Week 7: La Bronx!

Hey Everyone! 

Done with my first full week in NY! The Bronx is legit pretty sketchy, but it's awesome here! There's so many cool people I've met, and I've already had a ton of cool experiences these past 8 days. 

So first off, we are super good friends with a family that got baptized in April/May, N__, J____, Je___, and a little 6 year old girl. They're so awesome and we go over there like every day to read scriptures with them and do some service. N___ speaks only Spanish, so she's been helping me listen and understand more because that's probably my biggest problem right now haha. Dominicans speak a totally different type of Spanish, and it's so hard for me to understand them but it's getting better! Their family is so cool though and we actually started teaching one of J_____'s friends, J_____. She doesn't really believe in a god, but we definitely see potential in her. She seems pretty interested, and is a super nice girl. It's just so hard to talk about life with a 17 year old (I know how my parents feel now). We actually were able to talk a little bit with her yesterday, and shared a Mormon message with her called, the hope of God's light. if you haven't seen it, go watch it! I cry every single time but it's so good. 

My mission president, President and Sister Smith! 

We also got a referal this week from a member in our ward, his name is Ad____. He's from Puerto Rico, and is such a cool guy. We taught him once this week, and it was super good. We just told him why we were there, and that our message could help bring happiness and peace to his life. We taught him the restoration, and he understood everything and seemed to be super interested in what we were telling him. We could definitely feel the spirit during the lesson. Then the coolest thing happened. I started to explain to him that Jesus is our perfect example, and we all want to strive to be like him. One way we can do that is by being baptized just like him. As soon as I started to invite him to be baptized, this music from another building that had been blasting the whole time, stopped. The spirit was seriously so strong, and he accepted the invitation to be baptized, and we are going to set a date next lesson, which is on Friday! The music started back up right after the invitation too, which is so crazy. Then at the end of the lesson, we asked him to say the prayer, but we forgot to tell him to say it out loud... so we sat there on our knees for 20 minutes in silence, and me and Elder Munoz kept looking at each other like uhhhh what do we do. finally we tried saying something, but he just looked at us and went back to praying. Elder Munoz finally sat down and when he did, Ad______ finished his prayer. We just told him that we hoped he was able to feel the spirit during the prayer. he said he definitely felt something and that he was going to come to church with us. He came to church that Sunday and was talking to some members of the ward like the whole time, which was super good for him. We're boutta bap this guy real quick!

One more thing that I think is really cool that we do, is street prayers. We will talk to random people on the trains or at bus stops, and end up asking if they want us to say a prayer with them. We say one with them and they always end up loving it, and I legit love it. It's so cool how like 3 minutes can make someone's whole day. The people here are awesome but a lot of them have issues, so just letting them know we care is like the biggest thing to them.

best pizza around! Perfect portions! haha

I love new York so far, and can't wait for this coming week! It's crazy how different it is over here, but it's cool. The only thing I don't like is how humid it is. Like I sweat all the time it is actually the grossest thing ever. But hey it'll be winter soon so thank goodness for that! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be out here preaching to the people of the Bronx! I know God is there for all of us, and that if we really make an effort to talk with Him and seek His guidance, He will give it to us. Prayer has been huge for me since being out here, and my personal prayers have gotten so much more in depth. I'm so happy that there's a way for us to communicate with God and get answers to whatever problems or questions we may have.

Love all of you!

 Elder Allen