Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Aaron's email from February 14, 2012

Dear Family,
 
Wow, that's hard to hear about Rulon Rasmussen. He was such an
incredible man, and a wonderful example for me. I love him dearly and
his influence has had a lifelong impact on me. I certainly was honored
and blessed to be able to be his home teacher and be able to see him
once more before I came out on my mission. His positive attitude and
outlook on life was infectious and he will always be remembered.
 
Thank you so much for the Valentines package! It is wonderful and I
will share the love for sure! It's great to hear from all of you and I
also heard from both grandparents and Shai as well, I thank you all
for your kindness, for your support and for your love as well. Nolie
will be saying Grandpa in no time dad I promise haha. I also got the
blog print-offs and I thank you very much for them!
 
To answer Elder Weir, we sadly are not experimenting with ipads. .
.yet haha, right now the ipad thing is merely a rumor, but it
certainly is not out of the question, it would hasten the work and
allow for a greater number of the Lord's children to hear the Restored
Gospel. That will be an incredible day when the ipad can officially be
used for missionary work.
 
That's incredible to hear about your first baptism! I know that though
they may be a little different, they are now part of the ward family:)
that's an incredible step they have taken that takes a lot of faith
and i hope and pray that they will remain active in the church
throughout their lives.
 
How is being Ward Mission Leader and Mission Assistant going, are you
two enjoying your callings? We just got a new ward mission leader in
the PQ 1st ward this past Sunday and we are very excited to work with
him. Also dad, a little side note, we stopped by a member in the 3rd
ward this past week, the Caspers. Now I wish I could say it was the
Billy Casper, but, it is his son. so I got that going for me, which is
nice haha.
 
Important info: please be informed that I will be emailing next
monday, not tuesday. Monday will be our preparation day here for next
week because Elder Zwick will be in San Diego for the week, so be
prepared!
 
I realize that my letter is extremely scattered this week, there is
just so much happening in preparations for Elder Zwick and just
running around trying to get everything done but I will do my best
reign this one in a little bit and refocus. Elder Saager and I had the
opportunity to attend the worldwide leadership broadcast this past
week, it was absolutely fantastic! Everything that was talked about, I
took so much from that meeting and took copious notes on the speakers
but before I get into my main take-away from the broadcast, I would
like to tell you story that I heard from John Bytheway that helps me
illustrate my point. "There once was a turkey who learned how to fly,
he was the only turkey and one day he flew over to his friends,
gathered his fellow turkeys together and taught them how to fly. It
was amazing! They were flying over the trees, over lakes and farms,
they had learned to fly! When the time came to end the meeting the
turkeys gathered themselves together to review what they had learned,
and they WALKED home". what was learned? what was applied? which leads
to my take-away from the worldwide leadership broadcast. President
Uchtdorf's talk focused on the "therefore what?" of meetings and
learning in the church. We learn the "why" of the gospel but what does
that "why" lead us to do? When we focus on the "why", the decisions of
"who, what, when, where, and how" seem to follow without hiccup. the
spirit was absolutely incredible and I learned so much from it.
 
We had an incredible experience just yesterday. We received a referral
from HQ from mormon.org that this person wanted to get together with
us. His name is Isaac and we met at a park near his home. I'll explain
his situation, he grew up in Utah until age 6 when his family split
and he moved to San Diego with his mom. His dad is still active in the
church but Isaac has not had it in his life for a long time. We began
talking and getting to know him and he expressed to us that he has
been thinking about the church for a while, and now that he's 18 he
wants to find out for himself if it's really true or not, we
immediately testified of the power of prayer and that God will answer
him if he is truly seeking. Something that we talked about in EQ this
past sunday was about Moroni's promise found in chapter 10:3-5, what
we're supposed to ask is not a question of if the Book of Mormon is
true, rather it says ask if these things are not true and God will
manifest the truth of them unto by the power of the Holy Ghost-I 
certainly am paraphrasing--my point being we ask if it's NOT true, and
by the power of the Holy Ghost, we can know the truth of ALL things.
Everything we do, teach and testify of as missionaries all relates to
our purpose, or the "why" of the Gospel which can be found in Moses
1:39, everything pertains and is a branch off our purpose in the life,
which also happens to be God's purpose, His work and His glory. All
aspects of the Gospel draw us nearer to Him and as we help others do
the same, we are assisting in His work and the glory is His forever.
 
Well family I must bid you farewell for now, but I will write you
again next time, until then Happy Valentine's day! I love you all
dearly and I know that this Gospel is true, and I love every minute of
being able to serve the Lord. I hope you all have a wonderful week and
I will continue to keep you all in my thoughts and prayers. Thank you
again for everything that you do!
 
Love,
Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd

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