Week 62 - 9/19/2016

W5 of T10 9/19/16 - 9/25/16

Bike Stats

Total: 1516.5 miles

Weekly: 34.106 miles

MaxSpd: 25.0 mph

AvgSpd: 11.5 mph

Time: 2hrs 56min 44sec

Hey Fam! How's life? I love you all.

This week was good. We had a good time and taught some people!

Ok, I'm getting lots of questions about D. Let me tell you the gist of it and where he is at right now. I can't go into too much detail because of media restrictions on what I can and can't send home, but I can tell you that he is confused about why God is doing this to him and about why the church keeps changing its mind on whether or not he can get baptized. Last week, I think I told y'all that we got the clearance from President Drake to go for it and baptize him and D has taken it kind of hard over why he is given permission now when he wasn't before. We wanted him to meet with Bishop and we weren't able to get him to this week before he left out of town. He will be out of town for about 2 weeks, weather dependent. If it's good weather, then they'll get back sooner, if not, they stay longer. So right now we are kind of in a limbo as to what is going on with him and what we are to do with him. We can't really do much without having him here, so that put a damper on things for the time being.

Conference is this weekend! So excited!

G bore his testimony yesterday in Testimony meeting and it is amazing to see how far he has come as a son of God. It's amazing that Jesus Christ can take someone that is searching for truth and mold them into a person for the eternities.

I love this Gospel and I know the scriptures contain the word of God. Heavenly Father answers prayers. Without setting goals in our lives, we will get no where. And if we aren't going anywhere, what are we doing here?

Bye!

--

-Elder Allen

The spider we saw this week! And the baked potato I ate Saturday night

--

-Elder Allen

Week 61 - 9/12/16 - 9/18/16

W4 of T10 9/12/16 - 9/18/16
Bike Stats
Total: 1482.4 miles
Weekly: 56.048 miles
MaxSpd: 24.8 mph
AvgSpd: 10.4 mph
Time: 5hrs 21min 24sec

We had a great week this week! School is back in. Fall is coming. And the people are not outside at all anymore:( We have to resort to other ways of contacting people.
We taught early morning Seminary this Thursday! We had a to be at the church at 5:15 to set everything up for the kids. Apparently we were pretty good teachers, cause they want us to come back to teach again! So maybe we will do that sometime, if we get the chance again.

See that knife?! Guess how much its worth. $50 or so. Maybe a $100. See the textured blade? If you know your steels, that tells you that this blade is made of a very high grade steel. Ok, that bumps the worth up a little bit. Take another guess. Maybe a $1000? Wrong. This knife that is in my hands is worth roughly $8500. Say what now? Yep. Read it again. Thats a lot of $$$.

We went on a 3 day, 2 night exchange with the other missionaries! I've never done an exchange for that long, and I probably never will again. It was a blast! I actually felt like I was doing something in the other area. It was nice.

I got a pull up bar! Found it in their apartment and jacked it. So now I can actually get some muscle back!

We made cookies yesterday.

The pamphlets are super inspired! Note to other missionary friends that actually get this far into the email: Use the pamphlets. Even if you are a great teacher, use the pamphlets. They are inspired like none other and if you can teach using the pictures, then the Spirit will be there. Ask a lot of questions such as, "What do you see in this picture?" If they say, "Jesus, holding a lamb." Then you know that they know who Jesus is and they have a religious background. If they say, "Jesus is the Good Shepard, and that lamb is us." Then you know that they know the Bible. See what I am saying? Follow up with them by saying something along the lines of, "How do you think that it would feel to be held by Jesus like that?" They will see the personal application of it and you can then build from there into other things. All the pamphlets can do that! Ok, thats my 2 cents.

We had interviews with President Drake this Saturday! I was the very last one to go in and we waited an hour after the training ended for me to go in. Felt a little rushed, but it was really good!
We got 15 lbs of Venison from a member this week! This same member is also a Chiropractor and he adjusted both of us. Felt amazing. 3 things that I have always wanted to do. 1) Go to a Chiropractor. 2) Get a massage. 3) Get acupuncture. This guy can give me acupuncture too, so Im set on those 2. I think that I might have to wait till I get home till I can get a massage.

I made Hot Chocolate and it was delicious. Elder Hobbs says that hes having me make him hot chocolate forever now. I realized that you can put a bunch of different stuff in with it to make it taste amazing.

That about sums it up for me! Goodluck and God Bless!

--
-Elder Allen

Week - 60 - 9/5/16 - 9/11/16

W3 of T10 9/5/16 - 9/11/16

Bike Stats

Total: 1426.3 miles

Weekly: 42.848 miles

MaxSpd: 23.6mph

AvgSpd: 11.1mph

Time: 3hrs 49min 14sec

This week was good! We were able to teach quite a few people and see a bunch of cool miracles. 

One thought that comes to mind is simply this: Do it. We got out Saturday morning before it rained and biked our little tails out to the far reaches of our area. Funny story about a bike race, but I'll get to that in a second. We stopped by a family that was dropped about this time last year after they almost got baptized. We knocked on the door and a little kid answered, but we didn't know what to say to him so we asked if his Mom or Dad was there, which they were. So he went to go get his Dad. Another guy named D, same name, different spelling, and a different person from the one that almost got baptized a few weeks ago. Anyway, we asked him if we could come in and he immediately said yes! So we went in and had an awesome lesson with D and his son, A. We were able to set them on date to be baptized here in about a month, but it's just a tentative date for now, until we can meet with the rest of the family for now. I'll keep all you people that actually read this updated on what happens!

Back to the bike race! We were about to turn onto this street and all of the sudden the Peloton from the race passed us. There was a biker that was falling off the back of the pack and he fell quite a ways back. We turned onto this road behind this lone biker falling off the back and followed him for about a half mile or so about a 100 yards back and gradually we began to catch him. We were cruising at about 21-22 mph and we caught this guy. I look back at Elder Hobbs and just smile and he told me later that he was thinking, "Oh crap, my companion likes to go fast and now he's following a race." So I ended up catching this guy and following him for a minute or two. Then I realized that he was struggling a little bit and his pace was slowing. So I pulled up along side of him and asked him if he needed a draft... He looked over super confused and then he smiled and said yes. I pulled in front of him and pulled him for about a mile and a half or two miles down this road at about 21-22 mph. He caught his breath for a couple of minutes and then pulled up next to me, said thank you and took off. We pulled into the neighborhood that we were biking down to and he disappeared off into the horizon. Made my day! I got to go fast, sweat a little bit, and help someone! All while wearing a white shirt and tie. I know it made for a sight because of the looks on the faces of the Hispanic construction workers on the side of the road. One of them looked at us, smiled real big and gave us the big ol thumbs up; another grabbed his camera and took a picture of us. It was pretty great!:)

Well those were the two highlights of the week! Have a great week! Love each and every one of you! 

--

-Elder Allen

Ok, seriously?! This made me mad. Think about it...

Wed 59 - 8/29/16 - 9/4/16

W2 of T10 8/29/16 - 9/4/16

Bike Stats

Total: 1383.5 miles

Week: 47.555 miles

MaxSpd: 25.6mph

AvgSpd: 11.4mph

Time: 4hrs 9min 32sec

Hey Fam! I'm taking a page out of Elder Ryker Johnsons book and saying this. A picture is worth a thousand words. So I figure that there are about 7000 words on this page.