That's some tender chicken right there

Heyo wassup all y'all!! This week was a party, oh my. And we had SO. MANY. MIRACLES. Some days I just step back and I'm in awe with how kind the Lord is. Miracles are real. And I'm so so grateful for them. 

Laughs

• First off, there's a lot of tender/wholesome/cute/precious/however you want to say it things that happen on a daily basis. My go to for those situations is usually "aww that's wholesome" Sister Winder's go to is "now that's some tender chicken right there" which genuinely brings me such joy. There was a lotta tender chicken this week. 

• On Tuesday, me and my comps were having lunch, minding our own business, when our Zone Leaders call us out of the blue. And it was one of the weirdest conversations of my life. Because one of the elders simply goes "Hey sisters how are you doing?? Yeah so could you bless my food?" And we all look at each other like he's crazy, and then he makes us bless his chicken and rice that he just microwaved. Literally so weird right? Anyway turns out both Sister Winder and Sister Weight have had that happen to them so they weren't as weirded out. But we just go on about our day, until that night when our district leader calls us to check in and see how our day went and such (cause that's what district leaders do i guess I dunno) So we took this as an opportunity to ask him why the heck the other elders asked us to pray for their food over the phone and he busts up laughing. TURNS OUT all the Elders have this giant fear of looking like a simp. (For those who don't know what a simp is, because my comps had to ask cause they had no idea, it's usually when a guy is obsessed with a girl and will do anything to get her attention whether that is buying her gifts or writing her letters or just texting her a lot and trying to win her attention.) However, your options for simping are rather limited on a mission, so the elders have this fear that them ministering and being kind will make them look like simps. So essentially, someone had explained this to our poor zone leader who's brand new, and so he was then scared of being a simp, so he very very awkwardly asked us to pray over his food. I have no idea if this is just my mission, or if it's everywhere, but ladies, if an elder asks you to bless his food over the phone, just figure that some elder who thought he was funny passed it down to some poor elder who wouldn't have even considered simping in the first place. That is all. No simping on missions. 

• So I'll get into our Thanksgiving later, but one of our friends, Kish, got me a present! I so wish I could figure out how to send videos over email, because this is just the best present I've ever been given. It's a Santa, with an umbrella/parachute lookin thing, and his arms and legs have these circus rings around them, and when you turn him on, they start spinning violently and his belly moves up and down and he sings a song that not a single one of us can figure out what he's saying. I literally was in tears over this it brought me such joy. So when you all come to my house in 50 years and horrifyingly creepy Santa is singing and hanging from my ceiling, you will know where he came from. 

• My goal of growing out my hair on my mission has already failed. Sister Winder cut my hair with kitchen scissors on Monday. Whoops. What can ya do? 

Milagritos

• Okay these are two huge miracles but combined they make one giant one so here we are. Let me start out with, Facebook finding is ROUGH. You will message about a hundred people, and ten of them will respond, and five of those are robots or creepy old men, four of them ghost you after you say you're missionary, and one of them will talk to you for a little bit and then be like okay I'm outta here. But in one day, Sister Winder found TWO people on Facebook in one day. So we had calls with them one day after the other, and both of them are literally elect. The first guy, Drennan grew up protestant, but he has a bunch of ideas he's come up with on his own about how the world works and what's important in life and why we're here, and every single one of them match up to what we believe. Obviously he was using different words and such, but the whole conversation we were in awe, and he sounded like he was too, just so in shock that all of us agreed on all these things. He was way awesome, but unfortunately his Facebook lied and he doesn't live in our area, he just moved to New York, so we had to pass him off to the New York missionaries, but I sure hope he learns from them and finds joy in our gospel. The next day, we had Francesco, who is elect in an entirely different way. He kinda shared his life story with us, and his trials and good things, and explained how his parents were of two different religions, so he's always been open to other religion, and when we explained some stuff he seemed really impressed and it resonated with him. He has seen God's hand in his life so much, and it was so cool to hear. So we are meeting with him again on Tuesday, so prayers for Francesco! This was amazing because one of these guys would have been, and was, a big huge miracle, but two in a row, was unreal. Something that was so interesting is both of them poured out their life stories and the things of their soul and both of them several times said "I have no idea why I'm telling you this" or "I swear I don't give my life story to strangers all the time" or "I have NEVER told anyone this except for my family". It was really incredible that the Lord had prepared them to be okay with talking to us, and to know it was okay to trust us, because frankly, we could be a robot from Facebook, but since the Lord let them open their hearts, hopefully they'll let Him guide them through the rest of this. I have no idea what will happen, but I have so many prayers that it will be amazing. 

• Oh my goodness Thanksgiving was a miracle. I'm so grateful (bah dum tsss) First off, with being in a YSA ward, none of the young and the singles want to fund a whole thanksgiving dinner for 15 missionaries (cause that's how many missionaries are in our ward now) but SCOTT TO THE RESCUE!! Our ward mission leader, who is literally amazing and we couldn't be doing this work without him, got a ton of food for all of us and we had dinner at the church. In addition, he told us that we could invite whoever, and so we invited a ton of people, and THREE OF OUR FRIENDS CAME!! All nonmembers, all wouldn't have had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving, and all made friends there. It was the most tender chicken I ever did see. One of them we hadn't even met before, and one of them was not interested in meeting with us, and now he is, and the other is Jeff who is awesome always haha. It was so fun and so full of miracles. 

• We got to meet with our friend Joey! We taught him the restoration which was pretty awesome and he really found it fascinating and astonishing how it all happened. My mission has really made me appreciate the restoration of this church. God and Jesus Christ literally came to earth to talk to a random farm boy in New York. That is SO insane!! Why are we not preaching this from the rooftops?? Wouldn't everyone want to know that God talks to us today?? This is exciting news! My word, I love this gospel. I challenge all of you to read the Restoration Proclamation. It is incredible and there is such power in it. Joseph Smith sure is a prophet of God.
  
  

Love, Hermana Allen