From: Ryan Jay Allred
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 12:49 PM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ!
April 26, 2010
Dear Family!!
I just want to start by sharing my testimony with all ya’ll. I have been blessed a lot out here as you are well aware; there has never been a better time in my life. However there have been a lot of hard times too, for this I am grateful. I have been surprised as a missionary at how many people try to prove us wrong out here, but to my benefit that has only made my testimony stronger. Through a lot of study and prayer I have learned for myself that God is our Heavenly Father and he is more a part of this work than I had ever imagined. The Spirit itself has born witness of this wonderful truth to me over and over especially in the past year. I have seen my own confidence grow strong just like the Book of Mormon promises as I come closer to the Lord. I really am grateful to be a disciple of Jesus Christ the Son of God. He is the only reason I have found any happiness in my life and like our Apostles have asked I encourage each of you to create a study plan so you will better understand the atonement and be able to apply it more fully in your life. It is soo wonderful to know exactly why we are here on this earth and where we are going. How could we have real identity without knowing who we are and where we came from? And still there are soo many out here who have no idea that they can know these things. This is why the Book of Mormon is absolutely amazing! It has restored all of these wonderful doctrines; and also by the power of the Holy Ghost I really believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I hope you all share similar testimonies; for those who don’t I invite you to do whatever is in your power to learn for yourself whether or not you are a child of God, because you are and will make all the difference in your life once you know it for yourself.
Like I said Elder Groberg and I have been overly blessed in this area. Alicia has accepted the invitation to be baptized and Ben is still progressing wonderfully. We had another family ask us to meet at their house to teach their friend this week. I didn’t get to go because I was on exchanges but he seems to be very interested.
We had a lot of spirit filled lessons this week. I hope the spirit is in all of our lessons but it was a lot more apparent this week. We had planned to take Randy on a chapel tour this Thursday and we almost didn’t get too because we already had nine appointments scheduled for that day. Luckily we called in some reinforcements and got another companionship to help us out for the day. I went with Elder Hessing to set up the church for the tour and Elder Groberg took Elder Bodily to teach Alicia and everyone else. We had just finished setting everything up when Randy showed up and Brother Baio called and told us he couldn’t make it any more. I was really disappointed because I think Brother Baio is going to be a major factor in bringing Randy to church but we of course went on with the tour anyway.
In a normal tour we ask that they don’t ask questions until the end so it doesn’t take too long but we felt impressed to allow an open conversation to flow the entire time. I am so glad we did because he asked some powerful questions and invited the Spirit into his own heart. Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles says that the goal of any teacher in the church is to get their students to ask questions because that shows the Holy Ghost that they are open and willing to learn. They are inviting the Spirit to teach them. About half way through the tour I couldn’t figure out how we were getting through everything soo quickly while still covering soo much information. Elder Hessing had just finished telling the story of Joseph Smith and I was about to testify when to our surprise Brother Baio walked through the door. I was soo excited I wanted to give him a great big hug because I knew he had made some major sacrifices to make it and we wanted him to be their when we invited Randy to be baptized. I then shared my testimony and with all of that happening at once the spirit was very tangible in the room. We asked Randy how he felt and he said he felt very peaceful but we needed to keep moving because his back was hurting. Then I understood why the tour was going soo smoothly. Randy has a back injury from work and is unable to do a lot of things and obviously the Lord knew that and helped us to do the full 45 minute tour in about 20 minutes! It worked out perfectly. At the end we invited him to be baptized and he would have said yes but he and his wife are going through a hard time and she told him that if he continued to meet with us she would leave him. So he won’t be baptized for now but he convinced her to still let us come over at least once a week. Feel free to include him in your prayers!
Well I better head out, but I hope you all know I love you. Thanks for all of the letters and emails. I understand you are all busy (Kristie) and have a lot to do, I still love you! And I was glad to hear that Jennifer and Kristie had such a good time at the dance. Keep it up.
Much Love!
Elder Ryan J Allred
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HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!
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