Working-Working

Hey guys,

Well, another week in paradise.  Things went really well this week.  It was definitely a harder work week, but it turned out well at the end of everything.

The first highlight of the week was interviews with president Watts.  Poor man, he has to do soooo many interviews and he does a mission tour every 3 months to do them.  He does them all in about 3 weeks for about 200 missionaries in the mission.  When he did them for our zone he was in there without resting or eating from 8am to 6pm.  He is an amazing guy though.  He really receives revelation for every one of us here in the mission.  Everytime I go in to an interview with him, he knows exactly what I need to hear, even if I'm not even sure what I need to hear.  It really helped our zone as well.  Sometimes there is a lot of pressure as a zone leader because it's our job to make sure the elders and sisters are having success in their areas.  Even when we are doing so well in our own area it isn't enough.  Elder Proctor and I are really trying to see how we can encourage our zone to do better.  But, with lots of love and prayer it will happen.  It doesn't help when all the Sisters are angry and fighting with each other.  We had to go over and reprove with the scriptures this week in the house of some Sisters.  That was fun....  It's all part of a day's work though.  =)

Another highlight of the week was that I got a new man bag/purse that I had made in the Polochic a month ago.  =)  You can see my pictures to see it.  It may sound silly, but a good bag makes missionary work all the better.  I just hope you guys don't make too much fun of me for using a purse for 2 years straight.  It's comfy...

In other news for this coming week, we have more baptisms.  The Marroquin family that we found about a month and a half ago is more than ready for baptism.  They will be baptized this Saturday at 3pm and it is going to be awesome.  Everytime we go over there they always just thank us to death for sharing the gospel with them.  They understand everything and are receiving the blessings of heaven for their obedience to the commandments.  They have given up coffee and are even married, miracle of miracles.  Really though, this family is special to me.  The Lord has been preparing them for a long time and they are seeing the results of their love for God.  They asked for a small baptismal service so we are just going to have some family members and Church leaders there.  We hope it goes really well.  So their names are Carlos, Carla, and their 13 year old daughter Karin.  I can't wait to introduce you guys to them when you come down. Please pray for them.

Besides them we were able to put a baptismal date with a young man, Otto, for the 6th of October.  We are really hoping that he can attend church every Sunday to be able to get that date.  We've taught him a little and he loves the gospel.  He also loves the young women, but we'll make sure the testimony comes first.

We are really trying to look for new investigators now.  We have been so focussed on the investigators we have had that it has been difficult to find new people to teach.  Now we are really trying to pass by with all the members and ask for referrals.  There is great power in a sincere referral given from members to the missionaries.  I hope you guys can think in all your friends and give some referrals to the missionaries.  They are in great need of your help.

Anyways, times up.  Love you guys and hope everybody is healthy and happy.  I miss you guys but never enough to distract from the work.  I love it here and hope that in these last 2 weeks of this transfer, I can give every minute to the Lord.  Have a great week.  Bueeeeeeeeno.

Love,
Elder Lloyd

Baptisms!

Hey guys, 

Well, for some reason my time has gone by really fast.  I do know that my companion had a really good letter home so you can just look at his blog if you want to know more.  I am going to try to get it all in.  It just seems like when I send pictures it always takes a lot of time.  

Anyways, the first thing I want to tell you guys about is Jonny.  This investigator is probably the most golden investigator I've had in my entire mission.  We only taught him about 3 or 4 times but he told us he wanted to be baptized and he was ready.  Well, last week he informed us that he had a month long training in the capital for his new job he had found and that he would also be working every Sunday and would not be able to be baptized.  Really, it hurt soooo bad to know that he wouldn't be able to be baptized.  So we stayed like that.  Just kind of sad because he wouldn't be able to do it.  But, Tuesday morning we got a call from Jonny and he said, Elders, I have some great news.  I'm going to be baptized this week!  He got permission to come back to Coban for the baptism on Saturday and also permission in his new job to be able to have every other Sunday off to go to church.   He was so excited and so were we!  So, Saturday he got back and we reviewed the baptismal interview questions and he had the interview right after and passed with flying colors.  He also asked me to baptize him so that was really cool.  I just was so grateful that the Lord new his need to be baptized and provided the way.  That's 1 Nephi 3:7 in action!

We did a division with another area on Friday so that one of our District Leaders could do the interviews of the Gomez family while I was in the DLs area.  While I was in the other area, apparently things didn’t go too well on the interview.  Turns out that when the Elder asked if the grandma, Ana, had prayed to know if the Church was true, she had forgotten and said no.  So she didn't pass.  Also, the power went out and they weren't able to do the rest of the interviews.  Darn it.  We found out that Ana had a hit to the head a few years ago that makes her forget things easily.  We went Saturday morning and reviewed and asked if it was truly their desire to be baptized.  We even kneeled in prayer to know the will of the Father. After that prayer we knew that Ana was ready and that her grandson Harry was ready to be baptized and needed to do it.  So they did.  It was amazing and wonderful to see the difference the Spirit is making in their lives already.  

Well, I'm really sorry, but time's up.  I love you guys.  Just know how much I love you and appreciate your support.  The work is going super well and I am loving it!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Lloyd

Rainy Season

Hey guys,

Good week.  Let me give you the rundown.  By the way, I am doing great.  

We started out the week with concilio in the capital.  It was the best concilio I've had since being in the mission.  They talked about a lot of things but one of the things that was greatest was president's talk.  He talked about how, as a mission, we have improved a lot.  But the goals we have are still way over what we are getting.  He told us that his revelation was that we need to become 100 percent obedient and only in that way will we receive the success the Lord has promised us.  He then invited each one of the Zone Leaders in to his office to be interviewed one by one, asking us to confess every rule we had broken in the mission.  It was such a great time for reflection and it really helped me tighten up the loose bolts.  We came back from the capital and talked very sincerely and honestly about obedience with our zone.  I know that we are going to see huge improvements in the work here soon if we strengthen our obedience here in Coban.  It was a very impactful day for me and my mission.  And we've seen the results because of our better obedience.  

We will have 6 baptisms this week.  The Gomez family is finally getting baptized!!!!!!!!  We also have a young man named Willy that will be getting baptized.  We are going to try to make the baptism a huge event so that the whole ward gets excited about it.  Hermana Claudia Gomez has had some problems with the Law of Chastity but she finally took a stand and told her man to move out.  We are getting super excited because they've finally allowed the spirit to move in and control their life.  I know that if we have lots of faith in this week, the Lord will work miracles in that family.  Willy is just super awesome.  He will have no problems.  I was very impressed the other day because we went and had a lesson with him and 4 other jovenes, all of which are preparing to leave on their missions.  There were no adults nor parents there but they all were very serious and loved to be sharing the gospel with one of their friends.  That is very rare to find in this world, 4 young men so centered on God's purpose for them.  

Familia Marroquin has been having some serious problems with their family this week.  They are so ready to be baptized, but we have found out that the trial of faith is real.  Every investigator, before baptism, has to have a trial that tests them and their belief in what we're teaching.  For them, there have been no trals in the doctrines of the Gospel, so the Lord knew they would needed to be tested in some other way.  All of the family of Hermana Carla is catholic and hate the Mormons.  Her own mother said that she would rather die than see her child become a Mormon.  Well, her mother tried to overdose on 38 pills to kill herself this week.  Luckily she lived but her whole family is blaming Carla for the problem and saying that the Mom did it because she is listening to the missionaries and going to church with her family.  They also said that they were going to run them out of the house they were in to get them to stop.  We were able to visit them yesterday and they said that it doesn't matter what happens, they know they need to be baptized and will follow through with the commitment they have made with God.  Long story short, they are amazing!  They said even though it had been raining all day long, they had waited with the door open to be able to recieve us because they knew we would come.  They're awesome. 

Anyways, times up.  I love you guys and hope you have a great week.  By the way mom, it rains every day here now.  We are in the rainy season.  I basically just go out without a jacket now because I'm used to getting so wet.  I just have to always remember to put my stuff in a bag.  Anyways,

Love you guys.

Elder Lloyd

Good and Tired!

Hey guys,

This week went well.  Things were really tiring with the transfers.  After the 6th time doing it, it gets a little old.  Oh well, it's over and we have some great new Elders here in the zone.  We are headed off to the capital again this morning for zone leader concilio with President.  Should be fun.  I'll try to cover everything that we did this week.  I'm kind of sad, I did a half hour recording of my voice so that I wouldn't have to write much but it didn't work.  So, here we go.

We did not have too much time to work with all of the transfers.  Our job is to pretty much entertain the Elders and give them a hotel and pay for all their taxis and buses.  It wears you down.  On Wednesday night we had over 40 missionaries in front of our house and about 100 suitcases that got dropped off from the bus.  It was insane.  We handled it well though.  We finally got everybody out of the house Thursday afternoon and got some time to work.  It seemed though that most of our appointments fell through.  Oh well, it's only once every 6 weeks. 

The crowning event of the week was Church yesterday.  We had 14 investigators in sacrament meeting and in our classes!  That included a really awesome new family we have.  They are the Marroquin family.  They were a referral from a member family here in the ward.  When we contacted them, they had already been to 4 Family Home Evenings with the family without us knowing.  It was awesome.  After two appointments we were able to put a baptismal date with them for the 8th of September with a possibility of moving it up to the 1st.  They are really awesome.  Golden investigators.  There names are Carlos and Carla with 3 kids.  We love visiting them because they understand and love everything we teach.  So they are 3 people planning for baptism.

We have another fellow named Johnny that will be baptised.  He lives a little far away but he is awesome.  He is planning on being baptized on the 18th of August. 

There is another kid named Willy.  He's 17 and will be baptized on the 18th as well.  He has been staying with a member family and they have already taught him most of the lessons. 

The Gomez family is doing really well.  Ana, Claudia, Evilyn, Ricardo, and Harry are all sure baptisms for the 18th as well.  They have been so wishy washy for 3 months about baptism but they finally found their answer.  Each one knows it's what they need to do.  Yesterday Ana and Claudia were anouncing their baptism to everybody at church.  They're all super excited. 

Marina, another daughter of Ana Gomez, came to church with her husband for the first time yesterday.  She told us that when everybody was bearing their testimony and saying that they knew the church is true, she felt this huge calm power in her chest and knew what they were saying was true.  So last night we went over to the Gomez family and were able to challenge Hendrin and his wife Marina to be baptized and they both accepted happily.  It was a wonderful day. 

So in total we have 12 people that are waiting for their baptism.  The work is great and we are loving it.  I am tired.  So tired.  I'm hoping to get some sleep tonight in the AP's house.  These trips and transfers kill me.  Oh yes, today I have 16 months in the mission.  I'm getting old!  Haha.  I'm celebrating by drinking an A&W Rootbeer.  Delicious!  Haha.  I gotta go.  Everybody's presuring me that they want to go play soccer so I better go so we can get on our bus on time.  I love you guys.  Sorry my letters are kind of lame sometimes.  We're just working.   It's a wonderful thing.  Have a great week! 
Love,
Elder Lloyd

P.S. I got ringworm from all the elders that passed through our house this week.  Nasty. 

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