The Week at a Glance

Tanner Vance and I! He was my roommate the 2nd time I went to EFY!
He lives right by the apartment complex where I'm currently living.
It's a small world, after all. ;) 

Our sweet apartment. 

Study Room

With the Burts. They're awesome!
She is from England and they are both so funny.

Elder Ernst and the Burts

January 25, 2016

Tuesday
We had Zone Training Meeting. Elder Ernst and I trained up the zone on Ch. 8 of Preach My Gospel "Use Time Wisely" and also on how to Teach Repentance & Baptize Converts. The motto of Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts actually comes straight from the leadership of the church!

Wednesday
It was really cool because we got to go to a special broadcast just for missionaries where Elder Bednar, Elder Oaks, Elder Anderson and other General Authorities all gave us training on how we can be better missionaries. It was the first time they've done something like that in over 10 years so I felt honored to be a part of it! #TRBC (Teach Repentance & Baptize Converts)

Thursday
We had mission-wide leadership training. It was fantastic and exactly what I needed. We talked a lot about diligence and it got me fired up to just give my all to the lord these last months of my mission.

Saturday
We had exchanges with the AP's. Elder Palmer (my favorite goofy Canadian) came and joined Elder Ernst and I for the day, and it was awesome! It started out with a lady yelling at us and telling us that we were wrong and that we had been deceived. In the middle of her ranting Elder Palmer stopped her, and then bore a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I was totally feeling it, but she just put her hands on her ears and said, "Stop! I bind you! That is the devil speaking!" To which I feel bad, but it kind of made me chuckle, and then she stormed off. It was a great way to start the day! Haha And then the rest of the day was filled with knocking doors and street contacting and going to a baptism.

On the way to the baptism, actually, we got hit by a car. Some guy just lane changed and didn't see us and he banged up our passenger side door pretty good. No one got hurt and minimal damage to the car was done, but it was the first time I've ever been in any sort of car accident so that was cool! We pulled to the side and talked to the couple and found out they were less active members of the church. We said we wouldn't be mad at all about them hitting us, on the condition that they let us send missionaries over to their house to help them get active in the church again...and they accepted! A little fender bender isn't going to prevent us from fulfilling our calling! #CantStopWontStop

Sunday
We had church and some investigators came and all that jazz and afterwards we had "Nacho Sunday" over at the Kings (Ward Mission Leader). It's a missionary tradition. :) So overall it was a good week.

Spiritual Thought: I discovered D&C 123:13-14 this week. In the first verse it mentions that "we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness." I love that imagery. When I met the Savior, the first time I see Christ face-to-face, I want him to find me completely worn out, absolutely exhausted and beat up, and wasted, because I exerted everything I had to help Him in His cause during my time on earth. I want to just collapse into His arms and say, "I gave all I could to serve thee." That's my motivation. That's what keeps me going when I'm tried and sore and don't want to press forward. That moment, will make it all worth it. My wish is that you all can feel the same. There's my two cents for the week.

Not much else to report, love y'all, talk to ya next week!

Cuídense mucho! Los amo muchísimo!

-Elder Alley

Sun City

January 18, 2016

Sun City is the name of a housing community that takes up about 1/4 of our ward and it is filled entirely with old people. You have to be at least 55 years old to buy a house there and you can't have kids living with you haha. So, needless to say in the time we've spent working in that part of our area, we have met a lot of very cranky old people, but that's alright because I'm sure I'll be old and cranky some day too:)

It was a good week and it flew by fast! We did a lot of finding and have been trying to get to know the members well in our ward. There's a ton of super cool families here that I've already hit it off well with. Especially our ward mission leader, who's name is Bro. King. He is hilarious! And his family has a sense of humor that totally matches the Alley Clan’s so I think I'm going to enjoy working with him.

We had a baptism yesterday for a guy named Alan. He was originally Jewish, but married an LDS gal and started investigating the church. He is a super solid guy and it was fun to be there. I only taught him about 2 times in this last week in preparation for the baptism, so I don't feel I played any role really in him making this decision, but I was still honored to get to participate in the ways I did.

Red Rock is awesome! It's in a nicer part of town called “Summerlin" and the members are great. Also, the zone has a great vibe to it. A lot of missionaries who want to work hard are here right now so we definitely want to take advantage of that this transfer. I know it’s early in my time here, but I have a good feeling about Red Rock:)

My spiritual thought for you guys is kind of an echo of a principle I've already shared, but it is still important. We need to make sure that just as the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, that it is also the personal keystone we have to our testimonies. In talking with many people who don't believe in the church, not a single person has been able to explain to me how we got the Book of Mormon if it wasn't divinely inspired. I've been reading the Book of Mormon so in depth recently, and it just absolutely blows my mind the quality, and depth, and consistency of the message of the book. And Joseph Smith translated it in less than 3 months! Most of us can't even read it all the way through in that amount of time! I know the Book of Mormon is true, and it was given to us so that we can have an anchor in these perilous times to keep us from being "tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine." If you are not reading daily from that book, I exhort you (to use scriptural language) to begin to do so! It'll save your soul! And on top of all that, it's just a great read:)

Another thought, "the scales of heaven will always keep the amount of positive and negative evidence there is in the world in a balance, so that faith will always end up being the source of our decision." Our bishop shared that and I though it was very profound. There's always going to be new stuff that comes about Joseph Smith and a Church History that is negative, and there will continue to be ruins and other discoveries of some sort that match up with what the Book of Mormon describes. But, in the end, all that evidence that influences either way doesn't matter. We need to focus on receiving spiritual confirmation to learn spiritual truths. Mostly due to the principle of "hearsay." All the books and history we have are things that other people wrote based off of what they heard from other people. We don't have any 1st hand witnesses anymore of those times. Everything is hearsay. 2nd, 3rd, 8th generation hearsay. It's hard to trust anything we hear nowadays because of how corrupt the sources are. That's why faith is the answer, that's why God is the answer, because he is the only pure source of undefined truth.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Anyways, it was a good week and I’m looking forward to spending more time up here in Red Rock. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'll talk to ya later!

-Elder Alley

4th Quarter

With Elder Anderson and the APs

Having a "photo shoot" with the APs haha

Saying goodbye to the Saures

With my new comp, Elder Ernst (The Greenie Wonder) 

January 11, 2016

They call me the Lebron James of missionary work because I'm a 4th quarter missionary! Haha but for real, it's crazy to think that I’m headed into the last part of my mission. They're doing transfers different now, so I am actually already in my new zone with my new companion and ready to go! The new apartment is nice. I'm liking the looks of the area so far, and me and my new companion Elder Ernst are getting along just great. I'm really excited for this upcoming transfer.

Elder "The Greenie Wonder" Ernst is a good guy. He's got that nickname because he was called to be a Zone Leader when he had only been out for 3 months! He's been out  for a total of 6 now and I can already tell he's a good missionary. He's from Upstate New York and worked as both a personal trainer and a chef before he came out so he is going to have me getting jacked and eating right. :)

It was sad to leave my old area. I loved living with the Saure's and being with Elder Anderson, but that tends to be exactly the situation every time I get transferred somewhere new haha. I earned the respect of Brother Saure by holding my own against him in a ping pong tourney and as a token of my earning that respect he gave me one of his high quality ping pong paddles to take with me. I had him sign the case. I think it'll be worth some big money someday. ;)

There's not too much to report from the last week. I said goodbye to some families that I got close to during my time up in the northwest part of Vegas and we had a super solid lesson where the people were talking about how they can feel themselves changing from the inside out since they've started meeting with us. They talked about how TV isn't even appealing anymore and they find themselves wanting to read the Book of Mormon. That is the Spirit at work right there! Mosiah 5:2 fah dayzzzz.

Life is good, the mission is great, and I'm stoked to be here in Summerlin (Red Rock). I’ll talk to ya next week!

-Elder Alley

In Retrospect

January 4, 2016

With the closing of the year 2015 happening this past week and the welcoming of 2016, I found myself reflecting a lot on the events of the past year. First off, I just can't believe how incredibly fast it went. I remember last New Years I was excited because I was heading into my "Blackout Year," or the year when you spend all 365 days of the calendar as a missionary. It seemed like a huge mountain in front of me to climb, yet here I am. And it just passed by in what seems to be the blink of an eye.

However, I think I can say with confidence, that 2015 was the greatest year of my life so far! I have never before grown so much, learned so much, made so many new friends, helped so many people, been helped by so many, grown closer to God, and just felt so satisfied with my life as I have this past year. It was a year for the books without a doubt.

So what does that mean for 2016? Well, I say let's make it even better! I'm so stoked for this year. And I'm especially excited for the next 6 months. Not at all because I want them to go by quickly! I want to savor every last moment I have out here in the field, and I finally feel like I'm just now figuring out missionary work! Haha! It only took me a year and a half, but things are clicking right now like they never have before in terms of how I can work with the wards and members better, how to teach more like the Savior taught, how to be fearless, how to listen to the Spirit, how to be a righteous leader, and all those other things I've been trying all my life to learn. I am in no way a perfect missionary, but everything right now just seems to be clicking, and I want to take advantage of all the time I've got left as a full time servant of the Lord to put them into practice. So, here's to the best year I've had yet in 2015, and here's to making 2016 even better!

This past week was a lot of fun and marked by opportunities Elder Anderson and I had to really learn and apply how to be righteous leaders. There were some cases of disobedience we had to work with, but we were able to sit down with these missionaries and have really good discussions and get down to the core of what things they are going through right now so that we can help them. I think I've learned more about Gospel Leadership this past week than in all my weeks before combined. It was a great experience:) And on top of that for one of our lessons this week we took this kid out to get ice cream and talked with him in the parlor there about life and God and all that and now he wants to start meeting with us consistently!

This next week is the last week of the transfer so we will be getting calls as to where we will be going next transfer. Elder Anderson and I are really hoping we can stay together for another one, but we will have to wait and see. Today officially marks my "6 Months to Sexy" countdown, so it's time to start hitting the push-ups hard. Get ready Dad, I'm coming after ya!

Love you all! ¡Feliz año nuevo!

-Elder Alley