The Force of July

July 7, 2014

This last week was pretty intense. Won't lie to you on that one. I feel like I saw the whole mission three days of the week. It was a bit much. It's good to be back to an almost normal schedule again. 

So first, we had the Meet the Ballard's meeting. That was odd. Sister Ballard talked about stuff that we all learned in the MTC (like, how to mark your scriptures, etc). She was a little intense.   President Ballard seemed compelling and motivated and open to learning how missionary work works in the Oregon Portland mission. He will be great for the mission. Sister Ballard took about a gagillion pictures throughout the whole meeting and afterwards as well. Expect a ton of photos to be emailed to you mom. After she takes them she asks us for your emails and phone numbers. ha, as if I memorized phone numbers. 

The next day was Mission Leadership Council. It was the first day in a long time that it felt like an actual council. Nobody was afraid to pipe up and chip in, and President Ballard didn't have any preconceived ideas about what we were doing wrong. It was good to have an open discussion about a lot of things in the mission. We could all tell that Pres is just spinning wheels at this point trying to find some sort of traction. He has no idea what he's doing... yet. He'll get there. I give it about a month or two before he starts completely revamping the way the entire mission is run. It'll be a really good change for the missionaries for sure.

The next day was the 4th of July. We spent it at a block party BBQ with a ward missionary playing basketball out in the street in our proselyting clothes. It was super hot that day too. Then we played chess with D. G. and his kids, and then we went to go watch fireworks with a bunch of other missionaries and president. I got to see some of the members from the West Linn Ward that night. It was good to see them again. I got to teach the Ballards' kids sime dance moves that night. That was fun.  I have never really been a big fan of fireworks until I came on my mission. Both years I've been close enough to the fireworks that I can feel the concussive force of the explosions. It's amazing to feel! I tried to take a picture of me eating the fireworks, but it didn't quite work out. 

Other than that, we were able to set new baptismal dates for the R's and to address some of the oldest girl's concerns. When we retaught the word of wisdom this last week she totally caught the vision of it. She still loves tea and coffee, but she knows now more of the why behind it. I feel like that's all people ever really need to know- why things are the way they are. When people know why Jesus Christ matters, they'll do things they would have never thought of doing before just to obtain that peace that comes with knowing that we can be forgiven and that we can forget the pain of past decisions. It's a simple process, but so worth it. it includes living according to our faith, repenting, making and keeping covenants/promises with God, receiving and following the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. If we can just do those things, peace, joy, love, patience, and every other good thing that comes with God is ours. The why behind Jesus Christ is that our lives can have better quality when we come closer to him. Pain and grief can be gone forever through him. I love it. I feel it. I know it to be true.

There's this other non member kid that is interested in the oldest R. girl. He comes to church every week now. He nearly went to Young Women's last week just to be with her. It's pretty funny. fortunately he was interested in learning about the church well before he met the Rs. he moved up here with some family friends from Georgia. He's honestly just a cool kid. We hope to pick him up as an investigator tomorrow, but we'll see what happens.

We also went to a half way house to try and find an old former investigator, and we found G. instead. we told him that we go to church, just across the street. He asked us if we were Mormon, and we said yes. He asked if we play basketball, and I told him that we do every Wednesday night and every Saturday morning and that he was welcome to come if he wanted. He was the most polite man I've ever met. He asked us if he was welcome there, even though he just got out of prison, we told him absolutely. We didn't think much of it till Saturday morning when he showed up. HE WAS THE BEST ONE ON THE COURT!!!!! holy cow! and we've got some goooooood people that play with us. He was a little rusty to begin with, but then after 5 minutes all the rust came off and he was sinking 3's all day and blocking people left and right. I was a little wary that he might get aggressive since he probably played in prison. He was actually the most polite player out there. I was completely and totally astounded. A ward missionary gave him a full suit, tie, shoes, socks, belt, etc get up so that he could come to church the next day, and we taught him the first lesson while taking him back to his place. It was awesome. He caught on the idea that the message of Christ needed to be spread to the whole world very quickly. I have high hopes for G. :)

Love you all. Hope you haven't been injured on the 4th because of fireworks or something like that. Stay zesty out there!

your Elder Lloyd 

Teach and Transfer

 June 30, 2014

So because of some time complications and transfers I didn't have time to finish my email to you all last week. but I did write a little bit from last week. It goes as follows:

"This last week was a lot of fun. Elder Peterson and I worked our butts off and had a lot of fun this last week. We had some pretty awesome miracles to tell too.

We taught the B's again this week. We thought we were going to teach 2 new investigators at dinner that night along with them, so we prepared a couple different videos that would be able to relate to everyone. Well, the new Spanish people didn't end up showing up, so we still thought giving the prepared message would be good instead of continuing on through the lessons with them. As we were talking about God and his role as the Father of our spirits and the fact that he is eternally invested in our future and the idea that he will always allow us to choose our own road regardless of the fact that he knows what will happen, the father got talking about society and how much it has decayed without the influence of religion with the children and parents that neglect their kids in the parenting aspect. Things were going in a depressing way, so we quickly diverted the whole thing to all of that being the exact reason why believing that we have access to the priesthood or the authority of God to act for the salvation of man is what holds us up to higher expectation. The amazing part was I hadn't watched the video "The power of God" in months before I thought to watch it, and the video nearly quoted the father that we were teaching almost word for word. I think it really hit home with both of them."

 

So I got a new companion. I never really served around him, like at all, even though he's been out for 15 months. His name is Elder Dierks. He's a wrestler. He likes to talk in a funny eastern coast accent even though he's from Arizona. He reminds me of one of the kids from a Norman Rockwell painting. 

This last week was all over the place. We had no time to just recoup and get organized until like Saturday. It was nuts. We picked up 3 new less active families to teach this last week, which was awesome. One of them told us that unless she sees God and the thunder and lightning then she's going to have a hard time believing. She's hurting though. Her husband has had some major health issues for the last 8 years. She used to be super active, but has just been searching for answers as to why these things have been happening to her. She's mad at God. It came to a point where she was just dissing on God too much for me. I bore my testimony to her and her husband for about 10 minutes, and the spirit totally took over the room. We got her to watch Earthly Father, Heavenly Father. After that she was happy to invite us back. It's going to take some time and a lot of raw emotions, but we'll try to help her through her own journey of healing and peace. She's actually a expert marksman in archery. She showed us her $1,200 bow. Her brother is 4th in the World and her sister is 16th in the Nation. I would NOT want to be in the hunger games with this lady. She practices for like 3 hours a day! If the Zombie apocalypse hits though, I know exactly whose house I'm going to though, hoping she's still alive! ha ha

About half of our zone got new companions, so everyone is going through the adjustment phase at exactly the same time. It's kinda fun to see people testing the waters of the other missionaries, so hesitant because they don't know anybody. 

I got to see D. for the first time in 8 months last Monday. It was really good to see him again. I'd post a picture but I don't have the battery from my camera today. I'll have to post it on Facebook this week or something. 

I'm pumped for this week. We've got a lot of new people to teach and the R.s finally opened up to us this last week, so we can actually address their concerns.

I love you all. Hope this last week has been good for y'all. Take it easy and try not to talk to too many opinionated grandma's. The one that we ate with yesterday ripped into me because I don't recycle as much as I should and blamed it on me being from Utah. "Just look at their air, it just looks dirty!" to which I responded "Isn't air invisible?" ha ha

Love yall

Your Elder Lloyd

The Wounded and the Weary

June 16, 2014

Ha ha, I hate to laugh about this so much, but let's just say that my companion was struck down by God this last week for doing something stupid. It was his own fault. At the end of Pday last week he split open his shin on a chair in the church. He was running with such force that you could see all three layers of fat, muscle and shin bone in the big massive gash that ensued. So after that we spent 5 hours in the ER trying to get it all taken care of. I'm really glad that it was elder Peterson though, because if it had been any other one of my companions they would have been hooping and hollering and doing a pity party the entire way. Elder Peterson was a champ about the whole thing, and I think we all know who really is in charge now. He's had to ice it thoroughly and keep it elevated a lot, so it's been a damper on the work this last week. The mission president picked us up from the hospital at like 11 PM that night, and we got a picture with him. It was kind of fun, except for the parts where my stomach was flip flipping because of what the doctor was doing to my companion's leg. It was straight up nasty.

We had zone conferences this last week. They sort of lacked spiritual power and doctrine because it was more of Pres and Sister Morby saying goodbye to the entire mission, but it was still good. Pres assigned me and sister Berrett to perform "Consider the Lillies" for the conference, because it is his favorite song. Over the weekend we wrote a violin part for sis Berrett and practiced a  little bit. It went well. 

The Morris' came to visit on Wednesday night. It was good to see them again. I can't believe how much William, Matthew and Rachel have grown. Don't worry, it was approved by the mission president. we chatted for about an hour or so. I'm stoked to have Bethany as a partner in crime when I go back to BYU. I think we're going to have a blast.

After all that, we continued building houses.

Then this last weekend we participated in Dance Festival. It was pretty cool. The youth from about 6 different stakes got together and tried to share their testimonies through different forms of dance. It was pretty cool I must say. A little odd to be listening to so much music that I would normally listen to back home, but there was a lot of it that I didn't even recognize. The whole mission participated by coming on the floor and singing the Armies of Helaman. It was pretty sweet, but it took two days! To fill in the down time the mission president allowed us to watch the Saratov Approach. I cried a lot in that movie. I thought it was very well made, and it made the Atonement so much more real to me. I think more movies like that need to be made. I think it would be a fantastic way to share the gospel and get people interested in what missionaries do. I think one of my favorite lines was "There is no church policy that says you have to like the Utah Jazz!" ha ha, awesome!

It's going to be interesting to see what happens this next week. My last set of transfers is this weekend. I'm probably not getting moved. I'll probably get Elder Burge for a companion. right now he's one of our district leaders in our zone. That's just my guess. 

I love you all. I can't wait to get back to work after being down for another week. I did the math the other day and I think I've been down with sick companions or injured, or being sick myself for a combined total of 2 months and counting on my mission so far. gahhh. It's hard to restart from all of that again. 

BoM it up!

Ok business first. Yes mom I did fix my schedule 

May 9, 2014

So this last week has been amazing! We've been pumping out a new zone motto: Rally Up! We ask the missionaries every day what their up is: charge up, wake up, tract up. power up, spirit up, etc. It's awesome. As a part of it we've done a district vs district challenge to see which district could pas out the most Book of Mormons (BoMs) in 5 days. They set their goals high for 100 and 101. They worked their butts off. We more than doubled our tracting hours in a single week in the zone going from 40 to 94. We passed out 226 copies in 5 days in one stake!!!!!!!! That's unheard of! we had a pair of sisters that passed out 31 BoMs in 3 hours yesterday! And all of the other stats went up too. I couldn't believe it myself! Holy cow! This next week we're going to be doing another challenge to see who can set up the most return appointments with non-members. We're going to be doing a series of challenges to build up the work and help them to feel pumped about being a missionary. So far so good! We've seen some serious miracles as a result of it. One set of sisters stopped a house fire by calling 911 because they were trying to pass out more BoMs. It's been crazy fun.

So we also had an awesome lesson with the Berniers. I haven't felt the spirit like that in a lesson since I was teaching C. or D. It went amazing. They had questions about what happens to aborted babies, and where Jesus went for the three days he was buried. It was amazing. At the end we asked them if they would be willing to be baptized. The wife was quick to say yes, the husband was more contemplative, but he said that he would have to pray about it. We asked him how he felt about the Atonement of Christ and he bore some of the most amazing and spiritual testimony that I have ever heard. While we were teaching about the spirit world right after the wife was crying. It was amazing to see people catching on to what this gospel could potentially mean to complete the picture of what they already believe. I love it. I feel so thankful to simply be the messenger that God can speak to them through.

I'm not sure what else really happened this week. Most of it was spent giving out supplies to all of the missionaries so that they were fully stocked, and then teaching the most we ever had since I've been here to the area.

We also asked a member to create the photo at the bottom to be our lock screens on the whole zone's iPads. It's so cool to see them all together.

I love you all, and I love this gospel more than anything. I am so thankful for how a mission has changed my weaknesses into strengths. How I could take the things that I didn't like about myself from before the mission and work on them day by day in an atmosphere that is conducive to feeling the spirit and coming closer to God. I love being here with these missionaries. I love serving God, because I feel of his love every day now. I have a testimony that God takes us through the high points and the low points of our lives and that he always has a plan for us to become something better than we could ever try to make of ourselves. I need that help. I yearn for that help. I am thankful for that grace that comes through Christ's Atonement.

Weakness into Strengths

June 2 2014

Holy cow another week gone by. I'm not sure what to do with myself
these days. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the
future. Ha ha

 Shoot I've got stories to tell, but I can't. No time.

I had a massive allergy attack during a lesson this last week. I got a
spark of genius while I was in the bathroom to ask the father for a
blessing as a part of the lesson. We went in thinking that we would
teach the plan of salvation, but we switched it to the priesthood. It
was awesome. The teenage boys were paying super close attention and
for the first time so was the dad. He gave me a blessing and instantly
my nose dried up. It was nothing short of a miracle. It wasn't huge,
but it allowed me to teach. I know that God is looking over that
family. I love teaching them every week. The lessons there never seem
to be short of awesome.

Well sorry for the short letter. We went to my hood today and rode the
ski lift. It took a lot of our time today. Love you!

SERVICE!!!

May 27, 2014

Holy cow, I've never done so much service in one week before. Surprisingly enough, We actually used the machetes that I bought for birthday multiple times for service. They were a God-send this week. We continued building a house, mowing lawns, shoveling mulch weed eating, chopping a burning black berry bushes, moving tables, moving families, and much more. It's cool because most of the service is for the less active members or nonmembers. It helps us get to know the people a little bit more so that they know that we're not just missionary robots. It's been good. Sweating a lot, showering a lot, eating a lot.

We're going to have a burger eating competition with the priests in the ward for mutual this week. It should be good to develop some trust with the Priests. We want to take them out with us as much as we can to go teaching to prep them for their missions. Not very many missionaries have taken them out in the past and they love coming with us. 

There was another night this week that I couldn't fall asleep till like 3 AM so I got up and was reading in my mission journal. I read the whole thing in one go, and that's over 250 pages in the most recent one. As I reflected back I could see the hand of God in my life over the course of my mission. I gave me great confidence in my future and the things that God is preparing me for even now. There were hard times that tore me down and built me up. There was one particular entry that helped me to learn something about relationships and how to resolve conflict. Often times people will voice their concerns and then the two parties will change their behavior to adjust to the needs of the other. But in a lot of cases sometimes merely changing the behavior is not enough. what is truly needed is repentance. it needs to come with a change in heart because of the love of the other person, not just stemming from the desire to keep the peace. When you love the person for who they truly are and desire their progression you can knit your hearts together. It also takes a lot of love not to have your pride to stand in the way of the desire to be right. The more you love them, the more you are willing to take responsibility of yourself, the other person and the space in which you life. Also, a positive and non stressful attitude always helps.

I'm trying to dig deeper in my studies about the nature of God and his attributes and how it all ties together with the Atonement. I'm fascinated.  

I love you guys. I hope you all are doing well

What Happened to the Time?

May 20, 2014

I'm honestly left wondering what happened to the time this week. Last week went by so stinking fast I can't believe it. It was a pretty fun week.

I had my last interview with president Morby this last week. He gave me some going home advice since he's going home on July 1st. It was a bit odd knowing that I still have a little while left to serve. I've got more than enough time to find people and teach them and baptize them. 

I also went on an exchange with Elder Boehm in the Cooper Mountain ward. That night I got to have dinner with an old friend from the set of the Bible Videos, Corbin Allred. It was cool to catch up and to see his daughter Lilly for the first time out of the womb. 

The rest of the week was filled with service and what not. We mowed a lady's lawn on Thursday. It took us 4 1/2 hours to do it. The grass was up to my waist or higher in places and all we had was me on the weedwacker and Elder Peterson on the regular sized lawn mower. There were many times that we had to refill the gas on the machines because her yard was easily 3 acres of just grass. It was fun nonetheless though. We got a good sweat on that day for sure.

On Saturday we had kind of  miracle day. We just had visits planned other than basketball with the Elders Quorum that morning. We had 3 non-members there that morning and there were a lot of instant good impressions made. We had some big boys there too. I would dare say that 75% of them are over 6 foot and close to 200 lbs or more, and they are good too! Some of the members who brought them said that they've seen them open up a ton more to the gospel lately and think that they want to invite them to hear from the missionaries soon. It's so cool to see members of the church doing that with the people that they love. They are usually scared out of their minds to do it, because they are afraid that they will lose their friends if they invite them to hear from the missionaries, but they do it because they know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of healing and peace. It can bring families closer together than anything else that I've ever seen. They do it because they've seen themselves become happier as they live the principles that Jesus Christ taught and they want others to have that same level of happiness. I give those members of the church as much encouragement as possible because I know how nerve racking that invitation can be.

After that we went to go make a visit to the B.s to see how they were doing. They were playing soccer out in the street with their kids so we joined. They ended up inviting us over for dinner on the fly and then invited over some of their neighbors who are also Mormon. The mom went to go shopping and we hung out with the dad a little bit. They had just had a garage sale earlier that day and he was trying to get rid of some stuff. Since he likes us so much he kept chopping down the garage sale prices that were already a steal of a deal. So I bought myself a birthday present. I got $170 worth of Kershaw knives for $60. They are sweet. I got 2 machetes and a pocket knife. Elder Peterson bought a pocket knife to match mine. That's what they call companionship unity my friends. I'm super happy with them too. I got to cut a cheese cake with one of my machetes the other night. It was kinda cool. :D Then dinner started and we had a lesson afterward. The B.s love the messages that we share. They are super ready to hear more. I can't wait until we do because every time gets better and better.

I want to thank everyone for the birthday cards, packages, door attacks, and posts on facebook. Yesterday was pretty sweet. We had a  missionary round up with a Arizonan cowboy missionary who brought his lasso with him on the mission, and a couple other games. It was a lot of fun. I also got to have some Thai food and marshmallow war with my companion. It was fun. Can't wait to see what happens tonight. My companion has a surprise set up with a less active that we teach. I can only imagine what they have in store...

I love you all. Keep doing what you need to do. Keep dancing, singing, b-balling, and striving to live the commandments. I can promise that when you live the commandments to the best of your ability you will find greater levels of peace in your life. The rest of the hobbies help us to find that joy talked about in 2 Nephi 2:25 and also help us to do missionary work that's talked about in Mosiah 2:41. Keep on trucking!

love your Elder Lloyd