Aaron's Thanksgiving Email

Dear Family,

 

It's great to hear from you and from the sounds of it, it was a great thanksgiving!! we heard from bro jolly that it was beautiful down there, in the 70's and warm as can be! To answer your questions mom, Thanksgiving was great! we ate at the Southworth's, they are a younger couple and newer to the ward and Sis. Southworth had her sisters in town so Bro Southworth was glad to balance it out by having us there haha. The food was delicious! We had the usual: turkey (which was cooked in the crock-pot and was very tasty!), stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green been casserole, with a plethera of pies for dessert! Thank goodness Elder Tueller and I run every morning haha thanks for the heads up as well, i'll be sure not to open that package until Christmas:) That's also great that you were able to get all of your sub for santa done as well! I'm sure those families will be forever grateful for the Christlike love that you and others are showing towards them this incredible time of year! and let Shai know happy late birthday from me! I have something for her but i haven't put in the mail yet. . . sorry! and i'm sure that you've heard from your missionaries but as of yesterday there is a wonderful new page on mormon.org, it's mormon.org/christmas. This has been in the works for a while and is a wonderful new addition to the site, advertising will begin shortly and super advertising will begin in a few weeks, through you-tube, and other social media networks, but the reason why i'm telling you this is to invite you to check it out! It's a wonderful page that is all about the Savior and has videos, free music downloads and many others! also, in the next week or so, the e-card feature will be available, to which i invite all who read this to go to mormon.org/christmas and send an e-card to a friend, a co-worker, a family member who may be stuggling or just needs a little boost and reminder of what Christmas is really all about, will you do that? I promise that as we spread the spirit of Christ, hearts will change and this work will continue to roll forth. Also, i encourage you all to link it to your social media network of choice, it's super easy! and those who visit it can have the opportunity to request a christmas message, purely about the Savior delivered by none other than, the missionaries! hooray! but, that's my schpeal of the week haha

 

Onto updates!

Holy smokes!! This past week, especially the past few days have super humbling. We've witnessed so many miracles and there are so many tender mercies spread upon this work and this area that it's been absolutely incredible to take part in this. I'll start with Sunday, Bro Jolly attended as usual this week after his trip to st george with to see his in-laws. Jeff, a less-active that we are working with was also able to attend and Shawn, our investigator Linda's fiance came to church as well! Now Shawn lives up in Vista, which is out of our mission, but he's been returning to activity and meeting with missionaries every week at his home and when he came down he came to church and attended with us and is present when we teach Linda (who sadly has been sick the past couple of weeks:( but keep her in your prayers please!) by the way speaking of prayers, i want to thank each and every one of you for keeping these people in your prayers, i know that it is by those prayers of faith offered on behalf of these individuals that these miracles were able to happen, so thank you all so very much! anyways, back to Sunday! Bro Jolly approaches us after Gospel Principles and we start talking about his trip to st george and he says to us, "so we're shooting for somewhere around mid-january for my baptism, i'm going to have my father in law come down and baptize me" . . . it's not a matter of if nor when anymore, they are planning it and he is very excited for his baptism! but that's not all! Elder Tueller and I were walking to see someone just a little later that day and we recieve a text from him that reads, "how about jan 5?" Elder Tueller and i looked at each other and on a busy road both of us exclaimed "YES!!" at the top of our lungs. I'm sure a few people turned and looked but we honestly could not contain our excitement. So we called to schedule the builing for the 5 and it's reserved all day!! so we let bro jolly know and he replies "how about the 12th?" so we make another phone call and we heard back today that we officially have the building reserved for the 12th! they are just planning in advance to coordinate with Sis Jolly's parents to come down from st george. And in our lesson with him yesterday he is so excited that this is set, that he can see the goal and he can work towards it, we were also able to have Bro Renshaw with us, who is a recent convert of 6 months that will be recieving the Melchizedek Priesthood come January and he was able to answer many of Bro Jolly's questions and things to expect and so forth. We also talked about how there will be the opposition in these coming weeks in preparation for his baptism that will try to get him to feel uncertain, unready- we testified of the goodness of our Heavenly Father and those feelings do not come from Him, and he truly can pray to recieve strength to conquer those feelings and that Heavenly Father will help him be ready for that day. What an incredible blessing and super humbling experience it is to be able to be a part of his life and for he to be a part of mine, he's an incredible person and has made some big steps in his life! I love this work, what a blessing it is, i know that is is His work.

 

oh....and i'm out of time haha wow that flew by! well, i want each and every one of you to know that I know that Christ lives and loves each and every one of us and that as we as fellow brothers and sisters reach out to those in need this Christmas season in small simple acts of kindness and charity that His love will be spread abroad to fill the earth, of this i testify.

I love each of you very much and mom, thank you for your thoughts as well, it makes me think of Hugh B Brown's story of the Currant bush, He is the gardner here, and He knows what's best for each of us. until next time, stay safe in the snow!! it's hard waking up and shoveling off all this sunshine!:P (as elder tueller would say)haha i love you!

love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd

Zone Conference

Aaron's email November 13, 2012

Hello Family!

 

It's great to hear from you! i heard about he storm! it's winter time now right? It's starting to get cold here too. . . low 60's, i have to be honest, i'm freezing haha i'm totally acclimatized here and i'm trying to keep warm haha but thank you for the pictures everyone! it's great to see you all and holy smokes Nolie is HUGE and Lincoln's growing like a weed too! I hope all is going well, i apologize in advance, this email will probably be shorter than most, due to limited time, so i will just give some quick updates!

 

we were able to teach Bro Jolly and help him with the Book of Mormon, he still knows he's going to get baptized, it's more a matter of when at this point, so we're striving to help him gain a solid foundation and testimony and help him see that we don't know everything, nor will we, when we feel the spirit, the best thing we can do is act, and show our Father in Heaven we are willing to do what He asks.

 

We also began teaching Corina, she was taught by missionaries about two years ago, and thanks to the invitation of her neighbor and Del Cerro Ward member, sis McDermott, she's taking the lessons again and i have to say how amazing it is to have members invite their friends, because Corina is active in the lessons, and when she has questions she turns to her friend and sis McDermott's testimony is incredible and is exactly what she needs and wow, it's amazing and super humbling, the Lord is hastening His work and He needs all hands on deck! We are so grateful for sis mcdermott and her willingness to share her beliefs and her testimony with others.

 

Yesterday Elder Tueller and I had the incredible opportunity to have President Clayton come out with us for a morning/afternoon. He joined our companionship study at 9:00 am and was with us until about 4 pm, what an incredible experience that was to have one on one teaching time with our Mission President! i was so honored and humbled by the experience, and it was a blast too! He taught with us when we had our lesson with Corina and for our next morning appointments as well, he is such a kind, loving, insightful, humble man- I am truly lucky to be able to serve with him. it was neat, during lunch we got a call from Sis Brown in the ward and we set an appointment for right after lunch. We told this to our mission president and he said "great, let's do it, tell me about this sister" and as we were pondering what we might teach all of us looked up and thought of Sariah in the Book of Mormon, as a mother, she had to endure so much, she went through adversity leaving everything behind, doubt whether or not her children would return from Jerusalem, and she also witnessed wayward children. Just think how many prayers were offered by Sariah, a loving mother, in behalf of her sons, Laman and Lemuel. It's not that her prayers were not heard, for think of all the incredible experiences that those two had in their lives, but to know that the Lord does have a plan for all of us and we still have our agency, His ways are higher than our ways and He knows what's best for His purposes. Sometimes we may not know the answer to our "why" questions until after this mortal life, but as we put our trust in Him and His plan, we can continue to Hope, to have faith and look forward and upward!

 

Well family i love you all so very much and i hope you all have a wonderful week and dad and mom, any experiences you'd like to share from praying? How have you felt? I know that as we all work together to build His kingdom, we are participating in the best work, that which is of most worth to us in this life and in the eternities; proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all. What a wonderful gift and blessing! This work is true and it is Hastening! come january we'll be receiving about 70 more missionaries here to San Diego! I know Christ lives and love us, He is always there and always will be and will answer our prayers!

 

Love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd

Aaron's Election Day email. 11/6/12

Dear Family,

 

It's so great to hear from you! Thank you so much for your insights and encouragement and prayers and also thank you dad for sharing with me your testimony and that story about great grandma lloyd, those stories are incredible and i love to hear them! This truly is the Lord's work and those "happenings" were for a reason, definitely not coincidence! and i didn't know shai made it into SUU's program! that's awesome! i wanted to ask dad, how was that family of 5 were found? and those who attended your class, are they new investigators, visitors? How goes the work in your ward? do you have a "rescue list"? that each auxillary has roughly 5 individuals or families that they are striving to fellowship and help progress in the Gospel? and also dad, any experiences with your date that you'd like to share? and mom i know that as you continue to speak and open your mouth to those around you it will be filled and those opportunities are there, if we seek them.

 

Updates for the week!

 

I'm starting big, update on Bro Jolly!! This one floored me for about a night! it was incredible! so the past little while, Bro Jolly has wanted to attend a baptismal service and we've invited him but our schedules just couldn't match up whether because of vacation, in-laws in town, but this past saturday everything aligned and he was able to attend the baptism of a YSA, Hashem and this was the first baptism he had ever attended so Elder Tueller and I were giving him the overview of what the service would be like and let me tell you, it was an incredible baptismal service! The spirit was so strong! and Hashem's story is amazing! He sacrificed so much for the Gospel! after the service ended we were talking with Bro Jolly and we asked "how do you feel right now?" (question from Heaven) and his response came as such, "well, one way i can describe it is like this: my brother graduated highschool the year before i did and it was like watching him graduate, knowing that i would be in his shoes soon enough, that i was next" he felt the spirit, he felt the promptings and he knows what he's learning is true, he knows that he will be in Hashem's shoes! how incredible is that? and to top that off, on sunday our gospel principles teacher gave him a special assignment to read moroni 7 the week before and this was his report and he said "you know i read it several times but when i attended the baptism on saturday i understood, everything in here talks about those basic principles that the sisters talked about; faith, repentance, baptism, the holy ghost and endure to the end" elder tueller and i looked at each other and both had the look of "he gets it!!" wow what miracles!!

 

Linda also was able to make it to church this week as well and we were able to share with her the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ with her fiance, who is returning to activity. Linda has some wonderful questions and she said she really enjoyed church, which was fast and testimony sunday. her fiance shawn got up and bore his testimony and it was powerful! and she participated in Gospel Principles and asked questions and commented and is looking forward to reading the manual for that as well! She is also hoping to get her two daughters involved in church as well!

 

We also had a good lesson with Geoff this week, i know that he needs the Gospel and he needs the Savior now more than ever, i know it's what will help him the most and we will be going over to a members apartment right neat his tomorrow for our lesson and watching a couple of conference talks and having dinner with them as well.

 

Noah was pretty busy this week, but we're still in communication with him and he's still reading and praying and we're setting something up for next week, please keep them in your prayers!

 

I want to thank you again for your prayers, they are felt and i want you all to know that i know that this gospel is true, i know that it has been restored from a loving Heavenly Father through the Prophet Joseph Smith, i know that the gospel is the only thing that will save the world from the calamity of it's own self-destruction and i also know that "we do not preach and teach in order to 'bring people into the church' or to increase the membership of the church. we do not preach and teach just to persuede people to live better lives. .. . we invite all to come unto Christ by repentance and baptism and confirmation in order to open the doors of the Celestial Kingdom to the sons and daughters of God. No one else can do this" -Dallin H. Oaks. Of this i testify and know that every time we talk to someone about the gospel or invite them we are leading them one step closer to the Celestial Kingdom, One step closer to life back in God's presence forever with their families. This is His work and Christ lives!

I love each and every one of you and hope you have a great week! good luck with PTC's mom!!

Love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd