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

Do the CAT-Daddy

May 12, 2014

Dang! This week was crazy busy. We had a meeting every single day of the week and tons of getting people out of tough spots. On Tuesday, the Hazeldale Sisters called us in distress. They told us that they were doing some service and the guy that was building his house in our area had gotten his tractor stuck in a ditch. So we went as fast as our Hemi powered mini van could take us and still obey the Tiwi system to help them out. What the sisters failed to mention was that it wasn't just a tractor. It was a CAT- back-hoe. And it wasn't just stuck in a ditch, but the track had fallen off the gears on one side. You know the wheel track that a tank has?? Yeah, that thing! It weighed over 800 pounds. So we got some 2x4's and we put it back on. It took us an hour and a half, but we got her done! It was an adventure for sure.

Then we totally transformed J-dog's back yard for a birthday party this Saturday. We cleaned moss off of tables, benches, and grills. We mowed the lawn, set up a fire pit, and a couple of patio sets, it was fun.

Then we put in plumbing in a house at the edge of our area on the south side.

Then we pulled off 4 moves on Saturday. 1 family moved out. 1 Family moved within the ward. 1 family moved into the ward. 1 family moved all of their belongings within their house for painting and renovation. I was exhausted! I ate like a bear that just woke up from 3 years of hibernation. I had 7 slices of pizza, 2 ice cream bars, 2 thick homemade burgers (comparable D.'s homemade burger's) a plate of cake and ice cream, a cake pop, and like 6 or 7 bottles of water. I think that may have made up for all the energy I used that day. I'm not quite sure though...

It was really good to talk to some of you over skype just yesterday. It was odd for me, but it was good. Hope, y'all had a great Mother's day.

I got to go to the temple and do the work for G.'s (a recent convert from West Linn) father. It was a pretty neat experience. I love going to the temple. There are things there that I feel are placed there just for me. I found a lot of peace in the Celestial room, just pondering and praying about life and things to come. I wish I could go to the temple more often, because that peace doesn't come as strong in many other times and places as it does there. I won't get to go back to the temple until the end of my mission.

So it was way cool this last week. The B.s came to church this last week and the husband was contributing like crazy in class as we were talking about the purpose of the Atonement. He was very insightful. I learned a thing or two from him about the life of Jesus Christ. It was pretty sweet. The Spirit was strong during that class. I know they were feeling it. They were saying just how logical it was how we believed in the different aspects of the Creation, Fall, and Atonement. They were getting pretty excited about it. I can't wait to see how are lesson goes this week with them.

One of our investigators this week had her boyfriend brake up with her the day before prom. I felt kind of bad for her, but from what she had been telling us about the guy it sounded like a really good thing. I do feel for her pain though. Brake ups are almost never easy. I really hope she turns to the Savior about it like we taught her, but she has an aversion to praying sincerely. I think it's a defense mechanism. I think she's really afraid of just getting an answer since she's never known that there was a God before. Sometimes in life you just have to give things a leap of faith to see if things really can get better. We can't just hope that things will fix themselves, we have to turn outward. When it comes to turning to Christ for healing, I can promise he will NEVER let you down. He is the most caring and encouraging person that ever existed, and he truly brings peace to the soul and confidence to out countenances. It happens 100% of the time, all the time.

I love y'all! Have a fantastic day and week. We're gonna go play some broom hockey today.

Love,

Your Elder Lloyd.

Mother's Day Surprise!

May 5, 2014

Wow, this last week has been incredible. We picked up two new investigators from a member referral at dinner. We had dinner at the non-member's house with the member family there as well. These guys have been having dinner with the missionaries for about 4 months now, but they've been asked for about 4 years now every now and again if they'd like to take the missionary lessons. For some reason it just seemed to click totally naturally this time and they were super interested for the first time! They are super cool. T. is a marine. He works for Intel and really knows his beliefs in the Bible really well, but wants to get educated on a bunch of different religions. His wife L. is super cool too. They've got a bunch of kids. I'm excited to teach them. I'll tell you what though. I was sweating a TON in our last lesson. It was stinkin' hot in their place. It was kind of hard to identify the spirit because everyone was hot and tired. But then the member stepped in right at the end and bore a super powerful and concise testimony of Joseph Smith being called to restore Christ's church to the Earth and the Spirit bowled everyone over. It was awesome!

Things are changing mission wise. My mission president mentioned that at his last seminar with Elder Cook this last month, he was notified about how the work is going to change. Pretty much we are completely going to slowly reverse everything that I know about how to be a missionary. Instead of giving 4 hours of service a week, we're going to  be doing service everyday from 10-4 and then tracting from 5-7. Normally I try to tract before 12-4. from 5-7 people usually get mad because you are interrupting their dinner whether or not they are actually cooking or eating to begin with. It's going to be an interesting switch to see phase slowly in. 

I don't know why the Apostles want us to do it this way, but I know I'm going to follow it. Prayer will always help you feel calm about the new things that come into your life.

Love yall!

Your Elder Lloyd

Ge-tripled!

April 28, 2014

This last week was awesome. We were able to tackle on a much more productive week this week. We went from teaching 2 lessons last week to teaching 7 lessons this week and picking up 3 new investigators. It was a really good week.

So we picked up the R. kids. They are all foster kids with a Mormon family right now. They've been coming to church of their own free will for the last couple months. Recently the oldest daughter (16) approached the bishop after a mutual activity and told him that she really liked what she was seeing in the church. To the Bishop, it was a sign. 

Little did I know, a recently returned missionary from Madagascar (named O., he's from Nigeria), who served in the same mission and the same time at Liam Smith when Liam was an AP, had signed up to have dinner with us. As soon as he wrote down his name on the calendar he started to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help him to find people to bring to that dinner that he could give to the missionaries to teach. He had no idea that the R.s existed at that point. He was getting kind of discouraged because he had been searching for someone that was prepared to hear the Gospel and it was two days before the dinner. He happened to go over the the M.'s house and meet the kids and it hit him there. The spirit told him to invite them, so when we showed up to dinner he asked us to go into the lesson right there on the spot. We were able to connect REALLY well with the kids. Funnily enough we had dinner with the M.'s the next night and we had another lesson there. The kids were getting pumped because they had read all of Alma 32 before we came. It was cool to see teens get excited about learning with the missionaries. The kids are 16, 15, and 12. Girl, boy, girl. I'm excited to see what happens with them, because it looks like they are at least interested. We'll see what happens tomorrow when we go to teach the 2nd half of the Plan of Salvation. I'm stoked. We actually have investigators now! Not only that, but God answered O.'s prayers to help out the missionaries. I know that members of the church can do that everywhere and see the same results if they actively seek for it.

Elder Peterson had his 1 year mark in the mission this last week. He got a package in the mail from his grandma. He got crochet Chuck Taylor slippers. They are sweet!

I also made a deal with a senior in high schooler the first week I was here that if I would drink this really weird Japanese drink that he would come to church. I did it. It tasted pretty good. He came to church yesterday. His name is Josh. He used to be 7th day Adventist. He's a cool kid. He wants to be a nurse. Anyway, during gospel principles class during second hour of church, he was asking really good questions, like, what is the Atonement? Good question right? well if any of you have wondered, seriously, check out this video http://easter.mormon.org it's seriously the best video I've seen the church produce on the atonement. I get super pumped when I watch it. It just makes me want to dance. But maybe that's just because of the music in it. I hope that we can start teaching Josh soon. He's got a lot of potential

I love y'all. Keep doing what you're doing. Patience and diligence is the key to life my friends. patience and diligence and feeling the love that God feels for you individually. It's a great feeling. It's peaceful, and yet overwhelming at times. It just makes you want to do good and be good. I wish I could describe it more but I got to go! :)

your Elder Lloyd

Family history, am I doing it?

April 21, 2014

This week was different. We did a lot of family history work because
our bishop wanted us to teach people how to do familysearch.org. I
didn't know anything about family history work before last week, and
now I know very little. I tried to keep searching on family tree for
ancestors, but I know my mom has more info on her own computer than is
on that website. So I focused on gathering stories. So I added some
photos and obituaries for grandpa Lloyd. I felt useful, but I didn't
get much past that. It's hard to do family history work. I will say
though there was a very nice lady at the family history center that we
had a hoot and a holler with trying to learn more. It was good stuff

There was a guy this last week that we found on an exchange with me
and Elder Snow. He was sitting on the curb in the parking lot of his
apartment drinking a beer. He asked if we were from the church of
Jesus Christ or if we were Mormons. I told him that we were from both.
So he said, "oh, you're Jehovah's Witnesses!" "Nope, not really. We
are a totally different church." It was funny to talk with the guy.
He used to be a Seventh day Adventist, but now he's a professed
agnostic. He told us at when Jesus comes back he'll pickup his assault
rifle and start defending Jesus, but until then he just doesn't know
for sure. He started asking us about John Smith and his rock glasses,
so we just essentially taught him the whole restoration of the gospel
of Jesus Christ and gave him a Book of Mormon. He told us that since
his computer went down he would probably read it that night. When we
asked about his computer he told us that he plays this video game
24/7. He said at that moment, that right then was the longest that he
had ever not been playing the game, which was for 3 hours.
Aghhhhhhh...I couldn't imagine that one. He told us to come back next
weekend. That should be fun. Other than that we had a pretty low key
week.

A family in the ward threw me an early surprise birthday party for me
on Sunday. I think every time they get together they try and throw
someone a party as an excuse to have cake. They screamed the happy
birthday song at me the entire time. It kind of scared me a little
bit. The whole extended family that was over for Easter treated the
whole thing like it was just normal. I was so confused. They gave us
bonsai trees on our way out. Now only if I knew how to trim and shape
them... Yeah...

I've been studying a lot about the atonement and the idea of embracing the
present as it is and not freaking out about the unknown. I find that
the lord's plan for us is much like repelling or doing a stunt. If you
freak out about the repel or the stunt while it's happening the whole
thing will crash and there will be damage done to all parties involved
and people will have a sour attitude about having experiences with
Christ. If they simply trust the master instructor and just go with
it, their experiences in completing the task will be enjoyable,
thrilling even and they will desire more. There are so many parallels
in this metaphor and I could go on for an hour about the whole idea of
obedience and trust, but I love the idea that embracing the situation
that god has places you in and working his way with all of our energy.
It will bring about the best results. I am doing that as best I can
now. I'm going to work my butt off because anything less than that
will bring about a lack lister experience, or possibly cause an injury
spiritually speaking.

Love you all. Sorry for the short letter this week. Hope y'all are
doing good. I love to hear from ya. Take it easy!

Your elder Lloyd

Farmingtawesome

April 14, 2014

Not going to lie, this last week was super chill. I drive a mini van
now. It's a hard transition from a 2014 Subaru Legacy to a mini van.
It's a little sensitive on the gas pedal. The tiwi system doesn't
really like me in it. I think I've gotten about 5 aggressive driving
violations just from starting too quickly while trying to make a left
turn from a dead stop. Ha ha, that died down after the first two days
though.

I ate tuna noodle casserole for my first meal in Farmington at a less
actives house. It wasn't that bad. Would I choose to cook it for
myself, no, but it wasn't nearly as bad as H. made it seem to be
from her stories from her mission in Pittsburgh. I think I've developed
a reputation with that family that I will eat just about anything.
Which may or may not be true... Yeah...

The work is slower here in Farmington, but it is nothing that I'm not
used to for when I move into a new area. Before I leave this area
we'll have it pumping again. This last week was full of mostly doing
zone leader stuff. Paper pushing, preparing meetings, taxiing
missionaries, delivering supplies, etc. We have a mini van because we
have to cart around all the other missionaries all over because all
the elders in the zone are on bike (our ward covers like 3/4ths of the
entire stake, so that's why we have the car)

On Sunday I was able to go on a split back to the West Linn Ward to
baptize the last of G's daughters, A. She just barely turned
8. It was a sweet baptism. It was good to see everyone from west Linn
again. It was like coming home, or something.

So Elder Peterson is pretty sweet. He's my age. He graduated in 2010
like me. He's been out for a little under a year though, but he's
ready for the work, that's for sure. He's way fun to be with. He went
to Jordan High School in Sandy, he even dated a bunch of my friends
from Hillcrest. It's been really fun to swap stories with him from
back home because of it.

Last day we all got lassoed by an Arizonan cowboy named Elder Ballard.
It was way fun. I got a rope burn on my face, but it was funnier than
all get out. Elder Ballard is a cool cat. He used to do rodeos and all
that jazz.

Well, there's not too much more to write about. We give a lot of
service in this ward. Like... A lot of service. I almost ran out of
service clothes while we were building garden fences and garden beds
and cleaning houses, moving people, and etc. it's just a different
flavor of missionary work.

I love you all, and I can truly testify of the enabling power of the
atonement. God will help us to change our own circumstances if we act
in faith. He will help us to leave the ashes of the past behind and
bring the glowing embers of past faith to fuel our current fire if we
will simply make the choice to follow him. I love him, and I love the
chance I have each day to try to realign myself  to where he wants me
to be. It is completely and totally healing. It is freeing. It's
exhilarating!

Your Elder Lloyd

Sent from my iPad

Transfer to reunions

April 8, 2014

This last week was crazy nuts as predicted and written about last
week. But, we got through it with awesomeness in our wings. I
definitely felt the hands of The Lord sustaining us and giving us the
ideas that we ended when we needed them. We lost a lot of sleep, but
that's alright. That's life as a missionary, let's be serious! Ha ha.
We picked up two new investigators that are a gay couple. One of them
told us that they would come to church for three months to see if he
wanted to be a part of it. He also said that he'd have to get used to
the good feeling that he felt during the closing prayer (aka the
spirit). It was pretty sweet for sure. I hope everything goes well for
them.

Y. and C. are doing pretty good. We had some really good
visits this last week where they opened up even more about their
personal feelings about the gospel and the spirit. Teaching a marine
is a little bit of a different world. There are some concerns there
from a battle hardened man that you won't find in anyone else, but
then you add in C.'s class clown personality and it's a whole new
avenue. Ha ha. I love them to pieces though. It was awesome playing
soccer with C. and all the little kids on Thursday. While we were
there the catholic school bus lady ran over our soccer ball. It
sounded almost like the gunshots I used to hear in St. John's. It
freaked out the kids a little bit, but only for a moment. The lady,
she couldn't have been more than 25 years old, felt soooooo bad for
running over the ball. She tried to offer some knew for the ball, but
we told her it was all good. It was an old ball left over from some
ancient past missionary. Then like 4 little girls came up to us and
invited us to come to their baptist church. It was awesome. We were In
our sports clothes so they didn't know we were missionaries. When one
of the girls pointed out that one of the kids were were playing with
went to their church he tried to run away and hide, but I told him
right in front of everyone, "hey man, don't be scared, church is
nothing to be ashamed of! Church is cool." And I got him to stand
right next to me. We invited the girls to come to a couple church
activities of ours as well. I totally understand how some people react
when we come to the door, but I was actually impressed that a couple
of 12 and 13 year old girls would go out and try to muster up the
courage to invite a bunch of guys to church that are twice their age.
I gave them major props.

Conference was awesome. I loved elder Bednar's talk about the load
being the thing that gives us spiritual traction to move forward and
to grow. I also really loved the talk about "no corrupt
communication," I really want to go back and study a lot of those
talks again. I was too busy writing notes that I missed a lot of what
they said. Kind of odd how that one goes. Ha ha.

Well I got transferred yesterday. Now I'm in the Farmington Ward up
north, right by Forest Grove stake if any of you know where that is.
I'm with elder Conner Peterson from Sandy, Utah. He's my age, but
graduated a year after did. I used to know him when he was in my
district back in West Linn. I fact there are a lot of people in my
zone that I knew from back in West Linn, like Elder Pearson and Elder
Burge and a few others as well. It's the first time that I've ever
served around somebody that I actually knew before. It's an odd
concept to me, but it should a much smoother transition than when I
got transferred to my other areas.

I love elder Peterson, he's a really cool guy. I respect him a lot.
He's only been out for about a year, but he's pretty capable.

Love y'all

Your elder Lloyd

Sorry for the spelling errors, iPads aren't that great...

Hulk Burrito

March 31, 2014

I seriously think that god has a neurolizer for missionary brains. It
is so hard to remember what happened in the last week because we are
always so focused on what we have to do today and this week! Speaking
of which, this week is going to be more than crazy. It will possibly
be the busiest week of our entire missions. We've got a presentation
with the high council/ bishops council tomorrow night, a meeting with
our own bishop, two district meetings, a meeting with our ward mission
leader to sync up our area books, mission coordination, weekly
planning, a presentation to prepare for mission leadership meeting,
plus that entire day at said meeting, general conference, service,
transfer calls during general conference then saying goodbye to
everyone if me or my companion gets transferred, plus all of the other
lessons that we have planned on top of that, oh and we have to compile
stake reports as well by this Saturday. Did I forget anything? I hope
not. Ha ha! This week is going to be crazy awesome!!!! Take luck,
right? Ha ha. Challenge accepted!

This last week was awesome though. We did a lot of finding people this
week. It was so much fun to get out there and hit the pavement and try
to get these people out of our potentials or into out teaching pool
(We have over 100 people in our potentials right now). We made some
significant progress this week.

We set a baptismal date with Y. this week for April 26th! Then
this Sunday at church, we saw an engagement ring that C. gave to
her. We got pretty excited about that. She's ready to be baptized
mentally, she just needs to pray about it to get the spiritual
witness. She just forgets to pray about it.

We found out why T. keeps on refusing to pray on his own time about
the Book of Mormon. He's afraid of NOT getting an answer. I have never
heard that one before, but it makes sense if you take into
consideration that tony has never been around any religion much
before. We told him that he'll never know until he tries. He said he
would do it.

G. finally is convinced that she needs to get rid of her dog.
She's really sad about that, but it really is for her benefit. She
just needs a lap dog companion, not a neurotic German Shepard that's
scared out of its mind all of the time.

We committed D. to baptism this week if he finds out that it's true.
He was pretty gung-ho about it too. He is a seventh day Adventist, so
he pretty much believes almost everything that we do. We always have
really good lessons/discussions with him.

Oh man. I went on an exchange with a guy from New Zealand on Saturday.
Phew! I ate the biggest burrito I have ever seen with him for lunch.
Then right after we went a moved a lady up three flights of stairs. I
was definitely hurting! I never slowed down while I ate it though, so I was happy. Happy and hurting :) Ha ha. It was awesome. The burrito was pretty
dang good! Later that night we saw a soccer ball in the middle of an
apartment complex field and a bunch if kids hanging out in the
stairwells freezing their butts off. As soon as we touched the soccer
ball they all came out and started playing with us. Only problem was
it had been raining for the last 4 days straight. The field was all
mud and I was still in my suit. I took off my suit coat, but
everything else I was wearing got completely covered in mud. It was
awesome! Only problem was that I couldn't drive home covered in mud,
so we walked over to Y. and C.'s apt and asked them for a
towel. While we were walking over we ran into a YSA in the dark. We
talked for a minute and then walked up into the apartments together.
Apparently his girlfriend lives directly across from C. When we
knocked on Y's door she answered super tired, and her 5 year old
daughter came out. She was sick, so we offered a blessing. She said she
wanted one. Only problem was that C. was at work, which means that
we couldn't go inside. So we knocked on the door behind us and asked
the guy if he could join us for a blessing. He did. So I washed off my
hands and arms and gave her a blessing. This was an awesome miracle.
God provided the way that he could bless little V. with a
blessing, since her dad can't give it to her yet (he's still waiting for the Melchizedek Priesthood). It was a very cool testimony to me that you literally can be asked at any time to give a
blessing, so you need to be constantly living a worthy life. We also
got a towel so I could drive home. It was way awesome day!

I was able to find a lot more in the scriptures this last week, especially in alma 60 concerning the law of consecration. When we clean our inner vessels we have more capabilities to fight off the onslaught of satan's attacks on our borders. When I was reading through that chapter the idea of obedience made so much more sense to me. I already had a testimony of obedience, but this was new light to my mind. The idea of you never being able to know how much good you could have done if you were more obedient became very real. Many nephites died just because there was inner conflict in the city of nephihah. So it is with us. If we can resolve our inner conflict, we will have more to give to The Lord. It's so simple. I love it. I was also able to read a talk by Bruce r McConkie this last week called "the seven deadly heresies." Oh my gosh, when I read the part about the spirit world it made the importance of being a missionary so much more powerful. I would highly recommend reading it if you get the chance. 

In love you all, keep on trucking! 

Sincerely,

Your Elder Lloyd

Captain Moroni's example

March 24, 2014

Wow, this last week was also crazy. (I think I say that just about every week...) It's because it's true, though!

On Monday I crashed for a 4 1/2 hour nap on pday because of all the lack of sleep that I've had for the last 6 months. It was very much so needed, and it's even helped me feel energized to today, a week later. I think that's the second time my entire mission that I've just crashed for pday. but because of that whole nap I couldn't fall asleep that night. I tried for two hours, and then finally at 1:30 in the morning I just got up. I had the prompting to read about Captain Moroni, so I opened up to Alma 43 and just started to devour the scriptures. I didn't get to bed till 4 AM. I read well over 24 pages, and I learned so much. Since that night I've continued to read when I can and now I think I'm at chapter 59. I found Captain Moroni to be just a man. He was hot headed for God's sake. He reminds me of a couple of mission leaders that I've had in the past. Just because someone is our leader doesn't meant that we have to agree with every action they take. As long as we can see the reasons behind their thinking and see that their motivation is for the unity of the people and also to perserve the standards that God has set forth, that should be enough for us to give them our support. I also started to see the value in just taking things as they are. As a person you can only focus on one thing at a time. We can't worry about trying to predict the future, or try to figure out the "perfect algorithm" for being the "superhero missionary" or "superhero mom or dad" because God is going to use both our weaknesses and our strengths to his benefit. He's not going to place us in a situation that we can't handle.We need to trust God a little more, depend on Him even to the point that we can just do what we need to do, do what we've been trained to do, and do our part to make sure that the spirit is with us. When complications come up in our way, we don't have to completely rack our brains every time that something new is in our path. We can ask God. If we truly have the spirit with us we will be able to do things the way that God wants them done. It doesn't mean that it won't be hard, but it means we can focus on the truly important things and leave the things that are out of our control up to the Master. 

This last week I've started to see the after mission application of everything we do. A mission is not just something that we do for 2 years, burn ourselves out to the bone and then become bitter at the church for making us do and then leave. Rather mission life is training us to trust God, and to develop the habits that will make us the most successful in every aspect of our life for the rest of our lives. I've found the points in my life, or on my mission where I was the most burned out, it was because I was trying to tackle life on my own terms and disregarding the standards or sources of help that God has set forth. I was relying on my own strength to support me, yet I was forgetting the source of all strength. It's in these times, that if we start to look back at our past through journals/facebook etc that we can see exactly what God has been leading us towards our entire lives. The Commandments of god are to give us a life with less inner conflict. We don't have to be perfect, we just have to do what we can. The purpose of doing what we can is not so that we can pay God back for what he's done for us, but so that we can be transformed into the person that he wants us to. So enjoy the ride and let God take the reins! Be willing to follow each of his promptings and do what you can. Some people would call this humbling yourself. I call it doing things the easy/less stressful way. It still requires work, but it's a lot more fun :)

Nothing about this last week really stood out to me, it was just craziness as always. G's dog injured her again ( it broke her nose a few weeks back). T. is resisting becoming a real man through work ethic, and C. is still throwing up false reasons as to why he can't be married yet. We're going to continue to call them out on their crap and invite them to come closer to God. It's kind of our job. I think it's funny/ odd to see people that know that what Christ has to offer through this Gospel is exactly what they want, but they don't want to have to do what it takes to get there to have it. I know I used to be in that same boat a few years ago. It's a little humbling to see it from the other side. 

I love you all so much. letters/emails are always greatly appreciated. I promise I read each and every one of them. I try to respond individually as much as I can. there's just not a whole lot of time to do it in.

Stay Zesty!

Your elder Lloyd

February 17, 2014

.....

 This last week was stake conference and the stake president told me to give
a talk presenting the new missionary work plan that went into effect
In West Linn and Canby already. So I did. Now the entire Oregon City
stake is being trained by their local missionaries on how to do it.
It's really kind of neat to see it all done. My mission president told
me after I spoke that I gave that talk just like a general authority.
Not sure if that's a good thing or not if the message was coming from
a missionary...

I had to sit up on the stand for all three sessions. The whole
conference was about missionary work. It was like being in a giant
zone meeting for 2 days. I'll tell you what, watching the back of
people's heads that are talking gets really awkward. There's always
that person just off the center of focus of the person who is talking
who is looking at you. So look at them. Then they look away. Then you
look away! Then rinse repeat, for three 2 hour sessions. Agh. I hope
that's not what it's like being a bishop. That's got to be the worst.

I love you all and I know with a certainty that this message of peace
changes lives and the desires of our hearts. It make bad men good and
good men better. Or women, the gospel is not just for men. It is my
testimony that Joseph Smith was without a doubt the priest that God
called to restore his church again to the earth. I know that Jesus is
the Christ and that through him my soul can feel confidence in
tomorrow knowing that my conscience has been wiped clean through the
grace of Christ. He loves you even more than I do, which is kind of
hard, because I love you a lot! Ha ha

Love

Your elder Lloyd!

Sorry for the typos, this iPad's not the best at taking exactly what I
type. It auto corrects the stupidest stuff

Snow? In Portland? Inconceiva​ble!

February 10, 2014

So this last week was a little odd. We were doing everything just like normal, and then on wednesday things got cold. FAST! I went on an exchange on Wednesday with Elder Fontaine on the Oregeon City 4th ward. That man is a beast. He's a really cool, and very professional missionary. He's been doing wonders for that district of missionaries. It was 25 degrees for most of that day, but with the 25 MPH winds and the humidity it had the chill factor of 10 degrees. It was the first day I had been on a bike since I left St. Johns Ward a year ago. I feel very blessed to have a car. I'll just say that. My butt was bruised the next day... I think I've gotten soft. We were tracing for an hour and half in the frigid weather and we were hoping that just one person would let us in so that we could warm up. Nobody let us in, but a few people scheduled return appointments with us. It was awesome :) I love tracting. I wish I could do more of it.

Then on friday we were told to stop driving and start walking everywhere. It snowed easily a foot and a half here in Canby. They get snow here like every 5 or 6 years. ha ha. kinda crazy. right after our cars got grounded a member in the ward told us that he was going to drop off something. Little did we know he was going to drop off half of the hostess store. Want any twinkies? I had literally forgotten what those things tasted like. We had a lot of fun walking everywhere. It was nice to just change up the routine. We got to spend a lot of our snow time with the A. family and also with D. It was amazing to see those miracles come to pass.

We asked H. (she came home from her mission the day before I got to canby for medical stuff) if she would like to see an example of the plan of salvation lesson so that she could learn how to teach it. She said yes, and we got D. over there so we could actually go inside, and also so that we could teach him at the same time. He had a ton of good insights. He's still in that fighting the middle ground stage of things though. He's got a girlfriend that's anti religion, but is still comfortable around us. He knows he wants to be active, but he's got some decisions to make concerning a lot of things. I hope we can get in with him more this week. We gave him a "Preach my Gospel" missionary manual after our dinner appt on Friday. He thanked us for it. He was kind of stoked about it. 

We picked up two new investigators that we will be turning over to the Spanish and YSA elders this week. I'm glad to give them both more work to do, because both sets need the help in finding new investigators. They are both pretty solid investigators too. 

Other than that, we had a little fun playing in the snow with people who just needed the one on one time and other less actives. It was a good week. Church was cancelled. But it was good stuff.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, we taught a lesson with E. while trudging in the snow for 2 hours, and then it was another hour of travel time on top of that. It was awesome. I totally destroyed my shoes walking around for the last three days in them because of the ice layer (which was a result of the freezing rain on top of the snow) but it was a lot of fun. 

I love you guys a lot. One thing that stuck out to me just last night was the idea that the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are actually Jesus' mission journals. Jesus had a lot of the same experiences that we do as missionaries. Going from area to area, even Jesus did not have the same level of success in each City. But despite the mocking and the litany of disrespect that he received he remained stalwart and true to the things that he learned about the eternal nature of his Father. He taught the people with parables that the people were familiar with. He tried brand new ways of reaching each individual person. He wasn't stagnant, he was constant. He wasn't belligerent, he was bold. He may not have been liked by everyone, but His mercy was and is for everyone. 

I love you all. I hope the mercy and grace of Christ has touched your lives this week. I hope you can see the miracles in each and every day. I'm rooting for you, and I pray for you guys.

Love,

Your Elder Lloyd

Super Church Sunday

February 3, 2014

This has been an incredible week. Many things have happened for the
good of  everything. I seriously wish I could express all the miracles
that go on in a single week here in the mission field, but if I did
you'd just be watching an unedited movie of my life because it's
constant.

So Monday and Tuesday was fairly normal. Although it seems to be that
everyone that we're teaching this week needs to be taught the Ten
Commandments. Maybe God's trying to tell me something... Hmmm. I love
just being able to share the message of the gospel and the scriptures
with people. The Ten Commandments, aka the Decalogue for all of you
that have read "Jesus the Christ," really boils down the whole gospel
into such simple terms. It was so interesting to see that with each
person that we taught we broke the Ten Commandments into 2-3 lessons.
There's so much depth to them if you actually start to think about
them. This morning we were actually teaching them to C. and we got
on the subject of honoring our parents. Many ideas were exchanged on
what exactly that meant.

-back in the law of Moses a father could justifiably kill a son or
daughter if they were disrespectful to him or his wife.
- you obtain a length of days on the land as you show your care for
your parents in their old age, which your children will see your
example Nd therefore take care of you
- as you hearken to the counsel of your mother and father you learn
intelligence through obedience. D&c 130:19. When we live intelligent
lives we live full and spirit driven lives.
- honoring our parents is symbolic of honoring our Heavenly Father.
Hebrews 12:9 we honor god by obeying him. Obedience shows our love. If
it shows god our love for him, then why not would obedience to our
parents show our love for them?

Many more ideas were shared but those were the ones that stood out to
me the most.

So on Wednesday we got iPads. It has changed my iWork's of missionary
work soooo much. Everything that E. could possibly ever need is here
on huge iPad. Videos, scriptures, visual aids. Pamphlets, Facebook,
email, our area books, maps, Siri, and much much more. I feel like I'm
getting sucked into technology more and more. I don't know if I like
it, but maybe that's just because our mission president told us that
we need to take away some proselyting time to update the devices with
the entire area book by hand by the end of the transfer,which ends in
three weeks. That's over ten years of records in some cases. Oi! It
didn't help that we also had to do stake reports on top of that. I
felt little bit more like a Full time secretary last week.

The iPads really have helped though. I've been reading though the
lasts session of general conference on the gospel library app, (Mind
you this is the first time I've owned a "i" anything!) and I've been
reminded of a lot of good things. I really needed to hear "look ahead
and believe" by Elder Dube. I had been struggling with comparing
myself to myself from back when I served in West Linn. I absolutely
loved the people in west linn. They are some of my best friends and
always will be, especially Dustin. But my problem was that I was
looking too much on the past and not looking forward to what God has
waiting for me to do. I had plateaued. Which, given the circumstances
with difficult companions, is easy to do. But it's not right. It's not
good to fall into. The thoughts of "there is much yet to do" we're
pounding in my head as I read through that talk. I got me super pumped
up. When we were walking out on the streets my confidence was through
the roof because I knew that I was there for a reason. We carry the
kingdom of god with us as we enter into people's houses. We are on the
most important mission that God could ever ask of us, to invite others
to come back to him.

What also is quite interesting to me is that many of the people that
we are currently teaching have absolutely no Christian background at
all. The idea of god is foreign to them. It makes for a much slower
teaching pace. But it's also rally good for us to get back to basics
and dig deeper into the meaning of things with these people.

This last Sunday I had the opportunity to attend three different
church services. E. came to the other ward because of schedule
conflicts with our ward. So I went with him to fast and testimony
meeting,which was really good. That was one of the best testimony
meetings I've seen in a ward in a long time. E. had some good
questions. After that we went with E. to his church. It's a Baptist
 Church. I think. It was little odd for me to see people clapping and
waving the hands to the Christian rock music, the pastor praying while
the music was still going on, the collection plate going around,
Christian adoption services soliciting families during the main
service and so forth. It wasn't odd because I thought it was bad, but
because I wasn't used to it. I remember going to a Baptist Church with
uncle Edwin back in Texas, but this one was different. Then again it's
been 15 years or so. There was a lot more technology involved in this
one. I really felt the spirit while we were singing their songs, I
just wish I had had a chance to hear some of the preaching. We had to
leave to go to our own ward after 45 min, and they still hadn't
preached yet. E. told us afterwards that February is "missions
month" there so that's why they were soliciting so much during this
service. He also told us that their sermons are usually only about
5-10 minutes for the whole thing. I was a little baffled. I guess I'm
just used to 3 hours worth of hearing from the scriptures and
preaching. Great and wonderfully friendly people. They really focused
on marriage which was awesome. We got invited to the pastors Super
Bowl party later on that day and we went. It was fun to talk to E.
there while he was in his Patriots jersey and the pastor was dressed
down more. We talked about a lot of things while not watching the game
like the word of wisdom and scripture study. They thought we couldn't
drink soda at all. It was good to correct misunderstandings about our
beliefs in such a non threatening situation.
Well I've got to go. I know there's a lot more at I wish I could share
with you, but there's just no time. I love you all and hope you all
had a very wonderful super bowl Sunday.

Dustin- I guess the sea hawks proved that they are truly the best. We
heard about the score. That's horrible. I'm sure you were pumped!

Recalibration

January 27, 2014

Wow, this week was awesome, nothin' but awesome. We were able to work extensively with T. and D. this week. We taught them both 3 times each this week. It's been really cool and challenging learning how to teach someone with legitimate ADHD. We really have to think outside the box on how to teach the fundamental principles of the doctrine. Tony responds much better to videos and the gospel principles book for Sunday School class. He can't remember much of what we teach him, but he does remember what he reads. It's interesting. We're trying to relate everything to him as much as possible so that his interest remains while we teach.

We got to eat with T. and his extended family on his wife's side. They offered me a habenjero pepper since it was the first time that I had eaten at their house (it's tradition that they do). They told me to take a bite, but I put the whole pepper in my mouth. I held my own very well I thought. My mouth didn't start on fire till after about 30 seconds. I swallowed a good chunk, but I spit the rest out. My stomach didn't feel so good after that for the next 24 hours, but it was AWESOME! You should see the video... after I get home. I'm not posting that one on Facebook till then. I tried to play it off as best I could. There was sweat and tears. Thankfully no blood, but it was awesome!

So we went over with D. a couple times to practice some music. One night the other elders didn't show up so he just opened up to us and told us what he was really going through and his intentions. He wants to be back active in the church and has even had thoughts about serving a mission (he's 23 years old and has tattoos). He just needs to take things kind of slow right now. It's hard for someone to be less active for the majority of their lives and then try to jump straight back into it. He has the biggest heart. he's really talented with his music too. 

We had an old investigator and her less active husband from before my time here in Canby walk back into church after over 3 months! It was awesome. He's a way cool dude. He's 24, he's a marine and now he's working as a hired security guard at a top secret facility. It's really cool actually. He just wants to find a nice quiet place to raise his family. That's nothing but a miracle that he came back on his own free will considering they are temporarily living in a hotel in downtown Portland.

This week was a good reflecting week for me. We were able to work hard and long hours. We were able to hear from an Apostle. We were able to go to the temple for an endowment session, and we were able to teach our entire zone how to be effective teachers. 

The idea of Charity and compassion is something that I'm personally working on. It comes as we view others in their eternal nature. If we view them, as God views us, as where they can be in the future rather than what they've messed up on now we can be merciful yet still constant in our standards. We can show others the consequences of their actions, but still show them how if they will simply rededicate themselves to living a Christ Centered life with obedience to the commandments they will still see just as bright a future than if they had never messed up at all. We can show those we love the benefits of righteous living. When they truly see the benefits, they will be more motivated than if we constantly remind them of where they "fell short of the glory of God" in the past. those were just some thoughts that I've had lately

Hearing an apostle speak and shaking his hand was awesome. But the thing that possibly stood out to me the most was the fact that Elder Christofferson is a man. He is just like you and me. He even told us that HE has questions about the gospel. He is still subject to temptation and sin. He's actually a little shorter than I thought he would be. I literally saw before me a man. When I heard him speak it was no different than if I had heard my companion speak. When he spoke it wasn't anything different than going to church. The SPIRIT was still the one that taught me what I learned. But the spirit was definitely there. It was strong. I saw Elder Christofferson take moments to stall and think. He's a man. He doesn't have all the answers, but he listens to the spirit. He's built a level of trust with God that I haven't. When God tells him something, he follows through. He's actually willing to sacrifice what's required of him. He doesn't go looking for an extra measure of his life to sacrifice. He just does what the Spirit directs. 

Thinking about that made the idea of God much more personable. God is still in the image of man. He looks like us. He feels like us. If we saw him we'd be able to shake his hand just like I did Elder Christofferson. God isn't some ethereal spirit that wanders from sea to sea. He's a real being and he loves us. the question is when we see him, can he trust us?

I love you all. I'm not sure if I expressed everything like I wanted to, but I've got to run off. We've got to go cut another missionaries hair. I love you guys so much!

 

Love ya!

your elder Lloyd  

Life is more better!

20 January 2014 

This last week was crazy and great at the same time. When do I not start a letter saying that "this last week was crazy!?" Life as a missionary. It's always going forward.

We were able to take To. and the L. family to the Temple Visitors Center last week. It was an amazing experience. I could really tell that all of them were feeling the Spirit strongly there because of the kinds of questions that they would ask. All of us, including me, got something out of our visit that day. I can't really describe how the lesson was, it was just centered around the plan of salvation and the temple. It was simple, yet powerful. As a result of it we got a text later that night from the L. family truly thanking us for taking them to the temple and To. started to read the Book of Mormon for the first time on his own free will. His wife was really excited about that. 

I was also able to give To. an old suit jacket that I ripped the pants to (don't worry mom, it was one of the suits I bought after I could no longer fit into the ones I came out in. I got it from Goodwill for $20) and also a shirt that had shrunk in the sleeves and a tie. He looked so good at church. It looked like he was built for that suit coat. He was just happy to have something to go to church in other than his jeans and sweat shirt. Now he's styling!

The thing that I've been studying a lot lately is the difference between obedience and consecration. A lot of the difference is merely our desires. God doesn't want blind obedience to spiritual laws. He doesn't want the bare minimum requirements so that we can get into heaven. He wants us to know Him. He wants a true relationship with his kids. He wants to "hang out" with us for lack of better phraseology. But he can't be with us if we don't WANT to be with HIM.  He put it simply in John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments." The only way that we can truly get to know him is through obedience.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson is coming to our mission this Saturday. My mission president called me and asked me personally to lead the special music number in a "dignified manner." It'll be cool to be up there close to an Apostle. I am truly curious as to what he's going to say to us, especially considering that we're going to be getting iPads within the first week of February.

I love you all. I hope you have taken the time this week to try and "hang out" with our Heavenly Father by reading the scriptures, or praying, or going to the Temple and church. In the end, that is the most important relationship that you can ever develop.

There's a new companion on deck, plus a couple tag a longs.

 14 January 2014

There is so much to write about this week I'm not sure if I can finished before I have to go, but I'm sure as heck going to try!

So this last week was nuts. I haven't been to be d before midnight for over a week straight and I'll tell you why. 

Starting Monday night Elder Hendrickson and I had to go on 3 exchanges back to back to back because of the illness that had taken him down for 2 weeks. tuesday I went with Elder Ott in my area. we did a lot of work. We moved in a new less active member that wants to baptize his daughter as soon as he can and we also got back into contact with Co. who has been rather elusive over the last two months. We worked hard and we got to talk about many of Elder Ott's struggles that he's going through at this time. It was some god stuff.

Wednesday I went with Elder Bell in his area. We walked for about 4 hours straight in the pouring and stinging rain. I felt like a real missionary again. It took two days for my shoes to dry out and my hair totally was plastered to my head until I could dry off. At dinner that night I caught a fly with chopsticks! I was like Mr. Miyagi! See picture below. The family we ate with put a rat on his shoulder and he freaked out. Twice. It was beautiful!! So funny. Then as I finished eating my Canadian dessert I went to go wash my hands. As a pulled up on the tab I had failed to notice that the water spout had been taken mostly off. So instead of coming out into the sink, the water jet streamed into my shirt and pants. All of us died laughing. In fact, the young mom crumpled to the floor laughing. It was soooo funny. It was some good times!

Thursday I went on an exchange with Elder Randle, who is a visa waiter for the Australia Sydney South mission.  It was a lot of fun. Again we worked hard. I helped him to understand what a planner should look like and how diligence should be applied at all times. It was fun. we taught Co. again at the Temple Visitors center. It was interesting because we went from talking about how we can receive our answers to prayer for a conversion experience to talking about the word of wisdom. Co. likes to throw up a lot of red herrings when it comes to her "issues" with the church. She's funny. Every time she gets serious about meeting with us, she'll back out of scheduling appointments and fall of the face of the earth for a few months. It's been like that for nearly 3 years with her. She needs to just sit down and commit herself to more than just dipping her tow into the water and then pulling back out. It's a little frustrating some times, but it's good stuff.

when Elder Hendrickson and I got together that night we talked about the exchanges a lot  and got things back together so that we could work effectively in our area. Before this, I had seen him for maybe 20 minutes each day on our way to start the next exchange, so there was a lot to catch up on. 

The next day, Friday, Elder Randle started a grease fire in his apartment. Elder Clark (his trainer) was stepping out of the shower at that point and proceeded to put out the entire fire in his towel. He burned his hand on the pot trying to throw out all the grease into the rain soaked grass outside while his companion kept screaming "don't throw water on it!"

the fire fizzled as it hit the grass, and then Elder Clark ran back inside with an oven mitt and smothered the fire out while trying to throw out as many flammable items out of the way of the fire. He did a good job. The fire could have damaged a lot more than it did. It only did about $5,000 in damage. But that means that they had to move in with us. So now we have 4 elders living in our apartment. Moving them in is still in process. The smoke did a  lot of damage to their apt.

Saturday, Elder Hendrickson go notified that he was being transferred and we said good bye to everyone for the next 2 days. That was nuts! We got to celebrate his 23rd birthday on Sunday with the Anderson family. We both got light saber toothbrushes that light up and tell you how long you are supposed to brush for.  Mines green!

I now have Elder Kleinman as a companion. He's awesome! he came out with me. He's from AZ. got to go though! I love you all, and I know that God answers you prayers. Sometimes it's just his timing that we have to wait for. 

Love

Your Elder Lloyd!