Week 42: Católica :)

 Zone conference Pic with my boy Elder Cuevas

Hey everyone! New transfer here in Harlem, and about to hit 6 months out here in Manhattan! Crazy how time flies. 

 Zone conference Pic with elder Faison and William Smith!

So to start off just want to talk about someone we are teaching named Leo. He is so awesome and had been in our records for a while and we had never been able to meet with him. 2 transfers ago we were finally able to meet up and have an awesome lesson on the restoration. Ever since then this guy has been progressing like crazy and loves the book of Mormon so much! We send him assignments to read every other day and he calls us later and tells us what he has learned and any questions that he has. He also came to conference this past weekend and kept saying after to us "Ellos saben demaciado!" or "They know so much!" It was really cool to see him recognize our prophets as the mouthpieces of God! 

 Conference bfast that I obviously was excited for.

General conference was too good! I loved how structured it was and the talks were amazing. President Nelson definitely adds some life to it and when he announced the temple in Russia I thought the conference center was about to turn into a concert hall. It is so cool to see the work progressing and the prophesy from the scriptures be fulfilled that the whole world will hear the word! It was pretty awesome as well this past weekend, because our zone had 24 people come to church that weren't members! 24! That is so crazy and the week before we had like 22. So awesome!

 Catholic cardinal

On Thursday we had a pretty cool experience. We got to do some service for the catholic church at their charity here in New York. We were giving out food and things to a huge line of people and the Archbishop of new york, cardinal Dolan, came to visit which is a pretty big deal cause this guy is super well known. He has met like all of the apostles and knew President Monson pretty well. He talked with my companion and I and 2 other elders when he first got there because we were about to unload like 5000 lbs of food and Noone else wanted to help 😂 So he walks up to us and starts talking to us and I'll tell you what I did not expect what happened to happen. He said "You all can come to the church tonight for holy Thursday! Might even let you get baptized, because you are welcome in  our church even though I'm not welcome in your temple." It was so weird and just awkward because there were a few people standing around taking pictures and stuff 😂 Then we get inside the storage and he starts talking to more people and points at us and says "The mormons are getting baptized with us tonight!" It was kind of funny but also an obvious slam he had wanted to say for a while so glad he got it off his chest. Then inside he asks what we do here to help and I just look at him and say "everything" 😂 Then the people who run the charity agreed and started going off about how the LDS church helps them so much and the missionaries are the best helpers so that was way nice! But yeah needless to say not the best first impression for me of someone high up in the catholic church! 😂 

 Sunrise!

Just wanted to end with one of my favorite scriptures that I came back across during my studies yesterday morning. It's in Words of Mormon, chapter 1 verse 8 and says "And my prayer to God is concerning my brethren, that they may once again come to the knowledge of God, yea, the redemption of Christ; that they may once again be a delightsome people." That is the whole reason why we try to share this message with people, so they can feel the same joy that we feel through Jesus Christ and his true church! Love you all and have an amazing week! :) 

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