Well, I have now seen almost everything you can possibly imagine... Such is life in the city I suppose. It's crazy. I am learning some about what to do with my life and a whole ton more about what not to do with it. It seems to me that drugs, alcohol, and Law of Chastity problems have pretty much destroyed this entire city; it's sad to see so many people that are in such poor circumstances. It's sad to see how parents treat their kids down here; it's almost like they don't even want them and that they are stopping the parents from doing what they want to do and it's sad. I think that is one of the biggest things down here that bothers me the most is seeing children treated like they are by parents, people and just everything. These children are innocent and shouldn't have to worry about their parents not coming home cause they are drunk or high or off with the neighbor or something like that. It is super sad!
Other than that, the mission life is pretty good! We have had our struggles like every companionship and area, but other than that, life is good! We are teaching quite a few people and we are working pretty hard to harvest this field. This transfer has pretty much flown right by without even stopping to say hello... Or goodby for that matter. Rumor has it that our area is getting shut down this transfer so that means I might be transferred out of here. There are 4 companion ships in one struggling Ward right now and there is only one car that has to pick all of us up for Sunday, pday, district mtg, etc. We are just kind of the oddball area in the Ward.
That's about how Broadway is! We bike, we talk to people and we waste time with other missionaries. It gets old after a while when we don't have any set appointments and the ones we do have always cancel 2 hours beforehand. We have had more success not even making appointments and just stopping by to teach them. We have a lot of media referrals who request a free Bible online so we spend lots of time trying to give these people their free Bible. It's almost as if they don't want it or something. Some of our most solid investigators have come from media referrals who want free bibles and then we end up teaching them the Resto and then they invite us back! I got told I could be a really good salesperson the other day cause I was "teaching very well". I took that as a compliment:)
I can't believe the Sadie died! That is so sad! I got a call from President and I was on exchanges in another area so he had to hunt me down. When he finally found me, he asked if I knew what had happened and I did cause I got your forwarded email Wednesday morning and he asked if I needed to talk or anything. I told him I would let him know. And that's about how that went down.
A lot of the people down here are praying for the Wells family cause it made it all over the news down here. We have had a lot of people tell us to be careful, Brother Aragon being one of them. We were in the car with him on Thursday and he told me that you called him. He also told us that he said a long prayer and shed a few tears for the Wells family.
We ate dinner over at the Aragons last night and he pulled us outside for a little while and sat and gave us life advice. I love Brother Aragon so much!
What else to write about? I don't know. I haven't heard a lot about Beaumont, but I do know that the missionaries over there dropped John. He won't get baptized for a while, I don't think. It made me sad, but I know it was probably the right call on their part. It is sad when someone has such an inspired meeting with the the missionaries and can feel the Spirit and knows what they are teaching is true, then decides to not act on it. "For I pray continually for them by day and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them, and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that He will hear my cry." What else can you do after you have exhausted all resources? Pray. That's what I do.
I am totally jealous of the skiing that y'all do. I wanna be up there. Maybe one of these day we will get all of us on the lift together. That'd be awesome, wouldn't it?
-Elder Allen
