Weekly Update -- February 1st, 2016

Hello everyone,

Changes arrived last night, which is something new, but welcomed since we now have time to pack and get ready for our next area. The results are..... WHITE WASH! Which means both of us in Salinas A are leaving and two new Elders are coming in. More specifically, my mission brother, Elder Pisciotta who will be training! I've heard about a white wash here before and it was not easy; our neighbor who is a member and a taxi driver had to lead the area for the first week because of the size of the area. God speed to him and his kid (what trainees are called here). I'm going to the area Colinas B, with a Latin companion who's name I forgot. Sorry. I've learned a lot in this area and I'll probably remember it as where my capacity was expanded the most. Ups and downs of course, but all worth the miracles we saw in the end.

Juany was confirmed yesterday and even gave the class using the Gospel Principles manual on the gift of the Holy Ghost. Also in attendance, Hermana Rosales who was with about 8 kids, only 4 of whom are her own. She's been a great example to me having some troubles in her family, but still making the effort to put Heavenly Father first. Whether it be fasting, going to church, starting family prayer or forgiving someone, she's been there. I'll miss her, but remember how important the wife is in the family in part because of her.

This last week, I found the talk given by Elder Rasband on mission work, or more specifically, mission callings. I invite you all to listen to this talk again. I invited our friend Greg and his wife to do the same when they asked us about the application process this week when we saw them again. Also, we were finally able to give the Bible class! Almost didn't work out, but Elder Gale (our District Leader) and I went over last Thursday morning and gave a nice 45 minute class about our beliefs and history of the Church of Jesus Christ. Really cool experience being able to do that in front 27 18-25 year old people who had a solid background on the Bible. Three favorite parts 3. Someone asked how one could become a member of the Church 2. Another asked if we saw miracles in our work and I answered, looking him in the eye, 'every day' 1. Favorite part was when we got to the invitation to read and to ponder and to pray about the BoM to receive an answer and the whole class was quite, but the Spirit was talking pretty loudly. I promised an answer with the authority of a representative of Jesus Christ. Love you all so much!

-Elder Allgaier

Weekly Update -- January 25th, 2016

Hello everyone,

Baptism week!!! January 24th 2016, Juana Sifuentes Mata, was baptized by Elder Lopez! Super excited for her decision and that we were able to be the messengers that brought the big smile on her face that we saw yesterday. Apart from that, her two daughters and her daughter's boyfriend, German, all came to see her be baptized. AND, three members of a family who we've been teaching for a few weeks finally came to church yesterday! Seven investigators! Whoo, what a week. I'm really grateful for the opportunities we have to help in the progress of Heavenly Father's plan of happiness for us, exemplary in this baptism service. President McCarthur and his wife also took the opportunity to come and be apart of the program by bearing testimony before the ordinance on the truthfulness of the gospel.

This past Wednesday, we had the chance to see a worldwide broadcast for the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ with General Authorities like Bonnie Oscarson, David A. Bednar, Dalin H. Oaks and Ronald A. Rasband, to name a few, give advice on how we can fulfill our callings as missionaries a little better. All over the world, missionaries were watching live, except those between Finland and Japan due to the mission schedule. The theme was teach repentance and baptize converts, which was very meaningful because it taught me that we should teach in a manner that helps people to improve their lives through repentance to eventually become stronger members in the Church as opposed to just teaching them to believe in our message. An interesting thing that called my attention was that we shouldn't invite people to be baptized without teaching repentance first. A concept that can be overlooked in a lot of Latin American missions I think because of the general number of baptisms. It is really important that we are willing to submit ourselves to the will of Heavenly Father before taking the next step towards baptism; that's why the gospel of Christ is ordered as faith, then repentance, THEN baptism.

I hope your study with the Holy Spirit went well last week, this week I want to invite you all to re-read your favorite baptism story in the scritpures. My favorite is the story of Abinidi leading into the baptismal service with Alma performing the ordinances. Abinidi was awesome. Love you all, thanks for all of your prayers!

-Elder Allgaier

Juana's baptism!

Weekly Update -- January 20th, 2016

Hello everyone,

This coming Sunday, we have a baptismal date set for our investigator Juany and we are all very excited about it! She comes back from a trip from Mexico city tonight and we'll talk more to her tomorrow about her baptism. It's been very rewarding to see her progress from when we first saw her at a family party and she didn't even show interest, we ended up talking to just her daughter who is also progressing. A little later, she asked for a priesthood blessing and felt a great relief over herself as well as a relief of her pain and accepted a visit from us. Then her testimony she gave about her friend who recently passed away visiting her in her dreams was a very powerful experience in her conversion. Now Juany is going to walk a little further in the path to perfection with her decision to be baptized.

(I asked him a couple of questions including how the food is and these were a couple of his responses:) Food is good, almost always beans, meate, rice and tortillas, but every once in a while someone might switch it up with some tortas or chinese food!  It's fun to hear about returning missionaries and leaving missionaries. 

Yesterday, on the way to a zone activity waiting on the bus, my mind was wondering a bit and rested on a very specific moment when I was in the car in Brunswick after a 'movie in the parks' activity. I remembered very specifically a feeling of peace and clear thinking, clean from any anger or frustration I might've had at the time. Then, I remembered a similar feeling I had when I was arguing with my sister Kristyn. In an instant, my frustration of her not understanding me vanished and my perspective of what she might be feeling widened. I realized exactly what the Holy Spirit feels like based on these two memories given to me through the Holy Spirit. Now, it is much easier to be able to recognize inspirations and make clearer decisions. I'll invite you to study the work of the Holy Ghost this week in the scriptures and await any stories or epiphones you might want to share. Love you all!

-Elder Allgaier

Weekly Update -- January 11th, 2016

Hello everyone,

Running a little short on time this week because of all of the wonderful people who continue to write me this week and I love reading their stories and keeping up with them. Anyways, our two investigators, Anahi and Juany continue to progress and coming to church. This past week, they even asked us about the commandments since 'they're going to be baptized, they should know about the commandments.' They accepted and understood the doctrine with tithing, word of wisdom and law of chastity. Juany is leaving this week to Mexico city and won't be able to come to church again until her scheduled baptism date, the 24th!!

I can see various differences in my life in recognizing how much I have learned and grown since coming on the mission. Now passing 10 months, going on divisions with Elders who are in their first 2 or 3 months, I feel confident leading in an area and being able to talk to people very fluidly. This past week, Elder Lopez and I had rides set up for 10 investigators to come to church. Even though only two came, we felt very well in our capacity to get that much accomplished in one week with the great help of our members as well as two days worth of divisions. I invite you to watch the face to face with Elder Nelson that came out this past Sunday. The face to face videos look pretty cool from what I've seen. Sorry for the short email this week, but I love you all!

My bike

Pan Rosca a tradition here on the 6th of January

Elder Lopez on a very pretty day

Weekly Update -- January, 4th, 2016

Hello everyone!

Oh happy New year's, what a week. First off, we did divisions this week with the Zone leaders and I went to the more urban area with my old companion from Escobedo B, Elder Casiano! The team was back and we did some good work now that we are both more wiser and more experienced. During the divisions, he took me to do a little service project moving a member's boxes into her house. I found out after a little bit of conversation that the wife knew perfect english (which isn't too rare in the city, but its fun everytime I can talk with them in two languages) but spoke in a lot of spanglish, saying things like 'por favor, puede mover los boxes over there?' After a little more talking, she told me about her uncle, Eduardo Balderaz!! Some of you may not know that name, but he was the translator of the Pearl of Great Price, Jesus the Christ and (if I remember correctly) the current version of the Book of Mormon, to the Spanish language! I always find very interesting people in the city.

Yesterday, we had our two investigators at church again, Anahi and her Mom. Anahi can get baptized this week if she decides she wants to, now with the church assistance (attendance) requirement filled. Her Mom gave a super powerful testimony yesterday in fast and testimony meeting when she talked about her experience with the Jehova's Witnesses and her Mormon neighbor who recently passed away. She also talked about when Elder Lopez and I gave her a Priesthood blessing for her pain after she lost her job because of the intensity. Last week she mentioned having an interesting dream, but wouldn't give the details to us. Juany revealed in her testimony that the dream was her Mormon neighbor friend telling her that she sent the young messengers to her. SUPER powerful and I'm SUPER excited to continue teaching her in these following weeks.

Today... We had a Mission-wide activity at the offices in the middle area of the mission, which I have yet to hear happen before. A lot of fun to see all 200 (more or less) missionaries who cover the west half of Monterrey. We had a fútbol tournament between all of the zones (about 8 in total) and our zone, Anahuac, took home the bragging rights. In some (summary), a pretty good week.

I want to invite you all to do the same that our mission President just challenged us to do: read the entire Book of Mormon from cover to cover. You don't have to read the index, but do read the introductions and testimonies. Elder Lopez and I are already doing it with a few others in our branch and the district of missionaries and I'm in 2 Nephi right now. A little extra would be to share new things that you learn with a friend or family member. I like to hear newly learned things as well if you would like to send me an email. Thanks everyone, love you all! Here's to 2016!

-Elder Allgaier

divisions with Elder Casiano ending in compechanas (Elder Allgaier's favorite food!)

How we spent New Years (with Martinelli's sparkling apple cider, not alcohol!)

Mission activity

Weekly Update -- December 28th, 2015

Hello everyone,

Kind of a crazy week with the Christmas festivities from the Regios (people from Monterrey) and from the mission. However, despite the difficulties, we had TWO investigators at church!!! WHOOO!! That is the biggest payoff to a week of mission work for me. One of them was an investigator, named Anahi, who had come two times before, but this times she brought her Mom named Juany. I was given the opportunity to teach the class on how we should pray to our Heavenly Father and Juany felt the Spirit in the class strong enough to share her personal testimony and experiences of prayers being ansered as well.

As far as Christmas stuff goes, we had a mission party where half of the mission came to our stake center to do some skits, have some dinner, chat and get a neat giftbag that President McCarthur and his wife were so nice to give us. Fun time to see so many missionaries together apart from changes, especially the new missionaries. We had a district Christmas party at our zone leaders' house where one of the Elders had been sent some Christmas money to use strictly on food. Weather (spell check that please Mom :)) or not his parents knew, it was enough to feed the entire district a ham, mashed potato, soda, tuna caseroll and meatball dinner. We accomplished what their wish was: eat well. At the same party we did a gift exchange which was super fun with the reactions us Elders give at the 100 peso (6 USD) maximum gifts we receive. Elder Lopez and I also got bikes!! Super happy about that because it gives us exercise and saves the mission money. Thanks Mom for the Christmas money to make it possible!

Of course the part of the week I was most excited for was the skype call home. Even though there were some techincal difficulties, it was the highlight of the week to hear and see them again. They say I speak English like a Mexican now... Anyways, before New Year's hits, I'll make the invitation to make yourselves a list of goals or personal traits you would like to improve on this year. I want to read the Book of Mormon and Jesus the Christ and become fluent in Spanish this year. What do you think? Love you all, happy New Year!

-Elder Allgaier

Weekly Update -- December 22nd, 2015

Due to computer problems, Elder Allgaier wasn't able to send out his update until today. Happy reading! 


Hello everyone,

Fun week seeing a lot of people getting preparations up for Christmas. Oh, I'm staying in Salinas Victoria another seven weeks (long change due to the timing for those going home by airplane) which will permit me to work more with a few investigators with a lot of promise we found these past couple of weeks. One of the families we found of six people was after Elder Lopez and I were waiting for the bus to go back to our house when he turned to me and asked if we had contacted the house right on the other side of the road. I said we hadn't and we decided to knock on the door. They ended up having a lot of good questions about prophets, the life of Christ, some of our beliefs and where the church was. Over the next couple of visits they have been keeping commitments as well like reading the Book of Mormon, praying, reading the pamphlets, even marking them! Those are the kind of things that we, as missionaries LOVE! That is just one family of a few other scattered investigators we have to work with this change so far. I'm excited.

Of course, Christmas is this week and I am SUPER excited to skype with my family this Friday! One of my friends recently emailed me and said Christmas was a little less magical as we get older. It is so gratifying when I'm able to serve others in this season because it really is about celebrating the life of Christ. He who served others more than any other person who ever lived or will live. I want to invite you to find a little service opportunity to really feel the Christmas Spirit. I would love to hear what you have done to do so. I know that you will feel a greater sense of joy apart from giving and receiving gifts. Love you all! (Pictures coming next week)

-- 

-Elder Allgaier