march 31, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This Last week was a great week.

Last Monday we went to the Glore Psychiatric Museum with the Sister missionaries. It was the old state hospital that also took care of people with mental problems. They showed the methods they used to try to cure people. It was interesting. They even had a morgue in the basement. We had dinner with the Balingits. They are from Philippines.   They had invited another family from the ward that are also from the Philippines.  We had some awesome food there. We were asked to come to the hospital and give a blessing. When we got there he was asleep so they asked us to come the next day. 

Glore Museum Morgue

Tuesday we tried to find some of the unknown members in the ward. This was done by trying lots of address that were given for the name that was goggled. We had dinner with the Kincades at Barbossas. It was some good Mexican food. We went to the hospital and it turns out that the father that wanted a blessing wasn't a member but his son was. We were able to talk with him and left them with a Book of Mormon to read. We also saw Brother Crawford from the Albany branch.

Wednesday we had district meeting with the District. We got a new district leader named Elder Taylor. The training was on the importance of making commitments with the investigators. We did lots of driving trying to see people far out. We had budgeted our miles for the month so good that it left us with 60 miles a day for this week. We had dinner with the Nielsons. He is the ward mission leader. We had a shrimp dish. I was given the task of deshelling the shrimp before we place them in the pot with everything else.

Thursday we had weekly planning and all of the other studies that we do every day. We did some tracting and talked with lots of people but didn't find many interested in meeting with us. We also tried lots of potentials that we tracted into earlier. We weren't able to meet with Chris he had something come up. We were able to meet with Brook and her Family. When we got there they informed us about all the tornados that happened that day. It was real windy but there weren’t any to close to us.

Friday we spent the day in Kansas. We had lunch at a gluten free place that members in the ward owns.  They make good gluten free food. We saw most of the members in the Kansas side of the ward.  We went out to Bob Evens for dinner. While we were there the manager came over and talk with us. It turns out that she is a member that just moved here from Independence. We went up to Savannah and saw the Rudels. We are trying to help them come back to church.

Saturday we did some biking for fun. I don't like all the hills that St Joe has.  We had Lunch with the Wykerts and went out to an all you can eat place.  The Zone leaders in the second ward call us wanting us to come light the water heater. They needed to fill the fount for a baptism that afternoon. We had  Brother Cochran light it for us.  After lunch we went over to see if they got it to work. It wasn't getting the water hot. We emptied the other water heaters in the building by filling a 5-gallon bucket and dumped it into the fount. The water was warm but not hot. We were having a hard time finding someone to go out with us that evening since the men had to baby-sit while the women went to the conference. We had a thought to call Robbie. He is working on preparing for a mission and was able to go out with us. We were grateful for the Spirit to give us the thought to call him. We were able to teach Shanna the Plan Of Salvation.

Sunday we had Fast Sunday and 5th Sunday together. We are now in the ward choir. They asked for all the missionaries in the ward to sing with the choir. We had choir practice before church. We had one investigator make it to church. We had bishop teach the 5th Sunday lesson. It was on keeping and making covenants. We had dinner with the Farnsworths. We tried to see some people just none were home. I think it was because of the nice weather.

I hope you are all doing great. I love you all 

Elder Benjamin Allen

March 24, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was transfer week. Elder Alexander and I are still together here in St Joe. We had a great week.

Shanna: We meet with her and the Dinnings this week. We talked about Baptism and about Jesus Christ.  We invited her to baptism and she said she would for the 12th of April.

NPC Zone

Chris: We meet with him on Wednesday night and resolved some of his concerns about the Book of Mormon. It was nice to have Bro Wykert with us so he could bare his testimony. He is going through some hard times and we were able to promise to him if he would read the Book of Mormon he would receive the peace he wants. 

Patrick: We found him this week while tracting. We came back the next day and taught him the first lesson.

Brook plus family: Thursday evening we went over and talk with them about the Book of Mormon. We went over the purpose of the book and where it came from. The Father (not a member) had lots of questions.

The Goodmans: We meet with them and talked about lots of stuff. Sister Goodman's husband is from Burma and is here for work. He can speak a little English but it is hard for him to understand it.

St Joe Missionaries

Church was good we just didn't have anyone show up for church. Elder Alexander taught Sunday school and the 1st Counselor from the stake came in to observe.  It was real small just us and the Nielsons and Gary. 

Today we woke up to find it to be snowing outside.

Thanks for the letters and the prayers.

Love 

Elder Benjamin Allen 

March 17, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a good week for us except for all the appointments that fell through.

Monday we meet with most of the missionaries in the stake and played games and had a fun time.  Brother Kincade in the ward gave us a referral. We went to go contact it and he wasn't interested but we found a couple of people around him that were. It is interesting how some times we are led to an area by a referral and find other people to teach. 

Tuesday the Embrey’s took the Sister and us missionaries out for lunch. We then did some tracting and tried to see some people.  Most of them were not home or just didn't answer. 

Wednesday we had District meeting.  It was on the importance of the Book of Mormon. After District meeting we went on exchanges with the District Leader plus his companion. I went with Elder McCurdy up to Maryville. Elder McCurdy is also from Arizona. We had a great day walking since the car went in for an oil change.  We meet with Herman Crumb and all of his brothers and sister.  They live in St Joe 1st ward.   We talk with lots of college students since they make up almost the whole town.

Thursday we had weekly planning. We tried to see people but no one was home. We went on team ups with Brother Tunks and while we were out we witnessed a car running into another. We visited with Sister Stocket and some other single sisters.

Friday we had a little better day we were able to find some more people that accepted a Book of Mormon and would be interested in meeting with us.

Saturday we worked in Savannah and had a great day with the sun out and with the weather in the 50's. We were able to meet with most of the members in Savannah. We handed out a couple of Books of Mormon.  It is a very small town we walked most of the day. We had dinner with the Vancillas and it was the first time eating with them.

Sunday we had two investigators that made it to church, Shanna and Debbie. Sacrament meeting was on the importance of daily Family and Individual prayer and Scripture study plus church attendance. After Church we had planned to teach Shanna but that didn't work. Brother Dinning was taken to the hospital. We went to give him a blessing and couldn't teach Shanna after since there was no male at the Dinning’s place and couldn't find one to go with us.  She is still reading from the Book of Mormon and coming to church. 

Thanks for everything that you all do for me. I hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

March 10, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was an interesting week. We didn't have a car for most of the week since it was in the body shop getting the dent pulled out, that we got last December.

Monday was the first p-day so it is joint zone p-day but it was canceled since someone had set up for an activity in the stake center. We just came to our building. We had dinner with the Rabations and talked a lot about the bishop’s storehouse. They work there every Wednesday and Thursday. After dinner we went to the hospital and gave Angelo’s wife a blessing.

Tuesday we took the car in to get it fixed. Brother Dinning picked us up from the shop. He took us to our place to change into service clothes. He wanted our help since they had a water leak and need to empty the basement to get it fixed. We helped them for a couple of hours, with the help of the Sister missionaries we were able to move everything out. After that we help the Hibb’s move one of their daughters back into their house. We were able to then get to work doing missionary work.

Wednesday we were able to use the Sister’s car. They had a ride taking them up north. The weather wasn't nice, there was ice and snow during the day. I was grateful for the use of their car with it being to cold. We found a new investigator named Chris and he has some friends in the Second ward that are members. He is already reading from the Book of Mormon. Brother Wykert went with us that evening. We went to see some people real far out in the middle of nowhere. 

Thursday we walked a lot. We tracted and found some new investigators. The weather was so nice we didn't need coats. We were able to meet with Brother Glenn and his wife. We had a good visit with them.

Friday was zone training and the zone leaders picked us up for that. It was about using the members to find people to teach. We all went out to eat together afterwards.   We went to a Japanese hibachi grill place. It was an interesting experience watching the person cook the food right in front of you trying to make you laugh.  We got our car back in the evening. We saw the Davidsons and watched “Finding faith in Christ” with them. They enjoyed the movie and so did we.

Saturday we went to the hospital and saw a lot of people. We gave a lot of blessings. We spent like 3 hours there. We tracted even more and talked with lots of people and gave away lots of Books of Mormon. We went over to the Dinnings to wish Sister Dinning a happy birthday, and to see how Shanna was doing. With us not having a dinner we went to Ihop with Shanna and Jessica the youngest of the Dinning kids. We were able to answer her questions about baptism and the priesthood.

Sunday we move our clock ahead an hour. We had lots of meetings before church. Church was good; most of it was on missionary work. I taught Sunday school since Sister Dinning and Shanna had to go to work for the day. We had a great evening trying to see people. 

I am doing great and having a great time in St Joe.  There is lots of work to do here. Thanks for the letters and the support.

Love, 

Elder Benjamin Allen

March 3, 2014

Dear Family And Friends

The weather here was interesting this week. We also had an interesting busy week.

Tuesday we went out with Angelo and tried so see some people but no one was home.  We had received a referral from the Zone leaders last week. We tried to go see him but learned that he had died. I hope he receives the gospel in the next life. We did some tracting and didn't have much luck since of the cold. We meet with Wade and talked to him about his mission and about his job as a sociologist.  We had a great visit with the Rudel family.

Wednesday we had district meeting.  We all had a Christ like attribute and had to teach the district about it. I was given the topic of Knowledge.   We meet with Juan and taught him the first part of lesson 1. We did some tracting and tracted into Ronnie that had meet with missionaries before. We had dinner with the Christans. They live on the outskirts of St Joe and you take a couple of dirt road to get to their house.  We were inviting everyone to the fireside that we were putting on the next Saturday.

Thursday we had a conference call with the Aps and the counselors to our mission president. President Keyes was in the hospital with some abdominal pain. We also had weekly planning. The weather was so nice.  We were able to talk with lots of people. We had dinner at the Force's bakery. We had lasagna soup. After that our appointment fell through and we decided that we need to go to the hospital. We saw Sister Hessler and on our way out we saw Sister Wkyert. She took us up to see a member of the ward named Sister Snapp. We had never met her and we had a great visit with her. It is interesting how the Lord took us to the hospital to see someone and in return we were able to meet with Sister Snapp.

Friday we went out to Wathena and Troy, which are both in Kansas. We tried to meet with some of the members and didn't have much luck. We gave Stephine Force a blessing at the bakery in Wathena. We drove to our west border, which is also the mission border. We meet with the Dewey family and talk with them about missions. They have a daughter that is thinking about serving a mission. We also meet with the Davidsons in the evening. The weather was so nice that we didn't wear coats all day.

Elder Alexander

Elder Allen - Which mission is he in?  Wichita or Independence?

Saturday in the morning we had practice for the fireside that evening. When we got there the grand piano had one of the f stings out of tune. Bro Dufrain just muted it with some cotton balls.  The weather was so cold we didn't have much luck talking to people. We had the fireside in the evening. It had started to snow just before it started. We only had active people show up from our ward and 2nd ward. It went well, the spirit was real strong there. The missionaries sang the last song which was “Come thou fount.”

Sunday we had a whole mission Fast.  We didn't have church canceled but second ward was. We had like 2 inches fall that night.  Church was good it was smaller that normal. We had one investigator come to church it was Shannah. 

After church it was still cold. We talked with Debbie about the Book of Mormon. We had dinner with the Dinning family. We had lasagna and strawberry salad and garlic bread. I was put to work helping make dinner since it wasn't done when we got there.  After Dinner we played Phase 10 with them and taught a lesson to them plus Shannah. It was a great evening.

I am doing great here in St Joe. I just don't like the cold weather and the snow. I hope you all are doing great. I love you all

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen