Dear Family!
There is something i need! last week we got word that we can now email friends people outside of our immediate family, so i was wondering if i can get Nate, Brad's, Alex's emails? and the grandparents too please! and whoever wants to email me can now! i do promise that i will do everything i can this next little while, it's time to sprint to the finish and not back down or get comfortable! thank you for sharing your thoughts on the Atonement as well, i too read that article from this months ensign and it is powerful, i will certainly continue to pray and know that for the atonement to take effect in our lives, we have to let Him in, we have to turn to the Savior and seek His enabling power to overcome and to become better. what an amazing gift it is!! alrighty i'll get to updates because i got a few!
I'll start with Linda! phew what a blessing it is be able to work with her! i tell you, so far, the lessons that we have with her never cease to amaze me, and also never cease to be super intense! let me explain. Saturday morning we go over for our scheduled lesson time we sit down and Linda says after exchanging pleasantries, "alright, i guess i should drop the bomb, the 30th isn't going to work, i'm going to have to postpone my baptism". . . want to know what went through my mind? i though "OH NO!!!" haha i looked at Elder Laxton and he said "let's pray" in his calm, cool, confident in the spirit voice. after we pray we asked her what her doubts were and she started to open up to us about the law of tithing and how scary it is for her because she can barely make payments now, but 10%?? she also expressed to us her feelings of inaddiquicy, and how she feels she doesn't know enough and doesn't want to "mess up" and be a hypocrit. Elder Laxton and i did our best to teach the law of tithing, to share personal experience and testify of the Lord's promised blessings from living this law that "the windows of heaven will be opened and there shall be blessings poured out upon you that there shall not be room enough to recieve it" i paraphrased but we read from Malachi. after that discussion her fears were settled and she said to us "you know, i did have a really hard day yesterday and when i said those things i was angry and i felt a lot of doubts, and after talking to shawn, i realize that's not from God." and we asked "how do you feel now?" she said "calm, peacefull" and we bore testimony of the spirit and how much the gift of the Holy Ghost will bless her life and the lives of her daughters. after our lesson, she asked us "did you guys plan on talking about that?" to which we replied "not at all, we had fully prepared to teach the law of chastity" and she responded, "huh, that's funny, because shawn and i just made an oath with each other to live that a few days ago, we read about it in the Gospel Principles manual" that is such a testimony to me of how REAL the spirit is! and how though we had fully prepared to teach the law of chastity, that was not what Linda needed at the time and the spirit directed that lesson and helped us and her understand the gospel better and learn and grow. what a lesson!! please keep her in your prayers!!
Bro Jolly is doing so well! he met with Bishop Fisher on sunday and got his limited use recomment and is going to do baptisms for the dead!! awesome! and on sunday i was able to talk to Oliver, a recent convert who i taught and had the opportunity to baptize up in PQ, i found out he's working on his mission papers and plans to go through the temple in April!! how cool is that??
we also stopped by a part-member family last friday and we met warren and leila, two of the children in the family, warren is 20 and leila is 15, after getting to know them we asked about the church and leila said "you know, even though i haven't been to church in a long time, i still lived and believed what i was taught as a child, and just today i was starting to question if i truly did believe and want to continue to live it and this is definitely a sign to me that i need to get back into it" again, the Holy Ghost is so real, and this is the Lord's work, He is directing it! and we sent the YSA sisters over to visit warren and we haven't heard how it went yet, but leila wants to take the lessons and continue on the gospel path!
our lesson with sariah went well this past week too, we were able to read from JSH and talk about the restoration of the gospel to help sariah understand who our Heavenly Father is and that He's real and so is Jesus Christ and i have got to tell you, she understands the scriptures way better than trying to do object lessons haha, i just i learned that lesson to let the spirit teach from the word of God, it will touch their hearts, no matter what age they are!
we stopped by a former investigator yesterday, Bob, and he welcomed us into his home and we started talking and he started sharing experiences in his life in which he knows God is real and that He's kept him here on this earth for a reason, we were able to share briefly about the Restoration of the Gospel and our Heavenly Father's plan for us as His children and he asked about life after death so we invited him to read Alma 40 and we're going back to visit him this saturday. keep him in your prayers!
so there's my updates for the week! i love you all very much and am so grateful for each and every one of you! i know with all my heart that this is the Lord's work, it's such a blessing to be a part of it and again i testify of the reality of the Holy Ghost, he is the third member of the Godhead and His power and influence are real and what an amazing gift it is from our Father in Heaven to have that constant companionship and direction in our lives! i know that you can rely on Him for strength to face whatever has come or will come your way. Jesus is the Christ and love us so much! He wants to be a part of our lives, all we have to do is open the door! until next time,
love,
Elder Aaron Jordan Lloyd
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