Week 46- Scripture Power

Friends and family,

This week has been good. As I was sending out our Book of Mormon scripture to our investigators last night, I realized that I needed to apply what I was teaching others to my own life. I was sending 2 Nephi 32:3 which says the scriptures will tell you all things that you need to do. I realized that I needed help knowing how to train Elder Holdaway. So I opened up to a chapter in Alma and found a great story about mentors giving advice to mentees. I know you can apply all scripture to your life.

We had a good week. We found a couple of people from tracting, but when we tried back, all of them didn't answer. Bummer deal. Oh well. We still felt like we did our best. We just can't stop trying.

I hope y'all are enjoying the summer break! Congrats to all those who graduated. Can't wait to see where y'all go in life. It will be far for sure. 

Love y'all!

-Elder Chandler Allen 

Week 45- A New Adventure

Friends and Family,

This week has been a new adventure. I took over the area after being here one transfer. I'm training for my first time. My new companions name is Elder Holdaway. He is a great missionary who is super excited to do the work. He's adjusting pretty well. He says it's tough getting used to the mission life, but I know it will come quick. It just helps me think about when I was being trained and what I liked in my trainer.

We are now on bikes 2 out of the 7 days in the week. Haha. We biked for the first time in this area on Friday. It was kinda fun at first. Haha. It was pretty hot though, and I forgot water. Ooops. I'm not doing that again. Luckily a family in the ward invited us over that night, and that really lifted our Spirits. I'm glad they are Spiritually in tune, because that was just what we needed.

We were able to go to a baptism of an 8 year old this Saturday and even share the restoration video and a message on the Holy Ghost. There were some non-members attending, and I'm sure they felt the Spirit. I'm glad they were invited and we had that opportunity to teach them. Those are special occasions.

I love my new companion. We have similar interests, and we enjoy working hard together. He's a trooper. I look up to him for coming out here and sacrificing his time.

Love yall!

-Elder Chandler Allen

Week 44- Wow....

Friends and Family,

This has been a good week. Yesterday was great. We visited the Fletcher's, a less active family. The Spirit was so strong there. The grandma was especially touched. Hopefully that inspired them to come to church. They are such a wonderful family and have very strong kids who love the gospel.

We also contacted a referral from the sisters. His name is Jeremiah. He seemed really interested, and we just got to know him even more. It was great! We plan to teach him about the plan of salvation and what we need to do to make it to Heaven. 

Wow!!! Elder Johnson is getting transfered!!! But he is only going a couple miles away to LSU, which is technically in this area already. haha. We are now in a car share. So we will split the time we have the car with the LSU elders. I don't know who my new companion is yet, but we will see.

I'm excited to take over the area. It will be a fun time with my new companion whoever it may be!

Love y'all, hope y'all are getting ready for summer!

Love, Elder Chandler Allen
Yummy Cheesecake made by the famous Doug!

Elder Johnson and Elder Allen doing service for Doug. Of course food is involved after.

Week 43- Long Week with a Great Ending

Friends and Family,

This week was great. We were super busy with two meetings, two exchanges, and lots of other fun stuff. Then we ended it all with Mother's Day and I got to talk with my wonderful family.

The Spirit was very strong at our zone training meeting. I was very nervous because we had to instruct, but we didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare since me and Elder Johnson were on exchanges. But the Spirit certainly lead our discussions, and by the end everyone was very excited and inspired. 

We had another great experience. We were prompted to tract a specific street, and we decided to go and try it. When we got there, we realized that it was a lot of nice houses. Usually it's a lot more difficult to get return appointments in nicer neighborhood because they are content with what they have. Well we went down one side, then started heading back on the other side towards our car at the end of the street. A couple houses before we were about to finish, we ran into a man named Peter. We just asked him some questions and he opened up to us a lot and just kept talking. We talked for a long time. He already has a firm understanding of Prayer and that Heavenly Father loves him. He even walked us to our car. He wants us to come back this week. We are very excited and blessed. I know the Lord lead us there.

I really enjoyed seeing my family again. I miss them! But they motivated me and inspired me to do even better. I love them and I love you all. Have a great week.

-Elder Chandler Allen

Baton Rouge Mission President and his wife and all the zone leaders, sister training leaders, and assistants to the president.

Week 42- Blessings!!!

Family and Friends,

This week ended up being great. The work here has been a little slow recently. We just didn't have a lot of people to teach and we were trying our best to find new people, but it just wasn't working out. We tried our best to humble ourselves and we prayed, and God blessed us with a couple new investigators who all have friends already in the ward. It was really neat! Nothing really on our part, God just gave us some opportunities, so hopefully they turn out great. 

A lot of fun stuff happened. We had dinner with the Elder's Quorum, we taught young mens, we went on exchanges. We were rained it a couple of times. It rains so much that the streets flood, so we get put on lockdown. So lots of down time. 

I'm doing great and it seems like things are starting to roll here. Haha. Anyway, love y'all!

-Elder Chandler Allen

Week 41- The Healing Power of the Priesthood

Family and Friends,

There were a lot of things that happened this week. I had crawfish for the first time this year. They were alright. I didn't like the way they seasoned them as much. But they weren't bad......so I thought. Haha. That night I woke up sick and started to throw up. Ughh. Haha. I got a blessing from my companion. I still felt sick until about 4 in the morning, then it just stopped. I felt good enough to sleep. I was pretty sick for the rest of that day, so I rested up. Then the next day, we got in an accident! haha. Luckily they weren't going that fast and they just hit the back bumper and wheel. No one was hurt, but we had to get a new car. We ended up getting it the next day, but I had to bike until then. It was fun for the first little bit biking, but then it got hot. haha. 

I went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President. I really enjoyed that. We had a good days worth of work.

A little miracle:

1. When we got in an accident, Beau, one of our investigators we haven't been able to get ahold of for a little while, saw us and texted us. We didn't have his phone number until then and then we asked if we could meet with him, and he said he could meet this week.

I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting. I was super nervous, but then a couple minutes leading up to it, I just felt at peace and really happy. Yesterday ended up being a great day. I'm just really grateful for this area. There are great members and they are all willing to do missionary work!

Love y'all!

-Elder Chandler Allen

The infamous crawfish.:/

A gourmet meal made by the famous Doug. No food poisoning here. Just deliciousness!!! :)

Week 40- Humility in Our Hearts

Friends and Family,

I think this week was fairly humbling. There were some challenges, but I think we just realized that without the Lord's hand, we really can't help others convert to the gospel. A lot of appointments fell through. Not a whole lot of people were home. I just felt like it was tough getting some effective work done. I think we still did good though. We built relationships. As me and Elder Johnson considered what to do, we just realized that if we humble ourselves and continue trying our best, the Lord will provide us with people to teach, and just like that, he sent us some people. haha. We showed up to sacrament meeting and there was a nonmember couple there with their member friends. I guess they are somewhat interested. The same thing happened the week before with a different couple and we found out they were still interested. Then another person referred us to their friend who used to meet with the missionaries. We'll see where that goes. But I'm just very grateful that the Lord has trusted us enough with His children. Elder Johnson helped teach me this great principle of humility.

One event that humbled me was while out tracting, I realized that I still wasn't very good at tracting. haha. I'm excited to improve, but in the moment it was kind of discouraging. Then we got rejected by someone. He was a little harsh about it. At that point, I was just really sad and discouraged, but Elder Johnson is so nice and he just picked me up when I was feeling down. I learned a lot from the experience.

We also had the opportunity to watch The Testaments with our investigator Doug this week. That movie and all the other church movies always strengthen my testimony, then we had a great discussion with him about the movie and God's love. Doug is making some good progress, especially since he is reading the Book of Mormon and Blueprint of Christ's Church.

It was a good growing week. Can't wait to improve this week, Love y'all!

-Elder Chandler Allen

Some of the Elders got to go to an off-season LSU football game.