April 20, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a great week for us.  Tipton is the farthest east you can go in the mission. We are almost a bubble attached to the mission.  Elder Cluster is from Ogden Utah. He has been out for about a year. I had met him earlier when he was in Atchison while I was in New Mark.  The branch is small, there is like 70 active members. Almost all of the members live outside of city limits in whichever town they are close to.  The Church building is here in Tipton.

Monday we had dinner with Bishop and his wife. The senior sisters were also there. It was awesome to have dinner with all of them. 

Tuesday we went to Otterville and Smithton. We were able to visit a couple of people out there. We had dinner with the Aarons. They live on a lake and have very few neighbors. It was awesome to see a bald eagle that lives there. We were able to meet with John; he is a recent convert youth. He is big into wrestling. We were able to talk with him about serving a mission.  

 

All the signs in Otterville look like this

Wednesday we spent the day in Tipton. We went tracting and found a lady that talked to us for a while.  We went to a bible study that an investigator was putting on.  The topic was Romans 10 (I think...) on missionary work. It was awesome to be able to meet with some new people. It was an awesome discussion. The sad thing is that they didn't believe that people will have a chance to hear the gospel in the spirit world if they didn't here.   We testified that it is part of the plan. I hope they felt the Spirit as we were testifying.

Thursday we went to Versailles after weekly planning. We were able to see the Rayls. It was awesome timing. They were all there and had some time to meet with us.   We also were able to talk to some other people. Versailles is actually the biggest town in our area.

Friday we had our zone meeting in Sedalia. It was very interesting since there were workers putting a new roof on the building. They were very loud. We went all out to eat at the Chinese buffet. I think those place just attract missionaries since I have gone a lot to those places.   We also went on exchanges with the Carrolton Elders. I went with Elder Rollins. He came out with me. We had an awesome day. We went with the other Elder in the Branch to Sister Shaw's house. She is becoming active and it was awesome to hear her story. We also met the only active member family in the Carrolton's area. They were awesome and have a big vision for a branch to be in that town some day.

Saturday we did studies with our temporary companion. We meet back up to exchange back. We went out to eat at an Ecuadorian food place.  It was a hole in the wall place. We had some good food there. On the way back it rained almost the whole trip back.  We were able to meet with Kim. He was very much talkative since he was drinking beer.  I don't think we have taught him the Word of Wisdom.  We had an interesting lesson with Andy and Amanda and a couple that they are friends with. It started off good but when we got to the Apostasy they started to debate with us. After that we weren't able to teach much. It ended on a good note and they feed us ice cream.  We hope they felt the spirit as we testify and they will pray about the Book of Mormon.

Sunday we taught both classes at Church. It was a lot to prepare for. We left the church with tons of food and a big box from Elder Cluster's parent. Our branch mission leader went to Utah and brought back stuff for Elder Cluster. We had an awesome dinner with the Lawsons. They invited their neighbors and they came!  We also meet with Spencer W. Kimble. I think he is ready to come back. His wife seems interested and they are very interesting in Family history.

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

Love,

Elder Benjamin Allen