Howdy ya'll. yeehaw! I'm in Houston, TX (Hafer is my area). Home of the nicest people on earth and the best food.
ADDRESS!!!! SEND LETTERS!:
18203 westfield place drive #618
Houston, TX 77090
Mission Blog:
Let me take a minute to break down this past year. Wait, what? That was only a week? you little liars.
We got on the bus to SLC at 3 AM
and flew to Dallas at 6. When we landed, this very very very nice guy
came up to our group and told us he'd buy us breakfast. WHAT? There were
25 of us and were all very hungry. He's from Salt Lake, and just likes
doing that for missionaries when he travels. So there we were, all 25 of
us, just standing in line at the tiniest McDonalds in the world,
ordering breakfast. Those poor workers... THEN! Guess what happened. I
saw my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Hogle!!! What the heck? Her family owns
Hogle Zoo. My companion and I talked to some people about the church and
(to be said in Elder Calhoun's accent) GUESS WHO PLACED HER FIRST BOOK
OF MORMON! This Hermana. That's who. Another Hermana had been talking to
him, and I came in to ask him a bunch of questions about himself, and
he asked about the Book of Mormon play, and I said nope, that's not us,
but would you like to read the real thing? And he said yes. So I gave
him my handy dandy pocket sized BOM and he said he'd read it. MIRACLE.
It conveniently had tabs on my favorite chapters. golden.
After our 30 minute flight to Houston, we got our
stuff and waited for President Pingree. He is so welcoming and I love
him already. His whole family is great. We did a lot of training, ate a
lot of food, and spent the night at the mission home in a REAL BED.
The rest was kind of a blur, but we got our
companions the next morning after breakfast, and were off to work! I'm
in a Trio with Hna. Villanueva and Hna. Carter. They are both amazing
and so patient and caring. Hna. Carter is the kindest person I've ever
met. she's been out 7 weeks. Hna. Villanueva is fluent, so we kind of
rely on her. She's been out 10 months.
The first day, we went to a lady's house and made
tortillas with her and her daughter. I didn't know we'd be eating, but
oh boy we did. I got so full. THEN we had a dinner appointment where she
fed us KFC, and I thought my stomach was going to just explode right
there. I'm glad I made it out alive. It's all so good, but my stomach is
soooo tiny :( I can't handle all this food. I pray super hard before
every meal haha.
I'm in love with the skies here. It looks like a
painting. There are fire ants everywhere, and I'm pretty sure one bit
me. If I die, you'll know why. We have to put all of our "sweet
smelling" trash in the freezer and throw it away when it's full so the
ants can't get to it. candy wrappers, apple cores, you name it. It helps
keep the apartment smelling clean :) An Elder in the mission told us
about this tuna and honey sandwich his Dad used to make on his mission,
so I tried it, and it's actually REALLY good. I've eaten it a few times
already.
I saw a frog in the middle of the road. That was
weird. I picked it up and got a picture. I've never seen a frog outside
of a tank! The rain here is nuts. One second, the skies are perfectly
clear, the next, gale force winds, then BAM! it's dumping buckets of
rain. We walked from the car to a member's apartment, and we were
SOAKED. it was probably 20 yards. I love texas :) It makes for fun
memories.
Okay. now for church things haha.
The
field is so different than the MTC. In the MTC, we teach lessons... all
the time. There are very few moments where we live a real mission life.
Here, there's a lot of surviving going on and lots of finding. We have a
few investigators, but most of them are backing away from baptism. A
few of them had dates, but either moved, or just won't answer our calls
or answer their doors. I joked about putting post it notes over the peep
hole so they'll open the door, but I was partly serious. It's
frustrating sometimes. So many appointments fall through, but we just
keep knocking until someone listens :) We don't give up very easily.
We had a MIRACLE happen the other day. Yet again, an
appointment fell through, but a girl named Wendy was sitting on the
stairs with her baby. She spoke spanish and english fluently. Um... can
you say perfect? I can speak one of those languages! English haha. She
is so well prepared, and said she's been studying the bible and is
scared about not being saved. We answered a few of her questions about
life after death and told her about eternal families and her cute little
face just LIT UP. She said "I will be waiting for you guys on
Tuesday". This may just be greenie naiveness, but I really have a good
feeling about her. Our mission president said he had revelation that the
Lord prepared tens of thousands to hear the gospel in this mission, and
we just have to find them. I believe we found at least one of them. I
really like her. PRAY that this lesson on Tuesday will go well and that
she will recieve the gospel. I really want to help her.
We got a recent convert/less active to come to the
church for the first time in 3 months! He was the one were we ran to his
apartment in the rain. I think he felt bad that we got soaked, so he
let us in haha. He has such a strong testimony, but I think it's just
hard for him when the rest of his family aren't members.
Our ward is the Houston 6th ward. We have so many
sweet people in our ward and they love to feed us. If I get chubby, just
know it's from the members loving us too much. And you should all love
me too. haha. I have no idea what anyone is saying, pretty much ever, so
in sacrament meeting, apparently they asked me to get up and bear my
testimony, but I didn't understand him, so I just sat there staring into
space. Then Hna. Villanueva told me to go up. Luckily my testimony is
one thing I really can say in Spanish, so I wasn't too worried. I just
wish I could have a conversation about something other than Gospel
topics.
oh yeah. in case you didn't already catch that, I'M
SPANISH SPEAKING! I feel so lucky because so many people from the MTC
got reassigned to English, and I would hate to lose the little Spanish I
do know. It's such a blessing. I don't know how long I'll be in
Houston. Just until my Visa arrives. It will be at least 6 weeks cuz
they won't take me out of the mission in the middle of a transfer. The
mission president's wife told me to plant my heart in Houston and make
sure to not just wait around for my Visa. I'm here for a specific
reason, and I need to continue to search for that reason.
Funny moments:
1// We have a
favorite family with 4 daughters and 1 son (he's milo's age :( ) It
makes me feel a little more at home cuz they're around the same ages as
our family. I MISS YOU GUYS! but I'm so happy here and I'm working hard
:)
anyways...
We had the following conversation with the youngest daughter (she's around Kitty's age)
us "What did you learn at Church today?"
her "That Joseph Smith wrote the Bible" ....
Sister Carter "Oh boy."
Now we know where all these very very false statements come from. The mouths of babes. We have a lot of work to do haha.
2//
We like to greet people, and Hermana Carter happens to be a very bad
judge of race. She said Hola to this kid, to which he responded in a
very heavy accent, "I'm not hispanic, I'm Asian." That was rough. I
covered her by saying we speak Spanish. I don't think it helped.
3// Hispanic people cannot carry a tune in a bucket. They sure do try. very very loudly. Sacrament meeting was interesting.
I can't think of anything else :( Dang it. I actually have time to talk to you all.
Oh yeah. My birthday is on Friday. the big TWO OH :)
feel free to write me a letter or send me pictures of you. I don't have
very many and want to show you all off.
18203 westfield place drive #618
Houston, TX 77090
Yo
se que esta iglesia es verdadera, y yo se que Jose Smith fue un profeta
de dios. Estoy agradecido por todo mi bendiciones y la opportunidad a
ser un misionera. Esta obra es marvillosa.
LOS AMO!!!
// Hermana Allred
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