May 11, 2011

Plaza Mayor de la Constitucion

Hey, how´s everything going? It was so great to talk to you on Sunday.  Even if it wasn’t very long it did the trick.  I can see now why they don´t let missionaries call more than twice a year.  Things were pretty distracting in a room of 10 missionaries who had just talked to their families.  Oh well, it was exciting. 

It sounds like everything is going well at home.  Mom, haha, dictating a letter and driving is not the greatest thing.  It kind of made sense and I really appreciated getting a letter. 

Well, things are going very well here in the CCM.  One thing I do have to apologize for is not replying to somebody if they email me.  I only get 30 minutes to read emails and then type my email back.  Maybe in the field it will be a little easier to reply to everyone.  Anyways, Guatemala is wonderful.  I really, really love it here.  The food, fantastic!  The people, even better!  We got to go out and proselyte in the main plaza of Guatemala City.  How awesome is that?  Real missionary work was being done by all 40 of us.  My companion and I only got 2 referrals but we did get to talk to a lot of people about the church and handed out a lot of pamphlets.  One thing that´s really nice about the people here in Guatemala is that they all already love God and Jesus Christ.  One of the other really cool things is that a lot of people haven’t heard of the Book of Mormon and so when we tell them about another book about Christ, they get really excited.  Everything in the Book of Mormon about the Lamanites receiving the Book of Mormon in the latter days is true.  The Book of Mormon was written for the Lamanites and it’s really cool to see them as things just kind of click. 

There was one guy on the bus ride over that we talked to that was probably my best experience so far in the mission.  We got on the bus and all the missionaries were just sitting there.  I thought, well, I'm a missionary on the bus too.  So I started talking to him.  It was wonderful.  I talked to him about the gospel of Christ for like 15 minutes and he had never heard of us.  He was really excited so I hope he accepts some missionaries out in the field.  It was awesome to finally do something real. 

This next Tuesday we get to go to the market all day.  I´m really excited for that.  It should be a good experience.  I love being outside and seeing the real parts of Guatemala.  Let´s see, before I forget to tell you, this week the Latinos are all leaving for the field so we get a new batch in.  One thing I've been forgetting to tell you is that they're moving me up to an all Latino district with a Latino companion.  Excited!  It should be a great experience.  I was a little frustrated these first couple of weeks because I was with a beginner district and had a beginner companion.  I felt that I had kind of taken a step backwards in Spanish.  But now I've definitely seen that there was a purpose for me being Elder Horne's companion.  He's learned so much in the past two weeks.  He went from not knowing how to say anything to yesterday teaching a full 45 minute lesson in Spanish with no notes whatsoever.  That was huge for him and it's awesome to see the blessings of the Lord in our lives. 

I can't even express how blessed I feel to be out here.  Ok, let's see, Dad wanted to know what a typical day is like.  We wake up at 6:15 and get ready for gym at 6:30.  The gym's really nice and has been really helping me stay in ok shape.  Then at 7:30 we shower and get ready for the day.  Breakfast is at 8:00 and then Personal study at 8:30.  Then Companionship study at 9:30.  Then we have 2 hours of language study.  At 11:30 we get an hour of teaching a lesson in Spanish to a Latino companionship.  Then lunch.  Then class until dinner at 5:00.  Then class after that until bed.  We of course have meetings and teaching progress lessons with the teachers every once and a while.  Tuesday nights we teach a lesson in this fake house thing and get recorded on camera.  That´s the worst.  haha.  But that’s the schedule.  Every Saturday we get to do service cleaning around the temple and in the streets instead of gym.  I really like those mornings. 

Well, my time is almost over.  I know this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ on this Earth.  It is the same church that was on the earth when Christ was here.  I know that this life is the time for men to prepare to meet their God and we must do everything we can to become like Christ.  He is our Savior and through him we can do anything.  Love you! 

Elder Lloyd