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