Elder Adam Ray Allen's adventures in the New York, New York City Mission!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! This is seriously the best time of the year, so I hope you all are having a ton of fun being with family and feeling the holiday spirit!  First off, I got to Skype home for my first time on the mish! Man that was awesome. It was so weird being on the other side of the call after calling my sister while she was on her mission. Seeing my family was the best though. Getting to talk to them seriously was amazing, but went by way too fast! I literally just have so much to tell them it was impossible to get it all out in an hour. It was awesome though, they all look awesome, and Jacob’s hair was probably the best thing I saw because that man has some flow. Good job little bro. We had an awesome Christmas season this year. Christmas eve we went to a members house to eat dinner and it was so great. We have been sharing this little Christmas presentation with everyone we visited the week leading up to christmas, and they a...

Me at the UN on P-day Another P day here in Harlem!!! It’s been such a fun week inviting people to our Christmas activities in the ward and just feeling the Christmas spirit! We didn’t have anything too crazy happen this week, but we definitely had some cool stuff. So last P day we actually went to this African market place to buy little gifts for people and they kept trying to tell us it was  $20  for a hat haha. But we all know they buy them for like  $2  so we talked them down to like  $4  a piece haha. These little markets are awesome because it’s basically anything you could want souvenir wise, for like dirt cheap and plus you get to barter so that’s always good! We had a lesson that night with the family that we found last week when we helped them with groceries. The whole family was there, so there were 6 little boys and then the older girl and the mom. It was so awesome to be able to share some videos and scriptures with them a...

Snow day in NY! (Finally) Hey everyone! It's been such an awesome week here in Harlem! The Christmas lights are all up in Manhattan, and it's been so cool to be able to share the message of "light the world" with everyone here.  First off, last Friday we had a split with the zone leaders and I went with Elder Smith. He's from Fresno CA and went to BYU for a year before coming out, and this guy is awesome. He legit is the nicest guy ever and just is smiling all the time it's dope. We pretty much just had look ups the whole time we were together, but we had some awesome things happen. The first thing was when we were going into this building with security at the front, and we had to get buzzed in to be let in. We didn't get buzzed in, but someone had just opened the door so we just walked in, and that wasn't good. The security guard and lady that was working in the back freaked out on us and made us wait until we got buzzed in. So safe to s...

The REAL Santa!  First week down in Harlem! Man it’s been such a packed week, but we’ve seen some super awesome stuff. I can already tell this area is gonna be sweet!  Okay so basically the first few days we just went around to all the people that the elders here were teaching before I came so I could introduce myself, and that all went good. Basically just saying hi to people and pulling the classic “oh no way you’re from Mexico so am I what part?!” which always makes them laugh haha. But sometimes they actually believe me so that’s no bueno and I have to let them know that I’m actually just the white guy from Idaho. But all the people I have met so far have been super cool, and the ward here is dope so I’m so excited for this area! We had a super cool experience on Wednesday night. So we went and met a super solid family in the ward, and just had some dinner and got to know them. Then we ended up going to the Harlem hospital with them, because the dads brother a...

Yo everyone what is up?!  It was transfers yesterday!!! So crazy! So here's the big news.... I got transferred! I'm currently in Harlem now, which is in Manhattan right next to Central Park. The apartment we live in is so freaking nice I can't even explain, but I'll talk about that more later!  First off, the last week with Elder Gomez in the Bronx was amazing. We had so many cool things happen, and my last day in the area, Monday, was the best day on my mission so far. We had tons of lessons planned out, and so we went to the laundromat to say bye to Angelica and Elvira cause those are my ladies. They actually came to church on Sunday which was so awesome because we've been trying forever! So we get to talking to her about how she liked church and she tells us that she got there a little late and didn't hear the sacramental prayer for the bread, so she didn't think she should eat it. She heard the one for the water, and decided to drink it. She ha...

What's up! Man it's been such a quick week, I feel like I was just typing a email. But, it's been good out here!  On Saturday we had a baptism! Her name was Miriam and shes the niece of the Carvente family! Their little son named Bryant got baptized too, and it was such a dope night! We had 3 investigators there, Maite and her two sons. They loved it, and were wondering later if they could have their cousin Nefi baptize them! So awesome. The missionaries gave a musical number at the baptism, and let's just say there was a lot of lip syncing haha. After the baptism, we had a Thanksgiving party and that was a ton of fun too. There were a ton of people there and so much food, which was all amazing cause it's the Spanish ward duh. This week we definitely had some downers, not gonna lie. Two of those were having to drop some baptismal dates because people didn't come to church. That seriously is the worst haha. We sit there for t...