I mean, my life depends on it....

Hellooooo everybody!! Hope your week was seriously amazing! And you partied hard at school, or work, or at home, or whatever you did. I hope you felt God's love thus week, and if you didn't, take a sec to sit and think on that. Because God loves you and shows you that every day, so find those evidences of it!!

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH:

• We were at our lesson with two of our friends, Alan and Joshua Andrew. Andrew Joshua proceeded to tell his WHOLE life story, and I mean the whole thing. It was intense, he has been through a really hard life. To be honest, I'm not really sure why he started telling it, but he ended it by saying that that's how he knows God loves him so I guess it worked out. But the whole time, Alan had been just itching to say something, he kept almost interrupting and then realized it was rude so he was keeping it in, but barely. Finally, at the end we asked Alan if there was something he wanted to say and he goes "IMAGINE A JESUS PUPPET" oh geez when I tell you that it was a gift from God that I kept a straight face, I mean it. So we then talked about Jesus, and a little bit about puppets as well. It was so random and so funny I couldn't even handle it. 

• Actually, on the way back from that lesson, we were driving back to our apartment, and we're on a pretty busy, three lane road. In any other state it would have been at least a 45 mph speed limit, but Maryland is dumb and it's 35. But needless to say, it's a very busy road. And all of a sudden we look ahead in the road and there's a person just standing there. And traffic stops, and moves around her, and as we get closer, we realize it's a lady walking her tiny little chihuahua. She is literally walking down the middle lane of the road, not batting an eye at the cars surrounding her, and not realizing she's holding up all sorts of traffic. Her chihuahua on the other hand looked VERY stressed at the situation, although it is a chuihuahua so maybe that's just the way it was. Anyway, I think I figured out why the speed limit is so low. 

MILAGRITOS:

• We had an amazing lesson with our friend Devin!! He's seriously so good. We had planned a whole lesson plan, and were praying that we could set up a baptismal date for him, so this was a high stakes lesson. We show up, and he's got his Book of Mormon we gave him, and all of 1 and 2 Nephi are highlighted all over the place, with notes and writings in every margin. His book seriously looked like someone who had deeply studied the scriptures for years. And we gave it to him 3 weeks ago. At one point we said, "Devin it's really impressive to see how well you're studying this and making sure you understand" and he looks at us and goes "I mean, my life depends on it". And he was dead serious. So my invitation for yall this week is to study a little more like your life depends on it. CAUSE IT DOES. Then, we brought up baptism a lot and talked about why it's so important and all that jazz. We asked him his feelings on baptism (expecting a "yeah it's cool I guess") and he said "well I mean I'm gonna get baptized at some point, I just feel like I need to study the Book of Mormon more and understand it all." And we said "........okay Devin" He's literally awesome. Kinda sick that he wants this so bad, and he knows it's true, and he is pretty dead set on getting baptized, without even us bringing it up, he wanted to. 

• We have a sports night every single week, where literally anyone in the ward can come and just play sports. It's usually volleyball, basketball, chair soccer, futsal, lots of random tossing of footballs over other games being played. It's my favorite thing. The sports nights lately have been super well attended, and it's kinda fun to watch. Friday night, seven pm, and 20-30 people are coming to just hang out around good people. It's awesome. But my new actual favorite thing is that they have all started a tradition where they go out to eat afterward. And there's definitely friend groups within the ward, but every single person gets invited. And they don't leave until everyone is ready to go, no matter who that last person is. Maryland YSAs are weird. You have people who have been members their whole lives, you have people who are no longer members, you have people looking into the church, you have BYU graduates, we have a professional soccer player, people that work at the capitol, someone who studies trees for a living, security guards, home depot workers, people who have been in trouble with the law, people who are deathly afraid to talk to other people, and every person in this ward just bands together and they all walk out and go to IHOP after sports night. And don't get home till like midnight. It's incredible to watch them look out for each other and love each other and just band together, cause life is hard for all of them, but IHOP makes it a little easier I guess. And, even the missionaries always get invited. And then the missionaries go home and go to bed instead. Haha, life is good. 

This week was crazy busy, we had a ton of service, a ton of lessons, and a ton of driving to the mission office so I could have a computer to do all the paperwork I need to do in order to get to Uruguay (ELEVEN DAYS!!!) But it was awesome. Truly my favorite thing is going to bed every night, knowing someone's day was better because I did what I could to serve God.  Today my mini spiritual thought is about being examples to your friends. Now I know most of you live in Utah, BUT!! Be an example to your friends!! As missionaries, we've been taught over and over that finding people to teach is amazing, whether that is through Facebook or in person, but THE most effective and successful way is to have members refer people to you. I've heard it so many times and been like yeah yeah yeah okay sounds good. BUT, our two most solid people we're teaching right now (Devin and Joey) both were referred by members. The reason they are interested is because they see the joy and light and goodness that comes from someone who truly knows Jesus Christ, and wants to follow Him, and so they want to learn more. Both of them have said they would have absolutely said no if missionaries would have stopped them on the street, but because of the people placed in their lives, they were able to learn by example of just normal people who love God. SO BE AN EXAMPLE TO YOUR FRIENDS!! I don't care if they're a member, they probably have questions. If they're not a member, they probably have more questions. Whoever it is, be an example. "Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." Be an example of what a believer of Christ should be. It'll change lives. Trust me. I've watched it do exactly that. 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!  HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

-Hermana Allen