District Leader/Trainer

DISTRICT LEADER/TRAINER

Dear Allred Family,

It is a pleasure for me to greet you and to inform you that your son, Elder Wyatt Rex Allred has been assigned to serve as a District Leader/Trainer in the Chile Viña del Mar Mission. He has demonstrated a sincere desire to serve the Lord while sharing the gospel, and he has diligently set forth a good example to his companions. His responsibilities have increased along with his opportunity to help others.

I thank you for raising your son in such a dedicated way and pray that our Heavenly Father may bless your family while your son serves in this great work.

Sincerely,

Federico M. Kähnlein

Mission President

 

Chile Viña del Mar Mission

Fatherhood

i had a kid! and hes brown! this last changes i stayed in achupallas here in the hills of viña and elder wilcox left to the very north of the mission in la serena! also in my district one of the elders left, one hermana, and we have a new zone leader. everything got changed up and its kind of sad because we had bonded so well but at the same time im really excited for the new group we have! we finished the month of march with 9 baptisms as a district which is incredible! usually zones dont get that many baptisms in a month. obviously i know that baptisms are not everything but i know that the lord blessed us because of diligence and obedience! now i think its key we develop humility more and more and keep up the other things!

my new missionary is named elder rios, hes 24 years old, and he is from santiago chile. not exactly the type of kid i expected but im excited to work hard with him and learn together! ive already learned so many things about chilean spanish that i did not understand before! elder rios comes from a tough backround.. he was pretty much a chilean thug before and was inactive until 23 years old. he worked from the time he was 16 to pay for the house that him and his mom lived in and support a life full of worldly worth. he has really come a long long way to be able to serve a mission and now that he is here he is a little bit emotional, but he has passion and thats what i love. he doesnt have a very good knowledge of preach my gospel or the scriptures but he knows how to show love for everyone. im hoping we can find a good medium between the way we work this week! :)

yesterday we had the baptisms of enzo! i think it was also the first time in my mission that i have gotten emotional about something... enzo recently turned 9 and therefore constituted a convert.. but really what we wanted the whole time was for him to carry his family back to the church. his mom who i have come to love very much has now come to church for about a month straight to help enzo prepare for his baptism. about 7 years ago her, two brothers of enzo, and his dad were baptized into the church and went inactive shortly after due to the father being offended. however yesterday at the baptism enzo`s mom got up to bear her testimony and at first directed what she was saying to enzo.. but then at her husband. what she said was incredible.. really she just bore testimony of the church and begged her husband to give it a second chance. we`ll see what happens but were going to everything we can to get the whole family going back to church and on the way to the temple!

ive been missing the temple a lot lately. ive realized more about the things i did in the temple than when i was actually going to the temple and now i just have this hunger to go! its tough because i know in some aspects to progress spiritually i need to go to the temple, but the hunger has also helped me to want it more for our investigators. i know that things we do in the house of the lord brings us blessings that last forever.

ive been a little bit tough on myself lately and i was really just asking for help from my father in heaven. every little mistake has just been bothering me a lot and i wanted to get rid of all the pain! its like as a missionary i tell people all day that through christ they can get rid of the pain and then i forgot for a little while that it also applies to me! daily repentance is the only way to healthily live the gospel and i know if we always remember that the atonement is individual that we willl be more happy!

we had a lot of great experiences this week but i cant remember any more and i dont have any time! but i love you, have a good time in st george. i remember that was right before i opened my call last year and it was an awesome vacation! oooo i also dreamed i was going to viña there. its haunted. <3 you guys

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

my photos arent working... dont know whats up. QUEEEE FOOOMMMMEEEEE

Milagros en las Maravillas

whoooo where to begin....!!!??? i just ate a completo (chilean hot dog) about the size of my right thigh. i guess thats still not that big but you get the idea.

this week was awesome including a miracle to finish the change off! the first day i got here to this area six weeks ago we put a baptismal date for 9 year old anais that night. and yesterday the last day of the change she got baptized!! this little girl has waited a long time but her non member dad has done a lot to postpone it time after time. finally on thursday last week we had the chance to talk with him and we just asked for his help. well it worked out great and anais´s uncle, the second counselor in the ward baptized her yesterday and then started crying when he beared his testimony after! i love that guy hes so great and really has practically kept his nephews and nieces stay on a good path! 

the only hiccup in the baptismal service was that when we filled the font up on sunday morning we came back and there was a giant tarantula in the water! it was dead but a lot of hair had gotten in the water from it... we didnt have time to drain it so we just turned the light off in the font so that people couldnt really tell that there was hair in the water haha. but other than that it was perfect and super spiritual.

on tuesday we had zone conference with quilpue and president in our stake center! it was sooo good just as always and president kahnlein surprised us... we watched meet the mormons! well really we watched conocer a los mormones but it was awesome! i really liked it and i think they did an really good job with it. hopefully lots of people are watching it! the navy head football coach is the best part what a stud!

before the conference president asked each one of us to write a five minute talk about a committment we are going to make to consecrate ourselves more to heavenly father this year. i prayed really hard about it and was a little bit overwhelmed with the answer that i got... i received a strong impression that i needed to improve my humility.. and then that ended up being the theme of the conference. even though i didnt get the chance to share my talk i know that it was something i needed to prepare and something that the lord needs me to improve before he can bless me. i basically learned that without succifient humility, god really doesnt even have the power to bless us.. because it wouldnt be for our own good. im going to be working on that for the next little while and the scripture ether 12:27 has helped me out a lot to have the motivation! god will turn our weaknesses into strengths if were willing to cast our pride aside. that is one of the reasons i loved elder klebingats talk fromt the last general conference so much because quick, and full repentance day after day is the healthy way to live the gospel of christ! man seems like yesterday i was watching gen conf in mexico...

we had four baptisms in our district this weekend.. it was awesome! were doing really well and im hoping we can keep it up. next week we will have the baptism for enzo in our ward! enzo is the 8 year old that turns nine this friday and will be baptized on sunday. its been one of the best experiences on my mission to work with his mom and she is now fully active and in a family home even that we had saturday night she said she will accept a calling! i love this family... and i want to help the dad come back so bad but its tough because right now he is not talking with us when we come. we´re going to keep at it though cuase i love that family. hopefully enzo´s baptism helps them out!

weve have been so blessed by the lord this change and have had a lot of good times! this ward struggles with getting out of their comfort zone and really putting forth effort into missionary work but i think if i stay i can help! im hoping i stay as always but who knows i may be a jumper. changes are this wednesday but wherever i am and with whoever i know its for a reason. coincidences are just manifestations of the lords hand every single day in our lives. i know christ lives and i know that he died for me and every one of us. i challenge everything to go watch the video from the church because he lives, and ponder about how you can change your life right now in this moment to show youre love for christ more!

love you all have an awesome week. check out these dimes i snapped this week $

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

The Boys are Back in Town

thats right you heard correctly... the boys are back. this week in our ward we finally got some ward missionaries called... and theyre two ex bishops!:) one of them is 75 years old and the other is 82. were pumped hahaha theyre such ballers, and they got plenty of time on their hand, AND they love to visit people! best ward missionaries ever!

this week was sweet. it was a little disappointing... but thats alright were happy and still working hard. changes are next wednesday and i would bet that if anything elder wilcox is going to leave but ive thought two times before and then had to pack my bags so i guess we´ll see. i want to stay here though. i love the ward and i love what were doing. its tough to get baptisms because the area is so dang small and it practically feels like weve contacted everywhere but there is always people waiting for us! right now were working a lot with part families and trying to get baptisms at the same time as reactivations. anais has been one of those for about 3 months here... and she finally is ready with everything... she had passed her interview but last week her mom called us the night before and cancelled it. we´ll just have to see it could happen this week. it will happen this week actually we have faith:)! enzo is progressing too and his family is reactivating really well! now we just need them to commit to a date and we´ll do it. also we have another kid and his dad that is reactivating... his name is benjamin and hes ten years old...just like benjamin from valpo!! 

speaking of valpo, my old ward caught on fire this week :(. the whole sky in viña and valparaiso was just covered in smoke for about 3 days but luckily they got it under control before it burned houses! but for those 3 days it was so stinkin hot!

so our investigator from last week, fransisco is still a stud.. but he doesnt feel ready for his baptism this sunday :(. unfortunately his mom is inactive and is practically implanting into his brain that he needs to have way more preparation before baptism... yet he understands more than any other investigator ive had before baptism! hopefully we can put a date this week.. but he came to church and even prayed and recieved an answer about the book of mormon. hes such a good kid hopefully he doesnt put it off for too long!!

yesterday in church i also had a surprise. the bishop came up to me right before the meeting started and told me one of the talks had fallen and asked if i could fill the time. obviously i said yes... and of course the first talk ended at about 1030... and the meeting shouldnt end until 1115. i really dont know how i did it but i ended up giving like a 30 min talk! i seriously dont even know where it came from but i just had things come to me.. scriptures, quotes , stories. it was kind of cool and i know it really wasnt me that was coming up with the stuff i said. it really was what the people needed and the spirit just used me to relay it!

we have conference tomorrow with the zone from quilpue and president! its pretty much all day and i heard there is a really cool surprise for everyone! ipads? HAH NOT. i would get robbed before i could make it back to the apartment. hopefully its something cool though!

love you guys all so much and im really happy to be here, but miss everyone every single day. i wouldnt be here if didnt know what i was doing is important. christ lives, and salvation is not cheap. nothing of value ever was or ever will be. if were willing to humble ourselves a little bit we can recognize that!! 

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

Marriage Problems

hey guys. this is starting to feel like a blur. i dont remember what happened last week, or this week, and what i need to write about right now. but im happy, and working hard here in the hills of viña! :) we pretty much spent all of today running around downtown in viña filling out stuff for our passports... it was a pretty tiring p day. but i did here that one of my investigators from my first ward kicked her boyfriend out of her house and got baptized! so that was awesome.

so this week elder wilcox´s comp from 2 changes ago, elder judd, came back for a couple days to the ward! he flies for free so pretty much hes just doing business with this guy in our ward and he went to a lesson with us and it was really solid! it was weird to talk with him though because its hard to imagine life after the mission. all you can do is think about what youre doing rightnow because the future just seems so far away,. but as time goes on, so does my love for being here and my desire to find people ready to hear the gospel.

speaking of ready to hear the gospel we found a straight stud muffin this week. his name is fransisco and hes 16 years old. he already had a book of mormon and knew a little bit about the church because he used to be friends with the sister missionaries cause he lived near them. pfff.. sister missionaries. nah but hes awesome, the lesson with elder judd was with him and he came to church with us! our ward recieved him really well and he is already telling us he wants to come back next week. but yeah hes gonna get baptized :)

we had disappointing news with anais... yet again. her parents are doing everything to drag her baptismal date on. on saturday night her mom called us and told us her dad was leaving early in the morning and they couldnt do the baptism.. so they came to church but we didnt have the baptism. i asked anais where her dad was and she said he was at home working on the house... then after church we were walking and a car drove by and im like 100 percent sure we saw her dad. so we called her mom and she just got mad at us and said we called her because we thought she lied to us. ive learned that chilean women love to cause drama. weve had quite a bit. but yeah its tough and our second counselor who is anais´s uncle says we cant pass by her house anymore because he is furious with them. its pretty frustrating. 

we also found a guy named matias this week who is awesome and wants to get baptized! he came to church with us on sunday but told us that he found a different apartment in downtown and is moving on tuesday... hes a great guy though and im happy for him!

sometimes i really do feel like a marriage counselor though. its kind of ridiculous. we have so many couple investigators right now that just are not really progressing and keep telling us about all the problems they have in their relationship. sadly one of those is eduardo and liset. they still have the pic of the temple first thing when you walk in.. but they have been fighting all week and its like they expect us to take sides.. its the weirdest thing. we have so many couple investigators... JUST GET MARRIED

eduardo and liset actually remind a lot of something i read in 3 nephi this week. in 3 nephi 2:1 it mentions how the nehpites just shortly after the fulfilling of all the signs of christs birth and many being converted the church, that they began to forget and to doubt all that they had seen. i believe that many times in life we have plenty of signs and answers to prayers that somehow we tend to forget so fastly. they still are going to go to church and everything, but as of right now im not so sure that they are willing to make the sacrifices to really humble themselves after going through a complete miracle. i stilll love them, and were not ready to drop them , but theyre just not progressing toward marriage.

i know this gospel is the path the lasting happiness. its so so so clear here and really thats why i give 100% of all i have every day. becasue i want people to experiment with that happiness. the temples have the power to seal families forever, the priesthood blesses kids, friends, and spouses, and the church is without a doubt the church of christ on the earth. as we read the book of mormon we are spiritually filled. just as our bodies need sustenance so do our spirits and if we dont continually nurture them they become weak.

love you all so much have an awesome week!:)

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

Help us Help You

hello family! :) i hope you had wonderful birthdays and that youre all getting pumped for march madness! i know i am. i heard march madness in the mission means more success. lesss gooooooooo!!!

di asked me in an email this week if my primary responsibility as district leader is to be a cheerleader for everyone... ill have you know di that i am ALSO  the tumbler! no but really its true.. a big part of my job is just to always be enthusiastic and make sure everyone in my district is too. obviously i have to direct district meetings each week and give a presentation, and collect lots of number from everyone, but really the hardest part is just have excitement all the time. its somethign i really learned from elder passey. if i call someone or answer the phone i HAVE to be happy. even if all of our appts fell, our inv told us she cant talk with us anymore, and we dead flat in our area. its really good though becasue at the same time it motivates me. if our area isnt doing well, then im not being an example for others. 

but its a good thing that our area is doing well :). this week we had to investigators come to church and parts of their families! we have two baptism dates with kids that are 9 years old and at the same time were in teh process of reactivating the families. but they both came this week, and anais will be baptized on friday, and enzo at the end of march on his 9th birthday ;)! its been super interesting on my mission to see the different reason for inactivation among church members. just many of the witnesses that saw the plates with their own eyes, they know that this is the true church but they CANNOT overcome their pride! its sad, but its too hard for them to return.

this week was super crazy other than that. we are working with a convert that takls our heads off every time we meet with him. like seriously i think he would talk for hours if we didnt tell him to stop or interrupt him. it seriously impresses me. he has cancer and cant leave his house where he lives alone so i guess he doesnt have that many people to talk to. good guy. also eduardo and liset are good. liset wants to get baptized right nwo... the problem is they dont think they have the money to get married.they are going ot chruch and want to go to the temple someday, but right now theyve committed to pray together to find a way to get married and be happy. we ahve a lesson with them tomorrow.

other than that not much. we have a lot of goals for our area, and for the district too! i know tha twith diligence and obedience were goign to reach them! 

i love all of you and hope you have an awesome week. recently ive felt a lot of interest in finding out more abuot family history. i hope everyone is fulfilling their duties as part of this generation to help your ancestors out with this great work. 

have a great week <3

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

-with love from viña