Letter #25 03/28/11Hey Family!

hey family =)
ah its  been a good week =)       it was good to read your letters
today.  and hear from jackson and slater.   so i got your package
with the pictures of jackson without braces!!!! holy cow!! he looks
completely different.  i have a hard time looking at the other pics i
have now because i know he doesnt look anything like that now.
definitely looks more cool with this new look. i mean he already
looked tough. but now its like tough-cool.   haha =)  oh boy.

for mom-- you can stop worrying,  i am no longer sick. but this week
was a little rough.  i havent thrown up again.  only that i{ve been so
weak all week.  yikes.  but its all good now.

mostly my companion at the exact moment that i got sick, he got like
realllllly excited to get to work. he had a powerful prayer or
something.  but basically because of that i only got 1 day of rest and
we{ve been at it all week with me not at 100% energy.    but i feel so
much better and alls good.  to answer your questions.  i was on
medicine for 4 days.  antibiotic.  and then after i took some of the
other pills in my personal stash =)   and i{ve been taking vitamins and
pro-biotics daily!

so investigators.
L was baptized this week.

and J i think will be baptized this weekend unless we have a problem
with conference!! but i{m pretty sure we{ll be able to do it.   ah i{m
so excited for him.  he{s a powerful guy. 

we have a new family that i wanted to tell you about.  their names
are H and K.  and they are our new family de oro! oh they
are so awesome.   they{re a young couple.  but seriously gold.  they
want the help of god to help guide their family.  its great.  they ask
questions that are so perfect.   we{re going to have a family home
evening with them tonight!

alright- so some things that are more random
if you could send me my priesthood line,  that traces the lineage of
my priesthood. idk what its called in english. dad{ll know what i{m
talking about

i had another run in with cockroaches. only this time like 20 at the
same time.  they came out of no where all at the same time.     we
were in the house of an investigator.  it was pretty bad.  i only
could kill like 2 the others were too fast.  but they were like
everywhere,  on the couch and moving around on the walls.  i about
died.

also this week was the carnival de coatzacualcos.  and basically
its huge here. more than 50,000 people came from out of the city.  and
because my area is the center of the city  there were a ton of people
here.   and they stayed the whole week. basically its a huge party
like marti gras or something.   basically after about 8 or 9 at night
everyone in the town was drunk and partying by the beach.  thousands
of people.   ah yikes.

so thats been my week =)
everythings great
here{s a scripture for jackson that maybe he can share with his class--
romans 12 vers 21


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

Letter #24 03/21/11 Not feeling too well.

hola familia!
ah,  how are you all.  it was so good to get your emails this week.
sounds like theres been some phone drama in the house this week haha.
email me a pic of this new phone that slater got!  i bet he{s just
loving the touch screen!
tell jack good work with that hit in lacrosse.  its defenders like
that   that are going to make the other players afraid to come near
him ha.   bah.  i really would like nothing more than to go to one of
his games!  that would be tooo sweet.   when i get back he{lll be a
senior right?  so i can go watch him play on varsity!!! =)

welll basically this week was toooooo cool.  M was
baptized!!!!!!!!! ah!!!!!!!!!  it was sooooo sweet!    it was easily
the best baptism we{ve had.  there were about 20 young adults from the
stake that came to the baptism.   basically a month ago we started
brotherhooding him with other members and right now he has sooo many
friends in the stake.  its pretty sweet.         he asked that i would
perform the ordinance, so that was sweet.   ah it was so gratifying
because we{ve been working with him since january 13th and now all the
work has paid off.  and basically he{s  a ridiculously strong member.
 i{ll send you some pics later of the baptism if i get a chance.
this coming week we have another baptism.  L!   i{m not sure
if i{ve told you about him.  he{s about 40 years old. and has a family
with 2 kids.   and basically he{s really awesome tambien.  and he{s
pretty pumped for his baptism.  he came to the baptism of M and
it was pretty powerful and now he{s really excited for his baptism
this friday.

so basically yesterday i got really really really sick. yikes.  we
went to the house of a member and i dont know i´m not sure if it was
something i ate or if it was just time for me to get sick. but holy
cow.   its been terrible.  i was up literally the whole night  last
night  vomiting.   it was so bad.   but we called the presidents wife
this morning and she gave me some medicines to take. hopefully they{ll
start working here pretty soon!      i´ll be alright though, i{m
pretty sure that in a day or two i{ll be back to full health.

sorry this letter is so small,  i{m just not feeling too well. yikes.
but i love you all.  and i{ll write more next week.
-elder lloyd

Letter #23 03/14/11 Dear Family

=)  dear family!

ah! how are you all.   mondays are so good because i get to read your
emails and hear about how youre all doing.    sounds like this past
week has been good for you guys.

In response to your letters,  my gear is holding up great!  the only
things that are destroyed are my scriptures. ha they{re coming
unbound. yikes.   i should probably take better care of them if i want
to have the same ones for these 2 years.   other than that my shoes
are a bit scuffed but thats to be expected with how much i{m using
them!  i bought a fanny pack.  =)  but its more manly then it sounds.
its just big enough to put my scriptures and a few pamphlets.    the
other bag is a bit too big to have with me all the time.  but i still
use the other bag for times when i need to bring preach my gospel or
more books of mormon.

as for the food--  in the mornings i eat one of three things- cereal,
pb and j sandwich or a grilled tortilla w- ham and cheese.   and the
other meals are in the houses of members.  usually we have soup to
start, and then a main meal w- vegies, rice or beans, and a meat,
usually chicken. we eat lots of chicken.      and all the people here
just take everything thats on the plate and mix it all together. ha.
and usually i do the same.  except if theres beans, if there are beans,
i deal with those first. put them all in a tortilla and eat it.
they{re deffinately not my favorite thing to eat.   but its all good
food wise really.  i havent had 1 problem here with food.  i think i
had more problems in the mtc! ha.  also i have a new fav food here.
theyre called  hojaldras.  oh they are soooooo good.  its a lot like
pizza actually. which is probably why i like it.  you should look it
up on the internet.

in the next package if you dont have room to send tons of stuff you can
just send the poptarts salted nut rolls. and balding pills!!!  for sure
on the balding pills, i{m almost out.  and i recorded a video for you
all but i{m going to have to re record it because the camera angle is
funny and it looks like i have no hair.  ha.  yikes.   but i{m going
to send it to you next week! so be excited for that!

so this week has been soooooo much better! ah! it flew by so fast.
probably because we were having just so much success this week.  ah.
we had 6 investigators come to church this week.  and we found 12 new
investigators.  and we have 5 investigators with baptismal dates!
ah!!!!! and M is one of them!!!!!! =)  wooooooooot!  he{s going
to be baptised this weekend. 90% sure.  the only problem is that he
just got a new job! and he{s going to have to work sundays. but we{re
going to have him talk to his boss and see if he can get sundays off!
 but ya.  L has a baptismal date. and E and A,
basically this week has just been so good.   i feel like ammon, in
alma 26 when he{s boasting in his god.  right now i feel like verses
35 and 36. when he{s talking about how there arent men in the world
with more reason to glory in there god.  and then in verse 36, idk
exactly what it says in english but in spanish at the end i
particularly like when he says ... bendito sea el nombre de me Dios
que ha velado por nosotros,  peregrinos en una tierra extraña ..
blessed be the name of my god for not having forgotten his servants in
this strange land =)         i hope so much that at the end of  my
mission i{ll be able to feel like ammon in verse 11 when he talks
about having a joy complete.

i could not be more grateful for the opportunity i have to serve here
in mexico.

so i told you that we had 6 investigators in church.  this week was
conference here too but it was super sweet because the prophet spoke
via satellite to all the stakes in southern mexico. it was a sweet
opportunity for the investigators to see the prophet of god called to
lead us in these days.  not many investigators get that opportunity
antes de baptismo.

well i gtg write to my pres.    hope i{ll get to talk to you all, but
if not. love you all a bunch.  tell my cousins i say hi!

elder lloyd

Letter #22 03/07/11 hola familia

hola!!
how are you all doing! it was good to hear from all of you this week
in your emails!  thanks for sending them.  i always love to read
about whats going on in utah! =)
so i finally received the valentines day package! woot!  and pretty
much i loved everything in there. thanks for the watch.  ha i{ve been
showing it off to all the other elders. it has a backlight.  i think
its pretty legit.  and thanks for the tide to go pens and the thing to
clean my clothes.
but probably my favorite thing was the tape!  ah i love hearing all
your voices.  i{m so pumped to get the ones from the rest of the
family! ah woot!   tell katelyn and kim thanks so much for speaking in
the tape. i loved hearing them so much.   mostly i feel really bad
that this is the second tape that i{ve received and i havent sent a
recording! bah.  but i{m going to try and send some more videos this
coming cambio!  so thanks a bunch for the package.    in the next one
you can just keep sending the same stuff or suprise me.  i dont really
have anything in specific that i{m craving.  ha.  if you sent me a tie
dont have it be blue cuz i{ve got a ton of blue.  but whatever other
color will be grand.  i dont know if chocolate will melt in the mail.
the protien bars dont melt and they have chocolate. but idk.
also i got a dear elder from kim, and  some letters from people in the
ward. and a letter from shelby!!! ah it was soo awesome i was pumped!!
 tell shelby that i{m going to send him an actual letter this coming
week.  but idk how long it{ll take for a letter to get from here to
sweden!!

so it turns out i{m not getting transfered! and neither is my
companion! ha. crazy huh?  cuz i {ve been here for twelve weeks. and
my comanion has 18 weeks here.  we{re some of the oldest in the zone.
obviously we still have work here to do!   but actually i{m pretty
excited about it!  pretty much i{m really happy to be here with the
companion that i have.  i havent met another elder who is
as excited to work as he is.  we both want so much to be the best
missionaries that we can.  and we{ve progressed so much together in
the past 3 months.  its been crazy.   and idk,  i feel like i{ve
changed so much from the person i was when i left for the mtc.  but i
still feel ridiculously far away from what i need to be, in order to
be the missionary that god wants me to be. my companion and i have
realized this past week how much we are lacking.   we{ve had some
disappointments with our investigators this week.  but we{re starting
all over this coming six weeks. we{re going to set some new goals and
get to work even harder than before.  i counted up the contacts that
i{ve done since we arrived and it was like 1454.  but we hope to do
another 1200 in the next week.  god has asked (through our president
of the mission)  that we have a baptism every week. and i know
that god doesnt ask us to do things that are impossible to do.  its
like in nephi 3:7 and nephi 17   gods not going to ask us to do
something without providing the way for us to accomplish his work.
now all i have to do is make myself a servant worthy and ready for the
work.  
its ridiculously easy to fall into the routine of teaching and
contacting the same way every time. but really every contact and every
lesson needs to be different because every lesson should be guided by the
spirit.  and so thats where my companion and i are at right now.
strengthing our relationship with the spirit. and making sure we listen
to it every time we speak to someone.

our investigators-- most of them are all struggling a bit.


idk. right now my thoughts arent way positive about the
investigators that we have yikes... so i{ll tell you more about the
investigators next week after we work really hard this week!!  =)

tell jackson if he needs a spiritual thought he can go to 2 ne 32,
vers, 8-9   and talk about how in the moments that we least want to
pray... is when we really should the most. because if we{re feeling
like we dont want to pray that means that satan is working on us!

check my facebook and accept the mexicans as friends. i{ve given my
facebook info to some of the ward members =)

well i gtg!  i love you all so much.  hope you have a great week.
alls well here in mexico.

talk to ya later

elder lloyd