Beware "High Blood"

Kumusta!

After church. with a giant beetle I found.

On Tuesday this week we went to the mission home for Faith Factor. It was fun, we had a scripture chase type thing in Preach My Gospel and had little challenge things.  I went on splits with Elder Murillo in Jones and showed him around.

I gave a talk in church on Sunday.  I read each verse in Alma 42 and explained each one in detail.  After speaking for a half hour and seeing that everyone was asleep, I stopped at about verse 24.  I bore my testimony and sat down.

My dictionaries. The green one is
very rare and much sought
after by missionaries 

Later, during our last 5th Sunday class, Brother Libron, one of the really active people here, fainted in the bathroom, because he had crashed his motorcycle on his way to church. Now he’s in the hospital on oxygen and the locals are really unclear as to what’s wrong.

When someone dies here and the reason wasn’t something obvious like smushed or stabbed or shot, they died of “high-blood”... always “high-blood.”  When you ask how he died of it, they say “because it's hot.”

Well, my family, I love you. I miss you.

That's the Miquez's house. Notice the Swastika over the door.
I asked them about it and they have no idea what it means. 

I will see you soon.

The sun keeps shinin',


Elder Allen

Elder Murillo, Sister Abad and me
 at a service project

Gratitude

Kumusta!

The Branch President fishing for coconuts. 

Thank you, family, for that package.  I felt that I had not thanked you enough. That candy was awesome and all delicious. And that towel is so much better than the others I have.  They are so hard to wash by hand. Happy birthday to both Mom and Lexie on the 14th and 17th.

This week we did not get in trouble.  It was great.  We seem to, however, be having a tough time finding investigators.  Everyone here seems to already know what we have to say, and no one want to listen to us.  We could talk to all those people that yell “Hey Joe!” at us and try to speak English.  Jones is just a tough area, but we are doing our best.

The Branch President's 
cute daughter.

My favorite food out here is Halo-Halo. It means Mix-Mix. It’s a bunch of fruit and jelly stuff you mix in a cup with ice. I'll get a picture of it for you. Elder Elgan is Awesome. We are having fun out here and working hard, and hard work it is.

I spent 4 hours washing everything I own.

Those pictures are great. I was so happy to get those because their the first time I’ve really gotten pictures from you guys.  More pictures would be fantastic.

I love you, and that package was awesome. Thank you very much.  It took me two days to eat that rabbit.

I’ll see you in a while. :)

Elder Allen

Baptisms in Jones

Dear Family,

   This last week we Baptized Nestor Ibarra and May-Ann and Margie Albano.  It was great.

Elder Elgan,Nestor Ibarra, May-Ann and
Margie Albano and me

   It was also great to hear that Ryan’s headed out to Kobe, Japan and Matt is headed to Moscow, Russia.  Those are some tough places to preach the gospel.

   Right now we are trying to move into a new house in Jones.  The house is a thousand times better than the one we are living in now.  Where we are living now is known as 'the cave' among the missionaries. The problem with the new house is that there is only one man building the house by himself, and construction has slowed since an unfortunate accident where he lit himself on fire and ran into a concrete slab breaking his shoulder while on fire.  He’s fine now except for the scars up and down his body and the steel rod sticking out of his should holding his right arm on.  Actually, he is still building the house, and now we’re helping him and teaching him and his wife the lessons.  They seem to be progressing a lot faster than most of our other investigators.

Children are alive in Christ.

   This week is 'Holy Week' it’s a national Holiday so everything shuts down. I’ve heard some pretty crazy stuff happens around here on Easter day.  I will report on that next week... depending on what happens.

I hit 6 months last week. Each 6 month quarter of my mission is marked with General Conference, so next General Conference  will have been out a year.  Cool, right?

I love you all and hope you are all doing alright.

Happy days.

Elder Allen