No Letter

For those of you following Elder Allred's blog, I did not receive a letter from him this week. They often lose power and Internet connection and therefore their ability to communicate. Keep him in your prayers and have a great week.

Four Months and Counting

Hey mom, wow P-day again - another quick week.  This week went by pretty fast for me because there was something we had to do each day so it was a quick week.  This week I had to go to the mission office twice to update my visa. We have to do that every 3 months.  

This week we had a lot of issues with people not going through with lessons.  That is one thing I don't like here, people will say they will do something so that they won’t offend you but then they won’t be home or won’t read and we tell them to do it again.  It’s kind of a stressful cycle lol.  

We had a baptism this week.  We baptized a man from the Congo but he is in Benin for his work.  He was really solid from the beginning. He had a good knowledge of God already and he progressed really well.  So that was good.  

Today is an interesting day for us.  We have a lesson with a family who is really great they just need help to feel the spirit.  There are 8 people in the family!  I will let you know how that goes. 

I can’t wait for my packages they will make me happy! haha Well not much else has happened this week!  I hope that you have a good week!  Je vous aime beaucoup!

Avec amour,

Elder Joseph D. Allred II

Elder Dickson with the Benin Elders and Sisters

Elder Dickson with the Togo Elders

Forgetful Mom!

I can’t believe you almost forgot to write me a letter! I see how it is! haha jk. (I almost forgot to write him yesterday - won't let that happen again) Anyway it sounds like you have been doing lots of exciting things and having a lot of fun.

This week went by really fast because a lot of things were going on.  We had a lot of appointments with our investigators, a few went well and others were just bad.  One of our investigators is just being crazy; he won’t make appointments anymore.  Makes me mad, oh well.  So we are now in the process of trying to find new people, I hope we do.

Other than that this week has been pretty normal, we had a transfer this week and Elder Rago and myself are staying together for another transfer so I'm pretty happy about that.  Today we had a mission activity.  We played soccer and football and Frisbee.  I played football with some of the other Elders and it was really awesome. I ran a kick return for almost a touchdown. Just proves that even though I have a bad knee, I STILL got it haha!  Afterwards we ate hamburgers, fries and Pepsi!  It was an amazing meal lol.  Other than that it was a pretty normal week.

Je vous aime beaucoup! (I love you very much!)  Talk to you next week!

Avec amour, (With love)

Elder Joseph D. Allred II

I've been waiting for pictures of Elder Allred with African babies!

At a member's house

Elder Allred and the elders in his apartment
eating at a friend's house for African Mother's Day

Elder Dickson Was Awesome!

Hey it’s Monday again and here we are again haha!  This week has been really good but some things about it were hard also.  Things were good but the people we are teaching and some of our old investigators ditched us and just made it hard to keep our numbers good but that’s alright they will be better next week.

This week was really good for a lot of reasons.  We have a progressing investigator. He is a really great guy. He is committed to baptism right now but we had some problems with him attending other churches so there is a chance he is going to be delayed a bit.  But he has a friend who comes to each lesson and the other day we committed him to baptism also!  It was really amazing. The spirit in that lesson was really awesome I felt like he would accept and he did!  Really great!

Our devotional with Elder Dickson was really awesome!  You could feel how different everything was when he was there.  He began the devotional by shaking all the missionaries’ hands. Did you know that he only has one arm?  He was so nice. He said that I was the first Allred he has ever met!  He was a great speaker. Our mission was his last one that he will ever speak to as a member of the 70.  He talked a lot about respecting our future wives. I thought that was interesting but it was good.  He also talked about how through our work the church is growing so much in West Africa.  He compared it to Jacob 5.  It was a really great experience to be with him! I’m very lucky haha!  Well other than that it was a pretty normal week!  I hope that you had a great week!  Talk to you next week!  All my love!

Elder Joseph D. Allred II

PS  Forgot my camera again....I hope to send pictures next week!  Love you!