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
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