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

 

Update

yeah so this week, well i guess its been like a week and a half, has been awesome! we worked a lot in our sector and in a million other things as well.

last week we fulfilled our dreams and took our road trip to santiago to fix a computer and took advantage of the time to do a session in teh temple and do some sealings too!! it was amazing. afterwards the temple president, President Alder called us into his office to talk with us and gave us some sweet photos of the santiago temple! it was a special experience, and on top of it all we stopped by Taco Bell while we were there and i ate a couple of beefy five layer burritos. not gonna lie, it made me miss american fast food a whole lot. good stuff.

weve found a couple of really good investigators in our sector, the only thing is that our church is situated on this huge hill and its been tough getting people to go to church. but were working with a lot of good potencials and people that have really passed through tough times in their lives. its a whole new world in Forestal, we find the craziest people in teh craziest situations, but its amazing to see the scripture in D&C come true that says that he that receives light, receives more light. however in Alma 32 it explains that passing through trials or not being blessed temporaly does not automatically make somebody humble. its nto the circumstances, rather the attitude that makes God able to build someone up.

basically every day this week we have been teaching our investigator Leo. hes 52, almost blind, lives alone, doesnt have family, or a job, and practically lives in a dump. if there was ever anyone that would have reason to be humbled by lifes experiences, it would be Brother Leo. however the guy is one of the most prideful and hard hearted people ive ever taught. most of the time he tries to teach us things about life instead of listening to teh spirit, but last night we think it got to him. we couldnt figure out why he was so hard hearted until one planning we felt like it was because he couldnt see well that caused him to have anger against God. so last night just outside of his house, cause he iddnt want to let us in, we taught him standing up in teh cold for about 45 min and for the first time he felt the spirit. he didnt want us to realize, but we saw tears in his eyes not because he felt bad for himself, but becasue the spirit testified that he was a son of God and had more potencial than he could imagine. hes committed to go to church tomorrow. LETS GO LEO!!

other than that just lots of traveling, working and helping people move houses or make new contracts. this week there will be a ton to do so its gonna fly. ill be honest i dont know if ill write on tuesday or saturday... tuesday we have too much to do, and saturday is general conf, so idk... but i love you guys :) we`ll see.

suave la nave.

-Elder Allred - Chilean Street Raptor

i dont have any photos, but i did figure out that Hermana Diaz has a cool facebook page... i think its just called mision Chile viña del mar. Check it out.

Road Trip

sorry i have no time to write fam. we were just allowed a little bit today and now i need to run up to my sector to have like an hour to work in the night and go find somebody to baptize. turns out the weeks that we think will be normal never end up being normal. ever since me and my comp got the truck we´ve just had to do a million things and havent had time to do anything. we´re really working hard to get up to our sector but its been tough.

our investigators are progressing little by little. We caught fabian smoking the other day in the park and he tried to hide it from us. its been tough trying to get people to go to church in our branch. its been several months since an investigator has gone to church. 

we´ve got a couple of prospects and references that are going ot progress this week. for every second we´ve been in our sector we´ve gone as hard as we can to contact everyone and receive a million references. miracles are about ot happen we´ve just gotta keep on keeping on!!

today we went to Valparaiso with President and Hermana Diaz and practically spent the whole day. we went to a marine museum which was awesome, and to the cemetary where parley p pratt´s son was buried along with a lot of historic figures. afterwards we got lunch and ice cream with them and arrived back at the office. fun day. zero time to do p day stuff haha. Love those guys so much.

tomorrow morning me and my comp elder ammirati are getting up early to take some computer equipment to santiago to be repaired. i was kind of irritated with all the problems we´ve been having with it and having to run around, until i talked to President about it and talked about the possibility of going through a temple session while were waiting for it down there... WERE GOING TO THE TEMPLE TOMORROW!!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!! haha im so pumped. first time in a year and a half. its gonna be better than p day. and while were in santiago were gonna take a swing by TACO BELL! im so excited i seriously cant hold it in. tender mercies, thats all i have to say. #roadtrip

love you guys have an awesome week.

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

Forestal Getting Groovy

alright guys.... i got like no time cause we have had zero time to sleep this week and we have to get home to take a little nap or something bad is going to happen. ill try ot sum up these last ten days as well as i can!

we have p day on tuesdays now becasue elder teixeira came and told us to change it from saturday. i honestly think its gonna change back but we`ll see. we are so far behind on everyhting in the office because now that the couple missionaries left that were in charge of the homes of the mission me and my comp have just been running around a bunch of zones trying to solve all of the problems. the good news is that we have a sick 2010 ford ranger so we`ve been living it up there :) just that we havent had the time we hoped to have in our sector. the other secretaries and the assistants have just been pounding us with other responsibilities to do and its been tough to get everything done. but everything is good because with faith anything can be done. and thats why were gonna baptize a family in our sector.

i got to the branch last week, my first branch of the mission, in forestal, which is this huge hill in viña. its a homy little place to stay but its in the middle of a super ghetto area. there is a lot of alcoholism and drugs. its the complete polar opposite of being in downtown viña in teh stake. haha but its honestly fun. its where the best experiences happen.

we found a new investigator named fabian. hes 19 years old and his sister gave us the reference when we contacted her one day in teh street. when we taught him last week he was super pumped to talk about baptism and really wants to make changes in his life. he grew up in a tough place and doesnt have much support. when we offered him a book of mormon he said dont leave that here or my dad and brothers will use to smoke. haha he wasnt kidding. were gonna work with him and prepare him so that he can find some good friends in teh branch.

there arent a ton of active members, usually about 40 that attend regularly... but my comp and i felt strongly that with little time in our sector to work, the key is going to be getting references. in the mission ive started counting how effective it is to work with references and contacts and came to the conclusion taht over a two year span 1/22 new investigators that were found through contacts got baptized... and about 1/13 references got baptized. its much more effective you just got be willing to put in the work with the members. 

we started passing by a member every day and sharing something creative and fun with them and at the end get them to set up a family home evening with a friend or somebody or go with us to talk with their neighbors and friends one day. in one week we got 18 references. which is more than any other week ive had on my mission. granted we didnt end up teaching or finidng that many this week, but the fruits are gonna show. 

i know the Lord is guiding us in every step. theres nothing that gives more satisfaction than feeling you should do something, acting on it, and then after realizing taht it was 100% a spiritual prompting that God sent to you. I know that he is willing to do it with everyone in any aspect of their life if we can humble ourselves enough to accept that his way is better.

Love you guys and im praying for ya every day. Alma 22:15 ask yourselves what you would be willing to do to get closer to God. Dont be complacent with where you`re at. We should always be raising the bar spiritually.

-Elder Allred - Chilean street raptor

Out With the Old in With the New

So usually when i get to this part i take out my agenda and look at what has happened during the week or sometimes i even write notes down.. but i just looked in my agenda and there wasnt anything! it was changes week, and mission council week, so its just been crazy. i think ive averaged about 4 1/2 hours of sleep this week. Im exhausted...

On monday, we worked in the office and prepared everything for chagnes and then had the most amazing night with the missionaries that were going home. we went to dinner at presidents house and it was incredible. Hermana Díaz seriously has a gift from God for cooking. its amazing. she can cook for 20 or 30 people and make it so good every time. after the dinner they all shared their testimonies and then some decided to stay at our apartment for the night. well it just happened that two of my old comps were going home, elder passey, and elder osuna, so we ended up falling asleep at about 3:30 and waking up at 5 to shower and be at the church to leave at 6 to Santiago!

tuesday we dropped off the olds, and picked up the news. theyre all studs. seriously one of the most mature and prepared group of new missionaries ive ever seen. its cool, its like they just keep coming more  and more prepared. all of the missionaries finishing went through the temple (which is agonizing to see them go in and not be able to) while the office trained all the new missionaries on everything. biggest surprise was getting to the temple with all of the sister missionaries that i got to the mission with and see all of teh sisters from my district in the mtc in santiago getting ready to go home too!! haha so weird.

on wednesday we had the changes meeting and it was really special. im with elder ammirati now, the stallion, and even though im still living in downtown viña (in the sickest apartment ever) our sector is up on this super ghetto hill. its gonna be tight. today were gonna head up to our sector for the first time this week and start baptizing some latino thugs. #thuglife

thursday we were overloaded. we were in the office working the ENTIRE DAY making up all of the work taht we couldnt do during the week and preparing our presentations and everything for mission council on friday. at like 11 we got back to our house and elder Frampton and his comp came from their zone in the north to spend the night with us. we got up early to get yoked and then headed over to the mission council. #swollsquad

at mission council i gave a ppt on how were doing as a mission in the amount of references were getting and baptizing. one of these week ill have the send the graph of the statistic were keeping its really cool. but it was good and there are going to be a few changes made. there has been a huge enfasis in focusing 100% on preach my gospel and following the guidelines. logical. the thing is the map to baptizing.

its just been a crazy week. it was so long. when you stop doing normal missionary things like having studies every day, and having time to proselyte every day you just feel different. the team we have in the office is sweet right now. Elder staton, my good old friend came in with us and will finish his mission in the office. Elder Roach and elder frampton left but its chill were gonna rock the boat this change.

im pumped to work. i love the mission. i love the Lord. everything i have is because of him. my potencial depends completely on my willingness to accept his will. heard a really cool quote this week that goes "the key to staying firm is service. if you are not serving others pride find its way in." the church is how it is for a reason. everyone has a calling, everyone has been called to share the gospel, and everyone has been commanded to keep the commandments. when we stop fulfilling in any of those things, we stop our progression because were are not serving. its the key to happiness. 

just want to make up for forgetting last week and tell Di that i love you so much and happy birthday! 28 right?? 20 forever. You´re a gem mom and my whole life ive always looked up to you so much for being so happy and never losing love for anyone. you truly have the pure love of Christ and i hope to obtain it one day. Happy birthday mother.

Col, its the big 17 homie. live it up cause its the time of your life. hope you spend it well and have a good time dawg. love you so much your my best friend and i cant wait to celebrate your 18th together. skydiving.

Love you guys <3

-Elder Allred - Chilean street raptor

photos - sanddunes, and a pic for the ensign. Or espn sportscover if you want to send it in... idk.