Saturday, December 21, 2013

Week 83 (December 14-21, 2013)


BOLDOG KARÁCSONYT!!

Christmas Zone Conference(s): So all five of the Zone Conferences we held and trained at this week went absolutely wonderful! It was a real treat to be able to see everyone and catch up with old friends/companions. Being Santa was quite a unique experience but I actually really enjoyed it! Doing Musical Theater as a child was not in vain.
This is how our everyday went this week for the conference:
--Meet with the Zone Leaders and train them about leadership
--Give a training to the missionaries
--Hear from the Zone Leaders, Senior Couples, then from Sister and President Smith
--Big, delicious lunch (it was still amazing, even on the fifth day.)
--Watch the year's slideshow
--Take a picture with all of the missionaries
--Organize everyone into groups
--Get the games going
--White Elephant gift exchange
--Special guest--SANTA!
--Clean up
SO, as you can see, it was a pretty exciting week! There were some really awesome presents for the white elephant this year. After playing a few times, Elder Headrick and I ended up with some interesting/rad stuff!!

The Training: We really enjoyed giving our training each day. The missionaries have given us some great, positive feedback on it so far. We've been studying the attributes of Christ as a mission lately.  We focused on the the last sentence of the second paragraph on page 115 in Preach My Gospel which reads: "Just as vital as what you do however, is who you are." We focused on what our projections as people are based on. It's based on behavior (which is our actions and words) which comes from habit that originates from experiences and conditioning--all regulated by our thoughts. We talked about how to "reprogram" ourselves as people. We used the example of how after restarting a computer, a lot of programs will open and sign in automatically. We related it specifically to having to write a paper at home and having skype open and sign in automatically as well as the web browser with facebook as the homepage. We said that if we wanted to change such a thing, we need to use the settings. Settings on a computer make it possible to control how the computer operates and projects itself to the user. The "settings" button in our own life is the Atonement. Just like settings, the Atonement is always there and available--but we actually have to use it. We have to first know what we want to change. We then have to know what we want that to become (bad programming has to be replaced with good programming). Then we actually have to go in, give effort, and make the change. Then the most important part is the SAVE BUTTON!! Which is constantly keeping that change and not allowing ourselves to revert to old ways.

We then had the missionaries write a D.I.P. (Something I came up with a couple months ago in my pondering on existentialism.) It stands for Dissociative Identity Paper. It's basically a way to make a map or a plan on the person you want to become. That's why agency is important--it's the ability to choose, yes--BUT it's essentially the ability to BECOME. Anywho, so we had them imagine the perfect version of themselves, as well as all the different qualities and traits that go along with it. I told them to imagine the person their husband/wife deserve and the mother/father they need to be for their children. "The returned missionary that all the young women want to date and all the young men want to be like." Then we had them skim through the Attributes of Christ section in PMG, then they wrote their D.I.P. 
How does a D.I.P. work? Great question, here are the 3 rules:
1, You must write in the third person. (ex. he is, she is, he can, she can, etc.)
       --(it's in the third person because when we remove ourselves from ourselves, it's easier to write about ourselves.)
2, Everything must be in the present tense. (if you're always thinking in the future, why would your brain want to start making changes now?)
3, Every statement must be a positive one. (the subconscious mind cannot process negative words.)

My D.I.P. went through a lot of rough drafts. Now I have a final draft that I read everyday after I write in my journal. I like it because it's very personalized to me. I used the attributes that Christ had to help create my own perfect version of myself. Christ was his own person. We are our own people. At the top of my paper I have, "Who is Cameron Todd Alldredge?" then I have paragraphs full of different qualities I am striving to change or develop--all in the third person. I read about myself, then I am able to evaluate and judge myself (compared to MYself) to know where I stand and how I can specifically progress. I hope this is all making some sense. You know, the new year is coming up, the perfect time to give this a try. Trust me, it works.

What Should We Do?: We had this neat experience just this morning before coming here to email. We started tracting this morning to find out that because of the holidays, today is a regular work day! Bleh. We asked ourselves, "should we just go email right now instead of tract? We can just do it later when everyone gets home from work." After some thought, we felt that we should continue our tracting, so we continued. A few minutes later, a lady let us into her apartment and we began to talk to her and get to know her. We asked her the question, "if you could ask God one question, what would it be?" She got real quiet and said, "I would ask him which Church is true."
Well, I'm sure the story is pretty predictable from here. We taught about Joseph Smith as well as the Restoration and she invited us back to meet with her next week after Christmas. After all was said and done, we were so glad that we didn't pack up and come here to email like we had debated.


Tomorrow!: Tomorrow I will be going back to Kispest to baptize a lady whom Elder Ábrók and I taught while serving there. I'm super excited! It's going to be a really special day.

Well, I'll be honest, I have no idea when I will be able to email again. I'm going to be skyping on Christmas day but as far as emailing goes, it's a mystery. We're going to be spending this upcoming week with a lot of incredible families. I'm stoked! Until next time, have a very merry Christmas. I love you all!

Give the best gift to your Heavenly Father and read about His gift He gave to the world two thousand years ago. That same new star was also seen in the Americas--all for the sign of the birth of the Savior of the world. Read about all about it in The Book of Mormon.


Sok Szeretettel,
Alldredge Elder



Getting ready to be Santa
Showtime!!!

President and Sister Smith with Santa

Santa and I
Elder Headrick's family sent him (and his awesome companion) some Christmas fun!