Tuesday, July 30, 2013

July 29 Letter


Well, my time in Warsaw is coming to a close. Tomorrow morning, I will be headed out to North Buffalo! Haha I will pretty much be right in the hood! I'm stoked! After a year in the sticks (which has been great) this is about as much of a 180 degree turn as I can make within the mission haha. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. Especially if I can be there long enough to just have one more area of my mission, and finish it all off back in the redneck lands of WNY.
 
I'll be trio training a visa waiter. We have seven missionaries waiting to either go to Mexico or Brazil, and they are putting us in groups of three since we don't know if the visas will come in two days or eight months. Essentially, whenever he leaves, at least we'll have two missionaries there. I'll be companions with Elder Barnes who was trained by Elder (Ben) Fordham and was in my district until a couple transfers ago. Should be just grand!
 
AND THERE'S A WENDY'S!!!! YES!!!
 
I'll be serving in the Buffalo Ward, alongside at least two other companionships. It will be quite different from Freedom or Warsaw, that's a fact.
 
But, I guess I will give a few updates about how my last week of Warsaw went.
 
Jenn keeps on doing great. She is getting way into personal study, and we pretty much just go over there and go over what she's read in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and all of our pamphlets. It's definitely all coming together for her, although she isn't too sure about the Spirit World. I had all sorts of sweet scriptures from the Bible that make it pretty clear that there's something, but now I probably won't get to give them to her! Curses! But still, she's awesome. It was pretty funny, actually. We were talking to her, and she out of nowhere said, clearly upset, "I just feel like everything I've ever been told about Mormons was wrong! I don't get why everyone has decided you're going to Hell, especially because all they do is accuse you of actually believing what the Bible says. You haven't told me any of them are going to Hell. And quick question... are you guys allowed to eat meat?" Haha it was so great. And then she started talking about essentially the Word of Wisdom, even though she didn't have a name for it, and flat out admitted that she shouldn't smoke OR DRINK COFFEE. Never had that one before.
 
Oh, here's a cool one. We were talking with the Crater's (from the branch) a while ago, and he told us Rob Ziegler - the family we taught a few months back - had mentioned that we hadn't been over for a while. We had assumed that would be how he wanted it, but figured that if he brought that up, we'd better head over there again. So, we did, and he ended up inviting us to go out to Letchworth State Park with the family to play Frisbee and have a barbeque. It ended up falling through because of weather, but it was really weird the change in his attitude towards us. He said, "Don't take this as I want to join your church. But that doesn't mean you guys can't talk about your stuff there, if you want." It was very peculiar. THEN, he even gave us a referral! A kid who lived down the street, he said, had his mom just die. The kid, Stephen, had apparently been the "man of the house" for a few years now, but now was living all alone. For someone who a few months ago wouldn't let our lessons be about anything but polyandry, blacks and the priesthood, and premortal life, this is quite a change.
 
Then, when we contacted Stephen, we had another cool realization. We already kind of knew him! Amy Vrooman had actually been talking to him and teaching him the whole Plan of Salvation! Amy'd gone to his mom's funeral, where they really emphasized that her death meant she had a separation from Christ, or something like that. Amy made sure to correct that notion, and was working on us meeting up with him, anyways. Us being referred to him by someone else was just awesome! Then, he came to church yesterday. It was just wonderful!
 
Oh!! And guess what!? Jimmy got permission to get interviewed for baptism!!! I don't know if I ever explained that whole situation. Essentially, he was on probation, knew he'd messed up, had repented as much as he knew how, but couldn't get baptized without permission from SLC. Well, we just got permission for our mission president to interview him! He's been ready for a solid four months, so I'm not the slightest bit worried about the interview.
 
Well, I should probably go so I can pack and say goodbye to people and what not. It's going to be sad to leave people like Dolly, the Boccichios, Jenn, Jimmy, the Vroomans, and a handful of others. I really hate leaving areas. But what can you do! Back to Buffalo Stake I go!
 
I love you, but I don't miss you!
Elder Allen

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

July 22 Letter

Hello there!

Before I talk about Pageant (which was great!), I'll talk a little about Mormon Night at the Batavia Muckdogs since it came first chronologically. Ha, really, I don't have a whole ton to say about it, though. The missionaries and a few other members of the Rochester Stake Choir sang the National Anthem. It went well, except they should have realized that missionaries don't really know how to sing in harmony. Then came the game, with Vern Law, who was apparently pretty good back in his day, came to sign autographs and whatnot. (He is a member of the Church, which is why he was pertinent to Mormon Night.) He signed my Book of Mormon for me! Haha


Now Pageant. It is incredible! Pretty much the whole story line that it walks through is people are wicked, so God sends another prophet to redirect the people's thoughts to the Savior. It happened with Lehi in Jerusalem, Nephi with his family, Abinadi with King Noah, Samuel the Lamanite with the Nephites, Jesus Christ himself, and finally with Joseph Smith. While really the whole thing is amazing (especially when Christ comes, as you can see in the first picture of Pageant - He is the glowy white thing), I always loved at the end, when Joseph Smith is talking to a group of early saints, giving a VERY quick recap of each of the prophets discussed, he closes it quoting Doctrine and Covenants 76:22, "And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!" It is fantastic!

So, I'm trying to think of stories to share from it. Haha one of my personal favorites came on Friday night, which really turned into the biggest bummer of a night. We were sitting there waiting for it to start, but all of the sudden a huge storm started coming in. The wind picked up without much warning, blowing away all of the shade tents. Oh wait... that's not true. It just blew away three of the tents, leaving about ten others. Interestingly enough, the anti protestors didn't have a single tent still standing, while the Church and its members didn't have a single tent blown over. Haha to make the situation even more comical, about a dozen of us ran out of the fenced in area out to help the protestors put away their tents, meanwhile one of the protestors said through his loud-speaker "You think this is bad, Mormons, just wait until the wrath of God comes in! This is just a little wind! Just wait 'til God's wrath come upon you!!!" Hahaha ohhh man, those guys. Any time I saw them, I would just sing "Traitors and ty-y-rants now fi-ight him in va-a-a-ain..." Unfortunately, Pageant did end up getting cancelled that night.



But all around, it was a very good missionary experience! Jimmy and his girlfriend came, and now she wants to take the discussions with him. Justin and Shauna came, and we had an incredible conversation about why we keep commandments on the drive up. Dolly came, and then yesterday she came to church! It was all just great!

Plus, all sorts of cool people were there! Jon Bytheway was there, although I never got to meet him. I did, however, get to meet Jeff Flake, Arizona's senator! I never even realized that he was a member of the church, but lo and behold! Then I also saw Ken Avery (maybe not quite as famous as the first two) and Scot Marsden! It was great.

Hmm, I really don't have a whole lot to talk about, since our schedule was pretty much wake up at 9:30 (because we were getting back so late from Pageant, President asked us to get our full eight hours of sleep), get ready and study until 1:00. Eat til 2:00. Visit one or two people until 4:00. Head back up to Pageant.

Oh, I guess I could talk about Jenn, though. That's been an interesting go this week. We went over and had a great conversation with her one afternoon, then got a text from her last night, saying she and her boyfriend had gotten into a big argument about the church and that she had a whole slew of questions for us. That slew was 50 questions from online, that were all answered here: http://en.fairmormon.org/50_questions. We walked through about six or seven of them, and she really quickly started realizing that they were silly. We then got permission from her to just go and print off the answers, since I knew FAIR had already answered them all. So in the end, the anti-Mormon crap didn't go very far, but it did open the door to a couple other concerns. First, her boyfriend clearly does not view the Church favorably. Second, she is going to have those anti scars for a long time. It's some brutal stuff, really, and will dwell in her mind for quite a while, I am sure. 

Luckily, on the bright side, it was very reassuring that she did want to ask us about it, she didn't just take it at face value and say enough with us cultists. That was very good. Plus, while we went to the library to print off the answers to her questions, we asked her to listen to a couple different Conference Talks. When we came back, not only was she listening, but she was taking notes all the while! Hopefully she sticks with us, and will pray to get her own testimony, not the testimony of either the missionaries or of Counter-Cult Ministries.
Then today, Elder Westwood needed a haircut, so we went to a former investigator's house who cuts hair. I don't know if she ever really investigated, or just made friends, because she really didn't know much about our beliefs. But, we ended up having a wonderful conversation about the Plan of Salvation, especially about post-mortality. In a couple weeks, she said she wants us to come back to talk a little with her about Joseph Smith. I'm stoked!

Well, like I said, that's about all I have this time. Buuuut, I'll talk to you later!

I love you, but I don't miss you!

Elder Allen

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

July 15 Letter

First and foremost (well, not really foremost, but it's at the forefront of my mind right now 'cause it freaking hurts), carpenter bees hurt!! They are these stupid bees that look like a bumble bee, but are known for burrowing into wood to lay their eggs. Instead of stinging, they dig holes. One thought my ankle would be a nice place to try to dig a stupid hole. This was two or three days ago and my ankle is still swollen and itchy! Blasted bee!!!
 
But now onto things you probably care more about. Hopefully I can get my own mind off of my stupid ankle. Geez, it kept me up for a good chunk of the night it was so itchy!
 
Well The Hill Cumorah Pageant has begun! It is spectacular! Some 600-700 actors in it. Whoa. Crazy stuff. The first night we just went with Amy, kind of as our free night of being there without anyone missionary-oriented. But then Saturday we went with Jim and Sue. That was very cool! They are very Catholic, and not too interested in changing, but they are still probably the best non-member missionaries imaginable. We went a few hours early with them and took them on a tour of the Joseph Smith Farm and Sacred Grove. They liked it so much, they decided that they are bringing a busload of the senior group they belong to on a tour in a few weeks! That's some 20 people who will be going through one of the most spiritual places I have ever been!
 
 
 
Now this upcoming week will be just crazy. We are going to Pageant with Dolly Tuesday, Jimmy Wednesday, Justin and Shauna Thursday, a whole big group Friday, and hopefully find someone to go with on Saturday. It is exhausting to even imagine haha.
 
On Wednesday, we were able to finally have a real lesson with Shauna! It was wonderful. Like I said, really we are doing new member lessons with Justin, her boyfriend, but she is there, and at least half of the lesson is in reality pointed at her. We went through the whole Restoration, and it was great, because as we were talking about the start of the apostasy and about the loss of the priesthood, she interrupted and said, "Wait, but how did that get back?" She'd clearly noticed the priesthood at church, and opened the conversation to the restoration beautifully!
 
I'm trying to think of other things to even talk about.... but I'm drawing a major blank. My memory further back than Friday (the first day of Pageant) is pretty much erased, it seems.
 
Oh, yesterday we caught up with Jenn, again! (Tops Girl, that is!) It's super tough to teach her sometimes, not because she's unteachable, but because her phone is disconnected. Haha so if something comes up for her appointment, which it often does for her, she doesn't really have a way of rescheduling with us except for crossing our fingers that we'll catch her at home sometime. So it was with our appointment Tuesday, then she wasn't home when we stopped by Wednesday or Friday. Finally, though, she was home on Saturday! We didn't have a real sit-down lesson, but had a great conversation about the infiniteness of the Atonement. We now are planning on going over on Tuesday to really talk about how God talks to us. She's really started opening up on her past, though. Which is great, but definitely a little intimidating. There's a big past there hahaha. But, she's awesome and I am way excited. Hopefully she comes to Pageant towards the end of the week, too.
 
And Jimmy! We taught him again! That was really neat. We decided we were going to teach him about how to receive revelation through prayer, reading the scriptures, and going to church. As we talked, though, we naturally glided away from that to talking about how not casting away our confidence. I kind of based it on a talk that everyone should read for tomorrow's personal study by Elder Holland (http://www.lds.org/ensign/2000/03/cast-not-away-therefore-your-confidence). The coolest part of it was how empty the lesson felt at first when we went with what we planned on, but it really picked up as we switched over. Halfway through, Jimmy commented that it was almost like we knew what he was thinking, because he'd been feeling less and less confident about the growth he was making. We were then able to link it all back into the beginning of the lesson and talk about how we strengthen our faith and resolve by inviting the Spirit - by reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church! It was great!
 
Well, I must depart. We are having a Mormon Night at the minor league baseball team in Batavia. The missionaries are singing the national anthem, Vernon Law (an LDS Cy Young winner) is going to be throwing the first pitch and signing autographs, and all sorts of good Mormony fun. Should be good!
 
I love you, but I don't miss you!
Elder Bracken Allen
 
Oh yeah, and here's a snapping turtle that was crossing the road. Archaic little bugger, huh?

 

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

July 8 Letter

Shalom, shalom!
What a week it has been! I'm pondering on what order to tell the stories in. Soooo, I'll just wing it.
First, we got to meet President Francis on Friday. He's 6' freaking 7"!!! He actually played basketball for BYU his freshman year. No worries, Elder Fordham and I refrained from yelling "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" It was tough, though. Ha, he really is good at basketball, though. He would come in to get a different missionary for interviews, and would drain a three-pointer or dunk it (yes, while wearing a suit) every time he came into the gym. Like I said, he brought four sons with him, ranging from 4th grade to 11th. He has two other sons on missions right now, another son who is going to BYU, and a daughter who is married and pregnant with her second kid. He is definitely a very personable guy! That's for sure!
Then of course there was the Fourth of July! President gave us permission to stay out late one night for fireworks, so we went out to the "Ring of Fire" on Silver Lake on the third. Amy's grandparents live right along the lake, which is debatably part of the Finger Lakes, just by far the smallest. Anyways, at about 10:15, a police boat sounds its siren and goes all around the lake, signaling to everyone to light the flares that have been put out every 5-10 feet around the lake, hence "Ring of Fire." Then, the fireworks start, which are really cool because they reflect right off the lake. It was fantastic!




But now for more mission-y stuff. On Tuesday, we spent most the day at the Palmyra Temple! The Johns family got their endowments and were sealed together. Brother Johns was baptized last summer, where Sister Johns has been a member her whole life, though less active for most of it. I haven't been to the temple for at least six months, so it was very cool for me personally. But, obviously I wasn't the reason we were there haha. The sealing was very cool. I have seen a couple different sealings, but this was the first time I have seen young kids sealed to their parents, so that was very powerful. As Brother Johns was carrying Aiden, his 2-year-old son, out of the sealing room, we heard him whisper, "You're mine forever now, son!" Haha it was just great.

Looking into the Sacred Grove from the back of the temple

Guess what!? Dolly is reading the Book of Mormon!! We have been begging her to do it for months now, and she finally started. She read the first couple chapters in the normal sized book, but then we got her a large-print version, and she's been sailing through ever since. As of Saturday night, she was on 1 Nephi 15. She's been really struggling wrapping her head around the idea of priesthood authority. Not that the Book of Mormon really covers that, but hopefully it will help her see that the Church has something other religions lack. I was just blown away when she said she'd started reading!
We also finally got Jay to say a prayer with us there! He still hasn't come to church, unfortunately. But, we also got him the Book of Mormon on CD, which hopefully helps him.
Okay, so Tops Girl! She is great! We met with her twice this past week. The first time we went over the whole Restoration, and she was way into it. Then, later in the week, we went over the first half of the Plan of Salvation, but didn't even have time to get past our purpose on Earth, because we got into so many great conversations stemming from what we were teaching. It's cool to teach her, because she asks questions and actually puts thought into her answers when we ask her questions. She has two daughters, like I have said, and it has been really helpful to her to compare her love for them to the love God has for His children. Now she is starting to come up with her own analogies between Heavenly Father's interaction with us and our interaction with our parents or kids. At one point, we were talking about repentance and forgiveness, and she chimed in, "I guess it's like with Devyn (her 5-year-old daughter with special needs). No matter how naughty she is, even if she does the same thing over and over and over, I still love her and accept her hug for apology. I don't even really count the times she does it eventually." We also talked about how the best way to hurt her would be to attack her kids, which is why Satan is getting revenge on Heavenly Father by attacking us, even though really he could care less about what happens to us (Alma 30:60). Pretty much everything we have taught her we've been able to put into the context of her relationship with her girls, and it's all been clicking fantastically. It's probably one of the most idealized teaching situations I've ever taught in, it's bizarre! When her boyfriend asked her why she was meeting with us, she told the story about her praying the morning before we called her. "Oh yeah.... you can't ignore that," was all he could say, haha.
We also are finally going to start to teach Shauna!! She is the girlfriend of a recent convert, Justin Tozier. We always eat Sunday lunch over at the Toziers, and she is always there. She might as well be baptized already, but instead hasn't even taken the discussions. Well, we circumvented her worries about taking the lessons, by just inviting her to come to Justin's new member lessons! In the new member lessons, we just repeat all the same lessons, going into a little more detail on parts of it. So, she'll be there to hear everything, just in a little less intimidating of an environment for her.
Pageant is right around the corner! The way it works for us is we can go on our own one of the eight nights, but if we go more than that, we have to take an investigator, less active member, or recent convert with us. Right now, as long as no one's plans fall through, Elder Westwood and I will be there every night! I'm stoked. We'll be going with Lee Rissinger and his family, Shauna and Justin, Dolly, Amy's family, and all sorts of other people. It should be way cool! For some of them, we hope it's a big spiritual boom to help them stop stalling. For others, we just hope it will give us some way of actually talking about the gospel with them. Either way, we're way excited for it, though it's going to be a VERY busy week. It doesn't start until 9 each night, which means we won't be getting home until 12 to 1 each morning haha. But, should be fun!
Well, the fifth was my hump mark. I am technically "almost done" with my mission now.... Scary to think about, really. I could ramble on about all my thoughts about that for another ten paragraphs, but for the sake of both of our time, I won't. Instead, I'll just show you pictures of me burning a shirt to commemorate the occasion! (No worries, Mom, it was one that had been destroyed by muddy salt water while riding a bike in the winter.)




Well, I love you, but I don't miss you!
Elder Allen

Monday, July 1, 2013

July 1 Letter

Hi!
 
What a crazy week it has been! Holy.
 
First, it's worth noting that we are in the finally hours of President Christianson's presidency. President Francis is probably on the plane right now, and his keys go into effect immediately and President Christianson's become ineffective immediately as the plane touches ground. I'm excited to meet President Francis, and we will get to meet him on the 5th when we have interviews... but President Christianson is going to be a tough guy to replace!
 
 
Know what is crazy? Also on the 5th will be the one year anniversary of me checking into the MTC. Bizarre. It's a weird feeling, where you don't quite know how to look at it. Haha a lot of times, I don't feel like I've accomplished as much as I could have/should have, which makes the idea of being half way done pretty intimidating.
 
Anyways, this week. It was a good one, that is for sure!
 
On Thursday, we were picking up a table for Laura (a member who lives next door to us) from her aunt's apartment. We got over there, chatted a little bit, and carried the table out to the truck. We made sure to leave our stuff in her apartment, though, so we could guarantee coming back for at least a little bit. On our way back, we started asking her about Pageant. She said she'd been, but would love to go again. We asked her if she'd read the Book of Mormon, which Pageant is based on. She had. We asked her what she thought of it. "Well, I loved it. How could you not??" Haha, we asked if she had ever taken the missionary lessons. She hadn't. We asked her if she would like to. So we gave her the first lesson right then and there and are going back this week! Probably not nearly as cool of a story to read as it was to be there. It was just such a casual transition from picking up a table to having a new investigator, it was very neat.
 
Then Saturday, we were able to finally meet up with Lee again! I love that guy! But, the branch is REALLY frustrating me with him. So, here's a guy who was baptized decades ago, and eventually moved out to Utah at the suggestion of the missionaries who baptized him. At one point, he was the Elder's Quorum President, the Single Adults representative, and a stake missionary - all at the same time. He said for a few years he was going on splits with the missionaries every Wednesday night, at the very least. For 5-10 years, he figures he was no less than 90% on his home teaching. Now, that being said, sure he has a number of issues. One of the big ones is that he is living with his girlfriend, who is a former investigator, herself. Apparently he's ruffled some feathers in the past, and a lot of people got upset at how he treated past relationships (I don't know much about any of the stories, in particular.)
 
But here's the deal: His daughter, Emily, wants to start coming to church. If he does, eventually I imagine Julie - his girlfriend - and her two daughters will come, as well. In our branch, we have two groups of people: 1) A group of pretty new members who are enthusiastic, but don't really know how things function, and 2) A group of really old members who have been doingeverything for the past twenty years and are tired of it. There's not middle. But Lee would fit right in the middle. He knows how things work, and he hasn't been doing them for a while. Plus, we could really used a family like his and Julie's (assuming they get married soon, which I think they are already planning on, even without any church pressure). But, he is afraid of coming to Warsaw because he doesn't want to start any drama. He figures he'd drive the extra 20 minutes to Geneseo. We tried to assure him that there wouldn't be any drama, and that people would be excited to see him come back finally. We told him that Warsaw really needed someone like him and a family like his.
 
So yesterday at church, we started asking different members if they would call him and help assure him that he would be fine back here. We asked the branch president, who told us to talk to someone else. We asked the secretary of the Elder's quorum, who flat out told us no. We asked probably four different people, all of which either handed us off to someone else or said no. Good freaking grief. Here we are teaching about a welcoming, forgiving group of saints, trying to help a less active member feel comfortable coming back to church, and NO ONE will do anything to welcome him. It really makes me irritated at everyone.
 
We have a few referrals that I'm pretty excited about, though! One of them is a girl names Laurel, who has been asking Racheal (whose house we go to every Sunday afternoon) a lot about the church. Racheal had suggested she meet with us, but had kind of forgotten all about it, until the other week, Laurel asked Racheal when she would be able to meet us! Haha so we're planning on meeting up with her on Saturday. Not too often that you have a referral begging to meet us.
 
BUT, that's not even the only one! Sister Strang got a text from one of her friends earlier this week, asking about the Church. Her friend is Catholic or something, but has been getting irritated at it and is looking for something else. Sister Strang asked if she'd like to learn a little about the LDS Church, to which she said yes. So, we're going to be meeting her at the Strang's hopefully sometime very soon!
 
Haha oh, and here's a picture that shows why Grant is my favorite kid on Earth. We were over at Amy's house, talking a lot about how to help her family recognize the importance of the gospel. It was a great conversation, but not too much that I can really talk about in an email. It just is really epitomizing Elder Nelson's quote about how full time missionaries' calling is to assist members in their missionary work. We are definitely taking the third-party position here, which is great! But, that doesn't explain this picture haha. We were sitting at the table, talking, and I look down and Grant is taking everything out of my backpack. "Grant, what are you doing?" I ask. "Yes," he answers. "Do you want to get into my backpack so you can come home with us?" "Uh-huh," he said haha. So we put him in my backpack! He's the coolest kid ever hahaha.
 
 
 
At church yesterday, we had 89 people show up!! I was so stoked! It was more people by at least 15-20 than I have ever seen at Warsaw!
 
Then, guess who has a baptismal date!!?? Jesse! Do you remember him? He was the guy we randomly street contacted in Freedom back when I was still with Elder Frost. Apparently he has been coming to church pretty regularly, has met the stake president, everything! I'm so stoked about it!
 
Okay, I've been saving this one, but could hardly hold it in, I'm so stoked about it. On Monday or Tuesday, I can't even remember which, all of our appointments cancelled, and we had nothing to do. It getting late, so we didn't really want to tract and the library wouldn't be open. We figured we could walk over to the church, and talk to anyone we saw along the way, hoping that he family history library would be open so we could do some internet work from the church. We got there, though, and the library there was closed, as well. Frustrated, we sat thinking of what we could do. We suddenly decided we should just call all of the numbers in our phone whose name we didn't recognize! Most of the numbers had been disconnected, and the rest just went to answering machines. When there was an answering machine, we would just bear our testimonies over the phone, and ask them to call us back if they wanted to learn more. No one did.
 
But, after a while, I came to a contact named "Tops Girl." Tops is a big chain grocery store out here. This clearly was not the most promising of contacts if we had never even learned her name. But, I figured we had nothing to lose, so I called it anyway. She answered! I introduced myself, and asked if she remembered meeting with the missionaries in the past. She said she thinks she met them like three years ago when she was still working at Tops, but they'd never met or talked outside of Tops. I asked if she would like to meet. She was really funny, because she said yes, but really didn't know what to do. "Do I just tell you a time and a place, or what?" was her response to us asking if she wanted to meet haha. But, we finally worked out sometime that we could meet up. She then asked us what made us different from other Christian churches, so I gave a little two minute version of the Restoration and explained what a prophet is, and their role in Christ's church. She seemed pretty interested, but then shared a story that blew my mind so much, I don't think I got excited enough about it!
 
She said that she'd been raised Christian, but had fallen away over the years. "But my life started going downhill. I'm pretty much at rock bottom, now," she said. But get this! She said this morning she was so miserable, that she woke up and said a prayer for the first time in years, asking God to help her find a way out of all of this. A few hours later, we called!! Haha how do you even respond to that!?
 
Unfortunately, our appointment last week fell through because she was out job-hunting. We called her up that night to figure out what happened, and got talking about the circumstances surrounding our call. She didn't even realize until then that I wasn't the missionary that she'd met years back, and that we had really never met. We talked a little bit more, and when she hung up, she said, "Well, goodnight my miracle friends!" Haha we're meeting with her in about three hours! Pray for us!
 
Well, here are some of my blog posts from the past week. Read them and enjoy them! haha
 
 
 
I love you, but I don't miss you!
Elder Allen