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

Hello! Connecticut is SWEET! It's basically Utah up here. We had a meeting with the Stake Presidency yesterday and the building we went to was bigger than any other building I've seen. Our branch is sweet, and half Spanish half Portuguese. So I've been attempting to fallar a little more Portuguese than normal. Only negative from the week, I got some stomach thing going on and that has NOT been fun :( So if you have any good home remedies for that send em!  The first few days here were super sweet. We had tons of lessons and were able to set 5 baptismal dates with people we're teaching. It's been super cool to see the amount of prepared people here. There seems to be a stigma in the area that it's hard to work in CT, but that is the biggest lie ever; People are the coolest here!  Our second night in the area we were knocking some doors, and we started talking to this Portuguese guy. He invited us right inside and started feeding us s...

Outta here! That's right, I'm leaving long Island and headed toooooooo CONNECTICUT! Super pumped to be out there, but also super sad to be leaving the island. This area has been life changing. We had a sweet experience while on an exchange with the creole speaking elders in our zone. I went with two of them (they're in a trio), and towards the end of the night we were knocking some doors. We knocked on one, and this man invites us right in and says it's too cold outside. We sat down and started talking, and found out that he's been a member for years, but that nobody else in the house is. He hadn't been to church for a super long time, but as we kept chatting and met his son we all just hit it off. Mostly because the son loves video games and we talked about super smash bros (thanks siblings). We shared a video and scripture with them and they hooked us up with some posters from gamestop. The dad told us after that his so...

Jose Guzman looking fly!  Hola!  I swear I just keep saying this over and over again, but this was the best week of my mission.  On Saturday we had one of the coolest experiences I've had yet. We had been on an exchange with some elders from Riverhead on Friday, and at the end of it had messaged someone from Facebook that had liked our church's page. The Riverhead Elders continued talking to him and eventually found out that he lived in our area. We started talking to him as well and set up a time to meet the next day in the chapel. When he arrived the next day we sat down in the chapel and as he told us more about himself, it became apparent that he had been through some super hard stuff. I opened up to Alma 36: 19-20 and as we read, an overwhelming feeling of peace rushed into the room. After reading, we all couldn't speak. We sat there for a solid minute before anyone said a word. With tears in his eyes, he looked up at us and told us this was the ...

Buenos días! It's been one of the best weeks of my mission, and I'll just get right to the reasons why. :) 1. When I was in my first area of the Bronx over a year and a half ago, I had written my testimony in a book of Mormon, and never gave it out. I guess I had left it in the missionary closet at the chapel, because a sister missionary that recently went home emailed me the other day telling me she found it. She knew it was me because at the end it said "The gospel is dope." haha. Long story short, she looked for the last two weeks of her mission for someone to give the book to. She found that person on a bus in the Bronx, who had recently gone through some super rough stuff. As she gave her the book and testified of it's truthfulness, the spirit hit the girl on the bus and she started crying as she hugged this sister missionary and thanked her for bringing it to her. When I read this email, it made me think of just how pe...

Elder Allen wanted me to let you all know that he won't be sending an email this week because they didn't have a P-Day yesterday.  They went to the Manhattan Temple last Thursday and that counted as their P-Day for this week.  He did send some awesome pics from their temple trip though that I will attach to this email. he got to see a lot of Elders he had served with and been in the MTC in Mexico with!  We were able to chat with him on Christmas Day and it was wonderful!  He loves his mission and especially Brentwood, the area on Long Island where he is currently serving.  He said the mission is going too fast and we all can't believe he will be home at the end of May.  We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and we hope you are looking forward to a wonderful 2019!  I know we are!!  Love, Emily and Ken Allen  😊

¡Feliz Navidad! It seems like I was just celebrating Christmas in Harlem, but here I am in Long Island giving it a go again! We had a packed week, with one of the highlights being Zone Conference!  Within the conference, we had a devotional for Christmas, and Sister Teuscher showed an awesome video put out by the Vid Angel producers. It portrays the perspective of a shepherd at the birth of Christ. As this man learns that the Christ has been born, he SPRINTS to tell others the good news. Clearly the birth of this child meant the world to a simple shepherd who had long awaited his coming to the earth.  This made me think of what the birth of Christ means to me, and if I am "sprinting" to spread his message.  There are three things His birth entails for me: 1. God loves us 2. Change is possible 3. Everything will be put in a perfect order God's love for us is most abundantly manifested through the giving of His only begotten, Jesus Chris...