and the mom still hasnt come around to sharing with us, so catalina came alone to church!!! i immediately went back adn listened to Elder Nielsons talk in conference about how children have the potencial to change others hearts and the responsibility we have to give children a chance in teh church. this little girl is awesome and super smart. shes gonna keep progressinga and hopefully she brings her family with her!

well guys. the church is true. there is zero doubt about that. if you dont believe it, search for it. its when we have spaced ourselves from our Heavenly Father that we dont comprehend why he allow certain things to happen. but there is a lesson and blessings in everything he does for us. I know it.

i begin to train the next referral secretary next wednesday. we go to santiago on tuesday so i dont think ill have p day until next saturday. Keep it trill folks. 

-Elder Allred - Chilean street raptor

Puro Power

bueno.

i gotta be honest with you guys.... it was a stellar week! we worked our butts off in everything we did, found some new investigatores, and one of them went to general conference!! it was the first time that an investigator has attended church in a long time in our sector. its been hard but we did it. now obviously our goal as missionaries is not to have people go to church on sundays, its to baptize, but hey we`re one step closer!

ill talk more about our good friend that attended in a sec. but more than anything it picked up our spirits a lot to have somebody there. this is the toughest, most prideful sector ive had on my mission. of course i understand that the Lord prepares people everywhere and that doesnt exclude where im at, however the people in general where we work remind me a lot of how Laman and Lemuel are described the book of mormon. #SUSN ... or for those of you that dont speak hashtag, straight up stiff necked. there is a lot of pride, and its one of the hardest things to help as a missionary cause its just like they put up a shield against all of the blessings that God wants to give them in their lives. ive never met so many people that need the gospel so much and have so many reasons to accept it but wont open their hearts even just a little bit to accept the fact that they cant do everything on their own. that in reality they depend a lot more on God than they could ever imagine. all of the good things they have are because of God`s mercy on them, and all of the hard things they have in life are almost all biproducts of pride and disobedience. but they believe its the other way around.

we`re still working with Leo. he told us this week taht his plan to turn life around is to sit and wait until God turns things around for him. He didnt come to the conference.

We found about 3 or 4 other investigators that all have similar problems to Leo. Little money, no job, and addictions. 

Joaquin is 76 years old. his wife died of cancer last october and she had been a faithful member for about 7 years before her death. Joaquin has talked to missionaries but never had real desires to learn more about the church. but we received a reference for him this past week and he accepted us in. Hes also pretty stubborn, and tells us he never wants to be baptized. but he came to general conference and liked it and accepted another appt. for tonight. So were not giving up on him yet. In fact we invited President Dìaz to come with us tonight for the lesson... its gonna be legit! its basically gonna be like us carry a giant cannon with a ball into joaquins house and then if we can get it in successfully all we need to do it light it off. Its impressive how President can teach with the spirit so well. Were pumped for it.,

General conference was amazing guys. I cant believe it was the last time ill watch it in the mission! i dont want to go on too much about it, but i think my favorite talks were Mervyn J. Arnold on saturday about going to the rescue, and Elder Nelson from priesthood about being a man of God! "I fear that too many of us have the priesthood authority, but do not have the priesthood power". it made me think a lot about how badly i want to be able to bless others. not jsut as a missionary but for the rest of my life. if i would be willing to sacrifice worldly desires to help those i love. We are "bearers" of the priesthood, which implies we support a responsibility that is God given.

we had a goodbye dinner for another missionary couple last night. im still stuffed. also santiago is taking our truck from us on thursday... ;(

Life is good. God is good. His love is uncomprehendable. I love the gospel, and i know that its the only true path to be happy. Sometimes we get so caught up in other things that like Elder Hallstrom said we first treat things casually, then we ignore them, and then we forget them. Dont forget spritiual experiences or impressions. Keep building your faith every day.

Love you all. 

-Elder Allred - Chilean street raptor

Creatures and Schizos

So its only been 3 days since the last time i emailed. our whole schedule is kind of unpredictable... if we have things on tuesday we do p day on saturday... but general conference is on saturday this week so  we did it today. oh well.

anyway pretty much these last few days i got yelled at in the middle of my talk by a schizophrenic in front of the whole congregation, ran into a strange unknown species in our sector (ill send pics), and found a sweet new investigator by a miracle.

yeah there is this guy, actually  its fabians uncle, this kid were teaching, that has threatened us a few times and always yells at us when he sees us. the first time we met him he took us into his penthouse and we thought we were gonna die, and then he just showed us pieces of his hair of "when he was a nazi". but yeah he thinks were from the CIA and just here to spy on people. so i getting into the most spiritual part of my talk on Easter Sunday, just about to testify of the atonement when he storms in and begins to yell a plethura of insults towards me such as; "youre a racist" "leave my woman alone" "you deal with me, not my family, this is not a game" and "im going to kill you" just to name a few. hahaha i had no idea what to do. im sure i got super red. i just gave him a thumbs up from the pulpit and said gracias hermano as a brother in our ward took him out of the chapel. it was pretty funny. good times.

on sunday night after weekly planning my comp and i decided to look for a few former investigators from some old registers we had. while searching this giant staircase for a son and mom we began to realize we had gone down to far, but instead of turning around we just kept going down this never ending hill. after knocking all of the doors we finally started going back up, got lost, and then ran into a guy coming out of his house... we decided to ask him if he knew where the house was and he said oh thats my house. even though the people that had lived there had moved he let us pass and just happened to be an endowed melquisidec priesthood holder that had been inactive for years! his GF is not a member and decided to join the lesson but was acting kind of weird even though she accepted everything and participated. near the end of the lesson she opened up a little and told us that the night before she had a dream that two young men would help her get out of lots of problems in her life and then told us she thought we were the people from her dream!! amazing. it was a super spiritual lesson, and even though she works almost all day she is trying to find time this week so that we can pass by again!

also we went to the zoo in quilpue to day for P day so that was sick. I gave a monkey a cookie.

miracles happen every day. because its not our work, nor our mission, rather that everything that happens when we are being obedient and working hard is becasue it is supposed to happen like that. i know the Lord directs his work here on earth, ive never been so sure of it in my life. i cant wait for general conference this weekend. what a blessing it is to have men of God called to lead and guide us in a lost world. 

Enjoy every second of it all. God wants us to be happy. thats why he created all of this. Love you guys talk to you next week maybe on tuesday maybe on saturday who knows..

-Elder Allred - Chilean Street Raptor