April 22, 2013

This week was a little crazy! We did splits with 3 different areas, so I wasn´t in my area a whole lot this week, which made the week just absolutely fly by, and it was crazy waking up yesterday thinking it was already yesterday. This sunday was pretty eventful as well, Guillermo got the priesthood, and I also gave a talk on the Atonement in the ward, and it went really well. They both went really well. It was so cool after Guillermo got the priesthood, because we actually invited them to have lunch (in their house) and we made them tacos. The first time in their lives that they´ve had tacos, and they LOVED them, and Guillermo gets a little serious after about 20 minutes and says, hey kids.... I felt something today..... I felt such a peaceful, and joyful feeling as you guys gave me the preisthood today.... what in the world was that? And I just got a huge smile on my face, and I got really excited, and we were able to teach him about hte spirit, and how it works, and he was really happy about it. It was a really cool spiritual moment for all of us to enjoy.

 

I heard a little bit about the whole boston stuff, not ton though. What exactly happened? But even though the end is getting near, you don´t need to worry. I was thinking about that a lot with my companion, and we just had a pretty peaceful conversation, that the Lord will protect us. Don´t worry about it, he knows what he´s doing, and sometimes he requires things like this to happen to judge the wicked, and to give those people a better opportunity. There are lots of things that come into play, but don´t worry. Keep living the gospel the best you can and you´ll never have to worry, I promise!! just trust our Heavenly Father, and pray, and ask for the spirit, and I promise you´ll be comforted. Put it into practice and you´ll see the results I promise!

 

I learned a lot this week, and it was a really great week to learn. Difficult, but really good. I learned a lot about making decisions. Because I feel like outside of the mission, and for those that have never served, i´m sure sometimes they think that the spirit basically just tells us when to step, where, how fast, and how firm, but it´s not exactly like that. THere are CONSTANT decisions that we have to make as missionaries, and EVEN MORE as a Zone Leader, and sometimes you just don´t have that 1000000% assurance of the spirit right away, and sometimes you feel like you didn´t make the right decision right away. It´s just a huge learning process, and I love it, but it´s pretty difficult at times. There are lots of things I wish I could tell you with lots of detail, and lots of things i´d love to tell you, but I don´t want you to worry, or have any doubts. I´m doing wonderful, i´m learning a lot, and i´m truly learning how to be a man as well, even though sometimes it may not seem like it from way up there in Gringo land! We had interviews with Presidente this morning, after our zone training, and it was a really powerful and spiritual interview. I have grown to love my Mission Presidente so much so far, and he really is called of God. I have a strong feeling about that. He has helped me a ton. He expects a ton, and he´s always pushing us to the edge, especially being here in Resistencia, but he told me some things that i´m going to remember forever. I also talked to him about what it means to have a prayer in your heart, and he was able to help me understand that a litlte more, which was really cool. I hope everyone can study a little more about that, and try to do it! But I love you all, thanks for all the support and love and for the prayers!! Have a great week, and I´ll talk to you all next week! Love Elder Allsup

April 15, 2013

First two pictures are of the baptism of Guillermo and Viviana!!

Third is me and Guillermo after he got out of the water
The others are of just stuff!

The one of all the boys are the youth of our ward, not all, but those that are super awesome, the one on the far right is the one that was born in Delta Utah

But this week was really awesome, we had a really fun time at the baptism, our Mission President actually came, which was really cool! A little nerve racking, but a cool experience, he was happy with how it turned out. For transfers, me and Elder Weight both stayed, nothing really changed with us, but our whole zone basically changed. On wednesday we were in the terminal basically the whole day, and since we´re in Resistencia, all the elders traveling basically pass by us, and we have to constantly talk with all the other zone leaders to send elders and recieve them, and it´s just nuts, but it was a ton of fun at the same time. I really like it. In our zone they replaced a lot of elders. In one area they actually took both elders out, and put two new ones in , and one is fresh off the MTC training now, so that´s going to be fun. We´ve been checkign on him a lot and he´s doing awesome. Other than that, not a whole lot really happened this week, we´re still waiting for the Vallejos´ divorse paper to come through, which is looking like it´ll come through in about 2-3 weeks, so we´re hoping everything is good with that. On saturday we ate with one of the members, and I think I ate more in that meal than any other meal in my entire life. We had 3 big huge pieces of Sopa Paraguaya, it´s a litlte like corn bread with a lot of cheese, but it´s DELICIOUS, and then we each ate like 11-12 empanadas each, of meat and chicken. It was pretty rediculous. It was so good though. I felt like my stomach was going to just explode. Then at the baptism they had a cake, and some other awesome little snacks, and the baptism was just great. Guillermo was so happy. We are working with him now to get the priesthood next week. They´ve been waiting for so long, and it was just a huge blessing and relief to finally watch them get baptized. I don´t have anymore time, this computer isn´t working well, so I´ll try to write more next week, thanks for everything, I love you all, have a great week! Espero que estén todo bien, y que sigan adelante!

 

4/8/2013

Hey everyone, I hope conference was awesoem for everyone! And that everyone could recieve answers to their prayers and questions. I sure did recieve a lot of revelation and I really did feel the spirit very strongly. I was able to gain a special testimony of a few things as well, which has helped me a lot. My favorite part of conference was definitely gaining a much stronger testimony, that we EACH have a very important role to play in our lives. That was somethign that was really strong to me this conferene. That each person has a role to play in our Heavenly Father´s plan, and that we really do MATTER to him so much. My favorite talk was probably from the Sister Elaine S. Dalton. She came to speak to us while I was inthe MTC too, and I just absolutely love her talks. She´s so awesome! It was just really cool to finally have it click, that we really do have a plan, and God really has a plan for each of us, and we just have to do our part, and we have the Spirit to guide us to know if we´re doing it well or not. It was cool too, because this time I didn´t have to translate, and all the Gringos were able to go to the mission office and watch it in english, so that was a lot of fun to be with like 8 other english elders and be able to watch conference that way.

This week was really cool, because Guillermo and Viviana finally were able to get married!! It was hilarious too, because Viviana got all dressed up and looking nice, and Guillermo just shows up in like a plaid shirt and jeans, and it was just hilarious. I love them so much. I attached a picture of them, I hope you can see it well. The plan is that they get baptized this saturday too, so please pray for us and for them! Also, the Vallejos family came to EVERY session of conference, and the dad even came to Priesthood. They absolutely loved it, and it was so great! In between the last sessions we were able to sit in the park in front of the church and we sat with them while they ate, and they shared some snacks with us, which was really cool. I have really grown to love them so much as well. Next week we should be able to plan what day they are going to get married too, the only problem and reason why they aren´t baptized is because he got divorced a long time ago, and he had to update one of his papers, and we don´t know when that´s going to be done. The people said by next week it should be good, so we´re hoping they can get baptized around the 20 of april, so we´re all really excited.

Me and Elder Weight are getting a long really really well. We are like best friends, and we work really well together. We are running even more and more now in the morning. Saturday we ran 4.4 miles which was awesome. Our schedule changed yesterday too, so now our schedule is we wake up at 6:30, do our exercises and breakfast and get ready and we have personal study at 8, then at 9 we have companionship study. At 10 we have language study, and at 11 we leave to start working, and we have lunch from 12:30-1:30, then from 1:30-9:00 we are working again, and we get home and plan from 9:00-9:30 and then we go to bed at 10:30. So it´ll be nice for a change. THe only thing is, is that here in Argentina and even moreso here in Resistencia, the people sleep during the siesta, which is from like 1:30-4 ish, and it´s really hard to find people during that time sometimes, especially if it´s hot, because everyone eats a huge lunch, and goes to sleep. But it´s going to be awesome. We´re just gonna keep working like crazy and teaching and doing what missionaries do! I made wheat bread yesterday, which actually turned out really good, so that´s kinda cool. Sounds like everyone is doing really well, and i´m so glad! It´s finally cooling down a lot here which is nice, it´s finally bearable to go outside. This week we have transfers, so we´ll see what happens. It´d be pretty wierd that either of us leave, but you never know what the Lord´s got in his plans. So this week will be a little nuts with that, but we´re really excited. Thanks for everything. I hope all is well, I love you all, have a great week!

April 1, 2013

Happy Easter to everyone! Here in Argentina Easter is actually called "Semana Santa" or "Holy Week", and it´s actually a holiday that lasts for the whole entire week, since last wednesday, until this wendensday basically, and we also found out this week soemthing funny about Argentina, it´s actually got more holidays than any other country in the whole entire world! Which is pretty funny, because it really does feel that way. It´s like every other week is a holiday here, which is pretty funny, but it´s just part of the awesome culture! And I love it here.

Something I learned this week is that sometimes we are always looking outward at other peoples´ errors, and mistakes, and we get so angry and so frustrated with others, when we forget to look in the mirror and realize that we aren´t perfect either, and that we have a lot of errors as well. It´s a hard thing not to judge people, but it´s so crucial to always be humble and to always be looking for things to better in our lives. That´s why I´m so thankful for the scriptures, because as we read the words of the prophets and things, we don´t have to make the same mistakes or have the same errors as they did, and we can truly learn so much. I hope you´re always reading and trying to apply the scriptures to your life and things! If all goes well, this wednesday Guillermo and Viviana are going to get married!!! And also Wednesday we´ll find out when the Family Vallejos can get married, so we´re SUPER excited about everything! I have been running 3 miles every morning with my companion, and I have actually learned to really love running, so that´s something pretty cool lately. Never thought i´d run so much in my mission. The only annoying thing, is that here in Argentina most people don´t wake up until like 9 or so, so sometimes all the dogs outside are sleeping as well, and when we pass them they wake up and get startled, and we have to run even faster to get away from them haha, so if you were all wondering if it really is a matter of running from dogs in the mission.... Here in Argentina, it is! This week was also the Dad of hte Vallejos family´s birthday, so we made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies for him, and they all LOVED the cookies. They also invited us to a BBQ lunch for his birthday, so that was really cool. If you guys can please pray a lot for the Vallejos and Guillermo and Viviana I know it´ll help, we need it! Thanks for all your prayers, and for all the love, it really means a lot, and I hope everyone is really excited for Conference!! We are all really excited here! So I hope everyone starts preparing now! I love you all, have a great week!