hey familia
here i am again writing you from cardenas.
its a bit weird this time though because its my companions last p-day
of his mission!!! crazy eh? this is the last time he´ll be writing
his family before he sees them! geez i think that´d be a super
weird feeling. today we went to the house of a member and ate
breakfast with them. its a newly wedded couple, pues mas o menos,
theyve been married for like 2 years i think, and they just had a
baby two or 3 months ago i think. but they made us breakfast (eggs
and potatos) and we chilled their in there house, we washed the
clothes and everything there.
tomorrow we´re going to a conference of zone leaders in villa! super
excited about that. it´ll be good to be able to see some of my
friends in the mish, and to spend tuesday and wednesday with the pres.
these conferences are always super powerful. i feel like i learn
so much and always leave with more desires to dedicate everything i
have to the work.
this week in church we had the same family as last week come to
church! they sure are interested. we didnt pass by bring them to
church or anything. they just showed up! the dad of the family told
me that he felt something different in the church and asked me where
he could buy himself his own copy of the book of mormon! its a great
family, sadly they´re going to have some struggles if they´re going
to progress. -- the parents arent married, they´re just living
together, and normally thats something thats just common here and
its pretty easy to get people married, but the problem is that both
of them are married to other people-- yikes. --- actually its super
common here in mexico because getting a divorce is expensive and takes
time, especially if you have kids. so lots of couples dont end up
getting divorces they just break up and start new families. -- but
the family we´re working with is so good. the mom and dad (despite
the fact that they´re not legally married) have almost 10 years living
together and they have 3 kids. they´re super super humble. they live
in one of the most humble houses i´ve ever seen. its sheet metal held
together with what looks like tree branches, the floor is dirt and
theres a swamp in their back yard so theres a ton of bugs, but
they´re good people and they have so much faith.
we´ve talked with the bishop and i think the ward is going to help the
dad find work!
we´ve got some other families that we´re working with right now that
look like they could progress. this month really could be one of the
best. i´m excited to start over again with a new month and start
working in the way that the lord requires.
i love the example of nephi in the scriptures when he says that he
didnt build the ship in the manner of men, but that god showed him
how he should do it. the lord truly guides missionary work because
its the work that involves the search and rescue of his children.
anyway. i love you all hope youre having a great week.
love elder lloyd
the pics look great btw. -- lookin sharp in that tux jack!
Letter #68 1/23/12 Great Zone Activity!!
 | ||||
| Matt's zone at today's activty!! |
 |
| Yummy lunch!! |
 |
| The ward "mini-mission" |
 |
| Matt and Elder Quinones at the ward "mini-mission" |
hey fam.
its been another good week here in cardenas! Today we had a zone
activity. -- we got together with all the elders in the stake
center! first we did a service project and cleaned the whole
building in and out, then we played volleyball and cooked lunch. it
ended up being really good. i love the elders in the zone. they´re
such good guys. and its been fun to be able to get to know them
better. as a zone leader you definitely get to spend a lot more time
with the elders from the zone.
in church this week we had 5 investigators- woot. 3 of them were from
a family that we found saturday, a mom and dad, their 3 kids and the
brother of the dad! they seemed super receptive, we-re going to go
visit them later today. but i think they really enjoyed church.
a lady named E that we´ve been teaching showed up to church as
well. she´s like 60 years old, she´s got grandchildren and
everything, but she listened to the missionaries like 20 years ago in
villahermosa, we´ve been working with her for a few weeks, she has a
strong testimony of the book of mormon and has seriously progressed so
much, and she finally came to church -- but sadly she was a
little late, and the doors were closed for the sacrament-- and she
left! --- bah-- my guess is she felt uncomfortable waiting outside
the door -- i felt so bad because we saw her through the window
waiting outside, but it was in the middle of the sacrament and i
thought she´d just wait till a min or two till the doors opend but she
didnt. bah--- that was a real bummer this week. because we
could have gotten up and left the sacrament. bah.
but we´ve got plans to go visit her today with the bishop and i know
that one of her neighbors thats a member is also going to visit her
this week.
we´re working a lot with the elders in the zone. we did a lot of
divisions this week with the elders to get to know their
investigators. we had 5 baptismal services planned for this past
week in the zone, but we ended up with 2--- we´re hoping and
praying that this next week will be a lot better so that the elders in
the zone can see the fruits of their work and to get to have the joy
that comes from seeing your investigators enter the waters of baptism.
well i love you alll, hope your doing well. i didnt get to read your
letters again, but i´m printing them off to read in a few min.
hope youre all doing well.
-elder lloyd
Letter #67 01/16/12 A new house & a great week!
hey hey fam.
its truly been a good week! yesterday my companion and i spoke in
church, i spoke about the plan of salvation, and my companion spoke
on the importance of teaching in the church. it went really well. i
felt the spirit as i prepared the talk this week, and i remember some
things that i really liked from the conference. i studied the talk of
elder utchdorf from this last conference where he spoke about how
important we are as children of god. i loved what he shares at the
beginning of his talk about how as we learn more about the universe we
realize how small and insignificant we really are, but really what we
need to understand is that god created everything in the universe for
us. we are his most important creation, we´re his children.
-- our bishop has decided that every third sunday the missionaries
are going to give talks. so that should be good! -- our attendance
in the ward was still really good this week -- 73. and we had 3
investigators come to church. 2 arrived late. but they came alone
(withour any help), and we didnt even remind them so i was pretty
happy about that. we´ve found a ton of new people to teach this
week. they´re super good. alot of people that truly truly need the
gospel. we´ve found two families of single moms w- children that
really need the gospel in their lives. actually one of the stories
was pretty neat. my companion and i had been contacting the whole
morning and we hadnt had any success, all our appointments had fallen
through, and no one wanted to listen. and just when we were going to
leave the colony where we were working and go eat my companion and i
decided to instead knock 3 more houses in the street but we promised
the lord that we would do it with faith that the people who we
contacted would listen. when we knocked the first door we found
Hna. Alicia, and her two kids -- we taught a lesson, she accepted to
be baptised and when she prayed at the end of the lesson it was one of
the most sincere prayers i´ve heard here in cardenas! its
interesting how the lord tests our faith before he lets us see the
fruits!
today we´ve been super busy. we moved houses today! that was pretty
intense -- the missionaries here have lived in the same house for more
than a year, i think several years actually. but the house is super
far from where we´ve been spending most of our time -- so we´ve
decided to change houses. the new house is nice -- it has two rooms
a kitchen and a bathroom, but the nice thing is its on the second
floor so it´ll never flood -- and its got two balconys -- so thats
neat! my companion and i are super excited about it because we´ll
be able to work alot more effectivily for the next few weeks. i´ll
send you the direction so you can look at the house next week. its
on a main road so i´m pretty sure you´ll be able to see it pretty
well. after moving all our things, we went and played soccer again
w- the elders --- my companion likes playing sports alot on p-day and
i do to but man sometimes we get playing and we´re so into the game
that we spend waaaaay to much time playing and dont have time to do
anything else in the day ha. but atleast it was fun -- ha.
things in the zone are going well. we´ve had 7 baptisms in the zone
this month. and we have another 9 fechas for this next week. the
elders are very excited. we´ve got some really good district leaders
in the zone that are excited and are doing a super good job.
super excited to here that shelbys home. AH! cant wait to hear
his voice on that tape. man i cant believe his back. crazyness.
i dont even want to think about how fast time is flying.
well i gtg fam.
hope alls going well for you all, hope all goes well in moms business
trip and hope jack and slate finished the term well!
stay safe!
love elder lloyd
its truly been a good week! yesterday my companion and i spoke in
church, i spoke about the plan of salvation, and my companion spoke
on the importance of teaching in the church. it went really well. i
felt the spirit as i prepared the talk this week, and i remember some
things that i really liked from the conference. i studied the talk of
elder utchdorf from this last conference where he spoke about how
important we are as children of god. i loved what he shares at the
beginning of his talk about how as we learn more about the universe we
realize how small and insignificant we really are, but really what we
need to understand is that god created everything in the universe for
us. we are his most important creation, we´re his children.
-- our bishop has decided that every third sunday the missionaries
are going to give talks. so that should be good! -- our attendance
in the ward was still really good this week -- 73. and we had 3
investigators come to church. 2 arrived late. but they came alone
(withour any help), and we didnt even remind them so i was pretty
happy about that. we´ve found a ton of new people to teach this
week. they´re super good. alot of people that truly truly need the
gospel. we´ve found two families of single moms w- children that
really need the gospel in their lives. actually one of the stories
was pretty neat. my companion and i had been contacting the whole
morning and we hadnt had any success, all our appointments had fallen
through, and no one wanted to listen. and just when we were going to
leave the colony where we were working and go eat my companion and i
decided to instead knock 3 more houses in the street but we promised
the lord that we would do it with faith that the people who we
contacted would listen. when we knocked the first door we found
Hna. Alicia, and her two kids -- we taught a lesson, she accepted to
be baptised and when she prayed at the end of the lesson it was one of
the most sincere prayers i´ve heard here in cardenas! its
interesting how the lord tests our faith before he lets us see the
fruits!
today we´ve been super busy. we moved houses today! that was pretty
intense -- the missionaries here have lived in the same house for more
than a year, i think several years actually. but the house is super
far from where we´ve been spending most of our time -- so we´ve
decided to change houses. the new house is nice -- it has two rooms
a kitchen and a bathroom, but the nice thing is its on the second
floor so it´ll never flood -- and its got two balconys -- so thats
neat! my companion and i are super excited about it because we´ll
be able to work alot more effectivily for the next few weeks. i´ll
send you the direction so you can look at the house next week. its
on a main road so i´m pretty sure you´ll be able to see it pretty
well. after moving all our things, we went and played soccer again
w- the elders --- my companion likes playing sports alot on p-day and
i do to but man sometimes we get playing and we´re so into the game
that we spend waaaaay to much time playing and dont have time to do
anything else in the day ha. but atleast it was fun -- ha.
things in the zone are going well. we´ve had 7 baptisms in the zone
this month. and we have another 9 fechas for this next week. the
elders are very excited. we´ve got some really good district leaders
in the zone that are excited and are doing a super good job.
super excited to here that shelbys home. AH! cant wait to hear
his voice on that tape. man i cant believe his back. crazyness.
i dont even want to think about how fast time is flying.
well i gtg fam.
hope alls going well for you all, hope all goes well in moms business
trip and hope jack and slate finished the term well!
stay safe!
love elder lloyd
Letter #66 01/09/12 Carta
hey fam! hows it going --
we just got back. todays been a crazy day. since elder quiñones
arrived we havent had a full preparation day, we´re always doing
things with the zone -- yesterday we went to a city called comalcalco
and had a meeting with the district leaders -- we had a powerful
meeting with them where we talked about the importance of living the
gospel as a missionary. i felt the spirit as we talked about the need
of a constant process of repentance. the president told all the zone
leaders last week that the missionaries in the mission have stoped
feeling because of their sins-- after much time of not obeying a rule
we lose the feeling of guilt and at times we even stop seeing it as
sin. as we talked with the missionaries i was reminded of how
important it is that in the mission we are constantly correcting
ourselves, so that we can always feel the spirit and have it with us.
having the companionship of the spirit allows us to be truly happy.
in the meeting we talked with the elders about how it doesnt matter
if they´ve got 1 month or 23 months left in the mission, we can always
repent, change what we´re doing and start to see the fruits of true
repentance. it was a great meeting and we all left excited to
get to work this next week. then this morning to end the activity
with the district leaders we got together and played soccer and ate
lunch. but we didnt get back till like 3-30 yikes. so we´ve been
trying to fit the other things we needed to get done into like 2
hours. ha.
the week went well. the wards super excited. we had an attendance of
82! woooooot. because the week before was 19. and the average
attendance is 50. the bishop got really excited.
we didnt have any investigadores. two of our best families moved.
AH. so frustrating. and we lost contact with one and the other doesnt
know their address. we´re hoping this week to be able to work with
those that can be baptised this month. idk who they are ha, but
we need to find them. i want elder quiñones to be able to finish his
mission strong-- baptizing and helping the ward.
super exciting about shelby. tell him to write me!
anyway. hope alls well with my bro´s and with the fam. love you all
tons. thanks for your support and love that i can feel in cada letter.
--elder lloyd
we just got back. todays been a crazy day. since elder quiñones
arrived we havent had a full preparation day, we´re always doing
things with the zone -- yesterday we went to a city called comalcalco
and had a meeting with the district leaders -- we had a powerful
meeting with them where we talked about the importance of living the
gospel as a missionary. i felt the spirit as we talked about the need
of a constant process of repentance. the president told all the zone
leaders last week that the missionaries in the mission have stoped
feeling because of their sins-- after much time of not obeying a rule
we lose the feeling of guilt and at times we even stop seeing it as
sin. as we talked with the missionaries i was reminded of how
important it is that in the mission we are constantly correcting
ourselves, so that we can always feel the spirit and have it with us.
having the companionship of the spirit allows us to be truly happy.
in the meeting we talked with the elders about how it doesnt matter
if they´ve got 1 month or 23 months left in the mission, we can always
repent, change what we´re doing and start to see the fruits of true
repentance. it was a great meeting and we all left excited to
get to work this next week. then this morning to end the activity
with the district leaders we got together and played soccer and ate
lunch. but we didnt get back till like 3-30 yikes. so we´ve been
trying to fit the other things we needed to get done into like 2
hours. ha.
the week went well. the wards super excited. we had an attendance of
82! woooooot. because the week before was 19. and the average
attendance is 50. the bishop got really excited.
we didnt have any investigadores. two of our best families moved.
AH. so frustrating. and we lost contact with one and the other doesnt
know their address. we´re hoping this week to be able to work with
those that can be baptised this month. idk who they are ha, but
we need to find them. i want elder quiñones to be able to finish his
mission strong-- baptizing and helping the ward.
super exciting about shelby. tell him to write me!
anyway. hope alls well with my bro´s and with the fam. love you all
tons. thanks for your support and love that i can feel in cada letter.
--elder lloyd
Letter #65 01/02/12 Happy New Year!!
hey guys!
this week has been so great! woot finally i feel like i´m working.
elder quiñones and i had a super successful week. we went with all
our investigators that elder faisal and i had and invited them to be
baptized, and saturday in the afternoon we had 5 people with
baptismal dates. and things havent just been better with us, but with
the whole zone, we been more interactive with them, we´ve been
making calls and giving assignments to the zone and we´ve got plans
for activities the next few weeks to get things going here in
cardenas.
sadly, because of the holiday in the whole zone we had like 2
investigators come to church -- so all the baptismal dates are going
to have to be set back (you cant be baptized w-o 2 times coming to
church) -- which is a bummmer, but its alright, i feel super good
about the week because elder quiñones and i are working hard, and i
know we just need to be patient and wait another two weeks to start
seeing the fruits of our work.
elder quiñones is a great elder- he´s from durango, its a state --
but idk where in mexico it is. hes taller than me, he´s got two
brothers and a sister, his whole family are members, and i think
his dad served a mission as well but idk where. he finishes the
mission here in february, and sometimes he gets distracted thinking
about the house, but i´m working to keep him focused in the work. he
really want to finish the mission strong-- actually, in the zone we
recieved 3 elders that are going to end their mission in febuary as
well and they´re all super great,
my companions got a lot of experience, and he´s pretty creative too.
i´m learning a ton from him. we teach well together and we get along
well. we havent had any problems. we´ve got a lot of great people
we´re teaching -- a lady named m, a family of 4 who´s a friend of a
member and is super interested
in the church, a niece of a member in the ward who isnt baptized,
and a lot of others, i knew there were a ton of people here ready to
receive the gospel-- and i´m excited that i´m going to start seeing
some progress here with the people we´re teaching!
also this week- we celebrated new years with the elders from our
district-- it was super fun they all came to our apartment and we used
the cake mix you gave me to make pancakes. but we didnt stay up till
midnight-- we were sleeping at 10-30 ha.
today we played soccer w- some members and missionaries,
its raining right now and i´m soaking wet here in this shop where they
rent computers ha, and i gtg, but i love you and hope you all have a
great week, tell jack and slater i love them tons--
elder lloyd
i havent had a chance to really read the emails -- but from what i
read-- thanks a ton for keeping my blog up, and i´m glad you all had a
happy new year
this week has been so great! woot finally i feel like i´m working.
elder quiñones and i had a super successful week. we went with all
our investigators that elder faisal and i had and invited them to be
baptized, and saturday in the afternoon we had 5 people with
baptismal dates. and things havent just been better with us, but with
the whole zone, we been more interactive with them, we´ve been
making calls and giving assignments to the zone and we´ve got plans
for activities the next few weeks to get things going here in
cardenas.
sadly, because of the holiday in the whole zone we had like 2
investigators come to church -- so all the baptismal dates are going
to have to be set back (you cant be baptized w-o 2 times coming to
church) -- which is a bummmer, but its alright, i feel super good
about the week because elder quiñones and i are working hard, and i
know we just need to be patient and wait another two weeks to start
seeing the fruits of our work.
elder quiñones is a great elder- he´s from durango, its a state --
but idk where in mexico it is. hes taller than me, he´s got two
brothers and a sister, his whole family are members, and i think
his dad served a mission as well but idk where. he finishes the
mission here in february, and sometimes he gets distracted thinking
about the house, but i´m working to keep him focused in the work. he
really want to finish the mission strong-- actually, in the zone we
recieved 3 elders that are going to end their mission in febuary as
well and they´re all super great,
my companions got a lot of experience, and he´s pretty creative too.
i´m learning a ton from him. we teach well together and we get along
well. we havent had any problems. we´ve got a lot of great people
we´re teaching -- a lady named m, a family of 4 who´s a friend of a
member and is super interested
in the church, a niece of a member in the ward who isnt baptized,
and a lot of others, i knew there were a ton of people here ready to
receive the gospel-- and i´m excited that i´m going to start seeing
some progress here with the people we´re teaching!
also this week- we celebrated new years with the elders from our
district-- it was super fun they all came to our apartment and we used
the cake mix you gave me to make pancakes. but we didnt stay up till
midnight-- we were sleeping at 10-30 ha.
today we played soccer w- some members and missionaries,
its raining right now and i´m soaking wet here in this shop where they
rent computers ha, and i gtg, but i love you and hope you all have a
great week, tell jack and slater i love them tons--
elder lloyd
i havent had a chance to really read the emails -- but from what i
read-- thanks a ton for keeping my blog up, and i´m glad you all had a
happy new year
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