Letter #21 02/28/11 hola de mexico

hola familia!
como esta!,  gracias muchas para sus email-s!     it was good to get
to chat with you all a little bit last week.  i{m glad you liked the
video and the pics i sent.   from the pics you sent me looks like
there was a lot of snow up at the cabin! sounds like you all had a
good time there.    glad to hear jacksons conditioning is over and
they{re actually having practices reales.  i really want to see some
pics of this!  and also pics of slaters play!!  oh also good to hear
about kamerons getting into BYU !!!  i was pretty much so pumped when
i heard.  when he gets back from his mish we can party it up at byu!
woot.

so this week has been really good but it started out terribe
though.  ah.  monday night after i emailed you our baptismal date
with K fell through and she said she didnt want to be baptised
anymore.  so that was pretty bad, and the next day our baptismal date
with M fell through also because he hasnt recieved an answer to
his prayer --- mostly he definitely has he just doesnt want to admit
it yet-- yikes.  so basically that tuesday night I was pretty
depressed and so was elder tlachi.  the next day all our investigators
were telling us that we looked exhausted. and i can honestly say i{ve
never felt more exhausted physically and spiritually. ah. it was bad.. ha.     but the
next day in the morning we prayed for a chance to speak with K sometime during the day.  and this was a stretch because she works a
ton and arrives at the house usually at like 8 or 9 at night.     but
we prayed that we{d have another chance to resolve her doubts. and
a few hours later the people who we were scheduled to eat with called
us and told us that they had something that they had to do and we
couldnt come to their house, but that they had paid for us to go eat
at a restaurant nearby.   and i turns out that K works at this
restaurant ha. it was pretty sweet.  we went to lunch and K told
us to visit her at her house that night because she was going to get
off early.  so we went that night and turns out her doubt was that she
didnt want to lose some of the traditions that she had in the catholic
religion.  aparently they have pretty cool parties.   yikes.    but we
taught her and at the end of the lesson she said she wanted to be
baptized.    ha.  so we called our district leader and he came and
gave her an interview and then that saturday we baptized her! woot!
elder tlachi and i were basically going crazy at how rapidly the lord
answered our prayers.   so in church yesterday she was confirmed
and our new family of gold and M came to church.  it was really
great.  all the members were incredible this week. they were all
ridiculously friendly with our investigators. i think there are people
from the ward who are planning to visit them during the week without
us ha.   so we{re pretty excited about that.
but this week we hope to work with M and hopefully baptize him at
the end of the week.  we{ve got a plan to help him receive an answer
to his prayers so we{ll see if it all works out.
 
but this new family is so perfect.  their names are E and A.  they{re basically dirt poor. but soooo perfect.
we havent talked with them about baptism but probably in the next few
weeks.
we{ve got a chance of having transfers this week. they{re going to
call us sunday night. so i{ll tell you about that in the next letter!!

other things -- havent received the package yet. but hopefully in the
next few weeks-- no ones came from villahermosa in a long time.
but ya just keep sending those protien bars.  haha.  and poptarts!

well i{m going to send my president an email now.  but i love you all.
talk to ya next week!
-elder lloyd

Letter #20 02/21/11 Dominoes Customer of the Month!!

hola familia,  como estan ustedes!!

ah, it was sooo good to get your letters this afternoon.     glad you
liked the video.  it was a last minute thought.  i recorded it right
before i left to send the package to you!!   i think i{m going to do
more of those and maybe not use the tapes. the tapes are difficult.
idk.  and it costs like 40 bucks to send a package i think i cant just
send a memorry card in an envelope and it  will be more cheap. and
then you can see my face more often!!   but i love your  tapes! keep
sending them!!!  i havent got your valentines package yet but i{ll tell you
when i recieve it!

its been a pretty busy week and better week.   i think that the sunday
before i last wrote you was one of my most depressing days in the
mission so far. but things were really good this week.  we worked
really hard and ended up with 4 investigators that came to church!!
woot.  L,  J- brother of M, and a new family that we
started teaching this past week. they{re pretty much gold. and all the
investigators enjoyed the meeting so thats good!  also we did better
with our goal this week. we invited almost every person to be baptised
that we taught,  but we didnt put dates specific with all of them.
we have 2 baptismal dates for this coming saturday,  a girl named K and then Miguel! woot.  but Miguel{s is a little bit iffy,
we{re meeting with him tommorrow to make it more sure.  and i think J will be baptised the 5th of march hopefully!
thank you guys so much for your prayers on behalf of my companion and
i and nuestros investigadores!!
so remember how i told you all that we{ve been working with the members
a lot right?  well its paid off a bit!   this guy, when
we started visiting him, he said he was a retired mormon.  ha he had
problems with drinking and smoking and said that really the church was
more like guidelines for your life.   but we visited him a few
different times and everytime we{d teach him about christ and one of
the times we asked him about his prayers. and he said he hadnt prayed
in a really long time, because he didnt feel worthy to pray!   we
taught him that youre never unworthy to pray.  god wants to hear from
every one of his children and its in the moments that we most feel
like we dont want to pray that we need to pray the most.  basically
this guy started praying that night and hasnt missed a sunday in over
a month.  we went to visit him this week again and he told us that hes
a new mormon.  he invited a friend to come listen to us.  he says he
wants to serve a mission with his wife later in his life.   ah
basically it was pretty incredible to see him change.  i have a firm
testimony that the gospel of jesus christ when put into action changes
lives.
we had a zone meeting this martes that was pretty incredible.  we
learned a ton of really incredible things.  a lot of times as
missionaries its so easy to fall into the habit of worrying more about
the numbers than the people. if youre not careful you start contacting
people just have that number be higher at the end of the week.   and
a lot of the times as missionaries we fall into the habit of comparing
ourselves with the AP{s and leaders of the zone.  but in this zone
conference we talked about how the only person we should be comparing
ourselves with is christ.   we should really be trying everyday to be
doing in our area the things that he would do.  really the positions
dont matter at all. at alllll.   the only thing that matters is that
we{re demonstrating the love for each person that we come in contact
with that christ would show for them.
also in my personal study this week i had a bit of a lesson in humilty
ha. yikes.  i was reading in d and c 50 verse 26  and i dont know
what it says in english but in spanish it says el que es ordenado por
dios y enviado,  este es nombrado para ser el mayor, a pesar de ser el
menor y el siervo de todos.   entonces, our calling as missionaries is
one of the greatest calling there is, but we{re called to be the
lowest of all, and to serve all.   and then i was reading in john 3.30
 where the disciples of john the baptist come to him and they{re
kind of angry because all the people that had been followers of john
the baptist started to follow jesus christ, and they ask john the
baptist, something like -- what should we do.  and john the baptist
knew that jesus was the one that he had been called to prepare the way
for.  and he says in verse 30  he must increase and i must decrease.
--    and i have been thinking about that a lot this week.   what
things in my life here as a missionary need to decrease so that christ
can increase,  so that everyday i{m a better representative of him.

the scriptures are pretty amazing.  since january first we{ve been
reading one chapter from d and c and one chapter from the book of
mormon everyday and i{ve learned sooooooo much.

but on a less spiritual note.
ha. so this is about the most funny thing thats happened to me here.
we were in a lesson with an investgator and we got this call and my
companion told me to go outside and answer it, ha,  and turns out it
was dominoes!!! bahaha, they were calling us to congratulate us that
we were the customers of the week!! bahahaha.  this award goes to the
person who ordered pizza the most times during the month! ha.   and as
a reward they gave us a certificate and balloons and there was an
official representative of dominoes there to award us and then they
gave us a coupon for 5 free pizzas. but you have to use them all at
the same time, it cant be like one every other night. it has to be in
one order. but still. pretty legit no?   ha.  pretty much we{re going
to have a party with our favorite investigators sometime this month.
haha.


also.  if you could send me a list of the scripture masteries that
would be nice.

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

elder lloyd

Letter #19 02/14/11 hola de mexico & pics & video too!!!!

hey family!
whats up?  how are things going back in the states!  ah. it was good
to hear from jackson this week.
sounds like lacrosse is pretty rough ha.  i remember all that stuff.
but it sounds like your conditioning might be even harder than it was
last year. because we just ran a lot. sounds like youre doing a bunch of
other stuff too!!  i want to see some pics of your games!    glad alls
well with the family this week. oh my heavens! thank you for the
package.  i pretty much was desperately hoping that you would send
muchas granola bars and protein bars so basically it was perfect!!
but i{m excited to get the other.  i sent you a package you{ll
probably get it next week by like wednesday so be excited for that.
it only has pics in it though.  and one of my schedules again!!
 i was glad to hear that C is going to serve a mission! ah. i love
it when someone makes the effort to get themselves ready for the
mission. even if it takes a little bit extra time.  its never too late
to make the decision to change your life!  ah.  i have to admit one of
my biggest fears is to come back home and have a friend or two who
arent in the church anymore.  ah.  seria terrible!     i{m here
sharing my testimony with people everyday and i{m really seeing it
change peoples lives.
this past week has been pretty dang busy.    i think when i wrote you
last week it was after having a week of really little success.   well,
i wrote you lunes. and then tuesday we had our meeting with the
mission president and it was basically incredible. man. he is pretty
much one of the most incredible guys i{ve met.  and i{ve only been
around him a couple days of the mission.  he knows the scriptures like
i{ve never seen anyone know them before.  he can look at you and know
what scripture the lord wants you to know.  i went contacting with him
and my companion just for a few contacts and he would say --J, this
is what the lord wants you to know in this instant-- and he shares a
scripture and its seriously powerful.    ----- but anyway. so we had
our interview with him. and in the interview he told me that we need
to stop thinking so small.  our meta para este mes es 3 bauptismos.
and when we told him that. he was like -- you could do 30 if you
want.  but you have to put in the effort.  so basically we{ve decided
to up our game.  elder tlachi and i were both really really really
pumped to work after our interview, but sadly the next day i left for
an overnight trip to villahermosa to sign some documents having to do
with my visa. and basically that used up a bunch of our time.  because
i didnt come back till thursday in the night.  but thursday night we
set some goals for the rest of our time here in coatzacualcos and also
for this coming week.  our goal is going to be 30 people with
bauptismal dates set by the end of the next 3 weeks!  and we{ve been
really praying for  the help of the lord with this.  but if we ask the
lord to help us with something, we have to be willing to do our part.
so we didnt take a P.day today.  just an hour to go and buy our food
for the week and do our laundry and back to work.  we{re hoping to see
some serious success and break this streak of not having much success.
well i asked you to ask me about putting a baptismal date with our
family of gold,  -- yikes.  we tried again,
but they said its too soon and they want to attend church more first.
but that they want to be baptised.  so basically we were pumped
because all of htem said they{d come to church. and also all the other
appointments we had during the week we invited the people to baptism
and also to church.  and when sunday came we were really excited
because we thought that we{d have like  20.  more than ever before. we
had called people. visited them all the day before. and we had all
these people that had said they were for sure going to come. and then
we had 1 in the chapel. ah it was depressing.  because the reunion
sacramental, is like game day.  we work all week so we can have people
in sacrament meeting. but mostly we{ve set some good goals for this
coming week and i{m just excited to keep working.  idk,  i think this
areas been a bit of a test of my patience. haha.  pero esta bien.  i
know that the lord wants us to have these baptisms.  but we have to
have the faith and put for the effort.  so thats what we{re working
for right now!! =)

so other stuff thats happened this week--
so L!! oh snap!    so i think i told you that he had his dad
that he had to take care of every day for like the past year.
well. his dad died this week. and he called us up and was telling us
how grateful he was for teaching him the plan of salvation.  ah!!!! it
was great. and we visited him sunday and taught him about baptisms for
the dead. he was way excited about it and said he wanted to be
baptised for his father. and we told him he would need to be baptised
first. and i think he said something like --ah, i{ll have to think
about it-- .. but we{re pretty pumped for him.  we{re starting
to see many many people that the lord has prepared for us.
we found 7 new investigators last week and then yesterday we found 4
more. so basically we{ve got a lot of people to teach and we{re pretty
excited to see them all progress in the gospel!

--- ok so jackson will like this.   and mom dont freak out =)
so we went to the house of an investigator this week! and its one of
these apartments where it has one door on the street that opens us to
like 10 more apartments. and we knocked the door on the street and
asked for our investigator and this guy comes out and is like-- no one
by that name lives here!  and we were like-- oh, she lives in the
apartment 2 or 3 past yours, we{ve already taught her afew times-- and
this guy just walks away into his house, and comes out again with a
gun!!! ,,, ah!  and he{s like -- i dont think you understand me.  no
one by that name lives here. and we dont want to see your faces around
here ever again. -- and we were like -- ah alright. have a nice day.--
haha.  but the thing was our investigator lives right there, and we
cant teach her w-o going past this house. so we called our
investigator and she came out on the street for us to teach her. ha.
it was pretty tense.

well i gtg. but i love ya! sorry this week the letter wasnt grand. but
i didnt have much time to think about it all! ha.  but alls well here{
things with my companion are great.  we{re working hard!  hope alls
well at home.
love ya.ll
=)
elder lloyd--








Letter#18 02/07/11 hey hey hey

hola familia,
como estas?  espero que todo este bien en utah, me gusto sus cartas.
muchas muchas gracias por escribirme!   digale a grandma que la carta
que ella me envio, me hizo muy feliz.  estaba muy feliz para tener un
carta de ella!  no habia oido de grandma y grandpa por muchas semanas.
  estoy feliz que todo esta bein con ellos.  se escucha como ellos
estan un poco ocupado este semana con cosas con la casa!  definamente
quiero ver fotos cuando todo esta cumplido.
pues,  yo habia planiado a escribirles totalamente en español esta
semana. pero realamente no tuve tiempo hoy para pensar sobre que quise
decir en este carta y escribirlo en español.   tenemos entravistas
mañana con el presidente! entonces, hoy tuvimos que obtener cortes de
cabello y hacer un buen de otras cosas para preparar.

hello family,
how are you? I hope that all is well in utah, I like your letters.  thank
you very much for writing to me! Tell grandma that the letter they sent me
made me very happy. I was very happy to have a letter from them! I haven't
heard from grandma and grandpa for many weeks. I am happy that all is good
with them. it sounds like they were a little occupied last week with things
with their house!  I definitely want to see photos when everything is
finished. I had planned to write totally in Spanish this week. but in
reality I did not have time today to think about what I wanted to say in
this letter and to write it in Spanish. we have interviews tomorrow with the
mission president!  So today we had to get haircuts and to do a lot of other
things to prepare.

well enough of that.  haha.  i also was planning on writing landon ben
and shelby this week but i just didnt have the time today.  maybe next
week!  this week has been really good.  well. idk.  not really
really good but good.  ive learned a lot.   this week we
changed the way we contact personas en la calle (people in the street.)  and
its been working really really really well.  we{ve had a ton of success this
week. we{ve had set appointments with people we{ve found for almost every
hour of every day. its been pretty legit. but the problem is these
people tell us,  i{ll be there tomorrow at 4 -- and then they arent
there. its so frustrating.  we{ll be like - can we come by your house
tomorrow at 6- and they{ll be like - oh ya, for sure- and we ask them-
and for sure youre going to be there-  and they{re like -- ya for
sure-  and then there{s no one there when we go. ah so frustrating. we
had more plans this week than any other week. but we had less
lessons than every other week because people are a bit flake-y
ha.  yikes.   but its been good. we{re doing our part. working really
hard. and praying for the lord to help us with the rest.   we{re
hoping that this week was just a bit of a trial of patience.   }

we had a pretty cool experience with prayer the other day.  we had
a couple of citas (appts) fall through and we were pretty depressed so we
went back to the house and said a prayer and in the prayer we promised the
lord all the things we were going to do to have success and then asked
him to help us find a family.   and then we left the appartment and
went out into the street and the first person we contact says that we
should definitely come by his house.  and that if he{s not there, his
family will definitely want to listen to us.   ha basically we about
exploded. because families are so hard to find.  but ya needless to say
we{ve visited this guy a couple of times.  he has lds pictures in his
house.  but no one is a member. ha.  he has book of mormon pictures in
his house because his dad helped construct the chapel in this area.
but we havent taught them a lesson yet because this weeks been pretty
busy. but i{ll tell you how things go with that this next week.
basically this week i learned the importance of promising the lord
things in our prayers.  its funny that mom learned about prayer this
week too.  ha.   cuz really i{ve seen such a huge difference since
i{ve started actually making promises with the lord for each day.  the
lord answers prayers much faster when nosotros (we) promise to do our part.
 my companion and i are excited for the work this week.
next week you need to ask me how things went with setting baptismal
dates with our investigators.  because this is where wer{re
struggling.  we have so many people who want to be baptized and really
understand the seriousness of the convenant, but because they
understand that its so serious, they want more time before they{re
baptized.  this week my companion and i are going to work on setting
actual baptismal dates with these people. and then helping them work
towards these dates.  my companion and i really want to have 3
baptisms por the end of this mes. (month).  M, J, and C are doing great. we ate breakfast with them
this morning.  they are so great. and so ready for baptism.  but like
i said. they just really need someone to push them towards baptism.

side note-- i checked my wieght-- i am 150 pounds. so ive lost 2
pounds since the mtc!


we taught a guy named L this week.

anyway... ha. sorry.  L is the father of his family. he{s like 49 i
think or something like that.  and we can only teach him 1 time a
week. but he is seriously good.  he reads everything we leave for him
to read and more.  you can really tell the people who are --chosen--
because they hear the message we have, and recongnize the importance
of the things we{re teaching and want to hear more.

alright. other things i wanted to tell you this week.
-i forgot to tell you, but pretty much since i{ve arrived here in
mexico, ive been obsessed with my teeth.  ha pretty much i brush and
floss my teeth without fail 3 times a day. without fail. ha.   i have
this massive fear of the dentists here ha.  there are some people here
with some seriously horrible teeth problems.  holy cow.  there arent
many people who have a whole mouth of teeth.  i{m excited to start
taking those calcium pills that you sent.
i havent received the package yet but most likely tomorrow because the
President is coming and he usually brings the packages.
- another thing thats interesting - the police here are terrible ha.
they steal from the borachos  - the drunk people-  ha.   they arrest
them and then take all the money in their wallets and let them go.
ha. i saw it happen the other night with my companion.  i asked him if
we should do something and he said basically that happens every day.
ha. yikes.
- this week i ate the skin of a pig.  it was gross.

well thats all i{ve got for this week.  but seriously thank you so
much for the letters that you guys send. i love hearing whats going on
back in utah.  tell slater and jackson and sasha that i love them so
much. and you too mom and dad =)
-elder lloyd