The progress of the Church in Coban

 

So I didn't get a change and neither did Elder Proctor.  7 months strong as ZL in Coban!  I'm actually really excited to get to stay.  We are going to have a lot of success here in the next few weeks.   It's transfer week and we've got Elders from all over here today so I don't have much time.  I'll try to get it all in. 

 

Nemecio was baptized, grandpa of the Lopez family.  A miracle happened with that old 80 year old man this week.  When we first started going over to the Lopez family and he was there, he would just start reciting memorized catholic prayers and yelling and stuff.  But, little by little he has started to learn.  A few weeks ago, he started to read the book of Mormon hidden in his free time.  Then he started talking to us about repentance and was asking how he could repent.  He then decided he wanted to be baptized but he still had some crazy religious beliefs.  Well, we left him parts of Joseph Smith History to read and he read the whole chapter that night.  The next day he told us that he was ready to go and that he knew the Church was the only true church.  He testified of Joseph Smith and had taken the decision.  It was great.  So he got baptized and is soooo great.  Marvin got to baptize him and it was a very special moment for us and the family. 

 

The Gomez family was not able to get baptized this weekend.  They are some of those people where it takes a little more time to get them where they need to go.  But, good news is that we did put a strong baptismal date with them for the 18th of August.  This time it is the real deal.  We had a wonderful Principles of the Gospel class with them yesterday where we taught about baptism and invited everyone in the room to be baptized that hadn't been yet.  The three there from the Gomez family said they couldn't so everybody else in the room just started to testify to them why they needed to be baptized.  It was PERFECT!  The best part is that everybody testifying was either recently baptised or still taking the lessons and preparing for baptism.  It was one of the most powerful moments of my mission to see so many people stand for the truth.  They couldnt deny it and aggreed to be baptized right in that moment. 

 

We had a choir from Utah come to sing hymns in Kekchi to the Kekchi people in Coban.  They are taking a tour of all of Coban, Carcha, Polochic, and Senahu and singing in each area to present the new hymn book in Kekchi.  It was a really special performance.  It was really cool because John Bringhurst, aka Juan el Bautista, came.  He was the first Elder to come into Coban and Polochik 30 years ago.  He had hundreds of baptisms here and started the church back then.  He still works for the church translating department in Kekchi.  Lots of his converts were there and he got to see all of them.  Awesome. 

 

Well, the time has gone.  I love you guys.  Sorry this is not a really detailed letter.  Know that the gospel is true and that through Christ, all that is unfair in life will be made just.  Trust in Him.  Give him all.  See ya.

Love,

Elder Lloyd

Bad Eggs

Hey guys.    Another good week.  Sounds like you guys had a blast without me at the reunion.  Oh well.  I got to go to a waterfall.  Not quite the same as Silverwood, but that's ok.  I'm glad you guys got to get together and that you had some time to play with everybody.  Just wanted to clarify and let you guys know that the baptisms we were going to have are actually planned for this Saturday, the 28th.  We actually didn't have any planned this weekend, even though it was a great week.    The start of the week was a little shaky.  I got sick on Tuesday from some eggs and tortillas that some of our investigators gave us on Monday night.  We actually didn't even leave the house all day Tuesday because I was feeling so sick. It was actually the first time I have thrown up on the mission.  I just count my blessings that I haven't had a problem with that up until now.  Usually Elders get sick a lot in this mission.  But, the good thing was that I got over it fast and was ready to go on Wednesday.   Wednesday I got to go on a division with an elder from my MTC group from Texas.  He's kinda an interesting Elder.  He's 27 years old but he acts in really immature ways to get attention from everybody else.  I love him but he has been struggling a bit.  We felt that we should do a division with him and his companion this week so we did on Wednesday.  I got to go over to his area with him and we had one of the best divisions of my entire mission.  We walked so much in the first couple of hours and had no success whatsoever.  After having nothing though, we had some amazing success in the evening.  We were able to find 2 new families with total of 7 new investigators.  The great thing about the one family was that they were just chopping firewood and we offered help.  They just laughed and said, gringos can't work.  All the do is work with their eyes, managing people.  Haha.  Little did they know that this Elder is exactly like Bear Grylls.  We got Elder xxxx in and their jaws dropped when they saw him split the first log.  They didn't know that was even possible.  After helping them for a while, we were able to share a lesson and leave them a Book of Mormon.  It just goes to show the power of service in missionary work.  After the division, Elder Xxxxx really opened up to me and we set some great goals together on how to improve.     Thursday was interesting/a huge waste of time.  We had a senior couple of missionaries come and inspect all of the houses in the zone and they didn't know where any of the houses were.  So it was our job to take them around all of Coban and the little pueblos to show them the houses for a day and a half.  They were really great people, also from Arkansas James, but 70 year old missionaries in the middle of the jungle are high maintanance.  Oh well, it was fun to get to see everybody in the zone and take some people on a tour of Coban.    Our investigators are doing kinda well.  I have learned in the mission that with more success that comes in the work comes more temptations from Satan for our investigators.  Satan has been hitting our investigators sooooo hard and it is really hard to get people to be baptised.  We have planned for this Saturday 7 baptisms, but things are shaky.  I know that if we have enough faith, the Lord will provide.  Just please pray hard for familia Gomez, Nemecio, and Edwin.  They really need the help.  We've been doing splits everyday with the priests and elders of the ward to be able to visit everybody and we are going to keep it up this week in hopes that everything leaves well.  Ojala.   Today we got to go to a huge waterfall.  It was really nice.  The zone really appreciated some time together to destress and enjoy themselves.  This next week is transfers so everybody gets kinda trunky.  Kinda lame really.  But that's how it is with a bunch of 20 year old boys.  Speaking of which, it is possible that I get a transfer this next week.  I'll let you know next monday how it goes.  Pray for baptisms! Lov, Elder Lloyd

Fast Week!

Hey ¿Q' paso? Hey things are going well here in good ol' Guate.  It was a fast week, but lots has happened.  Woah, just looked down and realized I don't have my nametag on!  That's not good.  That's definitely the first time that's happened.  Whoops.  Straight to the house after I guess.  Anyways, here we go. Things have been a little bit rough this week.  Most of our appointments have fallen the entire week!  Sometimes that happens though.  It just seemed like every good plan that we had fell through in the time we needed it most.  Oh well.  We did have something extremely sad happen this week as well.  We went over to the Soto Xol family on Wednesday night and when we got there it was only William.  We entered the house and it was totally empty except for a little bed and a table.  Apparently Maritza had come home late from work in a bad mood and taken all of the things and the kids with her and moved out.  Also, he informed us that they really weren't married like they told us and had been divorced for a year but still living together.  We were still trying to help out William though because he seems repentant and has really started reading the Book of Mormon and praying so we were pretty excited.  But, yesterday when we thought he was going to come to church, aparently he had gotten back together with Maritza and the kids and was trying to work things out to get them back.  He had a baptismal goal for this coming Saturday, but since he didn't go to church, his goal fell and would have to be the next week.  But we are seeing what we do now because we can't have him with law of chastity problems so close to his baptism.  It was really confusing.  Things seemed like they were going so great and it all exploded all of a sudden.  We're going to pass by tonight and see what we can do to help them.  We didn't have any baptisms this week but the zone did end up having 10 baptisms in total and 5 8 year old baptisms in the stake.  That made things interesting.  As zone leaders we are in charge of all the baptismal clothing for the zone and stake, but we aren't used to having that many baptisms so it was difficult to get so many people ready with white clothes.  That actually took quite a bit of time out of our week just because we had to look so much for baptismal clothes and go to so many different areas in the zone.  But we finally figured everything out and they were all dressed in white that day.  It was a little funny in the baptism of Carcha.  We were there because we had to do all 6 baptismal interviews for them. They were baptising a 16 year old boy and only had woman's pants for him.  He started throwing a fit about it so Elder Vestal, the one baptising him, traded pants with him and we have pictures of him in woman's pants with all 6 of his baptisms.  Haha.  It turned out really well for the whole zone and all the missionaries are really excited to be baptizing so much.  We are excited because in the zone we will be baptizing 1 this week and 13 the next week.  Needless to say, things are BOOMING in Coban.  On the 28th, we are hoping to have 9 baptisms in our area alone.  That would be the best way to end the transfer here ever.  The transfer ends the 1st of August. We had an interesting experience this week.  You might remember the investigator we had a while ago named Densil.  Well, he started coming to church again.  He used to be really weird and kinda creepy, but he seems to have changed a lot.  He threw us a little surprise yesterday.  When we were passing by his house to see if he was going to church, he told us, by the way, did anybody tell you I want to get baptised?  Ya, I'm getting baptised this weekend on the 21st.  So, a little surprising, but if he is ready and passes the interview, we are going to have a baptism with Densil this week.  Wasn't expecting that! We were able to find a new family this week that are relatives of a missionary in Chile from this ward.  They have had lots of questions about their nephew on the mission and we started teaching them.  They are Kekchi and it is a little hard to teach them, but they seem to understand ok and are excited.  It is a perfect time to find them because this week some return missionaries and members of the mormon tabernacle chior are coming down to do a performance in Coban and present a new Kekchi hymn book.  We are going to try to get them to go.  They go to church but it seems like they just go there because everybody speaks Kekchi.  Hopefully they can see that we are a multi-idioma church as well.  =)  They are the familia Cucuul.  We're super excited for them because they are a huge family.  The only bad thing is that they always give us this horrible corn drink every time we go there and it is ALWAYS boiling hot!  Nasty!  Sometimes it's super chunky.  Haha.  But, it's worth it.  We had an awesome activity this Saturday.  It was fairly simple.  We just watched the Testaments on the projector in the church and gave them sandwiches, popcorn, and juice, but about 15 people that arent members were able to show up and I think we'll be able to start teaching a few of them.  We're going to try to do a video like that every 2 weeks in the church to see if it helps us get new investigators.  Well, I gotta go.  Love you all and hope you enjoy the family reunion without me.  Have a great week! Elder Lloyd

Working-Working!

Hey familia, Hey I just realized that my time is pretty much up and I still havent written president watts.  I'm gonna have to make this short.   We had a ton of success this week.  We now have 9 baptismal dates with Claudia, Ana, Katarine, Evilyn, and Ricardo Gomez, Nemecio and Edwin Lopez, and William and Manuel Soto Xol.  Everybody is doing amazing and progressing a lot.  The Soto Xol family was talking about divorce but we fixed it all and they went to church together and are doing really well.  Gomez family is doing a lot better and are now all reading the book of mormon.  The Lopez family is amazing and now all we need to do is get Edwin to like the water.  We're going to take him swimming this week with the ward secretary and his family.   The zone is doing really well also.  We had a zone conference this week with President watts.  We did some amazing workshops that helped everybody be more excited about the work. We ended the week with 35 baptismal commitments for the zone.  That has not happened in a very long time.  We also had 45 investigators in church as a zone.  (11 of those were ours.  Represent!)  Attendance of sacrament meeting throughout the stake has gone up about 150 to 200 and things are just looking awesome.  We are hoping for 11 baptisms this week as a zone.  We hope all goes well.   We found another family on my division with the Assistent Elder Saavedra.  They are familia Pop Cu and live on top of a huge mountain.  We found them just talking to people in the street/muddy path thing.  We're hoping the turn into another really promising family.   Well, I feel lame for the really short letter.  Have  a great week.  The bathroom looks awesome. I'll try not to get trunky with all the reunions, bbqs and swimming. =)  Love you guys. Elder Lloyd

Happy 4th of July!

Hey guys, Another good week.  We started out the week really well.  On tuesday we were able to put 4 baptismal dates with the Gomez family, with Claudia, her two daughters Katharine and Evilyn, and her son Ricardo.  It was awesome.  When we were inviting them to be baptized it was really cool because we were able to see the spirit work on each one of them.  Each of them as we were asking wanted to say no and deny what we were teaching was true, but they each thought about it and the spirit told them to say yes.  We felt that this family was going to take a little more time to prepare so we put the date for the 28th of July, not too far away but enough.  That would be the last weekend before transfers so we are super excited for them, plus I'll get to see the baptism. =)  They're great but they may have problems with the law of chastity so we are going to have to work with them.   We finally got the Soto Xol family to church yesterday and it was so exciting to have them there.  They also really enjoyed the classes and the testimony meeting.  We Have received some great help from the ward and especially from some returned missionaries that are visiting with us.  That is the key to success in the mission, having a good ward that supports the missionaries.  The family didn't come to church this past week so we had to move their baptism a week back but they will be ready for the 21st of july.  We're excited.  William, the husband has had some major problems with drugs and gangs but it seems like he has turned a new page in life and the gospel will really help his family.  Maritza was already baptized 6 years ago but their son Victor has 8 years and will be able to be baptized as well.  They're an awesome family.  It's like the next familia Lopez.   Speaking of familia Lopez, they are awesome!  I have never seen somebody so changed by the gospel.  They are 100 percent committed to the gospel now and absolutely love it.  We went over last night and reviewed the story of the Liahona in 1Nephi chapter 16 and asked them questions about it.  They were able to interpret everything that the chapter was trying to teach them and applied it all to their life without our help.  I need to get a picture of them in their house and send it to you guys.  I'll try to do that this next week.   My companion was really sick this week and we missed a lot of time in our area.  Poor guy.  The good news is that we were really blessed by the Lord and received a lot of success even though we had little time in the area.  We had 10 investigators in church and a total attendance of 180 people in sacrament meeting so that's pretty exciting.  The church is growing here throughout the whole zone and it's an amazing thing.  We're hoping it keeps going up.  We have 31 baptismal dates in the zone and everyone is pretty excited for July.   I'm running out of time but I wanted to tell mom a little fact that I've wanted to tell her for a while but always have forgotten.  Apparently all of the world's Cardamom (Kardamomo in Spanish, the Norwegian spice stuff) is grown here in Coban.  It is a huge industry and is almost like a drug it's so expensive here.  The sack of stuff is worth more than 3000 dollars.  Pretty crazy huh?  Maybe I'll get into Kardamomo after the mission.  =)   Anyways, gotta catch a bus to the capital.  I love you guys.  Sorry for the short letter.  Sorry I couldn't get your letter mom.  Love,  Elder Lloyd

Change Week

Hey guys,

How are things going back home?  Hopefully well.  Hey just wanted to say that it is always nice to receive letters from anybody that reads my blog or anybody else.  Also, everybody can email me if they want at alloyd@myldsmail.net  I just not supposed to email anybody back so include the mail return address in the email.  They help a lot and I have only gotten 2 letters in the past 6 or 7 months.  I usually get back to everybody that sends me a letter, I just hope they don't get lost.  This is my mailing address. 

Elder Lloyd

Misión Guatemala Ciudad Norte

Apartado # 951-A

Guatemala, Guatemala

C.A.

  

We found an amazing family this week.  They are the Soto Xol (read Shole) family.  We were walking in the street superfast trying to get to another appointment and passed them when in the exact same moment both me and my companion felt super strongly that we should stop and talk to them.  So we did and put another appointment with them for another day.  We went to their house that day and there they were waiting for us.  It turns out that the wife was baptized in Carcha about 6 years ago but didn't really have a testimony when she did it, be she did know that what we share is very important.  It's her, Maritza, her husband William, and her 4 kids that are 8, 6, 4, and 2 years old.  Well, they're pretty much amazing.  We talked to them and put another appointment for the next day and were able to put a baptismal goal for the 14th of July with William and his son that 2nd appointment. It was awesome!  Sadly they didn't go to church this Sunday because they had to take care of a family member that all of a sudden had a baby, but we are going to keep visiting them this week and try to get them to church this coming week.  They are awesome.  It's amazing to feel the Spirit working with you to be the means in helping find people to share the gospel with.  Imagine if we wouldn't have contacted them in the street.  That's twice in Coban that the same thing has happened.  That's exactly how we found the Lopez family.  

Speaking of the Lopez family, they are super awesome.  We are going to go with them tonight and help them with their family home evening because they are inviting their neighbors to it and want us to be there.  They are going to be doing everything to prepare it.  Awesome.

This week is transfer week.  meh....  Luckily I didn't get a change and Elder Proctor and I are together for another 6 weeks but transfers means no sleep for a week.  My body is really starting to get tired.  You wouldn't think that your stamina would change on the mission, but your body can't take all the things we do for 2 years.  It really is a miracle.  Oh well.  I learned long ago that there is great joy to be found in giving absolutely everything to the Lord and suffering for him.  =)  I think some of the greatest moments in my mission have been the most stressful, tired, uncomfortable moments of my life.  Weird huh? 

Well love you guys.  I hope you know just how important the gospel of Jesus Christ is.  Anybody that is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints that reads my letters, be it a friend, family member, or just somebody I know, know that this is what is missing in life.  God has a plan for his children through the promises we can make in his true church.  Families can live together even after death, through these truths.  There are missionaries everywhere sharing the same things I have dedicated my whole life for 2 years to.  Please talk to them.  Love you guys,

Elder Lloyd

Chicken Enchiladas!

Hey guys,

Well, this week was one of the best. It went by really fast and was full of a lot of things, but it brought some of the greatest joys of my mission.  Man, they've got Toy Story 3 playing here in the internet place.  That's tempting.  Well, here we go. 

The week started out with a rushed trip to the capital to Zone Leader concilio.  When I was writing my short little letter to you guys last Monday and sent it, we had 10 minutes until our bus left.  We sprinted to the bus station and got there right as the bus was pulling out.  That would have been bad to miss.  It was a fun ride because we had all of the Zone leaders together from outside of the capital in the same bus going down at the same time.  I love those Elders.  They really are some great guys.  Then, concilio was really good as always.  I gave a talk with my companion for 15 minutes.  That was the second time I've had to talk as a zone leader in those meetings.  It turned out really well.  We spoke on how to put and hold baptismal dates with investigators and then help the zone to do the same.  Anyways, that was all good, but the important part of the day was that I got to eat mom's chicken enchiladas.  Oh my goo'ness, oh.... my goo'ness.  It was so good.  The only thing that Hna Watts couldn't find were the little canned green chilies, but it was great.  We also had a really good lemon cream dessert.  Those are good days.  I had thirds on everything.  Oh, by the way, the picture I sent of the Elder in the Brown suit is Elder Nelson, our Assistant to the President.  He was in Coban before I came here.  He has a special place in his heart for Coban because he knows how great it is. 

Anyways, that was a good day but we got on the bus at 5pm and headed for Coban.  Around 9pm and about an hour and a half away from Coban, the transmission of the bus se fregó and we were stuck in the middle of the wilderness.  We had 8 Elders on the bus and had to get out in our suits and with our suitcases and everything and hitchhike.  Luckily we had some really nice guy give us a ride to Salama, a completely different zone in our mission, and we stayed the night with the zone leaders there.  That was fun.  I wasn't expecting to get to know that part of Guatemala.  Plus it's also always fun to get a nighttime hitchhike through the jungle.  It was beautiful. 

As for the work, we didn't get too much headway with our baptisms and interviews and concilio.  We are still working with familia Gomez to try to put a baptismal date with them.  If you guys can include them in your prayers, that would help a lot.  They were almost ready to say yes, but in the moment, Satan one.  But, one thing I've learned is that nobody ever gets away from the truth.  They'll have a date this week. 

I had another great (not so great) Zone Leader responsibility to attend to this week.  We have 5 Hermanas in our zone and they are really awesome, but we had to change some of the companionships in our zone.  I had to interview all of them and try to resolve some issues.  I guess girls are different from boys.  The joys of the mission! 

The baptism was wonderful.  Because of work and other things, we did it at 8am on Sunday.  We didn't have too many members there to support because it was so early, but we did have the Spirit there.  They are such a strong family.  It was amazing to see the transformation of the family within a matter of hours as they were baptized, received the Holy Ghost, and became members of the Church.  It was great.  The only thing that was rough was that Edwin, the 8 year old son, kicked his foot up when my companion baptized him and did not want to do it again.  We finally talked him into it, but he spazzed and punched his hand out of the water as he went down.  So, he didn't want to do it again so we are going to have to do it this weekend and have him go swimming and stuff to take away his fear of the water.  I think he swallowed water or something.  Still though, it was an amazing baptism.

Today we went to Semuc Champey as our actividad de zona again.  It was awesome.  I love that place.  It's so beautiful.  The only not so cool thing about it is that there are a bunch of European women swimming around all over the place.  The cool part today was that Polochic zone and Salama zone also were able to go so we were about 70 missionaries over there.  Everybody came from all over the place and it was a pretty good reunion.  I didn't get many pictures because I lent my camera to another Elder that didn't have one. 

Anyways, I love you guys.  It's 9:15 so I got to get inside.  By the way my appointment was fantastic tonight and we have an engineer that we're teaching.  Edgar Hass is his name and he's really starting to get the gospel.  Have a great week.  Love you!

Elder Lloyd