Letter #17 1/31/11

hola familia!  como te va--

espero que toda este bien en utah!!

sounds like its been a pretty long week.  busy but good no?   i{m glad
that everythings going well with moms business and dads traveling.
sounds like jack and slater are doing well too.

--  Landons coming to Mexico??
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

phw...   holy cow.  i am so pumped!  ah thats soooo great.    mostly i
couldnt be happier unless he was coming to mexico villahermosa!!   but
no this is good.  i{ll write him a big letter with some mexico tips,
mtc tips, study tips, spanish tips,  and other stuff next week. ah i{m
so excited, we{ll be able to speak spanish to each other and it{ll be
so great.   he{s going to love mexico.

so this week has been pretty good.  more or less.  ha.  yikes.  we had
3 baptismal dates fall through which was pretty depressing not gunna
lie.  and then we only had 1 investigator in church which was
frustrating. but the good thing is its a new week.  and elder tlachi
and i are ready to work.   we had almost 70 people in church again
this sunday and that was good.  more than double what it has been
other weeks.  also this week we{ve found some really good people to
teach which i{m excited about.

we have 4 families of investigators that are single parent families.
families where the father of the family has abandoned them.  its
pretty sad, but also pretty common here in mexico.  apparently the dad
just decides one day he doesnt want a family any more and leaves. i
cant imagine that.  but ya we have 4 families like that.  its really
sad. but on the other hand, they{re really prepared for the message of
the gospel.  and i think that the gospel of jesus christ is going to
give these mothers the help that they need to help guide their
families.

so M, his brother J, and his mother C are all doing
well.  they{re pretty much our golden family.  ah. they{re so amazing.
we visit them almost everyday. and i think elder tlachi and i are
getting pretty attached to them. and the other way around too. they
seriously love having us in they{re home.  the mom, C, has
started calling elder tlachi y yo, her children. she always tells us
that their house is our house and she{s always offering us food.
yesterday i brought my fotos of you all to show them. they loved the
pictures and said that our family is very beautiful. ha, but then we
used the fotos to start to teach the plan of salvation and the
importance of the family in gods plan.  it was really good.  its
really just a matter of time with them before they get baptized.
they know how serious and important it is and want to be prepared for
it!

also we taught our investigator K this week twice.  she{s the one
who has a husband who{s a testigo de jehovah,  i dont know if i told
you about her, she wants to be baptized but she{s worried her husband
will divorce her if she joins the church.  she mentioned it to him
once and he freaked out, they{ve only been married for four months and
k is pretty upset that her husband is kind of a control freak. ha.
we{re trying to stay out of her business, but we{ve been praying for
her to have the strength  to speak with her husband and that her
husbands heart will be softened.  because seriously she really wants
to be baptized.  she does all the homework we give her and more and
she always has amazing preguntas.  the other day in her prayer at the
end of the lesson she said -- te doy gracias senor por ayudar me a
encontrar la verdad.  ----ah!!! woot.   it was sooooo great.  but we
really have to wait to see what haappens with her spouse!

ah i wish i had more time to tell you about investigators and other things.

i{m excited to get this package and find out what happened to the
other. i still feel bad about the other package.   bah.  but i ate a
pizza this week so dont worry haha.
--also i{m eating. dont worry about that.  i think i{ve actually
gained. but i cant really tell.  i need to weigh my self but i dont
have a place to do it. yikes.

other stuff thats happened this week
an investigator told me that this city-- coatzacualcos is where the
natives in mexico believe that the white god visited, and taught the
people.

i killed a cockroach with my bare hands.  it was gross. and a complete
accident.  i grabbed something and the cockroach was under the thing i
grabbed and i smushed it. oh terrible. ha. i was dying.

i used the tool dad gave me for christmas to help fix our sink in the
apartment.  i thought he{d like to know that it has come in handy!

other stuff that i should have told you in past letters--
oh snap. we had a lesson a couple weeks ago with this testigo de
jehovah.  oh my gosh. bible bashing and everything for over an hour.
it was pretty bad.   he wouldnt let us start with a prayer, because he
said we were only having discusion about god and doctorine and we
didnt need to pray.    and at this moment both me and my companion
had the prompting to leave because he wasnt going to learn.  but we
both ignored it-- bad bad bad-- never ignore promptings of the spirit.
we bible bashed with this guy for over an hour and got no where.  we
werent like fighting with him. we were just testifying and he refused
to listen to any of it and kept trying to take control of the lesson.
it was bad.    but we learned an important lesson.  that when the
spirit tells you to do something. do it!.

also, last week we cast out a devil from someone. it was pretty legit.
 i felt the spirit like crazy.  oh it was awesome.   and then later
that week we gave a blessing to a sick lady who was bed riden and now
she{s walking. so thats pretty cool too.

also you can tell katelyn i saw a woman driving an xterra.

well family. love you all so much. hope you have a wonderful week.
tell all my aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents that i love
them! ah i{ve had a couple dreams about our family this past week!  i
hope alls well with all our family!

love elder lloyd

Letter #16 1/24/11

hola famila,
como esta<

thanks for the emails.  sounds like you guys had a pretty busy week
this week and its going to be even busier this coming week ya?   dads
in asia for two weeks and moms got her show for her business. lacrosse
has started up for jackson.  thats pretty legit.  hows conditioning
going jack? haha.  that week was probably my least favorite of
lacrosse, not going to lie.   and tambien the mini mission is this
week ya?  that´ll be fun.   tell jack to write me all about the mini
mission.   i wanna hear how it goes!!
slaters in the school play, thats pretty legit. tell him to write me
more about that. i want to hear about the plot and about his parts in
the play.  sorry to hear his ballroom team didnt do as well this time.
 usually they´re pretty good right?

speaking of mini mission!! landon gets his call this week! woot.  i´m
so pumped to hear where he´s going.  i wish i could be there to see
him open it!  i´m going to write him a letter next week!  with some
tips and stuff for the mish

so this week has been pretty bad in the numbers but really good with
the investigators. ha.  we had our first baptism saturday.  a boy
named C. i really cant remember if i´ve told you about him.
he´s 9. it was a really awesome baptismal service. and elder tlachi and i
are pretty pumped about the next few weeks. we think we´ll be having
some more baptisms here soon.
so transfers came and me and elder tlachi arent on the list!! woot. so
i´ll be here in the same area for at least another 6 weeks. most likely
12 more weeks.  i´m pretty excited.  we´re starting to see some
progress with our investigators.
M and his family are our main focus right now.  when we first met M we thought he was our golden investigator.  but it turns out
his family is like diamonds.  ah. they´re so awesome.   M and his
brother attended church with us sunday and it was really good.M's brother liked it a lot. and this was Ms second time. he
enjoyed it much more than the first time i think .    he said it wasnt
as boring this week hahaha.    but no really they are way good, M
could be baptised this saturday but i think we´re going to set a
baptismal date for the next saturday with his family.  they are so
great.  i think i´m going to send you some pics if i can.  next week
i´m going to send the cards with the pics in the mail for you all.
our other investigators who are new are < this lady named A--
she has two kids and her husband left them about 7 months ago. pretty
sad. but she has friends that are mormon and we taught her earlier
today and it was really really good.  i think she´s going to accept
the gospel really fast.  also i dont know if i told you about the guy
we talked to who told us he has cancer..  he´s also one of our other
really good investigators thats reading and progressing.   and there
are a lot of others that we´re teaching too that i think are going to
progress. so i´m really happy that they didnt move us.  because this
next six weeks is going to have a lot of exito para elder tlachi and
me.  but also a lot of work. which is good. we´d way rather have a full
schedule and be dead tired than have an empty schedule and have energy
ha.

so about the package... yikes.  sorrry i kind of messed that one up by
not sending that last line.  bah.  i feel terrible about it. bah.  i
hope it doesnt cost you any money.   thats kind of
depressing not going to lie.   because i´ve been having dreams about
this package.... bah.   owell.   also everything that you said you´re
going to put in the next package sounds grand!  i cant think of much
else i need.  except for maybe more tapes for recording my voice.
i´ve recorded in it two times and already one of the sides is almost
full. and i´d rather not record over the christmas tape cuz its the
only tape i have with your voices.   yikes.    as soon as i fill that
tape i´ll send it though!

so other stuff thats happened this week.     ha i taught the lesson in
gospel doctorine again.  about agency this time.  it was pretty good.
there were almost 70 people in sacrament again which is great!   but
the chorester i think is like 98 years old or something because we´ve
sang the same hymn 5 of the 6 weeks i´ve been here.  some hymn about
the new year.   i think she forgets we´ve already sang it ha.

well family i gtg.  love you all. talk to ya next week

elder lloyd

Letter #15 1/17/11

Familia =) 

ah,  its been another fast week.    this week we{ve been really busy and had our best numbers so far.  we have two investigators with fechas baptizmal.   so pretty pumped about that.   but we{re going to work really hard this week so that if we get transferred, the missionaries who move into our area will have a lot to work with.  we wont really know about transfers until sunday!  so i{ll be able to write in my next letter whats gonna happen =)

so mostly thank you all for your letters ha.  holy cow, definitely my favorite part of mondays is reading the emails you send.   tell my friends if they would like to contact me, use dear elder and then the week i get the dear elder, i{ll write them through this family email. or if its only going to be something short they can send it to one of you two, mom or dad, and then you can forward it to me.  

so mostly that missionary experience sounded pretty incredible mom!    i loved what you said about the feeling afterward with the spirt.   thats one of my favorite things that happens here in the mission field.  after a lesson when i can see that it was more the spirit guiding the lesson and teaching than me,  i know i{m doing my job ha.  its incredible how much the spirit can really tell you what you should say and when to say it.  we{ve been focusing this week on asking questions to the investigators with the spirit and its crazy how if you ask the right question you can find out what the investigator needs  to hear.  like we were prompted to ask this guy what has brought him the most happiness this past year, or something close to that, and he opened up and told us about how he found out he had cancer last feb.  it was pretty sweet how one prompting of the spirit can change the focus of the lesson 

 we{ve had some pretty legit experiences with the spirit.  it seems like at least once or twice a day the spirit will tell me and my companion the exact same thing and me and him will just look at each other and be like,  we need to share this scripture, or we need to sing this hymn.  its pretty legit.     the other day, my companion had a scripture in his head that he couldnt find in the scriptures during the lesson, and he was like  -- elder lloyd, do you have a scripture you want to share while i look this up,  and i said oh ya and i just opened up to this chapter in d and c that had come to my mind earlier in the lesson. and it turned out to be the same exact scripture that my companion had been searching for. pretty sweet. 

so i havent recieved your package yet!  yikes! i hope that it got sent to the right place!! =)   the next packages probably wont be delivered for two weeks ish. or maybe a week and a half. really depends on when the next person comes here from villahermosa!

so my ward here is improving!  i dont know if i told you about how most sundays there{s only like 35 people in church!    well the last two weeks its improved a ton.  last week it was 50 ish and this sunday we had 70  ah!! i was so pumped.  oh!! also we had our first investigator come to church this week.  pretty awesome.  except i think he was bored to death by the third hour bahahaha.   yeah.   idk. and he says our hymns are too sad ha.  this was M. dont know if i told you about him.   i think i did.  his whole family is listening to us now.  ah its great.  i think that they are our closest to baptism because the mom really things the teachings of the gospel can help her family.  and help her son who is struggling with an addiction to alcohol. !!

oh the other thing that was pretty crazy about this week!  it rained for three days straight, and not just like a sprinkling.   like pouring rain, the streets were rivers rain.  ha.  oh we were soaked. soaked.  ah and our feet were freezing.  the second day we decided to put the plastic bags that bread comes in, in our shoes and then put our feet in those to keep them dry. haha.  it worked pretty well.

also this week we havent had water in the appartment.  so thats been a pain. and apparently it happens pretty often in mexico. that the water in the city just stops working for a few days. yikes.

but how are you all doing_  sounds like jacksons grades are ridiculously good.  i{m pumped to see pics of my bros and the new game room!

random-- i ate armadilo today. and i thought i{d tell you about that.  it tastes a lot like beef.  ha.   also i almost died eating a jabanero chili this week.  seriosuly i thought i was going to lose my tongue hahaha.  oh it was bad.  i had tears coming out of my eyes it was so hot.  ha. 

ok things i need you to send.  equate daytime sinus soft gel pills.   i got sick last monday night with sinus stuff. yikes.  so in the next package please send some stuff for that.  i have enough meds here right now. but i{m low on that if i get sick again.   i{m better now i think.  my sinus{s arent hurting today.

also. i talked into the tape. i think i{m going to send it next week maybe.  especially if i get transferred.  so look forward to that.  mostly its awkward. and i think my voice sounds stupid. ha.  yikes.   and the first time i recorded i took up half of the side of one of the tapes. ha pretty sure i was just blabbering on about nothing. so i{ll try to improve with this.  its a little bit weird talking to nothing.  especially with my companion watching. he cant understand what i{m saying though ha.

good to hear that ben and mike and kim and katelyn and all my other friends are doing well.
sounds like cades loving the mtc.  i knew he would. its incredible. and sounds like shelby{s doing great too!

ah. i love you all so much
have a great week!
-elder lloyd

Letter 14 1/10/11

Hola Familia, 

holy cow, i thought last week was fast,  this week has zoomed by,  it feels like i was just writing you all like yesterday.

this week was been better success wise.  We{ve taught 25 lessons to investigators and 15 to recent converts or menos activos.  so we{ve been working hard.  and we started to see some success friday.  ha we{re calling it Dia de exito! ha.  friday we found 3 new investigators and taught all three the same day. ellos son perfecto ah. so good.  the first se llama C, we contacted her on the street in front of her house and she let us in and we taught her for 15 min about fe and good works.  because she didnt have much time.  but she invited us back the next day and we taught lesson 1,   and she agreed to be baptized when she recieves an answer to her prayers about joseph smith and the book of mormon. woot
the second investigator, P, we contacted on the street too. she said we could come visit her, but that she had been taking the lessons w- jehovahs witnesses for 2 years and was pretty serious w- them.    we{ve had 2 pretty legit lessons w- her and the last one was like 1 hour or longer and we apologized for taking so much time but she said that she wished that we could stay and teach for longer.  she{s totally going to get baptized. but not by us sadly, she{s moving this weekend to the capital.  so we{re going to continue teaching and then pass her address on to other missionaries. 
the third investigator M, we knocked at the gate of a menos activo, and he came out from behind the house and answered.   turns out he{s renting the house behind the investigators house.  we taught him the first lesson friday and again saturday and i was 98 percent sure he was going to come to church, but he didnt.  yikes. but thats ok. cuz he is a seriously awesome investigator, he asks questions that are like gold.  he was like ..so how do you two know so certainly,  i want to have that firm of a faith..  oh it was legit. and we taught him about prayer and finding answers in el libro de mormon.  ah i wish you all could meet these people.  along with all the other investigators. they{re seriously great.

as for R, ha. she completes all our compromisos, reading praying , but she wont attend sacrament meeting. she says she{s like a fruit that you cant pluck until its ripe.  and she thinks she needs a perfect knowledge of the gospel and the book of mormon before she{s ripe.   after the lesson where she said that, i was laughing so hard with my companion.  because this lady is like 78 years old. how much more time does she need before she{s ripe. honestly.  but ya we{ll continue teaching her.

as for the man that came up to us in the street.  turns out he{s a member.  but he was baptized febuary of last year and hasnt attended since march. ha. but he wants to turn his life around he says. so we{re going to meet with him and help him to make some changes.  ah i{m pumped for that.  missionary work isnt all about baptizing. its about helping people come to christ.  and fortifying the church in your area.  thats what we{re doing.  we{ve been doing a lot of re activating recently.

sounds like sacrament meeting went well. please send those testimoneies in a letter or you can just send an email!! and i can print them off in the morning on monday like i do your emails.

 i{m glad youre not worried as much about my health mom. i{m seriously all good here!! ha. but i{ve thought of some stuff you can send in the next package.  one of those cheapo watches from walmart, and a lint roller. bahaha. seriously though.    i{m pumped to get this package. Every time our zone gets together i{m anxious to see if its here.   our zone gets together tomorrow and i{m thinking i{ll get it then!!

oh i cant even describe how excited i am for landon!!  i hope so bad he comes here that would just be the best!  i could train him and everything,   but if he doesnt come here. my guess is paris france mandarin speaking.  yep that is an actual mission. ha.

  sounds like the mini missions coming up, fun fun fun

i{m going to send the priest quorum something on the tape. most likely ha.  but it wont be there in time for the mini mish.  so for the mini mish i{d say -- remember the purpose of missionary is to invite others to come unto christ and receive the blessings that  come from living the restored gospel of jesus christ.   one of the best ways to do this is by testifying. testify testify testify.  testify of the things your companion teahes and then of the things that you teach.  when you testify from the heart the spirit will be there.   the spirit always testifys of truth.  and you need the spirit because the spirit is the real teacher.  i testify that if you invite the spirit into your lessons w- pure testimony, you will feel the love of god for the people you teach,  and then the spirit will bear witness to you that the things about which you are teaching are true!

alright, well i didnt get an email from jackson. but as for slater,  sounds like schools good.  your in the play_  wow legit.  i think slaters got to be 100000000000 times cooler than me at that age, he does everything, plays, dances, drums, piano, lacross, geezz not to mention he has half a million friends. ha.  ok but to answer your quiestions slater,    on p.days i go to the store, do laundry, print - ready your letters, decide what i{m going to write back, which takes up the majority of my day,   ha, then i type it all up and send it to you.   i get to bed at 1030 every night, and my favorite food here is any kind of meat with rice. i also like the salsa{s they have.  except some are way way way way too hot. ha.  anything that i dont like i just cover in a really hot salsa so i cant taste it hahaha.

sounds like jacksons doing well though.  and i want to see the pics of this new look. 

tell ronette thanks for the letter. i always love hearing about whats up with the mechams. 

well until next week i guess, 
love you all,
elder lloyd


 

Letter #13 1/04/11

DEar family

wow this is the first week thats actually been pretty short! ha.  not sure why, but this week went by really fast.  i think its because i was more focused this week in the work.  and ive got a pretty good routine going now!  just like in the mtc, the days are way long. weeks are short. its weird.   i realized that as of wednesday i only have 3 more weeks with my companion.  the mission president here does a pretty good job of changing most of the missionaries to different places every six weeks!   but there is a chance that i might have another 6 weeks if i dont get changed in three weeks.     i hope i{m here for more time.  i dont feel like i{ve had enough success here to feel good about leaving yet.  at times i get so frustrated with myself,  i dont know what i{m doing wrong, this is a baptizing mission,  debo tener un baptismo cada semanapero we havent had any yet.  bah.     we only taught 20 lessons this week.   yesterday we had 12 appointments fall through ha. yikes. oh it was bad. we just walked between appointments all day. not teaching.  ha yikes.   but one thing i{ve learned about the mission-- when things are the hardest, it usually means some success is coming.  and thats what me and elder tlachi are hoping for--    enough complaining

my investigators-- we have 5 right now that are progressing,  which basically means they{re keeping all our commitments- read pamphlets, read scriptures, pray.  stuff like that.    my favorite is this old lady named R.   we found her knocking doors, she was the first one we knocked the day we found her.  and she let us right in and we sat down and got to know her.  turns out she has a son who had recieved the lessons like 20 years ago. and she has a book of mormon and reads it, and believes that joseph smith was a prophet and she thinks she needs to be baptized. ha pretty incredible right!!    only problem is she feels she needs to completely repent and have a perfect knowledge of the book of mormon before she can be baptized. so thats what we{re working with right now.      its amazing how the lord puts people who are ready into your path when your a missionary! 

some quick answers to your questions, and things i liked from your emails
-i{m doing well. i was a little sick yesterday. but i did the thing dad said with fasting for a day then drinking coke.  ha. i{ll give you some more details about that when i send an email to dad. haha.     but really i{m feeling much better now!   dont worry one bit about me,  ha, i have enough medicine here to start a pharmacy or somthing.   
if i get really sick i{ll call the mission office

-what am i eating  
i{m eating cereal and nutrigrain type bars in the morning.  but i just bought a loaf of bread so probably gunna start eating that in the morning and at night.  i really dont want to buy a pizza every week from you guys. thats 1000 dollars worth of pizza in two years.   they have peanut butter here i found out, and jelly. smuckers. so we{re all good. i{m going to buy plenty of that! but its really not popular here. my companion told me that almost every one doesnt like peanut butter here. ha. yikes. 
-- things for next package
tide to go pen, poptarts
haha.
--do you know if christian howard has his mission call
''thats amazing that slater didnt sleep through sacrament meeting.  its a miracle!! haha.
-that xbox room sounds legit, cant wait to see some pics
--so glad parker{s surgery went well.  that poor kid.  tell him i love him and miss him a bunch
--sounds like new years was a party in utah.   ha it was here too. the whole city was drunk.  haha. the mission president had the whole mission go back to the apartment a couple hours early that night.

--i had a run in with some dogs yesterday. it was pretty scary ha not going to lie.  the first time we just sprinted away.  the second time we passed this house we brought sticks and they came at us but we warded them off with the sticks. it was intense, there were like 6 foaming at the mouth and they were mad. ha yikes

-- also this week, i had a concert basically. ha. we decided to sing to some old people at a catholic old folks home.   when we went we thought we{d maybe sing to 2 or 3 old people in  their rooms.  nope.  they were all gathered together in one room with like 20 nuns and probably 30 catholic girls. the equivilant of a catholic young womans group only bigger.  in all probably 60 ish people. all girls, we were the only boys in the room.  we sang i know that my reedeemer lives,  just me and my companion. ha it was pretty intense. and they loved it and wanted to hear just me sing a christmas song in english. so i sang we wish you a merry christmas. ha it was pretty intense.  anyway.

ok so you want me to share how my testimony has developed right... ok i hope this is alright


oh man, this is going to be difficult to do in a short amount of time. ha.  but here i go!
i{m not sure if i can adequately describe in words the change that i saw in my testimony and in my heart from the time i entered the mtc until now.  its something remarkable. i had known since i was little that i wanted to serve a mission.   but after my first week in the mtc i was so lost.  i felt a massive responsibility for the souls of the people in mexico i would be teaching, and i felt immensly inadequate,  inadequate in knowledge of the gospel, in learning the language, in teaching others and even in my faith.   i realized i could not do it,  i could not do it without the help of the lord.  and thats when the real change occurs.  when you get on your knees and open up your heart to the lord, and you really come to know your father in heaven and the love he has for not only you, but everyone of his children.   And also the love of christ, the love he has for each one of us,  because he truly knows us,  he suffered every pain every hardship every sadness that we will have in this life time.  and because of this, he knows how to best help us in our times of greatest need.  i testify that there is no challenge, affliction or sin in this life too big for the healing power of the atonement.  no burden too great to be lifted by the hands of our savior.   Besides our savior jesus christ,  no one born on this earth is perfect.  but the gospel of jesus christ and the plan of our heavenly father are perfect.   may we never forget how blessed we are to have this knowledge in our lives.  i testify of the reality of the restoration and of the book of mormon.  there is more power and truth in the book of mormon than in any other book ever written.    i{m so greatful for the opportunity i have to serve and share this message with the people here in mexico. 

 


i hope that was what you wanted!!  ha i hope its not to short or long.  idk.  you can you other letters that i{ve written iff this isnt enough!

love you all, 

elder lloyd