Letter #87 New Stake Organization!! 6/4/12

Fam!   its good to be writing you again.  -- is it just me or are the
weeks ZOOMING by! holy cow. i feel like i just wrote you guys.

it was good to read your letters.   i loved the pics!   that looked
like one legit concert!   awesome lax pic of slate. i loved the pic of
grandpa! good to see him riding his bike!! -- and the kitchen looks so
great! geez.  i´m pumped to see the whole house when i get back.

this week has been g r e a t!   p and y are officially
married! FINALLY!     it all went down thursday!   we got them a ride
set up to go to that town (sayva playa) about an hour and a half away.
  we got their witnesses and everything set up and they both took a
day off from work!   not gunna lie, its taken a ton of work to get it
to happen but it was definitely worth it.  they´re doing so great!
and afterward they looked so happy!,  i´ve seen a visable change in
their relationship this past week since they got married.

Sunday was Stake Conference!  and it was soooo cool because it was the
forming of the stake!   Ciudad del Carmen has been a district for
almost 30 years-- and they´re finally  a stake!   it was so great
because i´ve spent so much of my mission here in this zone!  june july
august september october november of last year, and part of march,
april may and part of june of this year.  i was so happy to be able to
be a part of this huge step here in Cd. del Carmen.

ok mostly i didnt understand how important it is to have a stake!   a
stake is much different from a district --  a district doest have
bishops, doesnt have a patriarch so almost no one has patriarcle
blessings,  almost no one has an active temple recommentd because they
have to wait for the mission president to come all the way from
villahermosa to interview them and sign their temple recommends, there
arent any high priests ordained,  missionaries have to go to villa to
pic up their mission calls and be set apart,    basically a district
doesnt have a ton of the the privleges a Stake has.  and it was cool
this week to see them establish the first stake here in the city.
Elder Benjamin de Hoyos of the first quorem of the seventy came and
another seventy as well but i cant remember his name.    and it was
super powerful.      most of the conference was centered on raising
the standard,  that as a stake the people here should incline their
hearts to the lord, be more faithful, more giving of their time in
service to the lord.   benjamin de hoyos talked of the need to go look
for the lost sheep.  he said "what father is there that in the night
time asks his wife, -- honey, its getting late, how many of our kids
have came back home?  and when she answeres 4 of the 5, he says 4 of
the 5, thats about 80%,  i think we´re good to shut and lock the doors
and go to sleep!       no parent would do that,    he said that we
cannot rest until all our brothers and sisters are safely back at
home.    he called the members of the stake to be more diligent in
retention of new converts.  35000 people were converted last year
alone in mexico  thats enough for about 30 more stakes here in mexico.

p and y came to the conference and loved it.   also in the
conference i got to see my converts again. and that was great, i sat
by J and E and their family in the conference.  i love them so
much.  i´m so excited for them to be sealed in the temple in 6 months!
woot!

As for the next week we should have the baptism of p and y!
  hopefully they´ll be baptised  friday or saturday, and maybe it´ll be on the beach!!
 that´d be pretty cool
eh?

anyway.  hope you´re all doing well.  love ya a bunch.  i´ll be
praying for slate this week!  and i hope you all stay safe and well
-much love
elder lloyd

Letter #86 5/28/12 Bug Bite!

hey fam! whats up!

its been another great week here in sabancuy!  working with elder
Garcia!   This week we got our first hit of the rainy season--
apparently its going to be raining a lot more often now!   it rained
super hard yesterday, and during the week it rained a lot in the
afternoons and at night.  We only reallly got super super soaked
saturday because the other days we were in lessons during the rain!
there have been some awesome thunder and lightning though!    also-
you´d think because its raining it would be colder-- its not.   just
more humid!   the sun is super strong,  i´m turning into a mexican!
my tan lines are lookin super great haha, i even have a tan line from
where the sun has burned me through my shirt,  and you can see the
mark of my tie!

Also this week i got bit by some bug, i´m not sure what it was, i
think it must have been a spider!  the first day it was fine, it just
itched and hurt a ton, but after 2 days it wasnt getting better and my
hand was going purple!!  so we went to the hospital and they gave me a
shot and some medicine to take! and it took about 2 days but my hands
back to normal now! ha yikes.  we also sprayed the house with a bug
spray thats supposed to keep the bugs away for at least  a month!

this week has also been interesting with the food,  we ate shark one
day,  yesterday day we had pig skin, and today they gave us oysters!
yum

On the spiritual side, we had interviews with the president this week!
 it was a great experience.  he always seems to know exactly what i
need to hear.  i expressed to him some doubts about whether all the
work i had done in Cardenas (my last area) had been a success,  and we
talked about how to know if we´ve had a successful mission.  if we
feel that the spirit has worked through us on a day to day basis we
can know that the lord is using us as an instrument.  its not as
important whether or not the people you teach accept-- abinadi
testified against wicked king noah, and they killed him.  abinadi
never saw alma converted.  moses lead his people for 40 years in the
desert and then the lord told him that they would break the covenant
and go and worship false gods--  and that doesnt mean moses and
abinadi were failures.    at the end of the interview the president
told me that cardenas hasnt hearkened unto the voice of the servants
of the lord and my testimony and the testimony of the other elders
that have served in cardenas will stand as a testimony against them in
the last day--  it was pretty intense, and i felt better because i
seriously did work so hard there in Cardenas with my companions to
help the people and raise up the ward there.

 also he told me i wont be finishing my mish here in sabancuy, that
he´s going to send me to another area to finish my mision!

As for jack and slate, i was just thinking this last week and i wanted
to know how you two are doing in your Duty to God??   my companion and
i are working with the young men in the ward so that they can finish
it! and as i´ve been reading the pamphlet this week í´ve seriously
felt the spirit.  i know that it is an inspired program,  and its so
much better than the program that i had when i did it!   i dont know
how much you´ve done but i invite the both of you to sit down and put
some goals to finish it!    its something that will strenghten your
testimony and help to you better understand the duties you have as a
holder of the priesthood!

As for the investigators!   p and y still arent married---
but they´re way more excited.  thursday is the wedding day!  the wards
going to help us more this week.  the branch president and his family
are going to visit them this week to keep them excited!   and then
this next sunday they should be getting baptized!

well i love ya´ll a bunch!
hope you have a great week
-elder lloyd

Letter #85 5/21/12

hey family!!!

good to hear alls well with the fam.  sounds like it should be a
pretty busy week this week with school winding down!   i hope all goes
well with jack and slate and they can wrap up the school year well.

this week has been really good.  we´ve been working hard with our
investigators!   Thursday we did divisions with the zone leaders.
which means i spent half the day working with elder tlachi!  that was
an awesome experience.  it was like a wierd trip back in time, because
this time because it was like 11 months ago that we were working
together.    he´s such an awesome elder,  i was very lucky to have him
for a trainer.

we´re still struggling a bit to find people and have them progress.
we´ve been walking a ton this past week.   its disappointing when you
have a day full of appointments and then they all fall through.  so
frustrating.   but the good news is that we do have some people that
are progressing even if it is slowly ha.      p and y are
doing super great.  we had an awesome lesson with them, we brought
pics of our familys and talked to them of the worth of eternal
families and how we have to be willing to make sacrifices to recieve
the promised blessings. they both accepted to get married this week
and get ready for baptism.  and they both came to church sunday.

only frustrating thing is that htey have to go a bit far to get
married.  to a city thats like an hour from here where they marry
people for 500 pesos.   which is super super cheap.  hear its gunna
cost them like 3000 pesos.    but we told them we could find them a
ride with a member that has a car.   but we went and talked with the
member and he´s not willing to help us.  sooo frustrating.  he´s going
to be here, he´s got a job where it doesnt really matter if he misses
a few hours because he´s self employed,  but he´s just super lazy-- so
frustrating.   there isnt very much help from the ward here right now.
   i hope so much we can find a way to get pablo and his wife married
this week!!!!

we´re going to be working with the leaders of hte different
organizations this week to see if we can get them excited to work!
right now they´re a little bit depressed.  our branch president wants
to see the branch progess to be a ward, but he´s really the only one
in the whole branch thats visiting less actives and trying to get
things done.

i still dont know anything about when will be the day that i get
released --  my companion that leaves the end of august still hasnt
received information about what day he´s headed home-- so i´m not sure
when they´ll tell us!   but i´ll try to check this week and see if
they´ll tell me

as for tranfers, they still havent told us anything,  i dont think
anything will be happening until june actually!

well i love ya´ll a bunch.   hope you have a great week!
--elder lloyd

Letter #84 5/14/12 Hey Fam!

We talked with Matt yesterday for an hour and forty five minutes, and he
sounded GREAT!  It was by far the best conversation we've ever had with
him.  We were all so relaxed and spent a lot of the time just laughing.  He
is loving his mission and is excited to work hard for the next five months!
Have a great week!   - marci


Subject: hey fam.

Well this week is going to be a bit short.  i used my time writing the
pres. and some other emails!

But i´m so glad we could talk this week!  i loved hearing your voices!
 you all sounded great.  i almost felt like i was there with you in
the room.   and only 5 months more and we´ll be together again!

But as for right now we´re working diligently here in Sabancuy.  my
companion and i are excited for a new week.  new chance to start!
this week we didnt have any investigators in the church!  that was my
first time not having investigators in the church in a long time!   it
was rough. but we´re going to go look for new people this week and i´m
excited to start working to reach our goals in june!

after i talked with you guys yesterday it rained super hard!   and
everyone says we´re going into the rainy season here in jun and july!
 i´m excited because yesterday was the first time the temperature was
actually enjoyable. ha.

well i´m excited to write you all next week and tell ya how things go.

have a wonderful week
-elder lloyd

Letter #83 5/07/12 My Letter to you all from Sabancuy!


family!  it was good to hear from you all this week!  thanks a bunch
for your letters jack and slate, and thanks to ronette tambien!

i love to hear about the lacrosse.  i think i´ve been day dreaming
about it all day while i was washing my clothes and cleaning the
house!  bah i´m one jealous missionary.

this week i got my new companion.  elder Garcia.   he has 20 months in
the mission!   he goes home in september.  hes only got more more
cambio than me.  cool eh.      he´s from Cd. de mexico!   and he´s a
nice guy.  we´ve been working really well together!   we dont have
any problems.  he knows how to cook pretty well and so we´ve been
eating more than the normal oatmeal in the mornings.   we´ve had eggs
and toast and quesadillas.    its actually super super nice to be
with someone who has experience.   i dont have to worry about what
he´s going to say.  we teach well together.  we´ve had some awesome
lessons this past week.

we found a lady who doesnt go to any church because her whole life
she´s hasnt been able to find the right one!    she´s awesome, her
names olga,  and she sells cheese.  ha she´s like 60 years old, but
shes still 100% there.  she understands everything really well and
reads everything we leave with her.  she couldnt come to church sunday
because she had to work but we´re hoping for the next week she´ll be
there!

also we went to El arca again this week but it was bad this time ha.
we got there and we couldnt find a ride from the bus stop to El arca
which is like 10 miles away.  bah.    so we started walking, and some
guy gave us a ride in the back of his truck but only like half the
way.  and we walked the other half,   when we got there the
investigators werent in their house..... bah.  and the same thing
happened on the way back to sabancuy. we walked like 3 miles and then
some one gave us a ride the rest of the way.      i think i´m going to
wait until our friend Fredy gomez gets back from working in cd del
carmen to go back to el arca so that he can help us.  because when
he´s here he can take us everywhere in his car!

as for the call we´ll be making for mothers day i´m still not 100%
sure how its going to be.  they say we can use skype!   but there isnt
internet that works well here in Sabancuy. so i´m going to try and get
permision to call in Cd. del carmen this wednesday or not this tuesday
but the next tuesday.  or if they dont give me permision i´ll be
calling sunday from the church phone and we wont be able to skype.
  basically dont worry about it,  i´ll be calling you this week
sometime  just super briefly to tell you when and where and how we´re
going to do the phone call!  =)

well love you a bunch. have a grand week.  and i´m super excited to
at least be able to hear your voices this week!
much love
elder lloyd

Letter #82 4/30/12 Hey Hey Hey!!

Matt en El Arca!  Beautiful and remote!!

Matt and Elder Hansen in El Arca.  No electricity there!

hey hey hey! family!

its been a good week here in Sabancuy.  actually pretty average ha.
but some pretty random stuff happened.  in the middle of the week they cut
our electricity.  apparently the elders here havent paid in 7
months -- awesome.    so they cut off our electricity,  we talked to a
neighbor and they hooked us back on again. so we´re fine now,  but for like
3 days we had to plan and study in the night by candle light. ha.
 elder hansen said our house was looking more like a catholic cathedral than
an apartment of mormon missionaries cuz we had a lot of candles going. --
then in the night it was super hot and there were a
ton of mosquitos because we couldnt plug in the fans---        but
we´re all good now. the electricity is back!        it is getting
pretty hot here though!   may will be the hottest.  my companion got a
pretty sick sun burn.   and we´re both looking pretty tan now.  im
definitely happy that we´re by the ocean though so that i can feel that
breeze in the afternoon!

also this week we had a conference with the pres. de la mision!  it was good
to see him again. always a spiritual experience when he comes.

little bit of a bummer this week though with the investigators-- fg left town to work on an oil platform for the next few weeks. which
makes it super difficult to visit our friends in el arca!
 we went once during the week and we couldnt find hardly anyone because they
were working. if we want to go we would have to go late in the afternoon,
and thats hard because its hard to find a ride back
to sabancuy that late.     el arca is half an hour walk from a pueblo
called ignacio -- ignacio is like 15 min drive from where we can get
the bus and the last bus pases at 5 in the night.   when freddys here
he just drives us where we need to go. but its a bit rough to do it all with
out him.
so we couldnt work there this week.  it made me sad because we couldnt
teach all those people we found last week.   and we had to let go a lot
of our investigators in sabancuy this week as well because they werent
progressing.        thats one of the hardest parts of missionary work-
when you find a family sooo good, and you start teaching them and they
accept what you´ve taught and accept to be baptized-- and then for one
reason or another they recieve the test of faith and they dont
progress--  this week we had to leave behind A and his wife, because
even though he wants to stop smoking -- he doesnt have the
will power to do what it takes to receive help from the lord.  
   it made me sad to lose him and his
family.     and another 3 or 4 families we´ve been teaching.     its
just another proof though of the inspired vision of lehi.   those who
give heed to the call of those in the great and spacious building, or those
who dont hold on tight enough to the iron rode,  lose the path and dont
arrive to the tree.

also i´m getting a new comp tomorrow.   elder hansen is going to
Minatitlan,    and i´m going to be with an elder Garcia.      i dont
know much about him.  i think he might have already served here in sabancuy.
but we´ll see!  i´ll tell ya more about him next week!
anyway--

hope you have a great week!
stay safe, play hard in those lax games jack and slate

-elder lloyd

Letter #81 4/23/12 El Arca!

hey fam!

its been an awesome week here in sabancuy.   We´ve been working hard
and this week we were very blessed by the lord.    last sunday we met
a man from our branch named F G, who brought some investigators to
church and had planned a family night with us last
monday.   but we had to leave sabancuy and go to an even smaller town
called El Arca,      its about thirty minutes outside of sabancuy and
its sooooo small.   electricity hasnt even arrived there yet!   the
houses are made from palm leaves.  i have truly felt among the
lamanites this week as i´ve been working there.   there arent really
streets there,  its like a jungle.   the people are super ready to
recieve the gospel.  humble and ready to listen.  this week we found
13 new investigatos there, and 8 had planned to come to church.   but
sunday morning one of the family´s pig died-- and they had to deal
with that and they couldnt come.    but it was basically the coolest
week working there.   we went 3 or 4 times during the week and it was
super funny because we did divisions and i went to el arca and my comp
stayed in sabancuy-- and my companion was like "not fair, i get stinky
fish area and you get to go to the other side of heaven" ha.

F G is the other reason we had so much success.  he is like a
SUPER member missionary.      this guy shares the gospel with everyone he
meets.  whatever conversation he has he relates it back to the gospel.
  so when we arrived to the town he presented us to like 15 families.
He comes with us to almost every lesson and gives powerful testimony.
 i know that in this next month we´re going to see a lot of success
here in sabancuy.   one of the best families we´re teaching right now
is C and his wife R.   they have a daughter who´s blind.  we
taught them the plan of salvation and invited them to pray to know if what
we taught was true and if they needed to be baptized.  they accepted and
when we came back they both said they felt something
incredible,  like a certanty that what we had said is true.   They
accepted to be baptized and theyre progressing really well.   every time
we enter there house and teach the spirit is so strong.   we´re super
excited for them.

other than that the weeks been pretty normal.  the branch is progressing.
we´ve raised the attendance to 44  from 32 so thats
pretty good.    mostly one thing i´ve learned in the mission is that
one of hte best ways to raise the attendance is just to get the bishop
excited and he does all the work =)

my companion and i are excited.  transfers are soon.  i´m almost
certain my companions going to go.  its his time.   he´s almost at the
year mark and he´s still comp. menor so its his turn to get an assignment!
i´ll be super super suprised if he stays because he´s a great elder and its
time they put him in charge of something!

I got your easter package and we´ve been enjoying it these past two weeks.
sorry i always forget to tell you important stuff like that
haha.   but seriously thank you because i love everything you all
sent! yum summer sausage!

well i gtg so i can chat w- ya´ll and right the presi.
-love ya´ll a bunch

elder lloyd