Week 28: Christmas in New York!!

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 all love it. It’s cool to be able to share a simple message about christ and feel the spirit so strong from it. That morning, we had a church service combined with the English Wards, and it was so cool. We had a Broadway singer sing O Holy Night, and it was so good. She seriously was like straight out of some famous opera or something I swear. She killed it and everyone in the congregation was feeling the spirit hecka strong. 

Christmas Morning we went about our normal stuff and then opened presents that our parents and families had sent, and a few from members. We also had the chance to get all of our studies in which was awesome, because I had one of the coolest studies ever. Just read The Living Christ, and Luke 2, and the spirit was so strong during it. It was so awesome to be able to spend an hour just thinking about my savior and his birth, and how special this mission is, and how blessed I am to be able to spread the gift of Christ 24/7 365 days a year. So cool! We had some breakfast and lunches with some single males in the ward, and of course we brought our Ilumina el Mundo poster with us for them to sign, I’ll throw some pictures in. Our goal is to finish up the pictures here in harlem, and then send it over to President and his wife so they can sign it, take pictures with it, and then frame it or something and keep it in the mission home. It’s been so cool to be able to share this initiative with everyone, but now we can’t use that excuse to talk to people so gotta start having normal non Christmas conversations again haha! 

One awesome experience we had last Wednesday night. We went to teach this family, the one that me and Elder Smith found, and we ended up teaching the restoration. It was probably the most powerful restoration I have taught so far. By the end, everyone was crying, and the mom leaned over to me and said “I’m so happy that you’re here, my daughter has never smiled this much” It is so crazy how we can bring so much true joy and happiness to people’s lives by simply bearing testimony of the restored gospel and what we know to be true.

I just want to say thank you really quick to you all! You are all so awesome and are helping me so much out here with your prayers and thoughts, and just know that I pray for all of you as well every night. I just want to bear my testimony to you all, that Jesus Christ lives. He was born for us, and through him, we can live with our families forever. I know that, and I testify of it every day to people who have never even heard of a God before. My life has changed so much out here. I always told myself before the mission and even during the beginning stages of it that I wouldn’t change, or that I didn’t want to change. But now I look at myself and even my family tells me that I have changed so much, and I just seem so much happier. That’s because I have changed, and I am so much happier! All the worldly things that are here can’t bring us the joy that the gospel brings. I have never felt this way in my whole life, and I just want to share it with everyone! You guys rock, I hope you had an awesome christmas, and have a great new year as well. This year, find something you can improve on, and just do it! Forget the past, because it’s in the past! Keep pushing on and everything works out. Love you all so much. Cuídense muchísimo! 

Elder Adam Ray Allen
New York New York North Mission
700 White Plains Rd Ste 315 Scarsdale, NY 10583