hey fam.
ah those pics of powell look so great. looks like you all had a
blast. and it was good to hear that jack and lexi could get the
anchors all set in well. and that slater and parker were such a good
help with the clean up crew!! i´m definitely jealous. also tell
patrick a big thanks for sending me that summary of their trip. ha so
funny. i could definitely hear kameron and katie talking as i read
it. i´m only about half way through though cuz it was super long.
i put it in the smallest font and widened the page and it was still 8
pages long! ha. but i´m glad that everything went well there.
sounds like it was a pretty amazing experience.
this week has been a bit depressing to be honest. every saturday
we get our hopes up so much that our investigators will come to the
church. we had over 10 that we had visited the day before that said
they were planning on going and we planned on passing to pick up 5 of
them but sunday came and no one showed up and the people we went to
look for werent there. it was super depressing. its a terrible
feeling when no one comes because you just feel like a failure.
because we spend the whole week teaching and giving our effort to
bring the spirit, all so that the people will have desires to attend
church on sunday and feel the spirit there. its super disappointing
when they dont come. and if they dont come, they dont progress. so
its been a bit rough this week but we´re excited to get starting
again. we have an appointment with a drunk guy we found, -- dont
know if i told you about him. we found him in the street and he said
he wanted to change his life -- which is what every drunk says. -- but
we told him we´d visit him in his house and we gave him a pamphlet.
and we´ve taught him a couple lessons now and we visited him yesterday
and he accepted to be baptized so we´ll see what happens with that.
there are seriously like 20 people we´re teaching right now. all
are such good people. but sadly i think we´re going to have to stop
teaching some of them if they dont start to progressar. we´re here to
harvest, not to plant is what all the missionaries say here ---- i
think we´re here to do a bit of both. but we definitely cant teach
people who dont progress!
anway.
this week i´ve been thinking a lot about the atonement and how the lord
understands our pains. both physically and spiritually. i was reading
a general conference talk about it and it helped me to realize some
things. first the lord knows exactly how to help us in our trials.
we have our trials for a reason. they make us stronger. they help us
to be humble. they help us to become reliant on the lord. but i also
learned that one of the reasons that we at times feel pain is so that
we can also understand, in some infinitely small way, how christ felt
when he suffered for us. his suffering he felt was an infinite pain.
he felt the pains of everyone who´s ever lived and who will live.
when we feel pain we began to understand a little better really what
he has done for us. and in the obra misional this is something
incredibly important because if we dont understand what the lord has
done for us how can we help others to understand it.
i love the scripture in ether 12 that talks about our weaknesses, but
i think in that verse we can also substitute- challenges, struggles,
or pains. when we feel pains and we turn to the lord we become
stronger and our faith grows and we become better servants in the
hands of the lord.
may we all find ways to be patiente in our afflictions and always
remember him who suffered all things,
in the name of jesus christ, amen.
to answer some of your questions
-the brother of my president of the mission is still in the hospital.
he didnt die. he just got attacked and shot. there are a lot of
robberies here. if you see some of the older men without their shirts
on -- a lot of the time they have some pretty nasty scars from where
people have stabbed them with machettes. --- but dont worry. mostly
it happens in the middle of the night -- when missionaries are locked
up in their houses =)
anyway. tell jackson and slater i love them so much. tell them to be
good. remember who they are --- holders of the holy priesthood of
god. thats something sacred and powerful. and those that hold these
vessels must seek to be worthy, and then use the priesthood to help
others. how awesome that slater and jack were there together doing the
sacrament. cant wait till we can all three be there together.
love you all.
tell the relatives a big thanks for their letters
-elder lloyd
No comments:
Post a Comment