How do we serve God?

The whole purpose and essence of our lives is to become all that we can become and that is to be perfect as the savior so stated it. Perfection is a difficult thing to attain and in looking at it like Mount Everest it seems like a daunting task. In becoming perfect we must be humble enough to take help from others and to take advice on how we can become a better person, not to think we know everything because that will lead to the distruction of ones self. We need to ask ourselves these questions; How do we treat others? How do we serve God?  How do we follow in the Saviors footsteps? How are we doing in attaining perfection?
I have been very inspired by Jeffery R. Hollands talk given to BYU students entitled "How do I Love Thee?"
This last week has been that of many blessing from our Heavenly Father. Tayos baptism was fantastic, she is so amazing and so willing to follow the saviors voice. She is going to have many great and wonderful blessings in her life for the great decisions she is making now and also her 4 year old daughter will be greatly blessed. I feel she has a keen sense of recognizing the spirit.
The kids sound great, haha I can only imagine how funny they are all becoming. We had a great teach with Sika, Maria's neighbor, and just this last Saturday it was her birthday and we went by and dropped off a gift...the book of Mormon.......and talked to her whole family. They are wonderful and very warm and welcoming and we feel they are quite receptive to the gospel, so we will see where it goes from here.
One of the greatest things this last week was our temple conference, there were so many things taught to us from President and Sister Shamo and the Assistants and also a few other wonderful people. The spirit was there in abundance and overflowing to us. I love to feel my heavenly fathers love, to feel his joy and understand his ways is to be truly happy. I loved it all just so much and it makes me try my hardest to become a better person which is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. The temple was a GREAT place of peace for me to reflect and drink deeply of the living water. This is part of our theme for the next year..... The Bread of Life and the Living Water.
This week shall be exciting as we extend baptismal commitments and establish those who were teaching to help them progress towards conversion to the true gospel of Christ.
I love you all so much thanks for everything that you do for me it is more helpful than you could ever know. Have a good week and as the guy from "Cool Runnings" so poeticly put it "Remember who you are and where you come from".

Love Elder Garren Allred

A great Relief!!!

Wow what a great and wonderful week. This morning at 9am I took my driving theory test and thanks to all the help from elder Ellsworth and all the prayers I passed it. Now on to the practical test in a few weeks and I will have a full UK drivers’ license. I felt so relieved when I passed the test, an overwhelming peace came over me. Now I know it is just some silly driving test but it made me reflect how we are here on the earth for a test to prove our love to god, and if we do so I am sure the peace and happiness we will experience will be almost too much to handle. A fullness of joy as the scriptures describe it. Now this silly test for me has played out much like people’s lives, the first time I went to the take the test I totally forgot a paper and I wasn’t even allowed to take the test. This was due to my thinking it was no big deal and not reading the fine print. Waste of life if people don’t search and find out what they need to accomplish in their lives. The second time I knew what I needed to take with me but I lacked on the studying and preparation, I felt I didn’t have enough time to study and there were more important things to do and I didn’t want to spend more money on a silly book to help me study so that time I went and was able to take the test but failed, I was close but not close enough. So with the encouragement of others and a strong push from President Shamo I took it again, but this time I didn’t make the same mistakes as the first two times and the outcome was glorious a near perfect score. Now why did I tell you this somewhat pointless story, because our lives are like this, many people will make the first two mistakes and never learn from them and never get what they really want in life and have true freedom and only after putting in the time and effort to do the right thing will we be able to succeed at it and pass. Let’s all pass the test of this mortal life and go on to greater glory and live with heavenly father and Jesus Christ in the celestial kingdom. So that was my lesson learned for the week.
This last week was good, been struggling to find people that are good to teach, most of the people we were teaching turned into wasters and are no longer interested but heavenly father has given us some revelation for us that we are going to run with in our area to do more work and build up the kingdom in a great way. Tayo that sweet lady is getting baptized this next Sat. and we are so so so excited for her. she is so ready and is going to make a great member of the church and wow is it going to affect her daughter that is only 4 years old ,how great that is. We had a ZLC (zone leader council) at presidents’ house this last Fri. and it was great to be there with them and feel of their spirit and hear some intense and amazing stories. I love you all and thank you for all you do. I can’t say that enough you’re the best. Keep me in your prayers to finish my drivers’ license stuff that would be grand:) Have a great week and read Acts 5, and 20 amazing chapters with great stories about the early missionaries in Christ’s days.
Also go to BYU speeches and Look up LeGrand Richards talk about missionary experiences. Enjoy these gospel gems. Thanks for the food it was great, also if you’re sending a package you don’t need to put anything in it for winter as it is pretty much over. You could throw in that book from Tad R Callister, "The Inevitable Apostasy". Yeah I hear about my other companions ever so often, I will update you about them later.
Love you all have a great week.
Elder Allred

Happ New Year All Yall!!

The Lord shall lead us not knowing before hand what you shall do
New years was great! Nope we haven't got the box from Tescos yet, and me and Elder Ellsworth are staying together here for at least another six weeks. Waaahooooooo! I am so glad your getting excited about your new calling, hey that movie is sweet we watched part of it at a members home, also when I was in pool we saw part of it being filmed, and I know some of the people they interviewed, man the youth of the church are so wonderful and strong. Yeah Maria treats us so kind, she is the best. They don't really do much of anything on new years here except a massive party up at the bridge and loads of drinking and people being crazy. Yes we had a great start to the new year with a baptism of Henry Hyde, a amazing guy that really understands the gospel and the doctrine sometimes just astonishes him and he seems to be so happy to learn of these great restored truths. Everyone else is coming along just great, We have 3 more people preparing for baptism so far in this month of Jan, This sweet lady Tayo is a referral from some recent converts, and she is getting baptized on the 16th, she really in so interested and seems to be happier as she grows closer to her heavenly father. Man loads of crazy things are happening now as we were supposed to have a mission conference at the temple but due to crazy weather it has been postponed and travel and missionaries going to there new areas is all up in the air. So i will have to keep this short. Let us know what's happening with Tescos, let Maria know and she can tell us when it shall come.
Have a great week and love you all lots. Thanks for everything and all the prayers and support.

Love Elder Allred