Fuente de Mis Bendiciones.

Ashley's Mission Email #37

So we had Ward Conference this week and it was really cool! All the missionaries in the ward (right now its us, the zone leaders and the district leader and his comp.) Plus the other 4 sisters from the Marañon ward sang Come Thou Fount in English and Spanish. That was fun! 

What else happened? Hna Curtis and I got a little sick so we were stuck in the house and our wonderful comps went to teach the people. It’s never too fun to be in the house but thanks to those whiteboards you sent mom, we survived and we´re recovering. 

I am getting close to finishing the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I hope to finish by Thursday, my half way mark. (How weird is that. There is no way its been 9 months) I have loved reading it in Spanish, I feel like I´m learning so much from it that I might not have gotten from reading it in English. EL LIBRO DE MORMON ES VERDADERO. No doubt about it. Also if you ever get the chance to read a devotional talk by Hyrum W. Smith called The Restoration of the Gospel. Why Now? (or something like that.) You should. Its amazing. I think it was given at Ricks college in 1988 but its awesome.

Anyway I hope you all know that I know this is the true church. And there is no stopping its growth. The only question is if we will choose to be apart of it or not. In the words of Elder Holland, ¨This will always be a missionary church.¨ But we can choose to be the missionaries. Starting with General Conference this week. Why don´t you maybe invite someone to hear the message of the prophet?  Because the message isn´t just for us.

Love you lots.

Hermana Allen

Just a Few Words.

Ashley's Mission Email #36

Just a quick email this week to let you all know that I love you.

I hear Poppy´s funeral was very special and I´m glad! I recieved a blesing this week that told me that he is now doing his missionary working and sharing the plan of salvation with others. The same plan that we need to know now. It was really neat.

Yo se que vive mi Senor y que esta es Su iglesia. El la dirige y estoy sumamente agradecida por el conocimiento que yo tengo de el evangelio restaurado.

Les quiero muchisimo.

Love

Hermana Allen

Ashley and Hermana Pichardo!

Una Semana de Milagros!

Ashley's Mission Email #35

Miracles of the week...

1.Hermana Pichardo, my new companion is WONDERFUL. She´s just a big ball of energy and jokes and love. 

2. Mission tour with Elder Clayton, Elder Martinez and Elder Cornish and President Corbitt. You can only imagine how much we learned from all these great men and their wives.

3. We found a family that has been inactive for 15 to 20 years but were from the first group of members in this country. The dad served in one of the 1st Stake presidencies here and the mom as Relief Society president. God leads us to find His lost sheep.

4. ELDER HOLLAND. 

5. We had 6 investigators in the conference. Maybe that doesn´t seem like a big number but all last transfer we had a total of 2. That was a huge miracle for us. Especially because Mariel said that she had goosebumps when Elder Holland spoke and that she knows it has to be true. She also brought her 2 daughters, her boyfriend and another friend!

6. ELDER HOLLAND. We were sitting like 3 rows up and it was just crazy powerful. Even with the translation. (That sometimes changes the meaning but it didnt at all.)

7.Hearing that Poppy is now at peace and that our family now has a new angel watching out for us. I love you Nonny and I hope you know I´ll be praying for you.

Love you all. Thanks for all that you do. Keep looking to the Savior.

Love

Hermana Allen

Smile!

                                                          Platanos fritos. So Dominican.

                                                         
                                                             We love Elder Holland!

Wanna hear a funny story?

Ashley's Mission Email #34

First off, Elder Holland will be in our stake this Sunday and I am beyond words excited. We got transfer calls and luckily I will be staying here but yet again, I will have a new companion! (I haven´t stayed with a compañera for more than 1 transfer my whole mission!) But the coolest part is that she is from my group and I roomed with her in the CCM! Her name is Hermana Pichardo and she´s Dominicana. So I will be training her as sister training leader. Should be really fun! Especially because I´m really new to this and still don´t quite know what I´m doing. :)

So the funny story...well looking back it´s kind of funny. (Now don´t get scared please. We´re safe.) This week on Thursday we were walking from one lesson to the next and we were with a member who is preparing to serve her mission. A moto pulls up with 2 guys. One guy jumps off and tells the member to give him her bag. Then he does the same to Hna Mapa. Then gets back on the motorcycle. The guy driving asks if he was going to grab mine but he said no, let’s go, and they drove off. 

I´m not telling this story to scare you. Believe me, we´re fine and now there are 2 more people who have a Book of Mormon this week! But I´m telling this because the day before in our leaders meeting we were talking about opposition. And how we are really working right now to elevate the mission. Pres Corbitt said it’s kind of like a giant weight that at first will be really hard to lift because satan also understands the laws of gravity and will be working against us as hard as possible. But if we just keep going, we will see amazing things happen and we will all be so much stronger.

I feel very protected and I know it’s because of your prayers and love. Again, please dont freak out, we´re being safe and getting rides from members and things like that. But I just know that we are doing the right thing because if we weren´t, we wouldn´t see any obstacles or challenges like that.

Love you all so much!!

Hermana Allen

P.S. Congrats Tay on your mission call! Yay for Spanish speaking!!

And congrats on the new little Colt! He´s so handsome, can´t wait to meet him.

Thumbs up for this wonderful country!

                                                  Birthday Party for Hermana Bernal!

Ashley's Mission Email #33

Ocho meses. WHAT?!

So it’s my cumplemes today. It’s like cumpleaños but with months.) I still feel new though.

Anyway I still love serving as hermana lider. I can see so many blessings. This week I got the chance to talk to one of the hermanas who had a rough day. For some reason I remembered this experience from about 3 years ago. I think it was my junior year in high school and a hard day that I had. It was an experience that really built my testimony on the Savior´s Atonement and how it covers all things unfair in life. I can promise that whatever I said to help this sister out, were not my words. It was my experience but it was for her. It’s amazing how the Lord works like that. And every day I´m SO grateful for the magnifying power of this calling.

So for el dia de preparacion today we went to a park in our area to have a little picnic. I´ll leave some pictures. we also found a bunch of puppies left in the park bathroom! 

Oh transfers are next week. Probably will be staying here though. 

Well love you all. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Tell Nonny and Poppy I love and miss them! 

Love

Hermana Allen

We went to a park in our area to have a little picnic.

The mini jungle in our area. 

                                                             Hermana Mapa and I.

                                                            Vi una columna de luz...

Ashley's Mission Email #32

Bible Bashed!

Hey! So this week I went to church for my first time without showering because we didn’t have water for about 2 days. But it rained pretty good and that´s about the same thing right? Really that´s pretty lucky. I´ve been pretty spoiled so far with running water.

We had a lesson with una adventista. She told us we HAD to recite to her the 10 commandments right there and then. We were in the middle of trying to teach the first lesson so we kind of stopped and were silent for a minute while we listened to her tell us how with all her years of studying the Bible she can tell we don’t even know the 10 commandments and how we know nothing about the Bible and how we should be preaching from the Bible only or else we´re all wrong. We just closed with a prayer and got out of there. That was an experience though...

Despite that, it was a great week! We just finished a zone activity where we had a big capture the flag water balloon fight. 

This week I’m studying more about the priesthood and in particular what it means to be ordained with the priesthood by someone who holds it as well. Like the line of authority. That’s something people have a hard time understanding. They think people can receive the authority through revelation. Any ideas?

Well love you all!

Hna Allen

Zone activity. Capture the flag water balloon fight.

Hermana Curtis and her companion. 

                                                           Power nap before planning.

                                                Hermana Curtis and I matched on Sunday.
                 (Good thing you can't smell through email. This was when we didn't shower.)

                                                   The cow across from our apartment.

                                                   Who runs the world? Hermanas! Haha

                                        The hermanas and our District Leader Elder Davila!

                                                                            Donuts!

                                                                           El cielo.

                                                                La Zona Villa Mella!!