Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Hard Work!


Well,

Another week.  Drum roll, I have a new companion.  His name is Elder Lopez.  He is from Peoria Arizona and has about a year in the mission.  He is awesome!  He works so hard.  I haven’t worked a hard day like this in a long time.  It’s actually been wearing me out a bit.  But that is a very good thing.  His parents are actually from Guatemala but he was born and grew up his whole life in the US.  He actually didn’t know any Spanish when he entered into the MTC.  He really is pretty good.  At the change conference, President Watts took me aside and said, well, we thought that putting you two together would bring countless miracles to the area of Colombia.  Whoa, we got to work hard.  Hopefully that will be true.  One thing that is cool about my companion is that we fall really well together, but, he never speaks English to me.  It has really helped my Spanish because we talk all day in Spanish.  Sometimes for like 5 minutes at the end of the day we will switch in to English just because we are tired.  But, I don’t feel too bad about that.

It’s been a lot of work being the man in charge.  I have had to really step out of my comfort zone a bit to be the one to talk the most in lessons and also go and find people.  Pretty much this past week I have been in charge of our 8 or 9 hours of proselyting.  Man, tough, especially since the whole week before we only had 3 hours of proselyting a day.  But, it has been awesome.  We have been spending about 3 hours a day just tracking trying to find some new investigators.  Needless to say, my skin is a little bit red.  Oh well, it just feels good to work.  

Regardless of our efforts, we didn’t have too much success this week.  We are seeing a lot of possibilities in this area.  I have definitely been learning that God has a plan for us and that it is always on his own timeline.  Sometimes its easy to get frustrated when an appointment falls, but all of a sudden, we find this super awesome family just randomly in a contact.  We are also trying to ask a lot of referrals from the members of our ward.  We have been pretty blessed with a full agenda.  I know that in very few days, we will find somebody awesome.

Carla, our baptismal date for the seventeenth was having some serious problems with her heart.  The problem is that the hospitals here stink.  She was having heart palpitations and her throat hurt really bad.  I have a feeling that she is having problems with her thyroid like Charlene was having.  It just really stinks because there was nothing that can be done.  There is no way anybody can pay to take care of that here.  But, my faith in the priesthood was strengthened a little this week.  We arrived at the house one day after she had come back from the hospital with no results and still in horrible pain.  She hadn’t eaten in 4 days and was just writhing and screaming on the bed.  We quickly gave her a blessing, praying so hard that it would work.  After the blessing, she had calmed down a little bit and we had to go.  The next day when we came back, she was the one to answer the door and was wayyyyy better.  She still had some pain, but now she is almost 100 percent feeling better.  Man, I know that I hold such a great power.  It’s such a gift that we have to be able to use that power and authority that our Father has given us and bless the lives of others.  Now we just have to prepare her for baptism and hopefully get her there.  

Soraida and her son Ismael were supposed to get baptized the tenth but they didn’t come to church because of work.  she did say however that after the elections are over in 2 weeks she will be able to come.  We went ahead and moved their baptismal date to the 24th.  I really hope she is ready by then.  That would bless their lives so much.  

Well, time has about run out.  I hope that in this coming week, we can do as Alma says in the Book of Mormon, be the means whereby souls can come unto Christ.  This work is so worth it.  What a blessing we have to be able to see the feelings of love and happiness that come into the lives of these people as they receive this gospel.  Alma was such a good example of what a true missionary should be like.  Both he and the sons of Mosiah were power tools in the hands of the Lord.  Como dice Ammon en Alma 26, ningun hombre ha tenido tan gran razon para regocijarse como hemos tenido nosotros.  Porque estamos en el servicio de nuestro Senor.  I am so grateful to be out here and pray every day that I can be a better shaft in the Lords quiver, ready to help any person who needs this gospel.  I love you guys and hope you have a very, very great week.  Know that I am always praying for you.

Kulaj' chik'
Elder Lloyd


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