FAmily! holy cow, this may have been the longest week of my life. i thought the first week at the mtc was long ha, that was nothing! But i am really loving it! its way hard. way hard. holy cow and its so easy to get depressed when your not having success. but the moments when we do have success are soo good.
so i arrived monday of last week! that night was Terrible! ha we slept on the floor in this apartment that was so small and it was falling apart. they dont have carpet here so we slept on the carpet. luckily we were only there for 2 days. that whole night i was worried about spiders hahaha. i havent used my mosquito net since i{ve got here though! i think i might though cus i wake up everymorning with spider and mosquito bites on my arms.
so those first two days were just training. we did contacts with missionaries who have been here for a long time and had lessons with our mission president. he is nothing like i thought. the minute i came out of the airport doors he was waiting there for me, gave me a huge hug. he s an awesome mission president. i{m excited to get to know him better. anyway. then on wednesday we got shipped out to our various area{s around the misson! i am probably in the best area in the country i{m guessing ha. the city is called Coatzacualcos, and its pronounced quat sa qual cos all the natives just say coatza though. oh its sooooo cool. its right on the coast. and i mean !right! on the coast. holy moly. i can walk out my door, walk a block and see the ocean. its crazy. my address of my apartment is ---
Calle Queredo #607
Col. Centro
Coatzacualcos, Veracruz
but dont use that for mail. it will never get to me -- really never. ha. the mail system is no good here ha. you have to send it to the mission office because packages actually show up there yikes. which means i only get mail once a month. terrible terrible terrible. i{m gunna say thats the hardest thing about the mission. only getting to write you guys once a week. other bad news-- i only have 45 min. to write emails. soooo that bites. but its a mission rule and i{m gunna follow it yikes yikes.
the address of the mission home is
MIsion Mexico Villahermosa
CAlle Via 2 #104 departamentos 302 y 303
Col. Tabasco 2000
C.P. 86035
the telephone of the office is 01993317724
anyway. so i arrived here wednesday. my companion is Elder Tlachi, he{s a native. which i{m happy about. he doesnt speak english which is fine, because i{m speaking better spanish every day. that moving up to intermediates really paying off. i can understand more and more everyday. i{m so greatful for the help i{m getting from the lord with this.
so the food-- ha. yikes. not going to lie. its pretty bad, i{ve eaten some stuff that looks pretty dang gross but i did a bunch of praying in the mtc and i can honestly say that it hasnt been a problem since i{ve got here. i think i{ve just mentally come to the conclusion that i{m going to eat whatever is put in front of me and like it. and really we{re so hungry and tired at meal times we{d eat almost anything anyway. for breakfast we just have cereal, but for the other meals we{re in the houses of members ha. not going to lie, there was a night this week when i laid in bed and just thought about pizza for a good fifteen minutes before i went to sleep haha. but i{m going to be fine food wise.
unless i get sick. which is a definite possibility seeing as i{m not obeying any of the food rules. i{ve ate from street venders, i{ve drank water that members have given me ha. i havent got sick yet though. so i guess we{ll see! i{ve been praying not to because i really need to work. we{re having a hard enough time finding success as it is. if i get sick it{ll be no good!!!
my companion and i are working very hard. his previous companions have all been extremely extremely lazy he said. which is why when i arrived we had zero investigators. so frustrating. so we have to start from scratch. our goal as a mission is to have a baptismal service for every companionship every week. thats not going to happen for us because we had to start fresh. yikes. but we{ve been working diligently and now have 6 investigators. however 0 are progressing haha. which is a problem. we{re praying to find people who are prepared for the message. my favorite thing to do is contact. we have soooooooo much success contacting. i{d say 1 of 3 people we talk to contacting give us their address. unreal right, well the bad thing is our area is a place where alot of people work, and because of this, almost everyone we talk to dont live in our area and when we get their address we have to pass it on to other missionaries for them to teach. we{ve contacted close to 150 people this past week and i think we have close to 40 references to pass on. and almost 0 for ourselves. ha so we are having success but at the same time we have no one to teach. we{ve been visiting some less active members of our ward this past week because we just dont have people to teach. also we{ve been trying to get referencias pero its hard because the memebers here are not very helpful ha. we go to their homes, sing hymns, teach and bear testimony and then ask for references and we have yet to get 1 from a member. but i have faith we{ll find someone we{ve been praying and fasting to find someone ready for baptism. we just need to keep working hard.
so-- mostly i had forgotten how completely blessed we were in the united states. holy moly, there are some poor people in this world. i couldnt believe the places that some of these people are living in. this is a pretty diverse city though. there are alot of really really rich people near the beach but in land, there are some people poorer than i think i{ve ever seen. we{ve taugh people who live in shacks. a whole family in a shack the size of slaters room..... cant belive it. and the thing is most of them are so happy. and so grateful for what they have. its amazing.
sundays are pretty wierd here. there{s like 50 people in our ward. and the people who were suppose to speak this last sunday didnt show up.... so me and elder tlachi had to give the talks. and then later we taught gospel doctorine. bahaha. my companion didnt tell me that till we were there but apparently we do that every week. woot.
well i dont have much more time but i love you guys i hope all is well back at home. feel free to write longer emails. i{m going to pring them off here in the mornings on monday and then write you guys in the afternoon!
also dont worry about christmas. i{ll be calling you. you dont need to call me. i dont know exactly how its going to work but my companion and i will figure it out!!
love you all- elder lloyd
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