No P-Day this week

How are you guys doing? Hope everything is going really well. I just wanted to right and let you know that we will be heading off on a road trip tomorrow early and we'll be headed to Coban and the Polochic to do some splits for a few days and then we will have a Christmas conference up in the mountains of Senahu. So I'm not going to get much time, let alone P-day, to write this week. I'm really sorry, but President asked us to go on some splits last minute. Things are going really well. We just finished the biggest transfer we've ever had in this mission. We had to open up a lot of areas and receive 26 new missionaries and assign 26 new trainers and train them all how to do their job. It was probably the most stressful week of my life, but it was very satisfying. President Watts was very happy with the job we did organizing everything and it's really nice to get to be knowing all of my missionaries a little better. I'm sooooo tired, but it's a great tired. By the way, I've been getting pretty good at driving a manual transmission truck. Pretty fun. I really enjoy the email stream we have going as a family on our scripture reading. It's really fun to remember that our family is doing so well. I have great examples in my life and really appreciate the time everybody puts in to ensure they are sharp spiritually. Anyways, I love you guys. You're awesome. Thanks for everything you do for me. By the way, I'm completing 20 months in the mission today. It's going so fast. It's crazy. Just so you guys know. My new release date is the 16th of April rather than the 9th. Have a great week. Drink some eggnog for me! Love, Elder Lloyd

More Missionaries!

Hey family, Well, another very busy week in the mision guatemala norte. Things are going very well. The mission is growing! This week we have 12 missionaries going home and 27 coming in! It's awesome to see. We are already seeing the effects of the new annnouncement that misionaries can now go earlier. We are about up to 200 missionaries. They say by next summer we will have about 250, as well as every other mission in the area of central america. And they are going to put 3 more missions in central america! How crazy is that! That's what I call the armies of Helaman! Unfortunately the mission has not had this many missionaries in a very long time so we are having to figure out how to buy beds, stoves, refigerators, desks, and a whole list of other stuff for so many missionaries. It's a stressful situation, but it's a happy stress. =) This weekend we have been doing the changes with President Watts and getting everything prepared for the transportation. It's hard to get so many missionaries around Guatemala City safely with all their suitcases and personal belongings. We also had ZL Council this week. That was great. We talked a lot about putting and accomplishing our goals. As a mission we have a goal of getting 4 baptisms per area every month. As far as the mission goes, there are not many companionships getting that goal. But, the good thing is that little by little there are more and more missionaries getting the vision of it and working hard to accomplish it. It's been a huge blessing in my mission to trust in the promises of the Lord and later recieve blessings because of having faith in those promises. The best part of the Council, not going to lie, was the lunch. We had a full on Thanksgiving feast. It was amazing!!!! Let me just say it is a huge blessing to have President and Hermana Watts here. They love us so much and do everything to make this the best experience it can be. Plus, President is such a good man. He's so loving and you can feel that he just wants us to reach our full potential. As far as exciting things that happened this week.... not much. Haha. It's just been a lot of work for the missionaries. We did go to Chili's for Pday lunch today and I ordered a Chipotle Bacon and Blue Cheese burger. Super good. Anyways, I love you guys. Have a great week. ¡Merry Christmas! Con amor, Elder Lloyd

Pies

Hey guys, Well, yet another week in the life of Elder Lloyd. Things are going great. We spent the whole week finishing with the interviews and training meetings in the capital. They're finished!!!! That's a relief. These last couple weeks really were some of the most spiritual weeks of the mission and have helped me grow tremendously. It did get hard as we had to teach pretty much the same principles in a 30 to 40 minute meeting to 88 companionships. But it is so nice to now know every single one of our missionaries. There were definitely some interesting meetings. The ones where companions really just do not get along are the hardest ones. We were able to help a lot of people and loved it. We have also been trying to get our bake on. We made Mom's chocolate dream pie that you guys sent to us. We also made some chocolate chip cookies and some pumpkin pies. They all turned out delicious. It helps that we have a full size oven. We are the only house in the whole mission that has an oven like that. So hay que aprovechar. Pumpkin pie is really good. I had forgotten. One really cool thing is that our taxi driver, Walter, has been reading the Book of Mormon with us each night for a bit when he drops us off at the house. He has been to church 3 times in total and really loves it. One problem is that he is Catholic and his family have been for a long time as well. We have just started giving him these mini lessons on the book of mormon every night and I really think they are going to help. He'll definitely get baptized, soon or later. That is great to hear that you guys are doing so well with Alvaro and the missionaries. He is flying! It feels really good to know that my family is experiencing the same joy that i have here on the mission through sharing the gospel. As Alma says, we do it all so that perhaps we can be the means or the tool in the hands of the Lord in order to save even one soul. The Lord is going to bless you so much for your efforts with Alvaro and is going to provide you with a strong love for this work. Other than that things are going really well. We haven't been doing much else other than the interviews from 9am to 6 or 7 pm everyday so there's not much else to talk about. This week we are going to have ZL council so we have to prepare for that and help the Zone Leaders and the mission make changes. Should be fun. Then right after the meetings from that we will be doing transfers again. Life is busy but super good! Love you guys. Have a great week. Love, Elder Lloyd

I am Truly Thankful

Hey guys, Well, things are great. We had an awesome week of some serious traveling. ¡Cansado usted! We did all of the interviews and training meetings with every missionary in all of the 5 zones outside of the mission. That's about 45 companionships. In each of the meetings our job was to meet with individual companionships and see how they are doing in their area and really just try to motivate them. Each companionship ended up being between 30 to 60 minutes. So we did a lot of talking! It was really cool though. For one thing we were really able to get to know all the Elders and Sisters on a much more personal level. Another thing was that we got a lot of trust and respect from the missionaries because we were able to take some time to talk about how to help them. We were also able to learn a lot about teaching the missionaries with the Spirit. We started out the week on Saturday night going to Coban and going to church in my old ward. That might have been the greatest part of my entire week. We went for sacrament meeting and it was a miracle. Last February when I got to Coban the normal attendance every week was around 130 maybe 140. Well, this was the 3rd week in a row with an attendance of over 200. In fact it was 219! It was awesome! When I left it was just about 195 consistently. In fact, all of my converts in Coban are active. That's right, even the Dad of the family we baptized that went inactive about 3 months ago went for the first time again. It was such a surprise. He has been meeting with the bishop and apparently never had problems with the law of chastity. He did fall heavily into drinking and smoking, which was taking him away from his family, but he was able to take the sacrament that day that I got there. =) He was so happy to be back. I also went to visit the Marroquin family one of the nights I was in Coban at about 8:00 and when we got close to their house, they were in together all singing hymns together. They were baptized 2 and a half months ago and are super strong. Carla just finished 3 and 4th Nefi in the book of Mormon and is starting Mormon. Carlos is just finishing Alma. Even their 12 year old daughter Karen is going through Mosiah. Their awesome! They all started reading a few weeks before they were baptized. So, Coban is still a magical place. It is freezing though! It was raining lightly the whole time there and there's always fog. Kinda feels like Christmas! From Coban we went to the mountains of Senahu, the most in the middle of nowhere place in the mission. Coban is 5 hours from the capital and Senahu is another 5 hours from Coban. It's straight Jurrasic Park up there. It is kinda like that place we went in Ecuador to swim in the hot springs in the mountains. There is just a constant mist of clouds. Also, the people are all really nice. They all only speak Kekchi though. That zone of missionaries is entirely Kekchi. I actually got to do splits with the missionaries in Seamay right next to Senahu. It was super muddy, I got super dirty, I didn't understand anything, and it was great! =) One particular lesson that was cool was that we went to a less active member that used to be one of the counselors in the branch but got offended with the branch president and stopped going to church. One of the counsels we've recieved is to visit all the less active members and teach them about the sacrament. Well, that's what we did and it was one of the most spiritual lessons I've had in a long time. He said he realized how important the sacrament and his Savior were to him. He had forgotten it. But he promised to go to church the following week and take the sacrament. It was great. The sacrament really is an awesome thing. It cleanses us from all sorrows and afflictions. And even a little, uneducated Kekchi guy in the middle of the mountains in Senahu can understand and feel that. The gospel's amazing. It's interesting to be in Senahu. The strongest area of our mission is Senahu, even though it is the furthest, poorest area. There are 3 districts there in the mountains and they are made up of huge branches. Even in the center of Senahu, where there are only a couple of thousands of people there are 2 huge branches of more than 200 active members and they are soon making another branch. So cool. The gospel does reach every mountain top and is in every language. From there we went to Polochic, down in the valley below the Senahu mountains. It was a good day as well. It's really hot there though. Also it was really fun driving out on the little dirt road with President and Hna Watts. He's a crazy driver! Haha. I hit my head on the ceiling of the car so many times. He's famous for driving pretty fast and not seeing speed bumps. Haha. He just laughs and says, "whoops, sorry bout that guys. hope you're awake!" The next day was interviews with the Coban zone. I love that place. I'll try not to write too much about how awesome it is cause I just did, but it's like my home. I know it, I live it, and I love it! After that the next day we went to Salama zone about 2 hours from Coban and did their interviews and the same day we were able to drive to the capital. We got to the cap at 10pm and then started packing for our flight to Peten the next morning. We got to bed about 11:30 or midnight and woke up at 3:30 to get to the airport and ready to take off at 6:30. The flight was awesome. We flew over the lake that's there in Peten and I was able to see San Andres from the plane and also fly over the island of Flores. So beautiful! We had a day and a half of interviews there and it was really good. Then Elder Saavedra spent the day saying goodbye to all his converts and members. He goes home tomorrow so it was really good for him to get his last days there in Peten. He was ZL there for 6 months so he loves it there. He bought a christmas tree and decorations for the poorest family he baptized and we took it over to them. That was super fun. We also got to go to Flores to eat in a fancy restaraunt on the beach front. It was awesome. I'm not gonna lie, you guys are going to love it there and it'll be pretty cool to take you around. We had an interesting experience as we were going to the airport to get home. Haha. Elder Saavedra was saying goodbye to everyone so we were running a little bit late. It was actually 40 minutes before the flight when we were finally in a Tuc Tuc, a little 3 seater tricycle thing, headed to the airport. As we were getting there, the tire went flat and we had to stop. So stressful! I was only imagining what I was going to say to President after missing our flight! So we stopped and all 3, in our suits, lifted up the back end of the Tuc Tuc while the guy changed the tire. It was super funny. The good thing is that we got it changed and all the people in the airport know us. So they had already printed our tickets off and made everybody wait until we got there. We are sooooo lucky we are missionaries. The Lord really does protect us. It was a nice flight. So here we are in the capital again and I am tired! It was an awesome week. By the way, it was really good to hear that your missionary efforts are going well. Alvaro must be a really good guy. It makes me want to help you guys with the teaching. But sounds like you have some great Elders there. Even if they don't have too much experience, the Lord will help them do his will. I just want you guys to know that I am loving it here. I've found the reason why the lord wants me in the position I am in. It's so great to see the mission changing. We are seeing a lot of Elders changing and reaching their potentials. The Lord is preparing his work for the influx in missionaries. Nothing can stop this work and the Lord wants the Lamanites to hear the truth. Love you guys. Enjoy thanksgiving. Mom, I got the package. Thanks so much for sending it. In fact, I think tonight I'll head home and make a chocolate dream pie as I am waiting for the dats. I've been sharing the candy corn with everybody in these interviews and they really like it. Anyways, eat lots of food and get fat for me. I think Hna Watts is going to make us Thanksgiving meal on the 27th. Have a great week! Love, Elder Lloyd

I feel the earth move . . .

Hey family, Well, once again, not much time to write but I will try to get as much in as possible. So, how bout that earthquake? Honestly things weren't too bad in our mission, which was a huge blessing for us. I did feel it though. I think all of the other missionaries in Guatemala should be ok as well. The interesting thing was that the earthquake happened Wednesday at 11:00 am, which just so happens to be the time when every missionary in the whole country is in their district meetings. There was a lot of damage done in San Marcos and Quetzaltenango, but none of the missionaries was hurt. We were actually visiting a district here when we felt it. It sure feels weird. I was leaning up against a post outside of the chapel when all of a sudden it started to move. I thought there was just wind or something but then I saw the cars and other things moving. You could even see the roof of the church moving a bit. It was cool though. It's a tragedy for that part of the country though. The sad part is that the poor people's houses are usually the only ones that get destroyed. But the people seem to be doing a really good job of donating time and money to help out. We were able to go and do splits with three areas in the capital this week. One was really good because I found one of my converts, actually my second baptism. We baptized him and his 2 daughters in Colombia but his whole family moved away and I kind of lost track of them when they left. Luckily he moved close by and is in the zone that all the office elders are in. He talked to the Elders about 2 weeks ago and told them that he wanted them to come visit him, but the missionaries didn't do anything so they asked him to give me his number. So I called and we were able to visit him. The bad news is that he lives with a woman. The other bad news is that he's 52 and she's 18, but I guess all's fair in love and war. He's still reading the Book of Mormon and listening to hymns and is going to start going back to church. All he needs is a little help. But it really was great to visit him and hear from his family. It sounds like his family might come to my ward to visit me this sunday. That would be cool. We had the best Pday ever this week. There is a senior couple in our mission named the Smiths. They have been here since July and work a lot in the office with us. Well, a week back we got the idea to go to the temple with them on our Pday. So we did, and it was so great. It's been so long since I've been able to enter in the temple. What a relief after 16 months to be able to enter the house of the Lord for 3 hours and forget all the hustle and bustle (and dirty, sewage filled streets) of Guatemala. I haven't felt so spiritually strengthened in a long time. It made me really grateful that the Lord gives us the time to be close to him. Then after the temple the Smiths invited us to lunch. Soooo fancy. It was so good. They took us to this mexican food/south american parillada place. It was a lot of delicious meat. The best part was that they had a mariachi band playing that came over to the table to sing to us. I'll have to show you guys the videos after the mission. But, all and all today was awesome. Now we are headed out of the capital to Coban so we can make it to Senahu tomorrow. We are starting all of the interviews and training meetings outside of the capital on Monday and in a week we will have visited everybody outside of the capital. That means we will get to fly to Peten again. So, it's going to be a lot of traveling this week, but I'm very excited to see all the missionaries and get to try to help them. Anyways, I love you guys. Thanks for everything you guys do for me. I'm grateful for all your prayers. Have a great week. Love, Elder Lloyd

Otra semana ha pasado

Hey family, Well. Things are going well. I'm really sorry if sometimes it seems like I am writing the same things over and over again every week, but that's what you get when I am in the oficina. Like I said in my last week's letter, this week was change week. There is a TON that goes into transfers in the mission. I hadn't ever realized it before, but the assistants have to do a lot to make sure everything goes really smoothly when everybody has to change areas. We started last week making all the preparations and finished up with transfers on Wednesday. We had to make sure that everybody had bus tickets and everything ready to travel. Also we had to make sure we had splits arranged for everybody who had their companions leaving the areas. One thing that was kind of my fault was that I forgot to tell a Sister missionary she had a change until an hour and a half before she had to get on a 10 hour bus ride to go to Peten. Whoops. She made it okay though. But we had a lot of long days and late nights in the office this last week. We also had to make sure everything went well to get the Elders finishing out their missions back home. Elder Allen left for Oregon so we were a little sad to see him go, but it was really cool to see just how relaxed he was going home because he knew he had done everything he possibly could in these past 2 years. It makes me really want to finish out my mission doing everything I possibly can to serve the Lord. It really is a great feeling when you know the Lord is happy with what you have done. One interesting experience in all the stress and things of the week was having to train the new Elders coming from the MTC and also training their trainers. We were doing so much to get changes ready to go that we really didn't have much time to prepare for their training. So, we had a 4 hour training with them completely guided by the Spirit. There were times when I talked for 30 minutes without knowing anything beforehand that I was going to say. I think the highlight of the week was learning how to drive a stick-shift. Haha. So we don't have a car, even though the assistants of this mission have always had a car. ( I guess the area office thought our car had gotten stolen a few to many times). Anyways, there is a senior couple here that has a pickup that they let us use anytime there is something where we need to transport (suitcases or furniture). So for the changes they let us borrow it for a couple of days. The problem was that Elder Allen had always driven and I had never had a time to learn to drive stick. Well, Tuesday night on the way home, we realized that Elder Allen and Elder Saavedra would be with president Watts all day so I would be alone with my companion Elder Willardson all day with the truck. So we stopped on the side of the road and switched places and I got a 20 minute lesson on driving a stick. Well, that was it. I then had the truck the whole day to drive all around Guatemala City. I was sweating like a mad man! I've never been so nervous in my life. As soon as I got out on the road after the change conference, it seemed like all the wrecks and traffic and construction started. It was actually really fun. I finally got the hang of it though. Luckily I had a lot of practice driving tractors (Thank you Brother Wilson for 5 years of peach and cherry harvest!) So, I learned how to drive a stick in 20 minutes! My new companion is Elder Willardson from California. He is a great guy. He is 100% surfer and his dad too. I still am in a threesome because Elder Saavedra has a month extension on his mission until the 19th of November. So we're really excited to be together. Elder Willardson is a really great guy. He has a great way with the Elders. He really can help them. He only has 4 months left in the mission so he'll be going home before me. I have really been enjoying being with Elder Saavedra. He is a really good Elder. He is having a rough time staying excited here in the office because he has been in the office for a total of 13 months of his mission. he was also finance Elder. He is really trying to learn as much English as he can before he goes home. His English is great, he just doesn't like to practice very much. But English means money. So for the whole extra month that he is here we are only speaking English to him. I've been really rough on him correcting his errors, but that's what he wants. He's come a long way just in the past week. Well, everything else is going great. Sounds like things are going well at home. Well, love you guys. Be good. Read your scriptures EVERY day. Have a great week! Love, Elder Lloyd

Hot, Hot, Hot

Hey guys, Well, here I am once again in Peten. Things are going great and I am loving it up here again. It truly is the home of the Mayas. Sounds like you guys had a super busy week. You guys are always traveling around the whole US. I guess if it was any other way it wouldn't be quite as exciting. The start of the week was concilio with all the ZLs and President. We were assigned two 1-hour presentations for the meeting. It went well, we talked about the importance of working with members and ward leadership and the importance of the Book of Mormon. That is a great book. It has so much power and is essential in our conversion. The meeting went well and we were all edified. Plus Sr. Watts made us chicken cordon bleu afterwards. Soo good. =) After concilio we packed up and headed to Peten. We were all excited because we had some awesome seats in a really nice bus at 9pm, but I forgot to buy one ticket, so we had to go on the 10:30 not so nice bus. After 10 hours in the bus we got on another bus to go 2 more hours and start splits in Sayaxche, a super-hot area. It was a rough day because we were all so tired, but it turned out good and we were able to help all the missionaries. We then traveled the next day and were able to go to my beloved San Andres. It was really nice to be back there and get to see everybody. We got to visit some of my recent converts. It was especially cool seeing Tony and Bertha because they have grown a ton in the gospel. They are reading through the Book of Mormon and are now in Helaman. They know all the hymns. Tony is the President of the Sunday School and Bertha is a teacher in Relief Society. They have been members for 9 months now and are making plans to be able to go to the temple in January to be sealed. They also should be able to go do baptisms for the dead with the ward in November or December. =) That was the good part of San Andres. The discouraging part was that the missionary work there has really slowed down. =( It was sad, but we are going to see what we can do with changes in a couple of weeks. Oh well, the Lord puts missionaries in all areas for a reason. The good thing was that most of my recent converts are doing really well. I think 13 or 14 of the 16 are completely active. It was suuuuuper fun to be there again though. The people are really special. We then traveled to a place called Poptun where we worked a day in splits and also spent Saturday for General Conference. That was an interesting experience. Poptun is super far into the jungle, but they have a whole District. The only thing is that the district building is still really old and not too up to date when it comes to electronics. We got everything ready to go for the conference and when it started up, we only had the conference in Portuguese! We were super worried, but luckily there was a maintenance man there that knew how to work the transmission box and got it switched to English. Had it not been for him, we would've seen it in Portuguese. We missed President Monson's first talk on the ages for missionary service, but after that we were able to see everything. We had to leave the second session on Saturday an hour early to make the 2 and a half hour trip back to Flores for the Priesthood session, which by the way, was awesome! We then spent Sunday and today here in Santa Elena (Flores). The conference was awesome and a huge boost spiritually for me. On the mission it is sometimes easy to get so busy that the simple spiritual aspects of the work can be overlooked. This work is definitely true and I am super grateful to be a part of it. Well, time's up and the chicharrones I ate this morning are starting to fight back. Love you all and Hope you have a great week! Tell Aunt Barbara I say hi and that I'm praying for her. Love, Elder Lloyd