Hey Guys it's Me

hey guys its me elder allred. this week was super good, and super disappointing. funny how that seems to be the case a lot of the days on the mission. our baptism with matias fell through. we knew he didnt feel ready. hes now set to be baptized on the 11th of january. im praying it all works out, id be lying if i said im not a little bit discouraged that i dont have a single baptism.

on monday my comp got the bullet taken out of his back. it was cool.. but kind of sucky. we went to viña at 9 am to change his visa and we pretty much ran around viña figuring that out until 4 when he had his surgery, but it didnt start till five and then he had to do a bunch of paperwork after. i was pretty exhausted. we didnt leave viña until 830 at night.

on christmas eve we woke up with 0 appointments to eat dinner. this is the only day of the year that we can schedule something with members to eat. by the afternoon we had 3 different dinners scheduled. we ate one dinner with a less active, one with a member family, and one with our investigator angelica! my stomach did not agree with our decision. i thought i was going to explode when we went back to the pension. it was awesome though. however christmas day angelica called us and said she cant meet with us anymore because its causing problems in her family... its sad because she was progressing really well and reading the book of mormon.

on tuesday i started reading the book of mormon in english and el libro de mormon at the same time. im marking all of the things that are translated differently and after three chapters in 1 nephi my brain hurts. its pretty fun though. im gonna complete it by the end of march and write down in a little notepad all of the corrections and someday theyll make the new translation and ill be telling my kids that im the reason they changed something. nah im kidding.. but really its interesting how many errors in translation there are.

i love my mission. my comp may be hard to get along with, the rules may be super strict, and maybe im a little sick of flea infested dogs licking my fingers everywhere i walk, but i love the gospel and i love serving. ive been preparing my whole life for this, ill reflect and remember it for eternity, but ive only got 2 years to live it. as this new change rolls around im going to strive to enjoy the mission more and have a little more fun. but im also going ot work even harder. these people need what we have to share. everybody does.

i know the church is true and i know that this is the plan we need to follow to be eternally happy.

-elder allred

dont be alarmed by our beer mugs or anything. just a typical christmas gift from members here in chile. he was dead serious when he gave us them. i made pancakes on christmas day. usually my comp just drinks water for breakfast, so for him it was a christmas miracle.

also a pic of the pellet from his back

and our district

and my present from angelica our non existant investigator