11/27/2012

Hey Everyone! Sounds like everyone is doing well! Everything is going pretty good, we found some great people yesterday because it was a holiday here, and all the families are together, so that was great, and we made some really good home made italian bread. Me and my companion are cooking like crazy. Today I made no bake cookies, which were delicious! The area is doing really well. I made a really good area plan for our area, and we´ve been passing by all the less actives and other members, and we´re finding some really good people to teach! I also fixed the bottoms of my shoes this week, and it turned out pretty great. I got really lucky with the guy I took my shoes to. Sometimes they don´t do very good, but he did great, and I think they´ll last me my whole mission now because I chose some bottoms that the police here use, so that´s good.

  I also made an awesome study plan to read The New Testament, Old Testament, Jesus the Christ, The Book of Mormon, and The Doctrine and Covenants with the Pearl of Great Price, in the rest of the time I have in my mission, so that will be really fun to do. But as for all that, things are good here, the branch is doing much better, and we have about 40-45 people coming, which is about 10-20 more than when I got here, so we are seeing some really good success. I hope all is well up there! Sounds like Thanksgiving was great! Thanksgiving isn´t a holiday here, so I completely forgot about it until I saw all your pictures! Can you believe that! Forgetting about Thanksgiving, What´s wrong with me?? But I guess that just means i´m really focused, so that´s a good sign I think.

 This week I studied my patriarchal blessing a lot, and I encourage all of you that have them to pull them out every once in awhile. There are things now that I´m understanding better and better than ever before, and with the help of the scriptures we can really find the full potential of them in our lives. Thanks for all the support from everyone. My companion is from Blackfoot Idaho if you all didn´t know, and he´s goign home in like 2 weeks, which is sad because we get along really well, but it´ll be fun. I am just sick of killing my companions! (killing is a term used to refer when you have to send a missionary home for his last transfer) Because i will have done it 3 times! Nobody else in the mission has done it 3 times before! Haha so i´m pretty excited, we´ll see what The Lord has in store for me! Everyone should take a few minutes this week, sit down, and just start writing all your blessings. It´s amazing what Our Heavenly Father gives us!

 Sorry I don´t have a really cool thanksgiving email for you all, I totally forgot about it, so i´ll have a better one next week! Also, i´ll be sure to get that Advice for Missionaries list that i´m making done here soon. It´s so exciting that everyone is getting their mission calls! Not too long and we´ll be getting Tean´s! Wow, I can´t believe that. So Connor Kikel is going to Cordoba Argentina, and Preston Sharp is going to Spain?? Wow that´s crazy! Who else has their call? It´s so funny because the only other countries, literally, that people here in this part of Argentina make fun of is Cordoba and Spain, because they both have really distict accents, so that´s going to be funny when we all get back talking to eachother in our accents. Cordoba is known for "singing" when they speak ,because it´s really high pitched, and they dance with their words, and Spain is known for having a lisp when they speak, whenever they pronounce the "S" so that´s pretty funny. Plus they speak in a different form there. But i´m way excited for them! Tell their families i´m super excited and i´ll get that list out really soon! Love you All, have a great week! Love Elder Allsup

11/20/2012

Hey everyone! Hermano Machado got baptized!! Andrea had to travel to her mom, she´s really sick but we´re going to see what we can do this week. Sorry i´ve had a million things to do this week and don´t have time to write a whole lot, but here´s the story of machado:

20 years ago he entered into one of our churches, and since that day he´s been going to church almost every single week. But he still just didn´t have a strong testimony of things, and his family never supported him, because they´re all catholic, however he still went to church, and when I got to the area I felt really good about him, and we started to teach him like 3 months ago, and it still didn´t work out, so we left him, but about 2 weeks ago we stopped by to see how he was doing, and talked with his 12 year old daughter (The reason he didn´t get baptized for a long time, because she said she´d leave the house if he got baptized) and we talked to her, and thigns went great, the next day we talked to him, and he told us that he was ready. And now 20 years later here we are, the Elders that the Lord had used to help this awesome guy make a sacred covenant. The story is a little longer, but that´s the just of it, and I feel so blessed to have been apart of his conversion after such a long time. It is truly a miracle, and he´s glowing with happiness. I know this is the True gospel of Jesus Christ, and he watches over us and he has a plan. I love you all, thank you so much for everything!!

11/12/2012

1) Me and Elder Rogers! I got to see him in this Zone Conference!

2) Me and my companion Elder Martinsen with my 1 Year mark sign

3) The Ice Cream Challenge I did of 1 Kilo (2.2 LBS of Icecream)

4) Me with the Icrecream

Hey Everyone! Sounds like everthing is going great!! Tean is getting his wisdom teeth pulled? Ah that sucks. I remember mine, it wasn´t awful but it wasn´t the funnest thing i´ve ever done. That´s so exciting he´s getting his papers in. I can´t believe that! Sounds like work is going really well for him! Keep it up Tean, that´s really important and it´s going to help you a ton to save up and to start working really really hard, because here in the mission you´re going to work harder than you´ve ever worked before. Tance is getting good grades! That´s wonderful to hear! keep it up Tance, that will help you more than you can know to get a good habit of getting good grades and working hard in school. And Sawyer made the high school basketball team! Woah that´s great! You´ll have to tape all her games so I can watch them. That´s great finally one of Dad´s kids gets to play high school basketball!

 

Things are great here! I´ve been cooking a ton with my new companion and we both love to invent and cook things, which is a lot of fun! This week I completed one year! And here in our mission we have a tradition that when the Elders complete one year they have to eat a whole Kilo of icecream (2.2 Lbs of extremely rich icecream) which I thought would honestly be a breeze, and I wasn´t worried about it, and was really excited to try it. So I begin the day by starting to prepare, and didn´t eat a big lunch and went running and things to make some room, and at night we go buy the icecream and I start to eat, and to blaze through it no problem, until I get to about half way when I realize it was starting to physically hurt my stomach because it started to expand, so I just kept going, until I had like 5 bites left, and I literally couldn´t do it, but of course my companion started to just yell and telling me to just finish and kinda cheering me on and just making me do it basically, and I shoved it all but like 2 bites in, but I couldn´t do it! I ran into the bathroom and threw it up because I literally couldn´t do it with all the sugar and stuff!! I wasn´t sick or anything, and it didn´t make me sick at all or anything, but I couldn´t believe how hard it was! But it was hilarious and really fun. I´m going to do it again when I get the chance in the next week or two. I can´t just let 2.2 lbs of icecream beat me like that.

 

 But we have been working really hard. And Andrea and her family, the ones we´ve been teaching are going to get baptized this week as long as everything goes well! Also El Hermano Machado that was going to get baptized like 2 months ago, do you all remember him? Well he didn´t get baptized because his 12 year old daughter didn´t want him to before, but we talked to her, and then we went by last week, and we talked to him, and he´s going to get baptized too this week! So if everything goes according to plan, we´re going to have 4 baptisms this saturday!!! Woo Hoo!! I´m super stoked!! We also got to see the monkeys again yesterday, but extremely up close. We were about 4 feet away from them and I saw the tree just start moving like crazy, and I look over to see 5 monkeys playing together. It was so cool! So much fun to just watch them play and have fun in their own little monkey way! Me and my companion are getting along great. I love him already. We´re going to be great friends after the mission too. But we´re working really hard, it´s getting a lot hotter here, and we´re finding really good people to teach and we´re really excited.

 

 Sounds like everyone is doing great! Hope everyone is doing their prayers and reading and things, and I hope all the future missionaries are reading preach my gospel regularly. Tell everyone Hi for me and that I love them! See you all next week. Love Elder Allsup

Nov 6, 2012

Hey Everyone, I´m still here in Santo Tomé, but I got a new companion. His name is Elder Martinsen, and he´s from Idaho. We are getting along really really great. We are also having a lot of fun together, and i´m excited to be here. He´s also going to finish his mission in 5 weeks. Haha President keeps putting me with all the missionaries that are ending! I´m not sure why! But all my companions have been really good leaders here in the mission, so that´s really cool. I´ve been learning a lot and i´m excited to keep learning, and this transfer i´m Missionary 1, which is basically the one in charge, and it´s my first transfer being missionary number 1, so that´s exciting and pretty fun to be able to lead now.

 

But we´re working really hard, and sounds like everyone is doing really well! I don´t have time this week sorry, this internet shop is a little full and we got here a little late. But sounds like everyone is good, and we are still teaching Andrea and her family now! They all came to church, so we´re really excited, and we´re hoping they can get baptized this week or the next week, we´ll see. But if you could please pray for them, that would help a lot. Thanks for all hte support, next week i´ll have a better email, sorry I don´`t have time today. But I love you all, thank you all for all you do, and next week Ill try to send you the lists! Love Elder Allsup

 That´s crazy Tean is already starting his papers! And Tance is already playing again! Seems like yesterday he broke it! That´s cool you´re getting things done in the backyard. Sounds like it´ll be really nice when I get home, and when I can see it all.

 I can´t believe I´m completing 1 year in the mission this week. It seems like yesterday I was in the MTC or opening my call!! I learned a lot this week about how God blesses us. He really blesses us when we do all we can to obey him and to do what he needs us to do. It is getting really really hot here already, but surprisingly the heat isn´t getting to me like it did before. I think it´s because i´m so completely focused here. It´s like I don´t even want to sleep because I just want to go out and work. It´s almost a burden to get home at night and have to go to sleep at night. I am so focused that I don´t even know what day it is sometimes! But I´m seeing so many blessings that it´s amazing.

He is blessing me with not having anything else really matter a whole lot. I am just loving to work, which before I really enjoyed working, and leaving to go teach and things, but it´s actually like addicting now. I think it´s because i´ve really basically given all I have to work, and I know that i´m being blessed for it. I encourage each of you to really do the same. Obviously the Lord doesn´t require you in your lives to do what i´m doing, but do everything you can and he´ll bless you.

Read your scriptures. Go to church. Go to seminary AND PAY ATTENTION. Go visit the less active members in your quorums, Go and invite your non member friends to church. These things bless our lives, and the lives of so many others. I testify to each of you that God has given us these things to strengthen ourselves, and others. I gave a class yesterday in church and It was about hte personal responsibility we have, and the work. If we work hard, it doesn´t have to be a burden. If we do all we can for the Lord, it becomes fun. Thank you so much Mom and Dad for always teaching me these things. I was able to teach yesterday and help these people to understand that those thigns don´t have to be "work", and they can be fun. I love you all, and i´m so thankful for your examples! I´ll try to write more next week. Have a wonderful week, and WORK HARD!!!!!!