It is So Good to Be Back.

The infamous text from Pres. Henrie in California.  

He thought he was in trouble.  Then he found out he was going back!!

Hello, 

I arrived in Madagascar last Wednesday after after leaving California early Monday morning; flying to Miami and then to Paris.  I Met Elder and Sister Miller in Paris and from there went the rest of the way to Madagascar arriving on Wednesday at 4 am. 

This past week we have been preparing the arrival of 18 other missionaries.  The plan is to be having missionaries returning every week. We will be meeting two at the airport today. I think we have received permission to work anywhere in Mada now.

I have been working in the office helping out the Senior Couple missionaries. We also went around and stopped by the missionary apartments to make sure they are all clean and ready for people to live in them. There are six missionaries already down in Ft. Dauphin working, but the rest of us will be getting our calls this coming week. That is when I will find out where I will be working and who my companion will be. 

On Sunday we went to the Tana ward for church and it was great being able to speak in Malagasy again. 

It is so good to be back. 

Sincerely,
Elder Allen

Saying good-bye to members in California.

Saying good bye to Alexanders in California

Elder Brown and Elder Allen

Saying good bye to Elder Peters

Map of where they are going from California

Arriving in Mada

Arriving in Madagascar with the Millers.  (Elder Christensen and the Boyles picked him up)

Elder Christensen

Working with Bishop O and Elder Christensen

 The Antananarivo Bishopric and the Missionaries.  

They are so glad to have them back and they are so glad to be back!

Bishop O and his bishopric with Elder Allen and Elder Christensen

Pic 2- Elder A and Elder C

"Hard is Good"

Hello,

This was an interesting week. I am taking lead in a new area for me and also training a new missionary. My companions name is Elder Peters. He is from Layton, Utah and is waiting for his visa to India. We are both in a weird situation at the moment, but we are just trying to do our best and build a good program for the area we are in.

Last Sunday, was a little crazy because we both gave a talk in first hour, then taught the Gospel Principles class in second hour, and then I was asked to sub for the lesson in Elders Quorum. We had to do something for each hour at church. It all went well though. My talk was about how my mission has strengthened my faith. At the end of it, I bore my testimony in Malagasy.  It almost felt like I was giving my homecoming talk. I hope my Malagasy does not get worse before I have the chance to bare my testimony in Malagasy for the real last time.

My mission feels a little hard at the moment. Whenever I have hard times or selfish thoughts I am reminded of things I have read or heard before. Today it is a talk from the latest General Conference entitled "Hard is Good". Hard things happen in our lives to strengthen us and make us better. We do not want to have hard times because they suck. But when they are over you are grateful for it and you are better for it. Our Heavenly Father loves us enough to cut us down, or "prune us when we are flourishing", so that we can grow stronger. I know that i will become a better person from the hard things I experience.  Thanks for your prayers.

Sincerely,
Elder Allen

parking lot transfers.

I will be Staying to Lead and Train

Hello,

This is the end of transfers for us here in California. I have been trying really hard to learn how to do things here in this mission and to learn the area. I just got transfer news that my two companions will be leaving the area but I will be staying to lead and train a new missionary here. It feels a little soon to me but I am hoping that it turns out good. I am also the designated driver now so that will be cool. Hopefully I don't crash and kill my new baby boy. My new companion is a "visa waiter" so I will train him until he is able to go.

Halloween was pretty fun. We ate pizza and watched Meet the Mormons at one of the Churches with all the missionaries.

Something I found pretty funny last week was when we visited a former investigator named Rose. When we got there her husband answered the door and told us that Rose was at the market. As we were leaving the house and walking down the street my companion noticed that she had driven passed us. We decided to turn around and go see her since she was just getting home. As soon as we turned, around her car swerved out of its main course up towards her driveway in order to keep driving straight. We went and sat in our car until she returned from the loop she made around the neighborhood just to avoid us. The things people will do to not talk about religion.

Here is a cool story that my sweet mom sent to me this week that I really liked.  It was in a talk given by Pres. Packer called The Candle of the Lord:

What Does Salt Taste Like?
I will tell you of an experience I had before I was a General Authority which affected me profoundly. I sat on a plane next to a professed atheist who pressed his disbelief in God so urgently that I bore my testimony to him. “You are wrong,” I said, “there is a God. I know He lives!”
He protested, “You don’t know. Nobody knows that! You can’t know it!” When I would not yield, the atheist, who was an attorney, asked perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. “All right,” he said in a sneering, condescending way, “you say you know. Tell me how you know.”
When I attempted to answer, even though I held advanced academic degrees, I was helpless to communicate.
Sometimes in your youth, you young missionaries are embarrassed when the cynic, the skeptic, treat you with contempt because you do not have ready answers for everything. Before such ridicule, some turn away in shame. (Remember the iron rod, the spacious building, and the mocking? See 1 Ne. 8:28.)
When I used the words Spirit and witness, the atheist responded, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” The words prayer, discernment, and faith, were equally meaningless to him. “You see,” he said, “you don’t really know. If you did, you would be able to tell me how you know.”
I felt, perhaps, that I had borne my testimony to him unwisely and was at a loss as to what to do. Then came the experience! Something came into my mind. And I mention here a statement of the Prophet Joseph Smith: “A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas … and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1977, p. 151.)
Such an idea came into my mind and I said to the atheist, “Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like.”
“Of course I do,” was his reply.
“When did you taste salt last?”
“I just had dinner on the plane.”
“You just think you know what salt tastes like,” I said.
He insisted, “I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.”
“If I gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?”
“Now you are getting juvenile,” was his reply. “Of course I could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience—I know it as well as I know anything.”
“Then,” I said, “assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.”
After some thought, he ventured, “Well-I-uh, it is not sweet and it is not sour.”
“You’ve told me what it isn’t, not what it is.”
After several attempts, of course, he could not do it. He could not convey, in words alone, so ordinary an experience as tasting salt. I bore testimony to him once again and said, “I know there is a God. You ridiculed that testimony and said that if I did know, I would be able to tell you exactly how I know. My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you are to tell me what salt tastes like. But I say to you again, there is a God! He does live! And just because you don’t know, don’t try to tell me that I don’t know, for I do!”
As we parted, I heard him mutter, “I don’t need your religion for a crutch! I don’t need it.”
From that experience forward, I have never been embarrassed or ashamed that I could not explain in words alone everything I know spiritually. The Apostle Paul said it this way:
“We speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:13–14.)

I have been asked to give a talk in Church next week about Madagascar. No topic, they just want to hear about Madagascar. I will  try and talk about the spiritual stuff that happened. I will probably bare my testimony in Malagasy at the end.  That will be cool.

Love,
Elder Allen

"The typical Californian Rabbit"

Getting the Swing of Things but Still Hope to Go Back

Leaving Madagascar because of the Plague:

Warning sign about symptoms of the Plague

Goodbye lunch with Mada Missionaries.  

Saying goodbye to Elder Blatter. (MTC group)

Saying goodbye to Elder McCormick - good friend from MTC group

Elder Wilson at the mission home

Saying Goodbye to Elder Wilson, a very dear friend and companion

Last Day in Mada in the mission home

Plane in Mada

Getting on the plane in Mada

sitting alone in the Paris airport

Hello,

The mission here in California is very different but I am slowly getting in the swing of things. I still have a hope to get sent back to Madagascar though. I write my old mission President often and that is the goal as soon as it is possible.

The work here goes a lot different . Knocking doors is a whole new experience. American Culture is a little rude when it comes to visitors. People in Madagascar are a lot friendlier and enjoy talking to visitors.

Also, a lot of people do not understand what "No Soliciting" really means. We walked up to an open garage the other day and as soon as the man saw us he just says, "Oh don't bother me with that crap!" and then he walked inside. Another time we met a guy who did not believe in a God at all so I gave him a pamphlet and then encouraged him to try praying to God. He then asked me if I would try praying to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I just told him that I would try if he would try praying
to God. He refused and then called me stupid... i am just trying to have fun with it.

1 Samuel 16:7 King James Version (KJV)
7 But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

Some cool things about working in California are the members. We are fed almost every night. Also a lot of people in the ward have cool jobs. My Bishop is one of the four original animators that works for Disney. He still does the old style drawing animation for them when it is used. He worked on Aladdin and Hercules. One of his kids as a baby was what he based baby Hercules off of. Another guy is an artist for shows like King of the Hill and Futurama. It was fun chatting with them about those things. I am still meeting the ward and hope to find more people with cool jobs and stories like that.

Sincerely,
Elder Allen

New Apartment and companions in California - Elder House and Bergeron

New apartment in California

dinner the first night in California with some members in the ward.  (This just so happened to be a friend of our cousin Taylor, so she sent Jenn this picture that night. One Jenn considers a TENDER MERCY!)

Trying on new clothes in California ???

Trunk of Treat with members - he looks very handsome in his new clothes