Hey Family,

There were quite a bit of cool-strange things that happened this week. I had litterally 25 or more comments on the new hair cut... A drunk guy hugged me late at night in the street... we ate pumpkin pie and cheese cake :))))... We got into the CCM again... I had to give a talk in stake confrence... and much more fun adventures. 

This week we focused a lot on gaining our personal testimonies of Joseph smith again. It was great. I read and really analized the whole joseph smith history. I love it so much, I truly have been learning so much, and strengthening my testimony a lot!!! I am so thankful for him!! And for the great sacrafice he made for us, to be able to have this church. 

We got into the CCM again. It was so great!! We had to take the keys to the stake president again. It is so amazing inside!!! There is a big difference once you walk in the gates, and when you leave to go back to the street!!! It is so beautiful also! Oh and guess who I saw when we were in the CCM?? My companion Elder Nogueda, the one who really trained me!! It was awesome! He finished about 3 months ago so that was cool to see him in there, he was there for his test, to see if he can get a job working there or not. 

The hair cut... wow, jajaja super funny stuff!! President when he saw me was making fun of me even. Saying that he would make sure to never go to that same hair cut store. I even said a prayer during the week that my hair could grow back a little faster, and it has a tiny bit, but is still pretty short on the sides.

The event of the week was during stake confrence. So apparently President Hall was going to give a talk in the stake confrence no.. Well about 3 min. before the confrence starts the 1st councilor in the stake presidency comes over to me and my comp. And said "President Hall was going to give a talk in the confrence, but he isnt here, if he doesnt make it, Elder Allison could you give a talk on missionary work about 5 or 10 min.." I immediatly started praying that President Hall would come. I said yes, and then we went out and called President. He didnt answer, so i franticly started to prepare for what I would say, and continued praying that president would come... well that prayer wasnt answered. I had a brief outline of what to say, but didnt have much time to really memorize the order in how I would say it, but i decided to trust that all would be well. I was really nervous. For one, speaking in stake confrence is extra sketchy, second not having any time to prepare, and third in spainsh. Crap... But I got up there, and started to talk, thankfully it is a topic I am passionate about, and I could talk from the heart. Unlike almost all of my talks I gave in english I actually had my head up about 90 percent of the time (maybe its because i didnt have time to write anything...) I truly felt the spirit guide me as to what to say. It was amazing, and i consider it a miracle for me. Also my spanish was really good, I know that the Holy Ghost helped me out a lot. I ended up saying just about everything I had planned to say, and a few other things that came to my mind during the talk. I know that I am developing some good attrabutes and I know one of them is talking infront of people. I had a lot of help from Heavenly Father, there is no doubt in my mind about that. When I got done, and got back to my seat, I felt a big releif, and was very thankful! All in all it was a good experience for me, but I think 1 is all that I want or need :)

This week we had a lot of spiritual experiences teaching about Joseph Smith. And it was great, we helped a lot of investigatores gain a testimony of him. 

On Sunday we went to the temple visitors center with The Rocha family. Dolores, her 3 kids, and her husband mario. It was very nice, especially because her husband came, and he is progressing. slowly progressing, but progressing.

Angeles, hasnt been able to assist the past two sundays :( she gets done working a long night shift at 5 or 7 in the morning sunday, and the tiredness has beaten her.. We are going to see what happens with her this week, but we are continuing to help her out, and she is just about ready for baptism. 

 I am so thankful for your support!! I love you all so much!!! Have the best week ever!!!

Love Elder Allison. 

Hey Family.

This was a really solid week. Starting everything off, was tuesday. My comp. and I taught the zone because it was first tuesday of the month, and we taught about the good samaritan :) I learned just how much I love that parabol!! It is quite great, and teachs a great lesson. After Tuesday I decided to memorize the parabol, and I am close to concoring it :) After leaving from the zone confrence we had to give the keys to the stake center back to the stake president. Well he works in the CCM!! So we went over to the entrance of the CCM, which is like 3 min. walking from the stake center, figuring that the high tech security guards wouldnt let us in, that we would have to call him, or leave the keys there. Well what do you know. One of the coolest blessings in our lives. The security guard let us in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He gave us visiting passes to wear around our necks. I felt like a rockstar!!!! It was so awesome. It is like a different world in there. It is HUGE!!! We had to find him, so me and my comp decided to "look really hard for him......" as we walked around "looking" for him, well yeah after about 15 min. of taking it all in and taking pictures of everything we finally headed over to the building he works in, and gave him the keys. There were a lot of missionaries walking around, and a few that looked at us like we were rockstars. It was pretty awesome!!!! We were very happy, I always wanted to go into the CCM, it was a dream of mine, and now that I have been just accross the street, I have had the desire even more. It was a true wish come true. Also it was my companions birthday on Tuesday I bought a mexican flag, and secretly had all the missionaries in the zone sign it, then we gave it to him at the end of the meeting, with cake, he was happy :) He only has two weeks left, and I am trying to help him be excited to keep working hard, until his last day.

On friday we had thee longest meeting of all time. it was from 9 in the morning until 6 in the afternoon. with a 45 min. lunch break. President made a lot of different changes in the mission. The best one, is that we are going to have 1 hour during every week to go to the church and use the computer to send emails to recent converts, less actives, investigators and members of wards that we have been in, to excite them, and to help them to stay active!!! That is way cool I think!!! 

I started a thankful journal. I got a tiny little booklet, and I am writting down every little thing that I am thankful for throught the day, It is really fun. I love it I feel more thankful always. Also about 3 weeks ago I finished my first journal, and am now on my second one. Sometimes it is very hard to write late at night, but I know that it will be good in the long run, and that future generations better like it!!! :) 

I got my hair...cut.... or chopped.... which ever one you want to say.... It looksreally funny. The guy cut it really short on the sides and in the back, and then it looks a tiny bit like a fluff ball on top.... thank heavens hair can grow back right??? To be completly honest it doesnt bother me. Its funny to laugh about.

On thursday, or friday not sure which, I had a cool experience. I wanted to reconfirm my testimony about joseph smith, so when we got home at night I started to read the joseph smith story in the scriptures, and after I read I got down on my knees and prayed then sat up and pondered. Well it felt like i was there for a while waiting for the answer, so i got back down on my knees and said another prayer I got back up and thought, then I felt a wonderful feeling, that I cant describe it was amazing, and I was very thankful for it. I have learned that even though we know something is true, it doesnt mean that we cant and shouldnt keep praying for a confirmation of that testimony. It is very important that we have a lot of spiritual experiences, because the hard days will come, and if we can lean on the spiritual experiences we will be able to remember, and know that this is the right path, and we can get through the tough times without falling away, which happens to so many people!!

Also I am learning a lot about Love, and service. These are the 2 bases that we should have as people and as members of the church. It is what Christ taught us, He has unconditional love for everyone. and he always served everyone. I am thankful for this opportunity to serve. I am learning lots, and I am learning each day to love more and more!!! :)

We went to the Lady that called us over in the street. wow. her little kids are crazy, it was very hard to teach because they have SOOOOOOOOO much energy. So we had to have other gameplans. We taught really simply, and we are going to teach with pictures next time. There son has 15 years, and he is really cool, he went to mutual on friday night and liked it a lot!!! We are going to see if he can come and do visits with us to get him excited about missionary work, because on sunday he brought his friend, and had an interview with the bishop, it was his first time going to church since he got baptized at 8 years old.

Also Dolores and her family including her husband came to church, and they stayed for the second hour. That was the first time it has happened with him. We got a lot of help from their son, that ran to his primary class as soon as sacrament ended, but what ever works right?? :)

I sent you guys a letter in the mail today, so hopefully it gets there soon. I love you guys so much. And am always so thankful for you, and your love. I hope you have a great week!!!!!

Love Elder Allison

Elder Allison

Familia,

What a week!!! wowzers. the highlight of the week was for sure having Elder Clarke from the 70 here. I learned so much!!! And I know that i will be a much better missionary from the things that I learned!! He taught so much by the spirit, and I felt like everything he said I needed to hear so much, he is so inspired, it was the best!!!! 

Something that i really liked is when he was talking about how we need to find people to teach that "want to", and "Can" there is a lot of times here that we are teaching people that want to get baptized but for a specific reason (not married, husband wont let them, parents wont let them, work on sundays) they cant get baptized. and there are other times when they can get baptized but they are life long investigatores and just dont want to. He explained that there are too many missionaries that waste their time with these type of people. We need to start finding, and focusing on people that want to, and can. that was an interesting point, that we have been thinking about a lot!

This week we made a lot of progress with Angeles!!! She is so awesome!!! She came to church again this sunday and is way ready to get baptized, she just needs one more assistance. She invited a friend to church, that is in other ward boundries, and the friend liked church a lot also. She is great!!!!

Yesterday something pretty funny happened. So we were just walking in our neighborhood, with all the apartment buildings, and we turned one way, well from about 50 feet away across the street a lady yelled to us to come over, so we turned around and walked over to her. On our way over, I said to my comp, joking around "this lady is going to ask us how she can get baptized, my comp said, no she is going to ask us if we teach english classes." We cross the street to talk with the lady and her two little girls. and the first thing the lady says. "at what age do you get bapitzed in your church?" Us.  "when you turn 8 years old, why?" her." because my two twin daughters are going to turn 8 on November 15th." we talked with her for a little bit, apparently a long long long time ago she got baptized, but completly fell away from the church, and she told us that she wants her kids to live a different life than she has, and that she also has a 15 year old son, that she said only got baptized and never went to church, but that she wants us to come by and teach the family so that the kids can go to church and live a better life. That was pretty cool. We are really excited to go to their house this week and see, how we can help them out!! It was a cool experience!!! The lord is blessing us a lot, which is really neat to see!!

HALLOWEEN, here they celebrate dia de los muertos, and on the 1st of november there were SO many people dressed up, every one dresses up of terror people, and dead people, and witches, and scary stuff, I honestly missed a lot, super heros, and other fun less freaky stuff. That was one thing i miss about Utah. I was very tempted to take my "nerd" costum to the street, but i thought twice, remembering I am a missionary;) 

Saturday the sisters baptized Ester, it was really cool! She cant walk and cant move her legs or she is in a ton of pain, but is in a wheelchair. Me and my compainon along with the ward mission leader all helped her get baptized, my comp held her legs, our ward mission leader her body, and me, her shoulders, arms, and head. It only took 2 times to get it right and it was a very cool experience!! The ward mission leader and I pretty much had to carry her in and out of the fount which was not very easy, but all in all a very good experience. Ester has a daughter that is 11 and she didnt want to get baptized, she said that she is not ready, but after the baptism, and the special musical number that we sang (a different one....if you were wondering yes, go ahead and sign me up now for the voice, 2016.) it was very spiritual the whole service, the sisters put a baptismal date for this coming saturday and she said yes, so far so good, hopefully it will work out!!

Me and My comp carved our pumpkins and put them in our second story window, varios members of the ward really liked it and thought it was a clever idea. My comp really liked it!!! He only has 3 weeks left, 

I am a very happy camper, I got a package today, from the releif society!!! They were so awesome and very thoughtful, I thought it was a genius idea what the RS did, please thank them from my part, and i hope to be able to send off a letter soon. Lately its been almost impossible for me to find extra time, i really want to write to different people, to help them out, or show them my love, but i dont have time for anything almost. Even pdays arent really free, having to go to the offices, and what not each monday for the meetings. But i will try my very best. Just know I love EVERYONE SO MUCH!!!!!!! :) :) 

Thanks for all you do. Your the bestest!!!

Love Elder Allison

p.s. forgot to write. So on tuesday in the night Elder Clarke talked with all the stakes in the mission. So i got to see Cristian and his family, and also some people from my first ward. Cristian is thinking a lot about going on a mission. And his mom, told me that she is going to get baptized, she just wants to know a little more, also an investigator that me and my second compainon in my first ward taught is going to get baptized!!!!!! :) good stuff!!