Summer in St. George

Monday, October 7, 2013

MONDAY October 7, 2013

ColoradoCity Lunch Break

Hello, how's it going?

A friend emailed me last week and asked if the mission was hard.. Ha! She said missionaries never say anything about it being hard til they come home.. Well I'm gonna be honest. This past week-2 weeks has been hard.. I think she jinxed me ;) But It's interesting because I thought if I could make it passed the first transfer or 2 and I would be set.. I would be good to go.
Well the first 2 transfers were great! Didn't cry once and never felt home sick.. Didn't think about home and nothing distracted me. When I got told 2 months ago I was coming out here to Kaibab was the first time I cried and that's just because I was gonna miss my "mission mom" and I was told Kaibab would be tough. I wasn't ready to leave my comfort zone in St George.
But I did what the Lord asked of me and I came here with faith. It was surprisingly easier than I thought when I first came out here to the boonies but it just seemed like the adversary was working on me more and more every day. Sister Roth and I got along great but of course we had our spats. But I got through it and now I am training. Which is tough stuff!!!!! Sister Hollander is great! Like fantastic! She's a great missionary, companion, and friend. She tries her hardest and definitely puts herself out there more than I probably did when I first came out. But as senior companion and trainer all the weight of everything is on me.. If we don't have investigators, or they don't come to church or not very many lessons.. I feel like it's all on me. But the toughest part is that they say just be exactly obedient and you will be blessed! Well I don't know how we could be any more obedient!!! It's hard when you see disobedient missionaries having success.. That's what gets me down. I think I care to much what people think.. or I know I do. I just want people to see us for how we really are. We work hard and have been trying our hardest!! But as I've pondered this a lot the past week I have realized that it really doesn't matter what others think but that Heavenly Father and Christ know the intents of our heart and know we have been trying our hardest!
This whole week I kept asking 'how can I be a more successful missionary?' Well yesterday as I was reading from the October ensign I found this talk:

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/10/how-can-i-be-a-successful-missionary?lang=eng

Yes it is called How Can I be a Successful Missionary. You think God heard my prayers? He does!!!!!!! God is real, but so is Satan and that's the scary part. But if we can just always push forward with faith and that positive attitude we will be alright.

Our numbers may not have looked the best this week on lessons, I swear 75% of our lesson cancelled! We tracted and contacted a whole lot this week with no success there! And some of our less-actives are super stubborn... But I can focus on that or focus on the positive. We were able to get 2 new investigators this week!!! Who hopefully will start progressing more. We were able to meet with Sommer and Bruce, which is a less-active and potential investigator, and have another appointment set for this week! Levi, one of our potentials, will be officially moving back into our area this week and he is so golden!! And we got to hear from the prophet and apostles! General Conference was AMAZING!!!!

So yes, a mission has its ups and downs of course, but it's because of the love you have as a missionary for the people you serve. It's hard when people drop you or they continue with their bad habits but the blessings and happiness of the mission is all worth the heart ache and hard times. It has amazed me how much I have learned about myself and how much I have learned about our Savior. And I would not trade it for anything!!!

"Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith."

President Dieter F Uchtdorf

Love, Sister Allen

Sister Hollanders first time roasting hot dogs and smore's!

Beautiful sunset and being silly on the way to Colorado City

Random llama in Co. City

Can you tell I like jumping pics?

Had to sneak a picture through the mirror to get a decent pic! Haha

Sister Hollanders first frosty!

Monday, September 30, 2013

MONDAY, SEPT 30TH 2013

Hello! How's it going?
This week has been a bit slow. Trying to find find find people to teach but not much luck.

We are doing great with our less actives we are working with but as far as new investigators it is tough out here in "mormon town". We tracted and tried to contact former investigators this week but no luck. I just have to remember that we are helping the area out with helping in-actives. It's tough because everyone is so into numbers and our numbers don't look great with non-members but we do work hard! I think that's the toughest part is that we are exactly obedient and working as hard as we can but still have no luck.

We have a few potentials that we are hoping will become investigators this week though!
We are meeting with Josh tonight and hopefully will actually be able to get somewhere with him. He's so stubborn haha.

Levi has been out of town and won't be back until next week so hopefully we will meet with him right when he gets home. We do have good news with him though. He has been living in a few different places but will be back here in Kanab permanently next week. He is so golden too so I am excited for him to be back already!

Do you remember Michelle? We met with her like a month and a half ago. So golden. She is taking seminary and all her friends are LDS. But then we just never heard back from her, no response. We finally found her address and decided to go visit her. She wasn't home but her younger sister Tauna was. She let us in right away and was so sweet! We talked for a while, got to know her and she said maybe when she was older she would join our church. But then she agreed to take the lessons now and at least try with her parents. I think maybe that's why Michelle hadn't been responding because of their parents. We got her number though and gave her ours so we will see.

Well last week we decided to pick a scripture the beginning of the week to be our transfer goal/vision for us and the area. We may have changed a word.. see if you can spot it. Haha!
Alma 17:11 "And the Lord said unto them also: Go forth among the Kaibabites, thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls."
We decided that the Lord decided to try our patience to see if we can still be the good examples and work hard. Haha. I guess the scripture went a different way than we thought but we are still pushing through it and trying our best!

We had a temple trip on Wednesday and got to do a session with more than half the mission at the St George temple. It was amazing and gave me an extra little boost that I needed. I love the temple and wish we could go more!

Well gotta go. Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Just a normal statue in Kanab, UT haha

Sister Hollander and I at the St George temple trip!

The first 2 pictures are of Latex Larry!

We went up to one of our Bishops cabins in Long Valley. It was so beautiful!

Monday, September 23, 2013

Alright this week has been crraazzyyy! But I guess that's missionary life huh :)
On Monday we had our first lesson with Levi. It went so well! I think he is really golden. We had another appointment with him for yesterday though and he had to cancel because he got called into work and he works out of town this whole week :/ So hopefully we will meet with him soon.
We weren't able to meet with Josh again either because he has been out of town. But have a time set up for Wednesday so hopefully this lesson will go better.
Sister Roth and I drove up to St George Tuesday morning to drop her off. It was so weird that day because I didn't have a companion. I spent the whole day at the Visitors Center. It was good to be back there but also good to be back out here. I love being outbound and especially here in Kaibab.. love it!
Anyways, so that night I stayed in an apartment with 2 other outbound sisters that were training too. We then had a trainers meeting Wednesday morning and got our companions. This world is so small and our Heavenly Father works in such mysterious ways. So my new companion is Sister Hollander. She is from Johannesburg, South Africa. She actually found me on Instagram in like February or March and we are facebook friends as well. We talked here and there before I left and she also emailed me my first week out. So when they called my name I freaked out. It was so funny!
I feel bad because she just had to jump right into missionary life. We got back to Kanab about 5pm on Wednesday and went straight to dinner at a members home and then had a lesson and some good tracting experiences. She is great though. I remember when I first came out I was so nervous.. never knowing what to say to people we were teaching but she is awesome. She has already grown so much in the 5 days we have been together. She is a great example to me and I am super excited for the next 11 weeks with her.. We are going to get work done! Ya!

Thursday we had our trek up to Hurricane for DTM. We are now in the "Sagebrush" district. Ya.. I know the name fits perfectly for our areas. Hahaha. They have been splitting all the districts and creating new ones. Ours has 3 sets of sisters and 1 elders. It's pretty great! Sisters are taking over! ;) Yaaa!

That evening we had a lesson with the Hoopers a less active family we tracted out. They are super great. I love them. She is super loud and outgoing and her husband is this huge man but just a big teddy bear. He is so shy. But they are really wanting to go to the temple so hopefully we can help out with that. :)

Friday we spent time out in Fredonia contacting some families and also in Colorado City. We visited with the Chatwins and got to know more about their opinions on the different polygamy churches.. It was interesting. They are so great though. I love them. They are so friendly and such great people... Just a little confused right now ;) haha

Saturday we had a list of a bunch of families that Bishop Adair wanted us to visit in Cane Beds so spent the afternoon there. We came back and tracted in Kanab too. Agh tracting stinks. It's so hard so find people.
That evening was the "Robinson" girls baptism! It was pretty crazy.. There was like 70 people. It was amazing! It was so exciting to see the 4 girls all get baptized and confirmed yesterday. I love their family so much. I know they are someone I will always keep in contact with. I can not wait for the day that they can all get sealed together. This is what it is all about! The temple! Speaking of.. We are having a mission temple trip this week too. I am so excited. I think that is the hardest part about a mission.. not being able to go to the temple hardly ever. This will be my first time since the MTC so first time in the St George temple too! Can not wait!

Yesterday was a crazy Sunday. One of my main goals this transfer is to go to as many ward councils as we can each week. So we went to 3 ward councils and 2 sacraments and had stake coordination. Talk about crazy. But it was good. I think it will help get the members more involved and help us get to know them better too!
Last night we had a lesson with Connor and it was so perfect. We decided to teach him about personal revelation. We had him think of a questions he had, pray to himself and open the scriptures to a random spot. He opened up to Alma 42 and it was perfect! All about the atonement and the last verse talks about preaching the word unto the people AKA go on a mission! It was so great!
I love this work so much and love being able to see the Lord in my life every single day and to see it working in others lives as well and that we get to be the instrument to help them.

I hope that all of you will be able to look out for the Lord in your life every day. There is miracles all around we just have to look.
LOVE YOU ALL!

Monday, September 16, 2013

Monday, September 16th, 2013

Last week seems like forever ago so hopefully I will be able to remember all that went one!

I just finished my 3rd transfer INSANE! Now I'm on to transfer 4, that means at the end of this transfer I will have been out 6 months. That just blows my mind!!!

We got our transfer calls on Saturday and... I'm staying! Yay I am so glad to have more time here. And guess what!? I'm training! Ah! The new missionaries come in Wednesday and I will find out then who my new companion will be. I am excited though!!! I'm gonna be a mom ;)

So this week we didn't have much luck with finding new people to teach. We actually got dropped by someone. :/ Casey, the 12 year old boy we were teaching. His mom is just "too busy" right now and is stressing out. So we were super sad about that but will still go visit occasionally and will hopefully get them back on track.

Oh and the Robinson's didn't get baptized :( But they are forsure getting baptized this Saturday now. They just felt like they needed more time to prepare. So I am glad I will still be here for that! They had their baptism interview last week so everything is good to go!

We haven't been able to see Michelle since our first lesson! I don't get it because she is taking seminary and loves it but just hasn't been responding to us. Her friends say she is still interested but just busy so we will see.

We have been teaching a new boy, Josh. I think I mentioned him last week. He is friends with Connor, a less active boy we have been teaching. Josh goes to the Assembly of God church and LOVES his bible. We have met with him twice now. It is hard because I know he has a sincere heart, like he really wants to learn about our church but he's not very open. Does that even make sense!? So we gave him a church tour. We stopped to look at a picture of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and the spirit was so strong when I was explaining the atonement. When we asked him how he felt looking at the picture he said "Christ should look better than that. I don't like this picture." Ahhh he needs to stop denying the spirit. Then we went into the chapel and again nothing. He said he felt nothing. No he did, I know it. You can't deny the feeling that's in there. He's so stubborn. But it was good, we were able to answer a lot of his questions. We met with him again and it was horrible. The member we had with us talked the whooollleee time and was trying to prove all this stuff to him. Sister Roth and I could not get a word in! But we are meeting with him again next week so hopefully it'll go better and he can progress more.

As for Connor.. The bishop told him to go to another church to see what it was like and that was just perfect. We met with him last night and he said the church he went to with Josh was so weird. He said it was not reverent at all and there was no spirit. Connor finally said he knows our church is true!!! So good! No if only we could get Josh to see that difference! We will keep working on him..

So yesterday, Sunday, was a bit different. We drove out and went to the Moccasin ward, my first time going to that ward. Afterwards we went to the Chatwins home, who is a family that lives in Colorado City. They used to be apart of the FLDS church but now listen to a polygamist church through the phone. It is called "Winstons Church" it is based out of Canada. So we joined them for their "church". It was 40 minutes long. Sounded a lot like ours. They talked about Moroni's promise and D&C 4 and they sing the same hymns as us.

We then got invited to the Centennial Park church which is the modern polygamist church. So we decided to go so we will be able to maybe understand them more and it will help us when we talk to them. Ok it was the weirdest thing ever!!!!!! Pretty much the sacrament meeting every Sunday is like testimony meeting but the priesthood pick on people oh and they don't do the sacrament. It was so strange to me. I felt like everyone was staring us down. Ya so uncomfortable.

Well I am out of time so I gotta go. I am looking forward for this week. It is going to be crazy busy but so good! Well love you all, hope you have a great day!