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

Well, this is it. I feel like I've been putting this moment off for as long as possible, and now it's finally here. I have tons of mixed emotions leading into the next couple days, but one that sticks out the most is the feeling of gratitude. I'm so grateful for my mission. These have been the best two years of my life up to this point, and I am going to make the next two years even better. Everything I have experienced and learned out here has brought me to where I am today, and has changed everything.  Jeffrey R Holland said some things about his mission that I think perfectly relay what I want to express about mine. "to have gone as ignorant, and innocent, and confused, and befuddled, and mystified as I was, and to have had the experience that I had in two years. To have forever and ever and ever affected my life evermore, is more than I will ever be able to thank my Father in Heaven for. In this long list of things I can't thank Him for in this ...

Buenas tardes amigos! We had a pretty fantastic week here in New Rochelle filled with a lot of proselyting (finally) and some really awesome lessons. It's been cool to see the Lord's hand in our area this past little bit and see the people we are teaching begin to implement the gospel fully in their lives.  I've had a lot of time to ponder on my mission experience recently, and it's been such a blessing. Everyone always says the last bit of your mission is the hardest to keep the focus, but I think it's the opposite. I've never felt more focused on Christ in my life! I've been able to set apart time mentally just to think about how awesome He has been the past two years, and how great He has made this experience for me. I remember at the beginning I definitely did not have that same perspective. When hard things would happen I would always be tempted to give up, let loose, or slack off. Due to great companions, leaders, and my personal relationship w...

Hola!  Man this was an awesome week. We had zone conferences throughout the mission, and we got the chance to go and give a training at each one on fulfilling our purpose.  I always learn a ton from prepping these different trainings we have been giving, but this one was pretty impactful. It made me realize just how blessed we are to be serving, not only as missionaries, but in NYC! We shared many different things, but one of my favorite parts was from my main man Dan Clark. If you haven't listened to his talk "The four steps on the stairway to heaven", I highly recommend it, because it is straight fuego.  He makes a point that, "So many people spend their lives hoping to be happy, but because they only hope, they never really are."  Basically, go do something to be happy! What are you going to do about it?  That was pretty much the main message of what we shared, with a cool video we put together at the end that had some s...

  Well the week after transfers is a busy one, and this past one was filled with plenty of things to keep us running around.  Besides all of the logistical stuff that we had to get figured out, we had an awesome night with the departing missionaries at the mission home. This is one of my favorite parts of transfers. We basically eat dinner with all those missionaries going home, President and Sister Teuscher, and the senior couples and then have a bomb testimony meeting up in the living room of the Mission Home in Scarsdale. Cool fact, the mission home we use is the same one that Elder Rasband of the Quorum of the 12 used when he was a mission president here as well! For the closing hymn we sang "God Be With You Til We Meet Again," and the water works began. It was one of the coolest moments I've had since being up here in the office, and it's crazy to me that I'll be bearing my testimony in that meeting in just a few weeks. (Trying to draw these wee...