Los Cambios (Transfers)

So the mission has a magazine called the "Desert Trumpet" that the Assistants make every couple months. On the back it has all the zones and the names of the people that have been baptized in that zone in the past 2 months and pictures of the Zone Leaders.

Elder Martinez and I in the last issue

Me and Elder Walker getting our pics for the latest issue.

Matching ties #CompUnity

Elder Howe doing a modern Joseph Smith impression with his iPad

This is another Elder Walker (not my companion). I met him when I went with Tanner Hardy to that prom in Idaho! He's a cool kid and serving in the same mission as me! 

Tracting pics...

...a day in the life of a missionary

Leadership Meeting

July 27, 2015

So today is another transfer day and Elder Walker and I will be staying together here in the Las Vegas Zone for another transfer and boy are we going to have our hands full! Our zone will have 25 missionaries in it! The next biggest zone has 16 and the rest have an average of 12! I love this zone, though, and getting to be one of its leaders and so I'm super stoked for what's in store this next transfer. At the end of the transfer it's always nice to look back and reflect on the work that's been done. When Elder Walker came into the area we only had 2 investigators. As of today, we have 17. We have done a lot, A LOT of finding and talking and tracting and contacting and, my goodness, I have taught the message of the restoration like a bajillion times in these last 6 weeks and it's been bittersweet. We have found a lot of new people, but it's really hard getting them to fully progress. It's hard teaching the 1st lesson like 1000000 times but never really getting to other lessons and the commandments and ultimately to baptism. It's a lot of seeds planted, but barely any fruit as of right now.

So we will enter this next transfer hopeful that we will be able to get some of these people to the waters of baptism! With faith and hard work, and them feeling the Spirit we might just be able to do it!

In other news I finally had one of those intense experiences of running into someone while tracting who is very much against the church and this man was screaming at us and using some choice language to tell us just what he thought about us Mormons and was even about to come over to us and get even more confrontational when we decided to leave on our merry way.

Question for you guys: Have you seen the movie "Meet the Mormons" yet? We watched it as a ward for an activity last Monday and I personally really like the movie. If you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it!

***So I apologize. All of my emails went out late because Elder Walker and I were running around so much today trying to help out with transfers and all that, that we wrote emails on the go without wifi and decided to just wait til the next chance we had wifi to send them all out and we just barely got that chance, so here are all my emails! Sorry it's kind of scattered, but yeah. So that was the week. 

Love y'all and hope you have a fantastic week!

-Elder Alley

PS Tell MomMom thank you! I did get her package. I'll try to be better about making note of the packages I receive in emails home.

¡¿Un Año ya!?

Note from Elder Alley's mom: This picture was sent to me from the
sister who hosted them for dinner. I LOVE unexpected pics of
my missionaries. They are just the best.

The zone and my mandated Camel Hat pic.
(Note from Elder Alley's mom: I sent him a camel themed package to
celebrate his Hump Day aka his One Year in the Mission Mark.)

Mom, notice any additions to my study desk?
(Hint: It's from your Hump Day package.)

The Zone Post Egging (see the PS at bottom of email)

Elder Quintanilla before he headed off to Brazil Fortaleza Mission

July 20, 2015

Man, from now on every time I think about where I was a year ago, it will now be of me on a mission! I really do feel like I've hit this point were this is more my life than being home. Being a missionary is who I am now. There's really just no other way to put it. The schedule, the work, the language, it's all just so much more natural. It's worked its way into the very essence of who I am and what I do. Funny how a mission will do that to ya!

In response to our frustrations of the week before, we tried to make up some ground. We gained several good lessons and we wrote a note and bought a candy bar for the member we had disappointed and brought it to her to try and make up for the miscommunication. We hope it worked! At the very least it is the thought that counts right? 

We had lots of SUPER good lessons with our investigators and especially our less actives this last week. We testified that the answer to the struggles they're having with money, or family, or marriage, or whatever will all be solved if they will just put God first and come back to church and live the commandments. Of course, that made it all the more frustrating when all but 1 of the families didn't come to church.... ugh. But we must notice the blessings always and that 1 family that did come as a huge miracle.

The story behind this miracle is this. Basically, Elder Martinez and I went to visit this family when we were companions and we ended up showing up at their place the very night they were moving, so helped them move. They ended up staying within our area, so we tried later to stop by again but could never find them at home. Much later, Elder Sefcik and I (on exchanges) tried to see them, and the hermana answered the door and told us about how her husband had basically just left her. We shared stuff with her then, but eventually Elder Walker and I returned to see her with a member of our ward named Hermano Villatoro (from Guatemala) and we had a really good lesson with her about how the gospel of Jesus Christ promises us always that good things will come in the future if we are faithful...and she came to church yesterday! So there is the miracle of the week. :)

Lastly we had a sad send off as Elder Quintanilla got his visa to Brazil and left today. I really am going to miss that kid. We got along super well and he even taught me some Portuguese! I know he's going to do good things for the people of Brazil, though!

That's pretty much it for the week as far as I can think of. I mean, obviously more happened....but I'm too lazy to write it all. I've just come to grips with the fact that no one is ever truly going to understand what my mission was like except for me. haha

Tonight is looking fun, though, as we are having a Noche de Hogar del Barrio (Ward Family Home Evening) and we are going to watch "Meet the Mormons" together! Should be fun. Pics to come of that next week. Love y'all and talk to ya later!

-Elder Alley

PS Egging Story: 

Mom, you're going to think I'm really dumb for coming up with this, and you're right. Every week we come up with a weekly Finding Challenge for the zone and the winner gets a prize. This last week was "How Many People Can You Contact and Get a Return Appointment with Using The Book of Mormon?" If another companionship won they would get to throw eggs at us, and if we won, we got to choose a companionship to throw eggs at. So... Elder Walker and I wrecked everyone with 6 (second place got 3), but because we are charitable leaders and don't want to put ourselves above anyone else, we said they could still throw eggs at us....they hurt a lot more than I thought they would! Hahaha! Oh my goodness such a bad idea.... I'm sorry mom

Some Days Are Rough, Man

A pic I found from back when Elder Martinez and I were still together

From a missionary conference we went to a while back, as well.

And since I know you'll ask, Mother...

 (Front row: Elders Allen, Baldwin, me, Maldonado, Hermana Carvajal. 

Back row: Elders Martinez, Fotheringham, Sefcik, Preciado)

Leadership Training (Las Vegas Zone table) 

Going around the circle it's: Elders Carreño, Maldonado, Sister Su'apa'ia, me, 

Howe, White, Francom & Walker

PS Look at how pretty my comp is. ;)

Last week after I got a haircut

#CompUnity (Lunch at Zupa's)

July 13, 2015

So this week over all was a really good one, despite what the title says. Elder Walker and I did a TON of knocking doors and talking to people in the street. I think it was the most "finding" I have ever done in a single week and it was actually super fun! It's so cool to strike up a random conversation with Hispanics who are always a little shocked that these two white kids can speak Spanish. That's half the fun! 

We had a goal as a zone to use the Book of Mormon more in our contacting as well, because a lot of people just say, "Well all churches are good, and anyone talking about God is good, so what makes you guys different?" That's a valid question, and I could sit down with you and tell you many reasons why, and show you how even the Bible teaches us that there can only be 1 true church, but I don't want to Bible bash:) You want something that makes us different? It's as simple as our nickname. We are "Mormons" because of The Book of Mormon and we claim that it is additional scripture and everything we else we say hangs on whether that book is true or not!

So we saw success there in trying to find new people, but, man, was Sunday rough. I was in a down mood because we had called one of the missionaries in our zone who was supposed to have a baptism Saturday to see how it went. He was super sad on the phone and informed us that the man who was going to be baptized bailed at the last second and said he's not interested anymore. So that elder was sad, so that made me sad, and then NONE of the families and investigators we are working with came to church and because of that we are going to have to post-pone the baptism of the girl, Daisy, that we are working with. 

Then one of the members got mad at the missionaries after church because apparently we had been asked to translate for someone who was visiting and didn't speak Spanish, but there was miscommunication and it didn't happen and the member gathered us after church and was disappointed and said, "Missionaries, when we ask you for help, help us!" That got me even more down because we've been working our butts off just to build Ward trust, and that might have thrown it away partially. Then our lessons we had set up with the people we were meeting during the week cancelled. To top it all off, we had a lesson with an older couple who just couldn't grasp the concept of why our church is different, and why, if we are all worshipping the same God why it should matter? Ugh... again if you truly love God, you'd study his scripture, and if you truly studied His scripture you'd come to learn that He has clearly shown us time and time again that He has a specific way of working. There has to be a living modern day prophet. There is "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" and, therefore, one path to him and He's given us a church to be able to help us all be on that same path. "For the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry...til we all come in the unity of the faith." Again this is all from the BIBLE.

....I should probably stop ranting haha. It's just hard some days being a missionary. This gospel and this church become more and more amazing to me every day. They make more and more sense to me as I study them and as that happens to me, it is that much harder watching people reject this message, or even worse, just be plain apathetic towards it. Man, I never thought I'd come to the point where I'd be saying those kinds of things, but it's all true! And this church is true! And the Book of Mormon is true! And Chirst lives today and leads and guides this church! And I'll preach those truths until the day I die and then some!

As sucky as some days are, I still recognize that this is the greatest thing I could possible be doing right now. As a missionary this is the only time in my life where I am officially set apart to be a representative, an actual apostle! (Apostle with a little "a". The big "A" Apostles are the quorum), but an apostle nonetheless! Life is hard, but God is good. And for those who walk the path Christ showed us, good things are always on their way.

-Elder Alley

PS This was in an email the mission office sent regarding mailed packages:

Dear Elders and Sisters,

We would like for you to ask your family and friends to send your packages to the Mission Office:

 Nevada Las Vegas West Mission
4455 Allen Lane, Ste. 140
North Las Vegas, NV 89031 

We have several apartments that will no longer be accepting packages from UPS, FedEx and USPS.

Your packages will be held at the Mission Office until your Zone Leaders pick them up.   Otherwise, they end up being returned to the sender.   Zone Leaders are encouraged to be “excellent mailmen”.

Love ya all,


Sister Mohler

Happy Birthday 'Murica!

Elder Alley, Elder Gee & Elder Martinez

July 6, 2015

Man, every week so much happens I don't know how to truly express it all in email. We went on exchanges this week and I was with English Elder Walker! He's from Idaho and is such a stud. Anyways, we had some really good conversation throughout our whole day and talked about some deep stuff. It was a good bonding experience and it was genuinely one of those moments where I felt like I knew exactly why the Lord has me here, at this time, in this position. I truly will think of that exchange as one of the best days of my mission.

At one moment, during the exchange I had to literally stop and just marvel at the situation I was in. I'll give you the run down on where I found myself Friday afternoon. I was walking down a street in 110 degree weather in the baking sun, talking about papusas in fluent Spanish with a 80 year old El Salvadorian lady as she led my companion (who could not understand what we were talking about) and I to the house of her daughter so that I could talk with her (also in Spanish) to try and get her to come to church with me......like what the freak? I'm just a white boy from Spokane, WA who still likes chocolate milks and watching cartoons. How on earth did I get from there to here? Mish life be cray.

Fourth of July was spent proselyting until 6pm and then we had dinner with a family (Mexican food to celebrate America's independence) and then we got to watch The Lion King:D and then we went back to our apartment and watched fireworks. Las Vegas has 0 rules and/or regulations on fireworks and the 4th of July. So we watched as the 12 year old kids in our complex launched off the big high quality fireworks (the kind you usually only see in professional shows) just in the streets. Vegas, Baby! It was a fun time.

My spiritual food for thought for you is this. Is there such a thing as a cure-all gospel answer? Something we can 100% of the time fall back on for support when we need it? I say yes. Think about this quote from Jeffrey R. Holland. "The single most reliable thing in the gospel is Charity. Just doing something nice for someone other than yourself."

I believe that is the spiritual cure-all! Charity! When in doubt, just go do something nice for someone else. If you're lacking faith, if you're having trouble loving someone, if you're feeling depressed, if you are lacking the desire to fulfill a calling or follow the commandments, GO DO SOMETHING CHARITABLE FOR SOMEONE! As we think of others more than ourselves, we are filled with that pure love of Christ, and naturally begin to develop His qualities. It's the answer to anything: when in doubt, go be charitable!

Love you all and hope you had a fun time celebrating Independence Day. The crazy thought is that that was the only 4th of July that I will experience on the mission. I was home for last year's and I will be home for the next one. So hope you had a good one!

God bless America!

-Elder Alley