An email from Sister Allen...

Today is the BEST day to be a missionary...

 

I chopped my hair off! All you who were asking on facebook, its true! 8 inches, people. I can't believe I did it either. I seriously don't know how I gained the courage to do so, but it was much needed. I needed a change and I need to not get hair lice again. Also, after many prayers and washes with tea tree oil, we are proud to announce that all of the lice is gone!

This weekend was amazing as we had the opportunity to see Brad, our investigator, be baptized and make those covenants with Heavenly Father that will keep him happy for the rest of his life. His baptism went wonderful and the spirit was so strong. Brad walked down in to the water after Brother Miller and Bro Miller took a hold of Brads hand/arms, I guess Brad was a little excited to get in the water because as soon as he held on to Bro Miller, he started to bend his knees close his eyes and arch his back down in to the water. Haha. Luckily, Bro Miller stopped him in time before he dunked himself into the water. Bro Miller said the prayer and Brad came out of that water BEAMING! This guy has the biggest smile and just glows with the light of Christ. Not only was Brad baptized on Saturday, but he was confirmed and given the priesthood yesterday! Three ordinances in two days...baby steps, right? haha. Brad was also confirmed by Bro Miller and as he walked down the aisle back to his seat, he had a huge grin on his face and as he sat down he looked over and says, "I feel so good. I'm shaking!" Right after church we were able to join Brad and the Bishop as they ordained him a priest in the Aaronic priesthood. Next step, temple. He has already expressed his desire to go through the temple and do baptisms. His hope is to go a couple of times before he is deployed to Afghanistan in December. He has invited Sister Mac and I to go with him the first time he attends and we are hoping to get permission to do so. Brad is seriously the golden convert and is going to go so far in this gospel! He even shared some of his photos from his baptism and his testimony via Facebook. None of his family or friends are members and it was all his idea to share his testimony. In the words of Brad, "Do good, be good, feel good. Word."

Clayton, the little boy who is being baptized with his sisters on the 12th, has given us new nicknames. He can't say his R's and has the cutest lisp, so he now calls us Sticker McDonkey and Sister McAlien. I wish I could record him talking and send it to all of you. It has been really fun being able to come up with simple ideas and ways to teach young kids the lessons. Kendra, 13 year old, got up yesterday in fast and testimony meeting and bore her testimony. Everyone was amazed by her testimony and courage. They aren't even members yet, but they have the strongest desire to learn and grow in the gospel. It is truly amazing! They are counting down the days until they are baptized and we might be too...12 days. :) (which also means 12 days until my 4 month mark...uhhhhh, what? where has the time gone?)

I hope all of you were able to attend the Relief Society broadcast! It was truly wonderful and I received so many answers to my prayers. I would like to share some of the things that were said and suggest that all of you watch the full broadcast. (even if you arent a girl. haha.) They talked a lot about why it is so important to be covenant keeping people. A covenant is a binding spiritual contract. The Lord sets the terms and we promise to follow Him. The Lord rejoices in the soul that repenteth. We all have burdens to bear and share. 

Why do we keep covenants or promises with our Heavenly Father?

1. Covenant keeping strengthens, empowers, and protects.

2. Keeping covenants is essential to happiness

3. Keeping covenants demonstrates our love for our Savior and Father in heaven.
COVENANT KEEPERS ARE COMMANDMENT KEEPERS

There is nothing that the Lord could ask of us, that we should not anxiously and willingly do.

We keep our covenants each day by being kind and serving others. When we realize that we are children of the covenant, we know who we are and what God expects of us. Do we recognize the ability and blessing it is that the Savior cleanses us each week when we partake of the sacrament? For those of us who are busy and distracted with children during sacrament, prepare on Saturday to renew your covenants and reflect on what you need to work on.

The Lord allows us to be tried and tested, sometimes to our MAXIMUM capacity, to strengthen us. Nothing that happens to us is a shock to him. Trials are what help us CLING to our covenants. The Lord wants to build us up, not tear us down. We can continually be purified by the Savior.

GO TO THE TEMPLE & CLAIM YOUR BLESSINGS!

My favorite talk of them all was from our beloved prophet, Thomas S. Monson. He had so many good points and I will share with you some of them. Our trials are each different, but common for all. Remember prayer and God will speak peace to the soul. We were not placed on this earth to walk alone. He has assured us that He will be there to help, if we but ask. "Not my will, but thine be done." Prayer is not just for times of trouble. "Feast upon His words for peace, strength, and knowledge." -Gordon B. Hinckley

President Monson ended with the statement, "You will one day realize that He was always there through it all." This statement hit me like a ton of bricks. I look back at my life and all of the trials I have overcome or all of the times in my mission when He has been there with me. He has always been there. He will always be there and all we have to do is ask for Him to be there. What an amazing broadcast!!

Margaret, the woman who's husband died in the hospital when i was there, has committed to be baptized on October 26th. Two problems: 1. she needs to quit smoking and 2. she didnt come to church yesterday because she found work (and she really needs the money) and so now she might have to wait for the first week of November. (For those of you who dont know, investigators have to attend church 3 times before being baptized) Her 19 year old daughter, Hannah, has also committed to be baptized and last time we checked she had already read all the way through Jacob in the Book of Mormon. She loves when we come over to teach her and the Spirit is definitely testifying to her of the truthfulness of our message.

Sadly one of our investigators dropped us this past week. Elizabeth, who had a baptism date on the 26th, has told us that she found another church to attend. We were pretty bummed about it, but we know that the Lord has a plan for her. She will be a member one day in the Lords time and when He knows that she is ready. We will continue to pray for her and hope that she finds her way to the truth. :)

I told all of you last week that I would share my thoughts and studies on Charity, so here it is...1 Corinthians 13 (read it, if you havent already) talks all about the virtue of charity. Moroni 7:46, "If ye have not charity, ye are nothing." It is something so vital for each of us to develop and will make our actions and deeds so much greater if we obtain charity. Mosiah 2: 17, "serving others, serves God." D&C 88:125, "...clothe yourselves with the bond of charity...which is the bond of perfectness and peace..." 1 Peter 4:8, "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover (JST: preventeth a(see footnote a)) the multitude of sins." Alma 7:11-13, Christ suffered our pains, temptations, afflictions, sickness, sins, etc. just so we could repent and inherit the kingdom of heaven. 1 Nephi 19:9, Christ was spit upon and did nothing, because of his pure love towards us, the children of men. 2 Nephi 26:30, "if they should have charity they would not suffer..." Charity is the highest, noblest, strongest kind of love. It is not selfish, prideful, jealous, quick to anger, evil thinking, or rejoicing in others failure. Moroni 7:48, "...pray unto the father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love..." CLEAVE unto charity. All things must fail, but charity will not.
 My thoughts: We too easily become offended or get angry. there are so many promises of inheriting the kingdom of God if we are charitable. Charity makes all of our actions mean so much more. Life is short. Too short to hold grudges, too short to stay mad, too short to show jealousy, pride, and selfishness. All of those feelings are not from God, but are of Satan. When we feel that negativity burning inside of us, we are less capable of feeling the spirit and making good choices.

I am so grateful for this priceless time in my life where I have the opportunity to be edified and uplifted by my Heavenly Father. I know that He lives and that Christ suffered for all of our sins. I am grateful for the atonement and the opportunity we have to be forgiven because we are not perfect and He knows that. I am grateful that my Heavenly Father is always there for me, even when I think I am alone. I know he loves each and every one of us and wants us to be happy. I know that the only way that we can obtain this true, lasting happiness is through the true restored gospel of Jesus Christ. He gives us resources that we must use to their full potential in order to receive the greatest blessings of heaven and eternal life.

I love you all and thank you all for your love and support.

I am so grateful for each and every one of you. :)

Do good, feel good, be good. Word.

Love,

Sister Allen

LIFE IS GOOD...even with lice...

Thats right people! I have lice. Head lice. Its literally disgusting and pretty hilarious at the same time. This past week my scalp was so dry and itching so bad every day. I thought it was because I had just recently changed shampoo, but last night as we were doing our nightly planning, I just couldnt take the itching any longer. I had Sister MacD look through my hair (sick, i know) and sure enough, there the little buggers were. Never having lice before, I quickly called the mission nurse to find out what to do. When the nurse confirmed that I really did have it, I literally had a melt down. Okay, it wasnt just a melt down, more like a creeped out, freaky, crying, petrified, melt down. We had to race over to Walgreens (broke the sabbath on my mission, eeek) and $50 later I had the supplies I needed to beat these sick things. Side note: it was 9:30pm by the time we left to the store. We got back around 10:15 and started at it. Getting rid of lice is NOT a quick process for those of you who dont know. 6 hours and two mission approved movies later, as Sister Mac picked through one inch sections of my long, thick hair, we finally finished the two step treatment. It was 4am when we were finished and the process wasnt stopping there. The mission nurse told us we had to wash and vacuum EVERYTHING! (our neighbors probably hate us for vacuuming at 4 in the morning, but it was a crisis) Finally at about 5:40 am, Sister Mac and I laid down on our mattresses with nothing but a top sheet for each of us. Lets just say, neither of us slept much and were freezing all night long with no clean blankets to cover us up. Needless to say it was a long night. My little lice issue is also why I am so late to emailing this morning! Sis Mac spent another 5 hours this morning digging through my hair one more time and luckily most of them are gone! Haha. Looking back to last night, I cant help but laugh and wonder what else the Lord's got coming my way. He knows i'm ready for anything, i guess. ALSO, can i just say that I have THE BEST COMPANION EVER!? She seriously rocks for standing there for 9 hours (altogether) digging through my hair, not complaining once!

We have a baptism this Saturday! Brad Frantz, our 21 year old investigator who is in the air force, will be baptized and confirmed this weekend!! He is seriously so awesome! We had a lesson this week at the Garrick's house (he is the stake patriarch and they are SERIOUSLY so cool). We talked a lot about the priesthood and how he will receive the Aaronic priesthood after he is baptized. At the beginning of the lesson, he was not so sure if that was something he wanted, but as he came to understand and realize the blessings the priesthood can bring his family, he was sold. After the lesson we asked him if he had invited any of his friends to his baptism. He told us no, but said "I told my friends I'm a mormon. Well, that i'm becoming a mormon, or whatever I am at this point." Haha we were so impressed and Sister Mac was tempted to do a somersault in celebration right then and there! This morning he totally suprised us by asking us if we would be able to be with him at his first temple session! AHH! of course we will! He is being deployed to Afghanistan in December, but plan to head down to do baptisms at the Sacramento temple before then. Saturday is going to be a wonderful day and he is going to go so far in this church. His testimony and the person he is becoming, is why it is so worth it to be out here. Watching that amazing change in people, where they realize that this is what really matters, is the best thing in the world.
 

I forgot to write this in my email last week but Vaughn, who was baptized on August 30th, received the Aaronic priesthood! We had no idea and then they called his name in church and we all sustained him. It was the most amazing thing to see and we are so proud of him!
 

It is definitely cooling down around here. On saturday it rained all day long and it was actually really awesome. I may or may not have been praying for rain this past week. :) We walked around with umbrellas and I have decided that I could definitely live somewhere that it rains a lot. (Road trip to Seattle in 14 months, anyone?) I feel like I am definitely turning in to a California girl though and now feel like 60-70 degrees is freezing and requires a coat. Back home when it got down to 60, I was still walking around in shorts and a tshirt. Who am i?
 

We finally had a lesson with Margaret, the woman who's husband died in the hospital the same day that Sister Grant was in the ER. Her daughter Hannah, who is 19, sat in with us and it went amazing. Margaret had so many amazing questions and was so curious about everything. She was a little bit weary about reading the Book of Mormon because of that verse in Revelations 22 where it says "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book". After a few other scriptures and some clarification, we were able to help her feel more comfortable with the fact that there is more scripture. The Lord wants to bless us with more knowledge, how can we not want that? (2 Nephi 9 talks all about this.) Hannah, her daughter, LOVED the lesson and I think she is really going to do well with the lessons. Sister Mac committed both of them to baptism and tomorrow we are going to commit them to a specific baptismal date. So exciting!
 

We received a referral from the mormon.org hotline, to go and visit a woman named Pauline. Her brother in law referred her to the missionaries and told us that we needed to be very bold with her. He told us exactly what to say and said that we needed to say it exactly how he told us. We found her living at one of the sober living homes our ward mission leader, brother miller, owns. Pauline came out into the living room and we introduced ourselves. We decided that Sister MacDonald would do the honor of being bold and saying what her brother in law told us to say. Sister Mac looked at her and said, "Pete says that It is time to listen to what the missionaries have to say and do what they ask you to do, it will save your life." It was so powerful and I definitely felt the spirit. She was very taken aback and honestly didn't know what to say (i really dont think i would know what to say either) Pauline basically said okay and went back in to her room. Sister Mac and I didn't really know what to do next and as I talked to Leslie, one of Pauline's roommates, Sister Mac walked outside after Pauline and apologized if we offended her. She said that she was just caught off gaurd but would give our church a chance. Sadly, she cracked one of her ribs last week and was not feeling well yesterday. Hopefully she will come next week!

I have been studying a lot about charity this week. My dad told me to read in 1 Corinthians 13 and my studies took off from there. I forgot my study journal this week and wrote down SO many amazing notes about charity. I will have to add them to my email next week because they are too awesome to pass up.
 

Things are going great and the work is hastening forward!

Pray that my lice goes away. :)

love you all and miss you guys like crazy!
sister allen

 

Hello everyone!

I have learned two amazing lessons this week. 1.Two return missionaries is better than one and 2. when you pray for service opportunities, be specific :)

Last week I was feeling like we should start praying for opportunities where we could serve people in our community. On Thursday we definitely got an answer to this prayer and we got a little more than we bargained for. Haha. Thursday morning we got a call from one of our investigators. She had been put in jail on Monday for possession of meth (yeah, crazy) and her daughter was now in foster care. She didnt have a place to stay and we were searching for a member or someone who would take her in for the night. (Heavenly Father, who would want a meth user to stay with them in their house?!) We finally had a prompting to call Bro. Myers who specializes with these kinds of situations. He took her over to a hotel and paid for one nights stay. It was an amazing blessing. We have decided to discontinue teaching her because it is unsafe and this situation is not one where we can help her anymore then we already have. Jail, meth, foster care, and homeless...woosh, that was a little more service than we intended. We were able to help her though and thats what matters. :) While all of this was going on, we were running around town to different lessons and dropping off cupcakes for the less actives who we teach. Our morning was full of zone meetings and so all of this craziness happened in about four hours or less. We have learned to be more specific when we are asking Heavenly Father for opportunities. Hopefully next time around, the service won't include illegal drugs and legal issues...haha.

The second thing I have learned this week is the fact that two is really better than one. We have been having each lesson with Brad (investigator getting baptized on the 28th) in a members home. On Saturday, we went over to the Tenney's home for dinner and a lesson with Brad. Sis. and Bro. Tenney are both return missionaries and I can not express in words how different their home is compared to the other ones with only one return missionary in the home. Of course other homes are still wonderful, but you can just see and feel a difference in homes like the Tenney's. They build each other up and they are not only strong together as a couple, but are also strong independent people as well. The children always have strong testimonies and I just feel like the family unit runs so much smoother this way. It is an amazing thing now that so many sisters are out here on their missions. This is going to strengthen every single one of their future families and crete such a good environment. Gordon B. Hinckley talked about this exact thing one time saying something like, "woman of the church go out to serve missions because they have a desire to strengthen their future home and they are called to raise the priesthood army of God in these last days." What an amazing blessing that will come from missionary service!

I may have said this before, but everyone here smokes! Sister Mac and I have decided that smoking is one of the biggest tactics Satan uses to attack people out here. Smoking is one of the biggest problems our investigators deal with. I always offer to take people's cigarettes for them and I have yet to have someone hand them over to me. One day! It is extremely hard for them to stop, but must do so in order to be baptized. Sister Mac and I talk about this all the time, why would someone desire to start inhaling that nasty stuff? Its really gross.

On Friday, we had another wedding! Ashley is a less active member who is returning to the church and Denise is not a member. On Thursday we stopped by to see them to help them with any last minute wedding plans. Denise has come to church for the last two weeks and has really enjoyed it. We were planning on committing her to baptism on Saturday at the lesson we had planned with her, but she basically invited herself to be baptized. We were standing outside our car and she started talking about the feeling she gets at church and how its different than any other church she had been to. Then she just flat out told us, "I want to be baptized. That's my goal." There's another one. We are up to 6 baptisms in the next two months!! Denise has committed to be baptized on the 5th of October. She struggles with smoking which would be the only thing that would hold her back, but she wants it so bad!

The three kids who we have been working with changed their baptism date to the 12th of October. Its awesome because their great grandpa gets to come down here and baptize them. I think this will really strengthen their family and help their mom and grandparents get back to church. We have been going over there every other day of the week to read the Book of Mormon with them. We have also started to sing a couple of the primary songs with them. It is amazing the spirit that singing these songs has brought in to their home. Their mom has even joined in on each one and you can tell she really feels the spirit. It is amazing seeing Heavenly Father work through us to help this family become unified in the gospel. They have been through a lot and the happiness this gospel brings is exactly what they need.

I apologize that this letter is all over the place. This past week has been crazy and I have a hard time putting all of these stories in to words that make sense. I hope everyone is doing well and I know that the Lord is watching over all of us. I am so grateful that he answers our prayers in ways that we least expect it. He wants us to learn and grow. I know that the book of mormon is true. I know that missionary work can change lives and truly is the work of salvation.

I love you all and miss everyone like crazy.

Until next week,
Sister Allen

ps. my companion's blog is super awesome and she tells a lot of stuff in her emails too. the link to her blog is macfunfam.blogspot.com

An email from Sister Allen...

I know it's true!
 

i think heavenly father dedicated this week to "Help Sister Allen's Testimony Grow Week"! i had so many amazing lessons taught to me this past week and I know that Heavenly Father was answering  my prayers.
 

I have been praying for a stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon. Because I have never fully read the Book of Mormon before coming out here, I always just assumed it was true, but I really desired to know for myself. For the first couple of weeks out here on the mission I wouldn't testify or ask someone to pray about the Book of Mormon, because I didn't want to be a hypocrite. I would allow my companions to do that part and this week, I feel SO strongly that I KNOW its true! I know that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. On Wednesday night is when I truly got my answer. We were over at the Myers home and started the first New Member lesson with Vaughn. The members are supposed to teach the new member lessons after baptism and we are just supposed to be there at the first couple of lessons for support. Bro Myers taught the in-depth, mind blowing version of the Restoration. Seriously, i sat there the whole entire lesson with my jaw dropped. I wanted to share some of the things that I learned from him about the evidences of the Book of Mormon.

1. Ezekiel 37: 15-17 talks about the Stick of Judah and Stick of Joseph. I have always known about the Stick of Judah representing the Holy Bible and how the Stick of Joseph represents the Book of Mormon...but I never knew where that evidence was supported. Bro Myers showed us that in 1 Nephi 5:14 says, "And it came to pass that my father, Lehi, also found upon the ^aplates of brass a ^bgenealogy of his ^cfathers; wherefore he knew that he was a descendant of ^dJoseph; yea, even that Joseph who was the son of ^eJacob, who was ^fsold into Egypt, and who was ^gpreserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine." Right in this scripture it says that Lehi and his family were descendants of Joseph of Egypt. and we see this again in 1 Nephi 6:2 "For it sufficeth me to say that we are descendants of ^aJoseph." That is why the Book of Mormon is known to be the Stick of Joseph. All of those who prophesied or wrote in the Book of Mormon were descendants of Joseph of Egypt.

2. In Daniel 2:44, it talks about Nebuchadnezzar's dream and prophecies he saw.  "44 And in the ^adays of these ^bkings shall the God of heaven ^cset up a ^dkingdom, which shall never be ^edestroyed: and the ^fkingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall ^gbreak in pieces and ^hconsume all these ⁱkingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." This scripture prophesies of the destruction of the kingdoms and that one day God will set up His kingdom and it shall never be destroyed. We often refer to the church as the kingdom of God on the earth today, which is exactly what it is. On April 6, 1830 the church was completely and legally restored to the earth. That same spring of 1830, the French kingdom fell. It was the first kingdom to fall and since that time 8 of the 10 reigning kingdoms have fallen. That means that there are only 2 more kingdoms or hierarchy's that need to fall before the Second Coming. We are closer than we think and the prophesy of the Resoration of "God's Kingdom" has been fulfilled.

3. A lot of people say that the Book of Mormon is written by men. What they dont understand is that the Book of Mormon was written the same way that the Bible was, by revelation through prophets. In Revelations 22: 18 it says, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall ^aadd unto these things, God shall add unto him the ^bplagues that are written in this book:" People use this scripture against us all the time to tell us that we have false writings and that the Book of Mormon cant be a word of God. The thing that they don't know is that it also says this similar thing in the Old Testament, which would mean that they could claim the New Testament false as well.

Anyways, these are 3 of the things that Bro Myers taught to us and as I was sitting there going over these things, I thought to myself, "Lexis, you've always known that the Book of Mormon is true." I realized that I really have always known that the Book of Mormon is the word of god, but I just needed someone to remind me of that. I finally got the answer that I have been praying for and I know without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is TRUE!!

Sister Bundy sent me a copy of the August Ensign last week and I read the whole entire thing, cover to cover. It was exactly what I needed to hear/learn. It had so many amazing articles about receiving true revelation and I would suggest all of you read it, if you haven't yet. If you dont have that much time, then at least make it a priority to read the article titled, "Opening Our Heart's to Revelation". Such a good one!

I have been slowly making my way through the Book of Mormon and am in Mosiah. Chapters 1-5, when King Benjamin is speaking to the people before he steps down from King, are amazing! Read them over again if its been a while. Mosiah 5: 7-9 are my ultimate favorite scriptures. They read:
 
7 And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the ^achildren of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are ^bchanged through faith on his name; therefore, ye are ^cborn of him and have become his ^dsons and his daughters.
 
8 And under this head ye are made ^afree, and there is ^bno other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other ^cname given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should ^dtake upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives.
 
9 And it shall come to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ.

When we are baptized, we literally take upon ourselves the name of Christ. I put in the margin of my scriptures, "Lexis Christ". It helps me remember that we are all a representative of Him and we have promised that when we made the covenants at baptism.

We have started riding bikes on some days throughout the week to save on gas and car miles. Not going to lie, it was super awkward at first. Two girls in skirts on bikes and we are wobbling the whole way because our bikes are unbalanced from our bag FULL of books of mormon. Uhh yeah. Haha. We decided to bike twice last week. Once on Thursday and again on Saturday! I look completely ridiculous in a helmet, by the way. Safety first though, right? Its actually really enjoyable on bikes now that the weather has cooled down and we are seen by everyone. You dont hear anyone say, "Oh yeah, we saw those missionaries in that car the other day..." Its always the missionaries on bikes that people see. Plus, we can talk and wave at every single person we pass. Gives us lots more opportunity to share the gospel.

We have five baptisms coming up at the end of September. Sista Mac and I have started teaching the Durfey/Shore kids. Kendra, Klayton, and Katie are all planning on getting baptized together on September 28th. These kids are AMAZING! Kendra gives THE best prayers and has such strong faith. She has been waiting for a long time to be baptized and she wants it so bad. We met with them almost every day last week and are going through the Book of Mormon. We have been using the Childrens picture Book of Mormon and it has been working very well. We even took them all on a bike ride to the park and read the Book of Mormon there together. They are definitely prepared and we can't wait to see them all in white together. :) Our other investigator, Brad, the guy from the Air Force, is finally returning home from his month long vacation on Wednesday. He is still set on the 28th for his baptism and we cant wait for him to be back so we can actually have lessons with him. He is still a little unsure on some things, but it has been hard to teach him anything because our only contact with him has been via text message. Elizabeth is the other person with a baptismal date. We were at her house and knew that we needed to commit her to a specific date. She had already committed her to baptism, but needed a specific date. Sister MacDonald picked the perfect time to ask her to be baptized, but she committed her to the 28th too! HAHA. So, I guess now we have 5 baptisms on the 28th of September. It's just going to be one big spiritual party in the font that day! We can't wait! :)

I am starting to fall in love with the California sunsets. They are unreal EVERY single night. I wish you all could see. :)

One last thought, the lesson in Relief Society was on the Priesthood. We are so blessed to have the priesthood in our lives. It is an amazing power and blessing from God. As woman, we need to be constantly striving to support and uplift the priesthood holders around us. We should always help them remain worthy of that honor. There is a Mormon Message video here: http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1370500727001that you should all take a chance to watch. It shows the amazing responsibility that comes when a young 12 year old is given the blessing of the Aaronic Priesthood. "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." Remain always worthy of the priesthood, both men and women.

I am so blessed to see the Lord working through other people to answer my prayers. I know he is there watching out for every single one of us and I know he loves each of us individually. He wants to bless us and if we humble ourselves before him, he will pour out the blessings of heaven upon us and make us strong.

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Allen

helllllooo everybody,

 

i seriously cant even believe that its already september! 

 

We were watching the Drive Safely videos this week (which are hilarious/super cheesy at the same time) and Brother Messick from our old ward is the main "police man" in the episodes. It was hilarious! All of them were filmed in Orem at the Harmons on 800 north. So funny. 

 

I heard the Aggies lost to the Utes last Thursday. BUMMER. The bishop is a huge BYU fan and obsessed with twitter and so he texted us and told us the update of the game. The stake high council leader from our ward is a huge Utes fan and he was texting us all about it too and rubbing it in our face that we lost. haha. it was pretty hilarious and i definitely miss the football games, but im going to enjoy them that much more in 15 months. :)

 

I attended my first zone conference on Thursday and President Weston had some big news for us! We are all going to be starting to do missionary work via Facebook. We are one of 12 out of the 405 missions who are testing Facebook. One hour a day is going to be dedicated to finding/teaching on Facebook. We can literally teach someone a full lesson over Facebook chat and can even add a member in to the chat so that a member will be participating. Crazy, right? We will be using our Facebooks that we had before the mission and have to spend a couple hours cleaning them all up so that they are missionary appropriate. All of our pictures and past things will be hidden until we get back from our mission. All of you are going to be seeing me post random spiritual thoughts and everything, but you just wont be able to talk to me. Haha...sorry. I wont be able to comment or respond back to any of you if you send me a message, but you will still be able to see my page and i will be able to see all of yours. President told us that we will have ipads available to us within the next couple of months. That is going to change the way we teach. We can now use videos and conference talks, etc. all at our fingertips. It is going to be amazing! The work is hastening forward and we need to have every resource we can to help us. 

 

After zone conference, we said a prayer as to decide where we should go for the short time we had before dinner. Sister MacDonald said the prayer and after we both said what we were feeling would be a good area. She said she was thinking about this man named Cory and the Durfey family, who both live on the same street. I thought of Sister Holland and the words "red door" kept popping in to my head. Well Sister Holland, Cory, and the Durfeys all lived in a similar area and so we decided to go there. We parked the car and looked around and realized the color of Cory's door. Red. A red door! We went up there and knocked and sadly he wasnt home. We were thinking that maybe this "red door prompting" may have not been a real prompting, until we noticed that about half of the doors on this street were RED! As we continued to knock on the red doors, we didnt get much success. We finally made it down to the Durfeys home (who dont have a red door, might i add) and knocked. A little back story on the Durfeys first. Sister Durfey is grandma. She really hasnt liked missionaries in the past because they have been too pushy, she is a less active and won't come to church because its too early. She has said in the past that she will start coming to the 1 o clock church when it is more convenient...yeah, right. Sis Durfey's daughter is Jenny. Jenny has 4 kids. Kendra, Juliet, Clayton, and im drawing a blank on the last girls name. Anyways, Kendra is 13, she is best friends with the Myers daughter and is always over at the Myers home when we are doing Vaughn's (the man who just got baptized) lessons with him. She has talked about being baptized before and was scared to ask her mom and grandma about it. Anyways, hopefully you are following along with all of that. Soooo, we knock on the door (note, this is probably the fourth time in the past couple of weeks we have tried to see them) and Kendra answers! She gave us big hugs and introduced us to the rest of her family. The four kids, Jenny (mom), and Grandma all came outside and talked with us for a while. Kendra told us that she had been talking to her family all about the missionaries and then she stops and turns to her grandma and asks, "Grandma, when can i be baptized?" eeeek...kinda scary. But, grandma durfey turns to her and says, "whenever you want, you just have to ask these nice missionaries when they can come over and teach you all the lessons." Long story short, we are going over tonight to teach them the first lesson! Not only are we going to teach Kendra, but we are also going to be teaching her three younger siblings as well. They are 11, 9, and the youngest daughter turns 8 this month! PERFECTION! Thats 3 convert baptisms and a whole lot of awesome! The mom, Jenny, who is a less active, is going to be sitting in on the lessons as well. We are hoping to reactivate her, so she can be that support from her family. She really needs this right now because she just got out of a seriously abusive relationship. It's really sad, but things are looking up for them and they need the atonement and the truth more than ever.

 

We had our first baptism on Friday! YAY! It went amazing and it was such a great night. I will say that we are happy that it is over though. Its a lot of stress trying to put on a baptism. For some reason, they put Sister MacDonald and I in charge of filling up the font. No one told us how and so we had to figure it out on our own. We finally got it figured out and they had told us that it would take 2 hours to fill up and it seemed to be filling up fast...so there must have been something wrong. Well, we filled the font up over halfway with freezing cold water...I literally had to hike my dress up, crawl in the font, and pull the plug to let the cold water drain out. We drained it about halfway and then figured out how to make it warm...it was an adventure, thats for sure. After we finished filling up the font, we raced over to the Millers for dinner, grabbed a plate of food, and raced back over to the stake center. Im sure anyone who looked at us as we were driving over thought we were crazy. We had barbecue all over our faces from the ribs and potato chips flying across the car as we raced back to the stake center to make it in time for the baptism. Im sure you can imagine. Anyways, the baptism went amazing. Vaughn came up out of the water and let out a peaceful "ahh". He feels wonderful and I was completely overcome by the spirit as he was confirmed yesterday. Bro Myers who confirmed him talked about how Vaughn and his wife would go to the temple one day and be sealed together forever. I got the chills and can not wait for that day. They are literally counting down the days until they can be sealed in the temple. 

 

I saw someone almost choke to death this week. Yeah, that was an experience. We were all sitting around the table enjoying dinner and all of a sudden one of the guys started choking on a green bean! I didnt know what to do and just sat there trying to be calm as the people tried to give him the Heimlich. That was the first time i had seen it done in person and I hope my jaw wasnt dropped to the floor the entire time. I thought it would be no good to have three people trying to help him, so i stayed put and watched this mans face turn purple as they tried to figure out the correct way to do the Heimlich. Craziness. Luckily, it finally popped out and wow, was i grateful that that was over. Choking is scary! Chew your food. Amen.

3 Nephi 20: 8-9

 8 And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of ^amy body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.

9 Now, when the multitude had all eaten and drunk, behold, they were filled with the Spirit; and they did cry out with one voice, and gave glory to Jesus, whom they both saw and heard.

Here is Christ in the Americas blessing and passing the sacrament. These scriptures are an amazing reminder of the importance of partaking of the sacrament each week. Think about why and what it means to take the sacrament. There are amazing promises for us in the blessing of the bread and the water. We are filled with the spirit when we partake and that is a blessing you can not find anywhere else. Always be worthy of the sacrament and don't just make it a habit or routine when you partake of it. Think about if Christ was there with you and he was the one giving you the sacrament to partake. This is exactly why church attendance is so important. Of course it is wonderful that we always learn more about our Savior while we are there, but the most important thing we can do is take the sacrament worthily and with a full heart. 

 

I know this gospel is true with all of my heart. I am so grateful to be out here serving and know that this is exactly where the Lord needs me. I am here to do his will and bring these people eternal happiness with their families and father in heaven. 

 

I love you all! 

Thank you for every prayer, letter, words of support, etc. They mean everything to me.

Love,

 

Sister Allen

http://sisterlexisallen.blogspot.com/

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