Hey - Your dog is biting me!

Hey,

Well, this week was awesome!  And, once again I don't have too much time to write because I sent the pictures.  I don't know how that sucks the time so fast!  I'll try to get everything in on time.  

To start out, my new companion and greenie to the mission is Elder Adams from Murray, UT.  He's great.  We have had a lot of success in just this last week.  He just graduated high school and put his papers in to leave for the mission.  He's about the same size as me and weirdly a lot like me.  He's super quiet though and extremely serious.  But, I guess that's kind of how I started the mission too.  His Spanish is actually really good.  He just gets a little scared in the lessons and switches into robot mode to teach the same 10 sentences.  But, every day he is getting better and we are really practicing a lot in our study.  One thing that's nice is that we're on a new program where we study in companionship for 2 hours every day instead of 1.  

It's really been fun having him here in Peten for his first area.  It's kind of a culture shock for somebody who doesn't know Guatemala at all – all the pigs running around the streets, the fleas and the women breastfeeding in our first lesson.  The list goes on.  He thinks it's fun though.  I feel kind of bad however because we live in a pretty junky house and I think he comes from a pretty well off family.  Oh well, it's a good humbling experience.  =)  At least we get along really well.  

We had a ton of success.  We found a new family of 11 people that we've taught a couple of times already.  They came to church yesterday and we're really excited to keep working with them.  The only thing that's hard is that they live about an hour away from the church in Ixhuacut.  We were practically pulling them to church yesterday.  We also found a couple of new investigators and were able to put a baptismal date for Christmas Eve with Marcelo.  He's 17 and he seems pretty interested.  His parents were just baptized and he's never wanted to talk to the missionaries, but now he seems interested.  We also have found a couple other families that seem interested.  By the way, the super big one is the Perez Garcia family.  So, the work goes on and we're super excited for this coming week.  I think we're going to be able to put a couple of more baptismal dates with some of our investigators.  

I got bit by a dog this week.  That was lame.  Luckily it was biting me pretty softly so it didn't break the skin.  Ha-ha.  Stupid dog.  It scared my companion pretty bad though.  He hates being out at night now and freaks out whenever he sees a dog.  Poor guy. At least the dog bit me and not him.  We were at this member's house and the wife was letting us in the gate when it started biting me.  I started yelling, Hey!  Your dog's biting me!  A lot!  At the same time I was beating it with my Book of Mormon in the head, she was screaming, hey!  Don't hit my dog; you're going to hurt it!  I just wanted to tell her, it's biting me lady, what am I supposed to do?!  Oh well, I don't have rabies, I'm ok.  We’re never going back there again.  

The trip to the capitol was awesome!  I especially enjoyed the 1000 quetz of pizza that President Watts ordered for us, and the marshmallow brownies and pumpkin bread Hermana Watts made us.  MMMMM!  She's great.  She really loves the missionaries.  It was a long trip back to Peten though.  It was super long.

Anyways, short letter, but I have to get going.  Sorry mom, they didn't have my package in the office so I didn't have it for thanksgiving.  I did have some turkey hotdogs and beans and tortillas for dinner.  Ha-ha. But we were working so hard I hardly noticed it was Thanksgiving.  Anyways, love you guys.  Have a great week!

Elder Lloyd

Brand new Companion

Hey family,

Well I got a call at 10:30 on Saturday night that I am going to be training this change.  Pretty exciting!  Right now, I'm back in the capital getting ready to go over to the mission office and receive some training.  Then we'll stay with the AP's tonight and have the change conference tomorrow morning where I'll get to meet my new companion.  It will be interesting to see what kind of a guy he is.  Hopefully he likes to work.

That trip from Peten to the capitol is a doozy.  I left last night at 9:00 pm and went all night and got here at 7:00 this morning.  We went on a double decker bus on the second level and it was crazy!  Those drivers are insane.  There were a couple times when he drifted the bus to try to avoid semi trucks.  He even had the tires screeching.  Not the greatest thing when there are 80 people on the bus.  But we did make it.  I'm just super tired and can't wait to sleep tonight!

It's really freezing in the capitol I've noticed as I got back.  My toes have been freezing.  But I'm just soaking as much of it in now before I have to get back to San Andres.  It is so hot there. 

Let's see, Saturday we had a baptism in the lake.  =)  That was awesome.  I didn't do the baptism but it was cool because Abraham, the kid that got baptized last weekend, was able to baptize his little sister.  My companion baptized his other sister too.  It was a pretty cool thing.  We had everybody sitting on the rocks and singing hymns and stuff.  My companion "accidentally" slipped and fell in the water and started to swim. awesome... Ha ha.  It was a great baptism though. 

We had a conference for all of Guatemala.  It was a broadcast with Elder Holland and President Uchdorf.  The coolest part was that Elder Holland bore his testimony in Spanish for about 5 minutes.  It was so cool!  As far as I knew, he doesn't know Spanish.  It seemed like the gift of tongues to me.  They were pretty excited for the Quetzaltenango temple dedication in 3 weeks.  So is everybody else here in Guatemala.  It's a shame we can't go. That would be cool.  But when you come to pick me up we'll have to swing by.

Well, as always, the time flew by.  My letter seems pretty short, but I think it's just because I'm so tired.  I'm excited to tell you guys about my companion this coming week.  Hope everybody enjoys thanksgiving.  I love you.  Eat some good turkey for me.  I'll have to see if I can find some here.  Oh, and the rolls too.... enjoy... Oh my goo'ness, oh my goo'ness. 

Until next week.

Elder Lloyd

Hot-Hot-Hot

Hey family,

Well, another week.  Once again I don't have much time to write because of sending pictures.  I enjoyed hearing from you all.  Sounds like you guys had a fun weekend in Portland. I forgot to say last week, super awesome Cody going to Brazil!!!!!!!!  And even cooler that he and Eli are going to the same mission.  That's crazy!  They'll definitely at least get to see them every once and awhile.  Tell him I said good luck and congratulations.  Since he has so much time he should start studying now.

Let me start by answering some of your questions.  Sorry I don't always answer them.  By the time I get through mom's letter it's hard to remember any of them. ;)  First off, my health is doing well.  Nothing out of the ordinary and I am still losing weight, although a little slower than I was.  I am getting pretty sunburned.  I put SPF 75 on every day but I still get burned.  The sun is super strong here and I guess it's just kind of part of being a missionary in Peten.  I just am hoping that the Lord will have mercy on me and I won't get cancer because I am serving Him.  My machete wound is doing well.  I was a little worried because it was turning red after I got the stitches out but it seems to have healed all the way and there is no infection.  

We don't have a ward, it's a branch.  We have about 100 that come every week between my area and the other two elders' area.  All four of us share the branch.  The President of the branch is interesting.  He likes to do what he thinks is best, even if it might be against the manuals.  Like the other week he canceled church because it would be easier with the elections that day.   The branch does do a very good job at being friends with new members and making sure to include nonmembers in activities.  We work a lot more with references than anything else.  They do feed us quite a bit.  There is a family in our ward that is super rich and said that any time we need food, even if they aren't there, we can come in and take anything out of the refrigerator.  I haven't done that yet.  Maybe this week. ;)  There aren't that many inactive members here.  Most of the members here are all from 3 families.  It's a relatively new branch here in Peten.

P-days are interesting because we don't have anywhere to use internet or shop in San Andres.  We have to always take an hour ride to San Benito and Flores to use internet and shop.  It works out though because we usually do some sort of activity like soccer as a zone.  Today we went and rented an Astroturf field for 2 hours and played soccer.  Soooo hot!  It´s always hot.  Anyways, that's what we have to do on P-days.  It's a good day.  We also ate at Pizza hut.  Mmmmmmm.

Our apartment is not that great.  Ha-ha.  We do have a shower but it is definitely not hot.  It actually feels really good to take a cold shower in the mornings.  It's just a really big room with everything in it.   

We got to go plant corn 3 times this week with Abraham to help him have time to get baptized.  We woke up at 5 every morning and walked 1 hour through the jungle to get to the field.  It is sooooooo hot out there and there is nowhere to hide.  We hauled water, planted corn, and sprayed pesticides.  It was a good experience.  

Well, I got to go.  I love you guys.  Have a great week.  Oh yes, Abraham and Devorly got baptized but Abraham's sisters didn't show up.  They'll get baptized this weekend.  THE TIME GOES SO FAST!!!!!!! bye!

Love,

Elder Lloyd

Good Week!

Man, the time went super-fast!  I only have 15 minutes left.  I'll try to type as quickly as I can.  We had a good week this week.  I am still working with my companion and trying to understand him a bit better.  He comes from a pretty rough background and I think he has made huge leaps and bounds coming on the mission.  He also has a really strong testimony.  Things are definitely going a lot better and we are starting to teach a lot better.  I hope that this week we can really have some good success and work hard.  

We have 4 baptisms this coming Saturday, the 12th.  Abraham, Mariana, and Sandra are brothers and sisters and their mom is already a member.  We have been working with them a really long time and they finally got a testimony.  It's been amazing seeing the great change in Abraham as he has gained faith and recognized his answer.  The other baptism is Devorly.  She's 18 and she has a ton of friends in the church.  She came to church a couple of times and we never got to talk to her until this last week.  She's awesome!  She knows everything about the church and already has a strong testimony.  We really haven't had to do anything except teach her.  She's definitely ready and excited for this Saturday.  We are really excited for this weekend and to see 4 people in white.  =)

We have been looking for some families to teach.  It seems that there are a lot of underage kids that are interested but the mission likes us to focus more on families.  It is really hard when a kid gets baptized for them to stay active as they grow up.  The other night we weren't having much success and were about to go in at 8:00 and start cooking dinner, but we felt like we should keep going.  We went and looked for a reference and they weren't there, but there was family right next to them that let us in and teach.  We put another appointment with them and they seem like great possibilities.  As we left, we noticed that the other reference just got there and we went to teach them a lesson also.  We put another appointment with them and found two new families to teach.  Awesome!  We're excited to start teaching some real families. Now we just got to see if they're married.  =)

We had a zone activity today that our district was in charge of.  All the elders and sisters from Peten came to our area and played soccer.  Afterwards we bbq'd 30 pounds of meat and ate like kings.  I haven't eaten that much meat since I left home.  It was amazing! =)  It was cool because I got to grill everything.  It was super tasty.

Well, we are super late because of the activity and I really need to get back to my area and work.  Hopefully we can get a hitchhike fast.  Love you guys.  Have a great week! Sorry for the extremely short letter.

Love,

Elder Lloyd