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