Email from Aaron July 3, 2012

Dear Family,

 

It is comforting to know that you are doing well mom and i hope and pray that the rehab continues to go well and that is very exciting that you will be going home in just a couple of days, i will continue to pray for you, i know that the Lord is with you and will round about you to bear you up in times of need, the power of God is only a prayer away. All we have to do is ask. Thank you so much for the package as well, my companion and many other missioanries have enjoyed the treats, and i very much love the new shirts:) thank you so much. Keep doing everything that you are supposed to, in the Book of Mormon the Lord tells us that "inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments ye shall prosper in the land", think of it in the context of the doctors as well, because He's given us these intelligent men that know how to help us heal and become well and inasmuch as ye shall give heed to their words and their counsels (do what they say rehab wise) ye shall prosper (become healthy and your recovery will come so much quicker than you could have every imagined) and you are definitely not alone in this mom, I know that our Savior will strengthen you daily, you are yoked with Christ through this (Matthew 11:28-30). as you continue to read from the words of Christ, you will be strengthened. I think back to my own experience of rehab when i had surgery on my thumb, the doctor gave me those rehabilitation excersizes to do every day and he promised that if i would do them every day, i might not get full motion back, but the loss of movement would decrease significantly if i did those excersizes. You know what? i didn't do them as often as i should have, they hurt, i couldn't ever "find the time" because it was my sophomore year and you've seen my range of motion, i've lost about 50 to 60% because i did not follow the doctors orders exactly as he perscribed. It's very much like unto the Gospel and even in times of trial, we have the promise that as we stay close to the spirit, as we read and pray daily and are able to partake of the sacrament and as we rely on the Atonement of our Savior we indeed can become perfect, even as He is perfect, only through His grace and mercy. as we do as the Lord has perscribed, it will lead to Eternal Life.

 

Quick miracles and update on the work here in PQ! Mary was able to attend church with us this weekend! her flight attendant schedule has been pretty busy, she's worked almost every weekend since we started teaching her, but this past sunday she had off and she was able to attend! It was fast and testimony meeting and she did say she enjoyed it and we were able to have a lesson with her yesterday as well! We were able to teach her about the Book of Mormon and give her the context and then teach, Mary said she liked that because it helped her when we "drew the outline first, and then went through and added all the color", she's very expressive and open and will tell us when she doesn't understand something so we are able to teach and help her understand. She has told us that she does enjoy reading the Book of Mormon and loves listening to it on her iphone (the gospel library app, amazing thing technology) and now that she understands the context of the Book of Mormon and how it can bring her her closer to Christ, she has a strong desire to read and pray. Helen is doing well, we were able to see her and get back in contact with her and will hopefully getting together with her this week. We took James and one of his friends to the Mormon Batallion this past week as well, what a great experience that was, i love the Mormon Batallion and the spirit that is there. Those men and women truly sacrificed so much for the Gospel and for the freedom of worship that we enjoy in this country.

 

Oh! two incredible miracles!! so, saturday we were able to help a less-active member move and were able to meet and get to them a little bit before they head off to Escondito, and later that day, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time pulling into our apartment complex and seeing a U-haul being unloaded. So. being in the moving-mode from earlier that day, we jumped out and started unloading (keep in mind we were in our white shirts and ties at this point in the day, it was awesome.) and just a few mintues into the move, the woman who was moving in asked "where do come from? Who do you represent?" to which we replied "the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints" and she looked at us with a puzzled look, and then we quickly said "or the Mormons". we still got the same puzzled look with a reply of "i have no idea about that church, but i'd like to learn more" Amazing, we were able to get to know Courtney (that's the woman who asked) and her husband Tim just a little bit better through the move and towards the end, a couple of members from the YSA branch saw us moving and jumped out also and started helping and Courtney later said "everyone in this community is so nice!" we offered to share our message with them and we will be going back this week, to begin sharing the Restored Gospel with them, MIRACLES!!! someone who has no idea who mormons are? the Lord truly does place people in our paths every day, sometimes we just have follow those gentle nudges to go and do something or say something. AND last night we got a call from a member who told us about her new neighbor that had just pulled in with his u-haul from Alabama and didn't have a work party to help him unload so this morning we jetted on over to see what we could do.(we also recruited our district leader and his companion to help out), it turned out that he needed some extra hands so we were able to help him get all unloaded in what seemed like no time at all, even though he had the biggest truck that you can rent from u-haul. His name is VU, and he told us "wow, you are really sent from above here" to which we offered to share our message to he and his family as well and he accepted so we will be stopping by his home as well! I know that when members of the church team up with the missioanries, miracles happen, when we pray daily for missionary experiences, the Lord places them in our paths and He is preparing people the recieve His Gospel, this is His work. He lives! this i know and of this i so testify.

guess what? i finally sent some pictures!! yahoo!! most are of Herbert's baptism just a while ago, and the other person that i am with there is Herbie, his son and Pam, his wife. What an incredible day that was and how strong the spirit was at that sacred ordinance.

 

I will definitely keep Ash in my prayers and hopefully i will have some time today to get a letter off to her. I love you all so very much, thank you for your support and  kind words and i hope and pray that you all have an incredible week! Mom, be carefull and rely on His strength to make it through.

Love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd

Email from Aaron June 6, 2012

Dear Family,

 

It's great to hear from you! it sounds like great things are happening in your life and in the lives of those whom you associate with! I know that sometimes in life we are in circumstances taht we cannot control, for this i would recommend reading Elder Bednar's article in the Ensign about "the enabling power of the atonement". We may not be able to change our circumstances, but we can pray for ourselves to be able to adapt, to call down the powers of heaven in our own lives and be able to access that power that can truly change us. Just like i once heard "when you change the way you look at things, then things around you change" :) that was told to me by a very wise mother, and sometimes i know that it's hard to change the way we see our circumstances, but He can help us to be able to do more than simply "grin and bear it". Dad, it was so wonderful to hear about your experience at your meeting the other day, it sounds like to me that your testimony of the Rescue was strengthened an hundred fold, and that you understand the wide impact of a friendly hand outstretched to others. It also sounds like you have an incredible ward mission organization and a solid team of missionaries and i know that they each have their individual talents to contribute and you will see miracles, i can promise you that. I look forward to hearing about all the wonderful things that begin to happen in the Midvale ward! and Steve sounds like an incredible person, all of these individuals will be able to help the ward mission and help the kingdom to be built in your ward. I'm glad you also got to meet the Leavitt's and i did get the package, and thank you very much! it was all a treat and my companion thanks you as well:) sis, Leavitt showed me a picture that she took in st.george and you two are in incredible shape! Holy smokes, going to the gym every day at 5 looks like great things are happening! I have got to catch up to you two:) will i be getting those shirts anytime soon? haha no rush, i'm just curious.

 

This past week has been one of incredible learning and personal realization and (hopefully) growth. We have seen incredible things happen within the wards and OH! today we found out about transfers and Elder Hansen and i will be sticking around in PQ for 6 more weeks:) what an incredible blessing it is to be here and to serve among these people. We feel that big things are coming, that change is happening, and that we must too change ourselves if we are to excellerate and keep the momentum going here in PQ. I have learned much from hearing the story of Peter told by President Clayton and he showed us a clip of Elder Holland as well. i may touch on this but know that the reference is John 21-and the lesson learned was we must never go back, we must feed His sheep. This past sunday we were able to see both Phil and Tom at all 3 hours of church again and this week in Gospel Principles, Sister Griffin, one of our ward missionaries, invited both Phil and Tom to help teach a portion of the lesson of the "church of Jesus Christ in former times" and the sections that they were given were perfect for them! they taught the exact portion of the lesson that was needed for them, Phil taught us about Revelation and Tom taught us the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What a miracle! We are keeping Phil and Tom in our prayers that their hearts will be softened and they will recieve answers that they seek. We also had an incredible experience just last night actually, we had a lesson with Ryan McGirr, we have been unable to meet with him for a while but recently have reconnected with one another. Ryan had his laptop open and we invited him to go to mormon.org to watch a profile video about basketball, because he is a huge fan. We were able to teach Ryan using this amazing tool, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he asked us questions about the Gospel and about the Holy Ghost, to which we went directly to that section and used scriptures to expound a little more about the Holy Ghost. We were also able to direct him to the chat bar which is incredible and we invited him to read through the page on the Restoration of the Gospel and we'll follow up with him next week. He even had questions about Latter-day Saint services, and there's a page for that, even a worship with us video that the church has created, what an amazing tool that we have right at our fingertips! truly the gospel is reaching every kindred, tongue and people and "millions shall know brother Joseph again". This week we also were able to have a lesson with Mary, we were on exchanges so i was with Elder Smith, our District Leader here in PQ. Mary's schedule is such right now that she works every single weekend on call as a flight attendant so we never know when she'll be able to attend church, we continue to keep her in our prayers as well. This morning Elder Smith, departed from San Diego at about 8:30, after two years of faithful service, this incredible missionary has gone home, he has made a profound impact upon my life, he has provided an incredible example towards me as a missionary and as a person. Elder Smith exudes Christlike Love to everyone he comes in contact with and is the most humble person i have ever met in my life, he taught me many lessons, and many through his example, the words unspoken had a great impact. He will be missed, but his service is not over, he will always be a missionary.

 

Well family i love you all so dearly and hope this week brings amazing miracles and wonderful experiences! thank you all so much for your love and support and know that i love each and every one of you and know that i know that Christ lives, He loves us, and if we love Him, we will feed His sheep. Of this i testify.

 

Love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd

Pics from Zone Leader Council

Dear Family,

 

I hope all is well and everybody is happy and healthy. I take it as a good thing that everyone is pretty busy, Dad with work and Mom with School, summer is quickly approaching and i know that everyone is making every necessary preparation for this season and i hope and pray that all goes well and that this week brings joy and peace and wonderful experiences.

 

To begin, we've had some really neat experiences with those whom we are working with this past week, I'll start with James, a 13 year old, i'm fairly certain i've talked about him before but i will tell you what happened this past week. We went over to teach James and his mom was waiting for us out front and said that James would be coming out in just a minute, a few moments later out comes james in a white shirt and tie, shined shoes, and he made his own "Elder" nametag (which was simply a black piece of paper with white crayon written on it and put in his pocket), it was the coolest thing ever! His mom took pictures and so we talked to james about being a missionary and we had him teach us a lesson based off what he has learned and experienced from coming to church and from meeting with missionaries in the past. He taught us about the Holy Ghost and about how important Faith is and then we taught him a "hold to the rod" object lesson in which we tied a rope from one tree in his back yard to the other end and placed objects in his path of "growth in the gospel" that will ultimately lead him to the savior. It was a really neat experience and James knows and understands the gospel, we are just working with his mom right now to reactivate and work towards some ordinances with this family. Herbert has been coming to church and continues to tell us the more he comes to church and reads and prays every day,  the more he enjoys it and it makes sense (hmmm Alma 32, the SEED??). We will be following up with him this week and helping them out in their yard as well this weekend. We also had a new-member lesson with Samantha and Santiago this week as well, we taught the plan of Salvation but gave everyone in attendance a portion of the lesson to teach which turned out to be a really fun lesson because everyone was able to bear witness of how they individually learned and gained a testimony of the Plan of Salvation and Samantha is nervous about her calling to the Relief Society enrichment board, but she has the support of the whole pq1st ward family. Phil came to gospel principles again this past week and asked some great questions! The lesson was about the Lord's covenant people and the new and everlasting covenant and amazingly Phil and Tom, are non-members in a part-member family, that lesson was truly inspired and both Phil and Tom were active and interested in the lesson, it was incredible to see. We were able to have our first lesson with the Forkas Family, the husband is a less-active member from the age of 14 and is now late 40's and has been wanting to become active and his daughters were interested in learning about the church and the gospel and his wife was also in attendance at the lesson and actively participated as well, we were able to teach them the Restoration of the Gospel and likened Prophets like unto Coaches seeing as both daughters have coaches, in softball, soccer, cheerleading, and many other sports. We are also currently working with 3 individuals and helping them learn english; melissa, sylvia and antonio, and i am quickly finding out how much the spirit is involoved in those lessons as well, we are working on teaching them through a program and through the Book of Mormon as well, i'll keep you posted on how things go!

 

If you could keep the Narvaez family in your prayers i would greatly appreciate it, they have recently had a tragedy in the family and the husband of the Family is struggling with the loss, i know that with the combined prayers we can call down the powers of heaven in the life of this family and they can recieve peace and comfort from the Lord.

 

I do apologize this week is a shorter one, but i want you to know how much i love and care about each and every one of you and hope that you all have a wonderful week and I know that our Savior, Jesus Christ lives, that He loves us and that love is manifest is so many different ways,. especially as we read from the scriptures, and pray daily. i know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and will help us through every hurdle and mountain to climb in this life. Until next time,

love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd

May 6, 2012 Poway & Penosquitos Zone Conference

Pictures from Aaron's SD Card received May 12, 2012

Aaron's Email May 15, 2012

Dear Family,

It was great to hear from you as well this past week and Mom, your comments are too kind, and i am certainly thankful for your kindness and support and am truly grateful for all that you do for me. thank you for being such an influence for good in my life. Tell sean hello right back for me and that's great that he's going into education, he is an incredible person, he is always so upbeat and happy and always sees the silver lining in every situation possible. and yes my neck size is a 17, it's not too tight, but not too loose either so a 17 will work, thank you so much. oh and before i forget, in zone conference the past week, we were instructed to spend one hour each week on mormon,org and set up and update our profile (which i do not have one so i will be creating one-so this being the source of my request) and for those profiles President Clayton has suggested that we put a picture on that is of ourselves before our missions. so, if it would be possible, could you send me a digital picture of me before the mission doing something normal? haha so i can then put it onto my profile? Thank you so much! by the way, Sister Leavitts number(s) is(are) 858-484-6409 and 858-243-6663. one is a home and the other a cell, i'm not sure which is which so i apologize but i'll be making up a box of sorts with things to be delivered and i'm sure that she would love to talk to you as well!

Update on the miracles!!

this past week has been full of them, one being that i was able to plan and prepare and be able to have the privelege to teach in zone conference this past week. as you know, Elder Hansen and i focused on the Role of the Holy Ghost; in each of our lives, in the lives of those we teach, in other's, and ultimately in our conversion. It was incredible to be able to learn the lessons that i had already learned earlier in life and be able to see how the gospel relates to every single one of those experiences. For example, following the Holy Ghost is somewhat like following that blue line at the bottom of the pool. It's always there, as is the Holy Ghost, we always much keep our eyes fixed on it, or be aware and searching for the Spirit everyday. and there's also a T at the end of the lane that tells you that you need to turn around soon! When we follow the spirit and recognize those "T"s in our lives, the spirit truly does direct us as to what to do and where we need to go and be. there are countless lessons in the game of golf that i have been taught, like when i started golfing, i had dad to coach me, he was always there, helping me learn the fundamentals of the game, we were with God before we came to earth, He helped us and taught us things we needed to learn in order to return to him. Dad knew that he would not always be with me when golfing, so he did everything he could to prepared to be able to play on my own, but he knew that those little phrases and reminders would be with me as i played such as "bend your knees, keep your head down, where are your shoulders pointed?" and many more. Our loving Father in Heaven sent us to earth, but he did not send us alone, he sent us the gift of the Holy Ghost that can be received after baptism and by the laying of hands by those in authority so that we too can have those "reminders" in our lives or in our game to help us through and succesfully return to Him through obedience and patience and perserverance. Thank you to both Mom and Dad for encouraging me to participate in those sports which helped me learn these life principles. and Dad, lately i've been reflecting upon "the yurf-dog putt" experience, that was an incredible day, i put everything that you had taught me about the game of golf into that putt and when i made it i couldnt' believe it!! it was incredible! It's like taking the step of faith and being baptized, we put all that we've learned into action and show our willingness to follow our Savior by being baptized and recieve the Holy Ghost and it's an incredible experience! but there are many more putts to come that we continue to act upon the things that we continue to learn about the game of golf throughout our lives. Baptism is not the end, we must continue to learn and apply and make and keep covenants in our lives so that we can continue to have these incredible soul soaring experineces.

Now after that tangent haha, Mondays are what i and many other missionaries is San Diego like to call Miracle Monday's! why, i will tell you why, because yesterday was an absolutely incredible day! Elder Hansen and i had the opportunity to take Bro. Hargrave, a recent move in to the 1st ward out with us in the evening. he is 25 and served in Honduras and he is incredible. We had the opportunity to contact some individuals and set up appointments to teach them more about the restored gospel, but the highlight of the night was stopping by Tony. Now a little bit about Tony, he is a neighbor to a Part-member family that we have been working with for a while, the Youkels. Tony found out that Bro. Youkel was going on a Father's and Son's camp out over the weekend and Tony wanted to come too. Bro. Youkel gave him our number and he called us and we were able to track down the number of the member heading up the camp out and pass along that information. As he began telling us about his experience, he was amazed! He was amazed at the unity of the Father's looking out for their sons, and Tony's son has autism and the Father's of PQ1 were watching out for little AJ the whole time. He was shocked at the clean camp ( no alcohol), and many other aspects he loved about the people and he asked bro. youkel, "is this just the cream of the crop of the church or what's the deal here?" and bro. youkel said "tony this is what the WHOLE church is like" to wich Tony replied, "i like this". He expressed to us his interest in the church and our beliefs and what makes us do the things that we do and were able to testify of the Savior and set an appointment for thursday at a member's home, the Northcutts, who also have an autistic son. Tony is sincere in his desires to learn and is an incredible person. We are looking forward to thursday!

I want you to know how much i love the Savior, i know that He lives, i know that this is His work, and I know with every fiber of my being that He loves each and every one of us and wants for each of us so badly to turn to Him and accept and allow the Atonement to take effect in our lives. The Atonement is real, it's never "too late" for Christ, for His arms of mercy are ALWAYS extended towards us. This church's head is the Savior and we have a living prophet upon the earth today that if we follow his counsel, we can draw nearer to Christ. the simple daily things, those small and simple things that we do, especially for others, help us to feel our Savior's love and help them experience the power of His love as well. It is my hope and prayer that we may all seek to "lift the hands which hang down" and comfort those that stand in need of comfort and invite them into our lives to partake of the wonderful gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love each of you so much and hope that you all have an incredible week full of miracles!! i keep you all in my thoughts and prayers. until next time,

Love,

Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd