August 26, 2013

Dear Family and Friends

I am doing great. Last week was transfers and I am still in Kansas City with Elder Weatherford. We got lots of new Elders and Sisters, a total of 32 new missionaries. Elder Croft, in my district, left to finish training Elder Truck. Elder Truck was in the same District in the MTC.  Elder Weatherford is still waiting for the Visa to come. We are expecting a call this afternoon, to get an update. 

This Last week was weird.   We had lots of appointments dropped. We had lots of members drop food off at our place instead of feeding us.  It has been hot in the mid afternoons. 

David is doing awesome. On Monday he had a change of heart.  He was reading from the Book of Mormon and began to understand it and want to finish it and not put it down. He also felt the spirit while reading it. He told us everything. He has stop smoking again and is doing it because he wants to not because "Elder Weatherford wants him to".  He wants to be baptized. He has a date for the 14th of next month. We have seen him every day so far since Monday. The other Elders in the ward have also seen him almost every day too. He now has a testimony of Joseph Smith, prophets and about the Book of Mormon.

Donzell is doing great we taught him about commandments this week.

Labrenda she has been too busy to meet with us this week. 

Dewey wants us to meet with him but calls before we go over to tell us he doesn't want to meet. We don't know if he wants to know more of what we have to share.

Saturday we help move the Hails Family. Bro Hails was our ward mission leader. They move to a house just 2 blocks outside our ward. It was sad to see them move.

We saw Sky and Baby Joseph this week. They are doing better. They are living with Overfelts. The Overfelts are teaching Sky all he needs to know to be a Father and to take care of a baby.  We also went to a Hospital to give William a blessing. He broke his back jumping out of a window. He is a less active member from a ward close by.

This week we have an all leaders conference that we get to attend.

I am doing great here. We have been trying to stay busy seeing investigators, less actives, and trying to find more people to teach. I am grateful to be out here serving a mission. I am having a blast. I miss all of you and hope you are doing great.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

Here is a picture of Elder Weatherford, Elder Croft and I before transfers. and one of our District.   There is Elder Weatherford, Croft, Me, Dyer, Cortez, and Elder Bittion.

 

Elder Weatherford, Elder Croft, Elder Allen

Elders Weatherford, Croft, Allen, Dryer, Cortez, Bittion

August 19, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

I am doing great here. The weather has been good it has been sunny but not to hot.  This week has been busy.  President Keyes allowed us to go to Lelia's funeral. It was a good funeral. Lots of people came, lots came form the ward and lots from the parent’s ward in Cameron. I learned lots of great things about her that I didn't know about her. We also had zone training and it lasted for almost 5 hours. We learned that there is no suit season that we don't have to wear them from October General conference to April general conference. We only need to wear them to go to church and interviews and meetings and for night appointments in the winter months.

Labrenda isn't doing OK. We haven't seen her in two weeks. This week she canceled on us 4 times, 3 times in one day.  I don't think she will be baptized this weekend as planned. She is just very busy and has to work more.

David is doing good. He started to pray more and is almost out of 2nd Nephi. He is starting to quit smoking again. I pray that he can stop. He is still coming to church and love it there.

Dewey drooped us again for the 3rd time this last Saturday. He has been drooping us the next day after he tells us that he wants to come to church. He has problems controlling his bodily functions and is afraid to come to church and have an incident there. He has been bringing others with him when we meet with him. He has brought David, Dave, Quiten. Dave seems very interested.  Hope he stays that way.

Donzell is doing great he came to church again and is progressing he is almost ready to baptized again. We haven't been able to meet with Legend (Dozell's daughter) yet this week. She lives in a rehab place during the weekdays and every other weekend.

Elder Weatherford and I went to Sister Dowlings to give her a blessing. There we meet Brother Sherwood. We got to know him and to find out that he knows my dad. He served in the same mission and about the some time. He thinks that he took "Elder Allen" Out tracking for his first time. After giving her a blessing we called in to a mid-training conference call with president. It was fun got to hear lots of voices of Elders that I came out with. There were so many new missionaries so they did two groups on for Elders and one for Sisters.

We are getting 33 new Elders this week form the MTC. It is going to be the biggest group ever. Tuesday night we will get a call about transfers this week.  We will learn if I will stay with Elder Weatherford and we will get a third Elder for a little while or if he leaves and an Elder will come in to finish training me.  Elder Weatherford is still waiting for his visa, it can come any day now.

I am doing great here and don't want to leave this area yet. I love the ward and lots of cool people and story's. I love you and miss you all

Love Elder Allen

August 12, 2013

Dear Family and Friends

I am doing great here. It has been a hard week. We have had appointments drop on us. We have tons of members in many different hospitals. It has been very rainy. It is rain at the moment.

Leila our gospel principle teacher died this Saturday. She was 8 months pregnant with a baby boy. She went to the hospital Sunday after teaching the lesson and they found a blood clot in her brain stem. They preformed an emergency

c-section and she went into a coma. The baby is doing good, just needed more oxygen.  We went 2 times to see Sky and the baby. Sky is doing OK.  He is glad that Baby Joseph is doing good. He just has an Iv now. He is very small only 5 pounds. It was hard to see Leila with lots of machines hooked to her. We get to go to her funeral this Thursday at the chapel next to the Temple.

We have lots of investigators

David Relapsed but is still trying to quit. We are still trying to help him to quit.

Dewey is the one from the mental rehab center. He is doing good. He is reading and praying. He has had lots of questions, we have helped him find the answers in the scriptures. He also goes on Mormon.org to read and find answers to questions or compare our answers to mormon.org's answers. He also likes to chat with the Sister in Hawaii. That is how we found him through a referral from the sister at Hawaii visitor center.

Donzell is doing great we taught him the 3rd lesson. He is the Excommunicated member that has changed his life and wants to come back to church. He is almost ready to be baptized again. He gave us a referral to see his Ex wife and daughter. They live in a different area in our ward. The wife and older daughter is less active and the younger daughter was a former investigator and she is ready to be baptized.

La Brenda the one we took to the Visitor center is doing great just couldn't make it to church. The Visitor center is awesome. It is only 25 min away from us. 

I got to go on Exchanges 2 times this week. One with the zone leaders and one with the KC3 Elders. It was awesome. I learned lots from Elder Rudd and Elder Croft.

Transfers are in a week and half. It sounds like we will get a third elder in our apartment. This is so Elder Weatherford can leave as soon as his visa comes.  He can’t wait to go to India.

We went into the post office on Monday and the post office has 3 inch bullet proof glass. Never seen a post office with bullet proof glass.

I am doing great here in Kansas City. I love you lots. Thanks for the letters and cards.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

August 5, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

I am doing Great here in Kansas. It has been raining this weekend. Last week was very busy. We moved 3 families this week. We saw like 10 less active families and saw about 8 investigators this week.

Buddy the 8 year old, is doing good.   We taught him and his family the second lesson, the plan of salvation. His father, a non-member, was there and was interested in the lessons.  He has also been helping Buddy read and pray. 

We saw Labrenda this week. Thursday her son came home from the hospital. He had been there for over 5 months. He was involved in a bad accident and was about to die. Elder Weatherford and Elder Hartwig gave him a blessing. It was a miracle that he can walk now. We took Labrenda to the President's devotional last night. It was at the Visitor Center. She loved it and wanted to get baptized. She has a baptism date for the 24th of this month. I am glad that we invited her to come to it.

Donzell is doing great. We taught him the second lesson also. He came to church and is almost ready to get baptized.

David has had a rough week. His Friend Brother Pervice is still in the hospital. He also sick with food poisoning. He also fell back on his bad habits and smoked on Friday :(  On Saturday he told us. I am glad that he told us. He came to church. After church he gave us all of his cigars and committed to stop again. We are going to try to see him every other day.

Dewy in an investigator in a rehab place. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and know lots about the church. He wants to be baptized so we set a date for the 24th. Sunday morning we went to pick him up and he dropped us. Then is morning he called us and still wants to get baptized just doesn't want to go to church. I hope we can get him to come to church.

Dinners have been awesome. Have had dinner with members and less active members this week. The less active members dinners were awesome.

One of the families we saw came to church this Sunday.

Thursday we had interviews with President and Sister Keyes. It went great. My companion Elder Weatherford taught us while waiting our turn. He taught because he is one of the district leaders in our zone. Sister Keyes feed us candy when we visited with her. I passed my interview, so that was good. I get to be on exchanges two times this week, tonight and Wednesday night.

I found a bike this week. We had to go to the bike shop to get Elder Cortez a new tube and asked the owner if he had any bikes that were used because the new bike he had started at 450 and went up. He had a used bike a trek that had new cables, breaks and new chain. He sold it to me for a 250.

I got the letter from all of the Allen Family. Thank you for every one that wrote in it. I also got the post cards. Thank you for the letters that have come.

I am loving it here. The people are very nice to us. I am glad that I came on this mission and to this area. I am missing every one but I am meeting lots of new people and having a blast serving the Lord.

I love you,

Elder Benjamin Allen

July 29, 2013

Dear Mom and Dad and Family,

I am doing great here in Kansas City. It has been raining some this week. The weather has been awesome, nothing hot yet. Our week has been very busy. We helped move in 3 different families this week. We did some lawn work at a less active member’s house. Saturday we had a ward party at a park and we, the 4  elders, had to cook pancakes for the whole ward.

We have taught lots of lessons this week. We only had a few appointments fall through. We have 4 new investigators and like 6 other investigators at this moment. David is doing great he hasn't relapsed on smoking yet which is good and he is reading and last night we got him to pray out loud for the second time. He lost his keys and he prayed to find them. I hope he finds them to help him gain a testimony of prayer. Bro Pervis a friend of David went to the hospital this week. He thought he had food poison but it was his appendix and it is enlarged and the doctors have to decide if they can remove it because he has some cancer in that region that they are concerned about. He had only our number when he left so he has called us about 8 times a day to get people’s numbers and to talk to us. We have another investigator named Dewy. He has been chatting with sisters at the Hawaii visitor center and they called us to get us to visit him. He has been reading a Book of Mormon and knows lots of things about the church. The only problem is that he is in a mental hospital and it is fun trying to see him or get him to come to church.

We are still teaching Buddy an 8 year old kid that wants to be baptized. He and his family came to church for the first time in about 3 years. He knows lots, we just need to make sure that he know the things he needs to get baptized.  Donzell is doing great he is about to be baptized. He was excommunicated from the church a long time ago. He has realized that the church is something he need in his life. He has changed and stopped doing the things that got him kicked out of the church. He has been coming to church but he can't take the sacrament or give his input into the lessons. He is glad that he can still come to church.

Bro Hails is our ward mission leader and he is going with us to see Yandira. She is from Bolivia and she is here going to school. She is learning English but she speaks in Spanish most of the times. Bro Hails and his wife knows Spanish because of missions so they are helping us teach her. She understands more than she speaks.

I am still learning how big the area is.  We keep on finding more house and apartments that we haven't been to. It has been nice to have a car full time. We are using it also to help the other elders out.  Like last night we had to pick up the other elders in our ward at 9 at night because one of the bike tires popped.  The members are so nice here. We have had members fed us every day but one.  We have had some good food from members. Tonight we are going to a less active member for dinner. He and his mom are going to feed us. He drives semis, so he is gone on Sunday and can't come to church. He is trying to get a local run so he can come back to church. 

I love the weather that we are having at this time. I am glad that I wasn't here last year. I hear the summer was horrible because they had very little rain. Elder Weatherford was told that he is going to leave for India at the end of August so we are going to have a trio next transfer.  We get to go to Independence on the 10th of next month to see a investigator get baptized that just moved out of this area. I am loving my mission and learning lots. I am almost being eaten alive there are so many bugs here. I miss all of you and I love you all.

Love

Elder Benjamin Allen

July 22, 2013

Dear Family And Friends,

I am doing great here.  The weather here is nice, it rained just a little this week, but has been cloudy this whole week.  It has been nice to have the car full time, except  for when we had to take it in to Independence to get some repairers done to the outside bumper. Those days we took the bus and walked to our appointments. My companion Elder Weatherford is cool and nice.  He served in the army as a nurse before serving a mission. He has been out for 11 month.  He is still is waiting for his visa to India and was told he could leave any day. He is planning to go to BYU after his mission. 

David is doing great, hasn't relapsed yet. He just got a shipment of cigars this week but gave it straight to us to get rid of. He and Bro Pervice are having a competition on who can read the Book Of Mormon the faster.  I think Bro Pervice is winning so far. We taught the Roths family, that has Buddy the 8 year old. The father and the boy friend of one of the daughters are both not members and are going to be there for each lesson. The first lesson went great. We will be teaching them every Tuesday and Thursday until he get baptized. We have been getting referrals by text from Salt Lake City and most of them are fake or wrong but we got one that was Cathy Unknown and we went and knocked on her door and she was interested in the church and she came to church. We have been seeing lots of less Active members because there are over 600 members and only 200 are active. We have found many that want to come back to church so we will see if they will continue to come to church.

For p-day we do all of these as a group of 4 elders all covering the same ward. We Email from about  9 to 10  and then go shopping and have lunch and do laundry and our apartment.  About 2 pm we drive out to Lee Summit to meet as a Zone and play games and get mail that they don't forward to our apartments. P-day ends at Dinner, which is at usually at 6pm. On Wednesdays once a month we have zone teaching in Lee Summit. Fridays we have District Training.   Every Friday Elder Weatherford and I go to Bro Ham's house to do service for him. He is blind and lives with 2 others who are also blind.

I am learning lots here. Studies have been going good. I almost have the first lesson memorized. I am almost done with Mosiah when I just started it in the MTC.

We have been teaching the members at dinner to fervently pray for missionary experiences and to invite and find others for us to teach. I love the ward and the people here.  I am Enjoying being here. I am doing great. I miss you all and love you.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

July 15, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

I am doing great here. I am in the Kansas City. We only cover one ward, which is so large that we have two sets of missionaries in the ward.  My companion is Elder Weatherford.  He has been out for 11 months and is still waiting on a visa to travel to India.  He was told that he could leave in one month to India.  We are living in an apartment in the center of our ward. We have a car half time and the other Elders in the ward have it the other times.  The other Elders are Elder Cortes and Elder Bittion and both of them can’t drive so we have the car full time.

Last week Wednesday I flew into Kansas City airport. It was Fun flying again. We flew in a small airplane there was about 60 people on the plane.  President Keyes and his wife picked us up in Two 15 passenger vans with one pulling a large trailer and their SUV. The trailer had over 2300 pounds in it.  We went to the temple first and took pictures in front of the Temple. After the Temple we went to the Liberty Jail and then to the Visitor Center in Independence.  All 23 Elders and Sister went to Presidents Keyes house for the night where the APs talk to us and we had interviews with President.  Sister Keyes fed us real well. Thursday we all got our new companions and went off to our new areas.

Church yesterday was good, we only attend one ward the Kansas 1st ward. We had one investigator David. He just started to quit smoking this last Tuesday. He is doing great with stopping.  I got to help him set up his tablet so he could read the Scriptures on it while it read it to him. We are teaching Lots of other people and 2, 8 year old boys that need to hear the lessons before they can get baptized. We have P-day on Monday I am doing great here. The weather here is nice. Learning lots and trying to memorize the lessons. I got the first lesson done with. The ward is so nice here. The apartment is nice and new. I am loving the car but still need to get a bike. I am loving it here. I miss all of you

love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

July 5, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

It is Friday the 5th of July, last Friday at the MTC !!  Last night we had a 4th of July devotional.  We listened to one of the Branch Presidents. It was Bro Luncey, he told us his story of his son in law and the service he did for the country.  He ended up giving his life for our country.  He also told us about how the mind of captain was changed when then sent his best friend, another pilot, to escort him home. This best friend was given his belongings and a wedding ring that they didn't know if it was his.  This change of heart was because of the blessing the soldier received before leaving the states and, it was that his wife would get his wedding ring back if he would die in the war serving the country. After that we as the whole MTC got to watch a movie, The 17 Miracles.  It was a great movie. Most of the sisters were crying at the end.  After that we watched fireworks but we had to stay inside the fenced area :( 

I am still the District leader, I get the opportunity to get the mail every day like 2 time or more. There is a lot of mail for the district.  I get to conduct every meeting by call on people to pray and which song we are going to sing.  I became the district leader because I leave one day later than most of the other Elders and Sisters in the district. We got the traveling paper work and the Missionaries going with Andrew leave Tuesday morning at 3am. He is the travel leader for that group. There are 16 missionaries going together to the mission field.  There are 23 missionaries going with me to my mission on Wednesday morning.  I am the travel leader, we leave at 5am. We fly straight to Kansas City

We have two teachers for our district Bro Tunner and Bro Wynn.  We all got Progressing investigator and Elder Hudson and I teach Brian.  We have taught him 4 times now. He is doing great he has a baptism date for the 3rd of next month.  We also taught Junici in TRC and that didn't go well, he just wanted to visit with us and not learn anything about the Gospel.

Last Wednesday, Our zone got 21 new missionaries. Our fast and testimony meeting is going to be very large.  There will be 34 missionaries and the branch presidency with their wife's.

We as a District have had lots of classes to attended this week and lots of study time. We attended Infield orientation yesterday.  Learned lots there and felt the Holy Ghost very strong.  The food here is great. I am trying not to eat too much.  Thanks Mom for the package of cinnamon rolls they were great. We have a microwave next door so we heated them up to eat. I did split them with Andrew. I am loving the MTC and my testimony is growing and learning how to teach better.  I know that this is what the Lord is wanting me to do. Thank you all for the letters and the emails.  I love You all and miss you.

love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

June 28, 2013

Dear Mom,

 I am having a blast today.  I got my watch.  Thank you for sending it up to me. Andrew and I are in the same group and I am the district leader.  We are having sacrament meeting as zones, so like 30 Elders and Sisters.  I am learning lots and learning to teach better.  I miss you and love you.

love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

Arriving at the MTC - Andrew and Benjamin