ok so I'm alive and well in portland today. My P days are now officially Mondays, with the exception of yesterday because of transfers. Btw, I'm in the same mission as Kodi Porter and Adam Manwill. I graduated with Adam at Hillcrest. kinda crazy. I said goodbye to my old companion Elder Schmidt and said hello to my new companion Elder Belo. He's from Brazil and is in his last 3 transfers. He thinks I'll "kill him off" meaning we'll be companions till the day he leaves to go back home. He's a cool guy. Really low key. Loves the members. He's lived in America for 14ish years so his english is amazing, but it still lacks in some parts. He had no idea what I was talking about when I said compost this morning. Oh yeah get this. I'm only 5 months younger than him. crazy huh? So last night we went to go eat at a members house and guess what Steven! You were right. Old women apparently get to brake the rules. The first thing that Mama Pace did was give me a big fat hug and there was nothing I could do to stop her. She's a funny lady. She loves the missionaries and has them all sign her ceiling in the basement. Some of these signings are from 2002. yeah... So I drew a picture of myself and signed it and dated my mission. I'll send home the pictures when I can. I have to switch my pictures to a usb format so I would need a cord from home, or I'll just have to buy another myself one day. So Mama Pace made us a real interesting meal. It was all green. Green pancakes, green applesauce, green eggs, green lettuce, green gatorade, green kiwi and grapes. It was ridiculous. Apparently it's a tradition up here for a greeny's first day. Unfortunately I made the mistake of accidently eating six leaves of peppermint in my salad and I practically choked on it because of the fumes. We all died laughing after that. we had a grand time just getting to know each other. I did learn something though. Avacado is not at all my favorite food. But I didn't make a single face... except with the peppermint because that was way too strong ;) Later last night I was assigned to teach family home evening. Wow. It was interesting. It went from a lesson with the kids singing songs about obedience and happiness (my favorite subject! go section 93!!!), to me teaching from 1 nephi 17 and 18. After that somehow I think the kids all disappeared and the 6 adults had one of the best scriptural discussions I've ever seen. It was interesting though. Mama Pace had told me to put a real emphasis on the kids that night, but the Spirit testified to me that it was the adults that really needed it. You could tell there was some contention in points of view at the beginning of the lesson, but by the end you could really feel the spirit. It was a very good experience. After that my companion and I went home and planned for an hour and 20 minutes. I knew nothing about the area so he had to get me up to date. I'm still sure that I know about 5% of what's going on, but all I want to do is get to work. This morning I continued to get up at 6:15 so we could exercise. I'm still not sure that exercising that in the morning is healthy for you. but it I got it done. Hopefully I didn't wake up the neighbors of the duplex we live in by doing my clapping push ups. Speaking of our duplex. Our apartment is FREAKING NICE. well as far as missionary apartments go. We have a stove, microwave, DISHWASHER, fans, two bathrooms, a room just for studying, a sectional couch that can seat eleven, and a couch in our bedroom. WOW!  I feel so blessed. seriously. The scariest thing that happened so far (other than the contention earlier mentioned) is that my companion told me that the stove didn't work. I cook EVERYTHING on the stove. He's been in this area for six weeks and he said it's never worked and told me if I could get  it to work he'd be so happy. I turned the knobs on and nothing happened. I pulled up the coils and guess what. Someone hadn't just plugged them back in. So I did and it worked fine :) ha ha, he was so happy. I can't believe that he went six weeks without a stove. That's incredible to me. So I was studying lesson three today because we're supposed to teach it later today and I never studied it in the MTC. Heck I only taught the second lesson once in the whole experience. But I kinda got side tracked while reading a scripture that PMG had referenced. It's John 7:17. I wondered what had prompted that, so for the first time since russell told me to study Romans over a year ago, I read the New Testament of my own free will. It was Golden! I was really learning by the spirit. I got to thinking about FHE last night and how that correlated to Christ's experience in that chapter. How much more patient would He have had to have been than I was trying to be. He did it because he understood that no matter what he did, he could say that he was the Christ till he was blue in the face, but until they used their faith to know by asking in prayer, the jews attempts at trying to justify him being the christ through the prophecies would fail them. The Jews were so worried about the knit-picky prophecies that they forgot the entire grand picture of the Father's plan. It taught me something interesting. The Lord had promised me some very certain and specific things and I've been trying to make those things all fit together with the people and knowledge that I already have, and sometimes it's driven me crazy. But if I sit back and look at the grand scheme of the plan by glorifying God through this work it doesn't matter. He's promised those things to me. So if I'm willfully obedient now then it doesn't matter; those things He's promised will come because I'm doing everything I can so that he will bless my life.   I can't wait for my first investigator tonight. I love you all! Elder Lloyd PS when I was at the bank today I overhead a woman tell this to the cashier. "So a few days ago I had $140 disappear off my front table, and a few days later I found it. My dogged pooped it out. Can I get new bills? I've got the old ones here taped together." And indeed she had. And she was holding the bills in a tissue. I just about died laughing when the cashier said "um.... we can't accept those here, but we might be able to credit you." Oh my gosh. Only in Portland!