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