Will the real Marie please stand up?

This week has been pretty crazy... On Saturday I was hungry so I bought a little pint of Ice Cream and I ate the whole thing while riding my bike within about 5 min :) I knew learning to ride with no hands would pay off!  It's just like driving a stick while talking on the phone and eating all at the same time! Anyway... Saturday night was pretty cool, we had found an old teaching record in the Area Book for a lady named Marie. So we went and knocked on the door to visit her and ask why the missionaries stopped coming by. This older guy answered the door, he looked at us and got all excited! He said "It's those guys we talked to last week!" He had us come right in. We were very confused. We asked if a Marie lived here, he said yeah she's right here. So we thought okay this is cool... so we started to teach them. They said that about a week ago in another part of the city they talked to two missionaries that were going to give them a Finding Faith in Jesus Christ DVD. But they ran out so they just gave them a pass along card with the number to call for one. Haha they were upset that we didn't bring them one... so anyway we teach them this awesome lesson and their excited to have us back this week. When we got home that night, we realized that the Marie on the teaching record was not the same Marie that lived there. Because the Marie on the teaching record lived there in 2006, and the couple that we just taught had moved in like a month ago! So that was pretty sweet. We're thankful that we found  them and we're excited to teach them.

On Thursday it was raining like crazy!! They had tornado warnings and everything! Our Mission President told us that if we heard something like a train blowing through the neighborhood, to lay down in the middle of the floor. Haha, it wasn't very bad for very long, just one or two minutes of raining really hard. The rest of the storm was just normal rain. It was fun. Good thing we got to stay inside until it was over!

That was about the most exciting thing we did this week, besides passing by a car show on Sunday that we couldn't look at! It just about killed me. Oh well. It was a good week. Oh Yeah, on Sunday we got a new Bishop and a new Elders Quorum Presidency and everything! Like I was saying before... we have 20 families moving out because they all graduated from medical school. So the ward is changing a whole lot. But it will be good.

Thanks for everything, I love you all. Talk to you next week!

--

Elder Allen

Baptism, Doughnuts and Ditches

Hello everybody.This week has been great. We Confirmed Nathan Armstrong in sacrament meeting yesterday. He had to wait a whole week to do so because he was Baptized last Sunday afternoon. I was able to do the Confirmation yesterday, it was an awesome experience. 

On Tuesday we were knocking around a potential investigators house that we met, and this little Asian lady walked up to us. She was caring a little bag a pastries! She told us that we worked to hard, and we needed food. So she gave us some doughnuts. She said she owned a doughnut shop just down the road, and she had extras today. Then she walked away and wouldn't let us talk to her. She said she wasn't interested in our message. Sounds kinda sketchy I know, but I ate the doughnuts and I'm not dead =)

On Saturday my Companion Elder Loertscher crashed on his bike. We were going down this huge hill, going like 20 mph or faster, and we had to turn right on this street. I was in front and I slowed down to turn. Once I was on the road we were supposed to be on I heard Elder Loertscher's tire skidding on the pavement. I looked back and saw him going way to fast to turn, and trying to slow down. Haha he went into this front lawn with lots of nice cushy grass.... But there was a cement ditch about a foot and a half deep right in the middle!! He hit it at full speed and he flew off his bike. He landed right in the grass. It was really funny. He was okay, just a few grass stains. Later we went to the ward party and everyone was laughting and asking him how he got the grass stains on his shirt, haha!

It was nice to talk to you all yesterday! I hope everyone had a good Mothers day! Talk to you next week.

--
Elder Allen

This a email sent by a Sister in Carter's Ward.....

Hello Missionary Mothers,

My family was able to feed your wonderful sons this evening!  It was a real treat.  They have only been in our ward three weeks, and we've able to feed them twice.  They were rushing out the door to a new appointment, but I made them pose for a quick photo--even with an ice cream cone in hand.

I must tell you, they are doing GREAT work!  Everyone in our ward is commenting on how fabulous they are--truly!  They are excited, motivated and very dedicated.

Last week they had taught my next door neighbor a lesson.  They shared a book of Mormon with her. She didn't make an inital commitment to read, but said she'd be open to meeting with them again.  Well today, my husband and I were driving home from the library and saw your sons on the side of the road, so we pulled over to see if they needed any help.  They didn't, but we asked about meals and since they didn't have plans for tonight, we invited them over.  Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways because once we started eating dinner, my next door neighbor called and decided to come and join us for dinner as well!

So they were able to teach her again.  It was a nice lesson.  We'll give my neighbor a few days to process and see if she is ready for more!  We had to hurry and get your sons off because they had MORE appointments tonight.  They are working so hard!

We are so grateful for your sacrifices and sharing them with us.  They are blessing our lives grately.  I pray the Lord may in return bless you and your families.

Sincerely,

Ann-Marie Wood

Auto Zone and a Baptizm!

This week has been a crazy one... On Wednesday we went to Auto Zone to get some stuff for my companions bike. It made me really miss working on cars and things. We talked to a guy who was changing the water pump in his car, but he didn't want help. Oh well. On Thursday we knocked into a christian rap artist. He was awesome. He showed us some of his stuff he was writing. haha it was really good. He wasn't interested in our message though. haha I also knocked into a guy named George Lopez. Not the famous comedian, but same name :) We talked to a drunk guy who said that I was different than anybody else he's met before.... but he was way to drunk to know what he was talking about. So I don't know if I should be concerned or not. ha ha.
 Yesterday we had a baptism!! Nathan Armstrong was baptized. He has been being taught by the missionaries for about 2 months. He's come a long way. He quit smoking and decided to marry his girlfriend that he had been living with for the last few years. We were way excited for him. He will be confirmed next week. Hopefully we can get his wife to start coming back to church. She is a member, but has to work every Sunday and has been inactive for years. Nathan has a strong testimony though.
That's about all that happened this week. It was a good week :)

Love,

Elder Allen

Bike and Bike and Bike aaaand Bike

This week has been pretty good. We had a pretty good Easter, we just taught people as usual. Holidays don't feel like holidays here. We taught 2 mentally challenged people yesterday actually... so that was very interesting. One said she was a member. She was baptized like 10 years ago. She said she had schizophrenia (or however you spell that) and she said she had devils living inside her that kept talking to her... Then we taught an X-communicated member. She had some mental challenges to... It was a very interesting day. This week has been going good. We have one Baptism set up for Sunday night. We also have a few other people that are progressing really well. They should be getting baptized soon! We are way excited for them. That's about all I have to say this week... being on the bikes still stink but its getting better, I'm always so tired!

Thanks for all the prayers! They are really helping! I love you all.

-Elder Carter Allen