Thanksgiving = needing bigger pants! Inbox x

Ok, so you know how I told you I had gained some serious weight in my last area. Well it was no different when I came here. Only when I got here I wasn't doing the olympic weight lifting at the Farnbach's that I used to in West Linn. So my weight has slowly been creeping up on me. I was over 191 lbs two thursdays ago and Thanksgiving didn't help ANYTHING! We had two thanksgiving dinners except we had pizza and pie at the first and then we had chicken and chicken, ham, and pie at the second. So somehow I ended up with a turkeyless dinner, but eh, whatever. the food was SOOOO good anyway I had no complaints. Sunday though my pants were getting so tight that I talked to a family to see if I could get my waist taken out in my pants. they told me to get it to them the next night when the dad came out with us to teach C. I woke up yesterday and looked in the mirror and told myself "No! You've never had a problem with weight gain before, just keep working out and it'll come." So that's the goal. I want to go my whole mission without having to alter my pants. I think I can do it. It's just going to take some dedication on my part. It's way different from when I used to be dancing 4-12 hours in a single day like in college.

Anyway, that's my little side note to begin. 

So, there's been another recent development since I've been with Elder Hendrickson. I officially eat, breathe, and sleep missionary work. I eat it when we talk with the members at dinner about the gospel, I breathe it every moment trying to testify of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, and  I sleep it because for the last 6 weeks I've been sleep missionary-ing. There was one night I had a dream about going on a split with one of the ward members and his non-real white kids and apparently I was sitting up in bed talking with the member. My companion recognize that I was asleep still so he tried to egg it on by asking where I was and what I was doing. I woke up in the middle of it answered his questions and told him I'd finish talking to him in the morning. There was another night that I woke up sitting up and in mid sentence teaching about the atonement and bearing my testimony of it's reality and use for our lives. Then there was another night that I specifically remember being in bed talking to my companion being super exhausted from the day's work and then falling asleep under the covers. I woke up that night at 2ish AM kneeling by my bedside praying. It's ridiculously funny.

This last week was fun. We taught C. with our mission President and his wife just because he wanted to come teach with us. They both loved it! He told us it made his day, his week, his month to be there for that lesson. ha ha, Pres. is funny like that sometimes.

Went on 3 different exchanges with missionaries in the last week. It was nuts. It was a lot of fun though. Had to make sure to get those in before the end of the transfer. It's nuts trying to fit everything in. I feel more like I think a dad would feel. You know that you have TONS of stuff you can do, but you only have a limited amount of time in each day to try and get all of it done. So there's a lot of stuff that falls through the cracks, but you've got to just keeps focus on the most important things first and moving forward. It's been interesting to look at how priorities change even in missionary work when you know you're responsible for over 20 other missionaries and reporting to the stake president, and, and, and... the list never stops it seems. But planning ahead is the LEAST we can to to try and stay on top of the waves coming at us.

I feel a lot of confidence in God and the future. I feel like a lot of my concerns were overridden by promises made to me in my patriarchal blessing and also in my journal writing. I know God commanded me to start using my journal more, but I didn't know just how many different things can be addressed and resolved just by using a journal. I hope all of you use journals because they really give you a perspective that you never would expect. Especially when you read from past entries and look where God has taken you from and lead you towards. It Helps you to see where God wants you to go in the future.

Anyway, I know that Christ lives and that he loves us. He never will let us down when we come to him honestly with all that we have. He does work through time though. Time is one of his best tools in helping us to progress. Its incredible.

Love you all. I hope you got the chance to reflect on the blessings that God has given you.

Love,

Your Elder Lloyd