Jan 26, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was a great week for Elder Hansen and I. The weather is still nice and warm. 

We went on exchanges with the Mound City Elders. I went with Elder Michelson to his Area. We spent the day driving and trying lots of Referrals that they had received. We had dinner with the Anderson's.  They are the Senior missionary couple that are called to serve and help in that area. We went out with the Branch mission leader to teach a new member lesson to Donna. 

We had District meeting this week. The topic for the day was the purpose of missionaries and our roles. We also talked about fulfilling them. 

We saw Scott. He and his dad were working on an addition to his house. They were having an Electrical problem. I was able to help them fix the problem. He has been super busy with work and finishing the house to be able to come to church and meet constant with us. 

We also meet with Mason.  He is a less active member. We watched some Mormon messages with him. 

This week we also got the Oil change in our car. The Shop we went to was super busy. 

It was Elder Hansen's Birthday this Saturday. We didn't do much special on that day. We did do lots of tracting since most of the people we wanted to see weren't home. We did hand out a couple of Books of Mormons. One of the books we hand to a lady named Hallie. She is a home care nurse and we didn't get and address or phone number. There is no way to contact her so we hope she reads the book and finds a way to contact us.   

We had ward conference this past week. There were lots of people that came to participate in the Conference.  None of the Priests show up early so Elder Hansen and I blessed the Sacrament. It was my first time as a missionary.  In Sunday School we talked about the roles that we all have. The most important is we are Children of God. We are given 3 things to help us with the Responsibility to get back to our loving Heavenly Father.  There is Prayer, Scriptures and the Holy Ghost.  In Priesthood we talked about the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood.  I enjoy it when we have ward or stake conference. 

I hope you all have a great week. Thanks for all the letters and Emails and the Support. 

Love,

Elder Benjamin  Allen

Here is an Email that Benjamin's brother Elder Andrew Allen received.

Here is an email I got this week. It is funny that Benjamin got to meet them.  -Andrew

Hello Elder Allen!

I was going through our past letters and finally found your email address. We've been looking for it since Christmas to send you an email.
Guess who we met at Christmas time in Iola?! You probably already know by now, but we wanted to send you photographic proof that we did meet and hang out with your twin over the holidays. It was great to meet him. We had to constantly say, this isn't the Elder Allen we knew in Larned because we would start joking around with him like it was old times. You guys REALLY look alike! But we could easily kid him about table saws like we did you! ;)
Anyway, we want to let you know how proud we are of you and your brother! Your parents raised you both very well.
Thank you for the Christmas card and for keeping in touch with us on your mission. It's been great to hear from you.
Keep up the great work you are doing for the Lord! The Gospel is true and it brings true happiness. Have a great new year.

Sincerely,
Tessa and Glenn McMillan

Jan 19, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was the warmest week that we have since the start of winter. It was a great week to be finding more people to teach.

We have done a lot of tracting this week. We have found lots of potential people. There was one that told us that he was actually looking for a new Church and he would read from the Book of Mormon.  We also found a guy named Mark. He let us right in and talked with us. He was there for our return appointment also. He had lots of Questions about the second coming. We told him that the Book of Mormon had what we needed to be ready.

Sign we see everyday.

We have been teaching Tina at Sister Wrights. When she came this week she also brought on of her grown sons named Gene. We had a great experience reading Alma 7.

We didn't have any investigators that made it to church. We did have the less active Pattons that came. They stayed for all 3 hours. We have been inviting them to come when we teach Tina (so we can have a Male with us). I think that has helped them.

We went out to the Yates Center (hay capital of the World).  We stop by a less actives members place. They are the Oatmans. He is a member and the rest of the family isn't. They let us in and we visited for a while. We then talked about church. They had a bad experience with a Baptist church in town so they haven't been going. They committed to come next week. It was awesome how they are being prepared by the Lord.

There was also Zone training this week.  It was awesome. They trained on how to have faith to find. They also adapted more of the rules to help us be more consecrated to the Lord. It is interesting how with these changes here on my Mission is making me still learn and try and experience more.

I hope you all have a great week. Thanks for all the Letters and support that you give me and all the other missionaries.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

The musical is the Anti one that makes fun of the missionaries and The Book of Mormon.

Jan 12, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was a great week for us.

This weekend we had Member missionary days. This is where we have  members with us for the whole day. They would take pictures to put on Facebook and experience the missionary spirit. We had a lot of missionaries that came out with us. I think this will help them share the gospel more.  It was done since we have the Book of Mormon musical here in Kansas City.

This week we also had some great lessons. We had a member that had shared some info about the Church with a friend. His name is Ashton. He called us wanting more info since we was looking into doing a report on Mormonism.  We went over to his house and taught the Restoration and it was awesome. I hope he reads from the Book of Mormon that the friend gave him.

We visit a 91-year-old man and his daughter, which is a member.  They told us stories about how they saw miracles and the Hand of the Lord in their life. It was cool how some of the stories were before they were introduced to the church.

We went out with Brother Slaugh and he took us to see some of his friends and             co-workers plus we tried to see some members. It was awesome to meet some of the people that help Iola run. I hope this exposure to the church will spark their interest.

Transfers were this week. Turns out that we will be staying together for another 6 weeks. Not many changes happened to the missionaries serving in this stake. Elder Hansen had been out for a transfer less that me. He is from Utah.

We live in Chanute and we spend the most of the time in Chanute. We live in a small house in town.  It has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. There is a washer and dryer plus a covered carport. It is nice when it snows or rains ice during the night.

There are a small number of members that live in Chanute and lots that live in towns that are spread out.  Some members can drive for an hour to get to Church.

Everyone is getting sick around here. The Hospitals have been almost maxed out. They locked down the Assisted living place so no visitors could come. We couldn't go play bingo with them this week.  We even had members that went to Wichita to the hospital there.

I hope that you all have a great week. Thanks for all the letters and emails. I miss you all.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen

Jan 5, 2015

            

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been a very cold week, lots of Ice and freezing rain.  We have also had a lot of dinners this week.

Monday was a good day. We spent it at our place since everything was to far away since we were low on miles.  We had dinner with the Snyder family.  They had invited one of their home teaching family to come over also. Brother Burkmen came. We had the opportunity to teach the Plan of Salvation to all of them. We also saw some people here in Chanute. 

Tuesday was our interviews!  We all meet in Paolla and had district meeting and Interviews. On our way up we drove through snow and more falling snow. We talked about the importance of the Spirit in teaching.  It was good to see president and his wife.  We had a little time to work in Iola before dinner. There was no snow when we came back. All had melted when the sun came up.  We ate with Brother Slaugh. He thought he had gotten Pork ribs but turned out to be Beef ribs.  It was good.  It was Brother Hannon's Birthday so we went over and celebrated it with him.  We also talked to Bro Ethridge. He works for a movie theater supplies and repair center.

Christmas Eve - Elder Allen as a Shepherd - 3rd from the left

Wednesday we did a little driving since there were people to see. We were able to meet with some of them.  We meet with Sister Isom’s dad. He is 91 and is still getting around. We read from the Book of Mormon with him. He has tons of stories to tell.  We also meet a member in a nursing home. He was happy to see us. He had lost his Book of Mormon with traveling and wanted one from us.  We didn't do much for new years eve. We went to bed the same time.

Thursday was New Years. It was also our weekly planning day. This week we had more people that we talked about. We had an appointment with Doug. Turns out to be neighbors to the Hannons (our recent converts.) We took Brother Hannon and it went well. He is in his 80's and has lots of knowledge. His has lots of the same beliefs as us. We had dinner with the Guernsys.  He had invited the Hannons to come also. It was a good evening and good for members to get to know others.   We saw the Mcguires, Brother Mcguire had 5-heart bypass surgery the week before. He is doing good.   He has lots of stitches looks like a big zipper on his chest. There was freezing rain for part of the day. It made the road slick.

Friday we were able to teach RJ and the Shaws about the plan of salvation.  It was an interesting teaching with so much going on. We did a lot of tracting and contacting potential investigators. Got told a lot that they weren't interested.   We had dinner with the Hannons. They have seen the blessings of the Gospel and feeding the Missionaries.  We had an appointment with AJ and his family. We had Brother Patton come with us. Turns out that they weren't there. We were able to talk with Brother Patton about his family and how we can help him and them.

Saturday was more tracting and contacting people.  We were able to find some people that accepted Books of Mormon.  There was lots of rain today. Made lots of Mud.  We had gone to the Guernsys to pick up my coat. She had sewn it back up. I had slid on Ice and ripped a seam on the side of the Coat. Good thing it was on a seam.  They had invited the Sisters to come over and we just showed up. We all ate with them. It was an awesome evening.  We visited the Pass family. We talked about the blessing of coming to church in hopes they would come tomorrow.

Sunday we woke up to find more frost and Ice. Church wasn't canceled but not everyone came. We helped with the Sacrament. It was a long time since I have needed to help.  We had two investigators that came. It was great. We had James stay for Gospel principles and it was on Adam and Eve.  We didn't have a dinner but before church was over we did. Brother Slaugh had invited us over.  After that we spent time seeing people in Iola. We meet a less active that hadn’t seen Elders since he moved. He talked with us forever. He showed us his old bike collection/ hobbie.

Thanks for all the letters and the support you give me and all the other missionaries. I hope you all have a great week. Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen