Hi! I'm a church....

Heyooo!! Hope y'all are doing amazing! This week was pretty dang good. Today was transfer calls! We got a call letting us know that we'll be getting a third companion! So get ready for another Sister to make an appearance this next week! 

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH:

• We do this thing called cold calling, which really gets your adrenaline going, and sometimes you gotta activate your fight or flight so honestly it's a full body workout. Essentially we have a spreadsheet of numbers in Maryland in order (I'm not sure how they got this or if it's legal to have but hey, the work must go forward) Anyway, so it's essentially door knocking but for covid cause you call and then if they answer you offer to share a spiritual message with them (or you can offer to sing. Some sisters do. I truly cannot figure out how anyone could answer the phone and someone on the other end would offer to sing, and they would say no. That's literally so chaotic I would absolutely stay for more. Anyway so I don't sing) and usually they hang up when you offer to share a thought, but sometimes they say yes and then you panic cause no one actually says yes so you have to figure out a scripture off the top of your head and share it with them with a little spiritual thought. It's a wild ride honestly. Most of the time though, you just leave a message. So on this particular cold call, instead of saying "Hi there! I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" I got a lil tad bit confused and said "Hi I'm a church.... wait. I mean. Um. Yeah so I'm a missionary. For my church. It's a church about Jesus Christ. Um. So yeah I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." And then I continued on with my message and Sister Weight was full body shaking trying so hard not to laugh and I was using all my willpower to not bust up laughing on this voicemail. It was so bad. But I would pay money for a recording of that voicemail and also the persons face when they got it. I wonder why they haven't called back. 

• We had exchanges 2.0! Great fun, honestly. Sister Stokes and Valenzuela for the win. Me and Sister Stokes come home from our missions on the same day and we've already planned on having a music marathon the day we come home, her bullying me for the rest of eternity for the kind of Spanish I'm about to speak (cause apparently Uruguay Spanish is really ugly but whatever), we're going on a trip to Bryce Canyon, and I'm spending the summer working in Alaska with her on a train. Not sure how that last one happened but here we are. Love that girl though. During our exchanges we were doing this thing where Sister Valenzuela would go on a rant, and then we'd have to interrupt and relate what she was saying to the gospel, cause people do like to go on tangents when you're trying to teach them about eternal happiness. But essentially her rant turned into not a single one of us relating anything to the gospel but instead we just talked for like an hour. So essentially if I ever get a lesson where someone starts not talking about the gospel I'm done for cause I'm too easily distracted. But the conversation was much needed and we actually got a ton of stuff done during the exchange so we good. 

MILAGRITOS:

• Ya know my favorite place? St. Camillus? Yeah so we went there an extra day this week cause instead of doing their food stuff outside now they're doing it in a different building inside, and we were helping them move everything and clean up. While we were there, some food inspection lady was on a call with one of the women that is in charge at St. Camillus. Her name is Joyce. Food inspection lady was making sure the new place was up to code or something. The lady started asking about volunteers, and we were in the other room when she said this so I'm not sure if she knew we could hear, but Joyce was talking about a bunch of the volunteers from their church, and then started talking about the missionaries, cause there's probably 12-15 missionaries that come and help every week, and we started helping out over a year ago, and Joyce said to the health inspection woman "Covid came so God sent us the mormons" and I literally thought that was the cutest thing in the whole world. While we aren't quite the Mormons, it was still the most touching thing ever, cause she was so sincerely grateful to us and said we were an answer to prayer. Obviously there's been a lot of missionaries serving there before me, but it was so cool to me that while we all have different opinions and beliefs, all of us were so grateful for each other, and knew that God sent us to each other. Pretty kind of Him. 

• One day, when me and Sis Weight were taking a lunch break to go get ice cream in the grocery store downstairs, and as we were walking out of our lobby, this lady yells at us and goes "HEY GIRLS WHERE ARE YOU GOING??" and we were like "uhhh safeway?" And she points to the lady sitting at the lobby desk, whos always there and always says hi to us, "will you get this girl some food? I usually get her something but it wouldn't take my Credit card and she's starving" and the girl was shaking her head like she didn't want anything, but it was just to be nice, so we left and got her a sandwich and a candy bar, and came back, and she literally looked like she was gonna cry, it was the sweetest thing ever she was so touched. Anyway so serving people is awesome and now I want to buy her food every time I go to the store. 

• On exchanges, we got to teach a lesson to my favorite member in the ward (am I allowed to say that?) Her name is Mia and I'm obsessed with her. She is 18 and so cute and we were talking about missionary work, and Sister Valenzuela said "so Sister Allen told us you're thinking of serving a mission?" And she goes "uhhh yeah. So I'm DEFINITELY serving a mission." haha it was awesome. She's so fun and just honestly shines with light and she's gonna be the best missionary ever. And our lesson was awesome. Later that night, we got to teach a lesson to another member of the ward who we also love. Her name is Whitney and she's an RM and also a flight attendant so essentially shes awesome. And on Sunday we got to teach Ella, who has pink and purple hair and goes to cosmetology school so she can do hair braiding for movies. How dope is that? 

• Anyone remember Joey? We've met with him, he's so cool and knows a ton about the church but also not a lot of doctrine and stuff. So every once in a while we'll send him quotes and scriptures, and he literally always responds. We love it. Well this week we sent him a quote from general conference, and told him it was from a leader in our church and he responded "I love that quote! What's the leaders name? I know you have the Frist Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, is he in one of those? Also, I listened to a talk by Elder Holland the other day, which group is he in?" And so honestly this man needs to be baptized. He just is so so busy so he can't really meet with us until Thanksgiving break. But he also thought we went home from our missions for Thanksgiving break, so when we told him we didn't I think he felt bad enough for us that he's gonna meet with us soon haha. Anyway, prayers for Joey that he will meet with us soon and also that he can read more conference talks ahaha. 

• I had THE coolest experience this week. Also a confession. Essentially my confession is that reaching out on Facebook to people who speak English is no fun. Spanish is way more exciting and Latinos respond way more often. So I had been messaging this girl back and forth for like a week, and she said she loved the scripture I shared and loved God but she couldn't buy a Bible right now. And she lives in Guatemala and the best power move to use is "oh no way I have friends in Guatemala who can give you a free bible!" And so I sent a referral to some sisters where she lives, and they called me that night and asked for info about her, and honestly I didn't have my hopes up cause she seemed super awesome but I didn't quite know if she was interested in our church, so I explained that, and I followed her records on Area Book, which means on the app I can find her info even if I'm not teaching her and see what's happening, and guys. She's been taught two lessons so far. I'm literally praying for her and these sisters in Guatemala, because it could be so awesome. Catch me preaching the gospel in Guatemala. And maybe pray I can figure out how to find people to talk to in English. I'm gonna work on that. 

NOT MILAGRITOS:

• I'm adding a new column just for this week. First and foremost, Pryncess moved. And I'm violently angry about it. (In like a nice loving spiritual way.) I love that girl. And it was a miracle for her that she got to move but I'm a selfish human being who wants to hang out with her every day. So that's the worst. 

• Have I told yall about the roaches? Yeah so we got roaches in our apartment. And they've been getting more plentiful every day, but now they're getting bigger. We keep tissues in our cupboard to kill the tiny ones every time we open the dishwasher (cause there's like 52 tiny ones every day) and go running for a shoe like twice a day to kill the bigger ones. You can usually tell there's a roach when either me or sister Weight will go "nope nope nope nope absolutely not. Nope. Not today. Absolutely NOT" and then you hear a thud of a shoe. The other day one came SPEEDING into our bedroom running for its dear life (Those things run so fast it can probably cross our bedroom in 3 seconds flat it's terrifying) and I NAILED it with a flying shoe so that's my accomplishment for the week. 

Anyway, spiritual thought of the week is to Come unto Christ, but don't come alone. As missionaries and as members and as followers of Jesus Christ, in order to bring others toward Christ, we must be standing with Him. So we have to get to know Him by praying and reading the scriptures and trusting in Him. As we do that, we can then invite others to join us. Come to Him! And then invite everyone to join you! When we truly love this gospel, we are going to want to share it with every single person we meet. I've sure experienced that on my mission, just driving past people every day looking into their cars and pretty much every time my thought is "dang the restored gospel could bless their life so much" so I hope everyone I drive past feels the vibes I send their way. 

Love you all, have a great week!

 

Love, Hermana Allen