It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.... except there's no snow...

November 27, 2017

This week was so good but as you can probably guess I have like no time to email. so here are some of the highlights!

First off.... THANKSGIVING! Oh how I love Thanksgiving. We had a great day. We had one dinner at 1:00 and another dinner at 3:00. We ended up staying at the 3:00 dinner until like 7:00 haha. It was with a family, The Stephens, who are awesome! I love them so much! They both went to culinary school so dinner was AMAZING. Their little kids have basically become additional siblings to me so that was so fun. After dinner we played Candyland, Uno and Headbandz. So all in all Thanksgiving was pretty great! 

Another highlight from this week is that we were asked to speak in church yesterday (the 26th) and we found out last Sunday (The 19th) So that was a little bit stressful. They asked us to speak about how serving a mission has changed our relationships with Jesus Christ and that was good because I actually know something about that topic! :) So I think it went pretty okay. The biggest thing that I talked about was how, coming on a mission has taught me to not just love Jesus Christ, but trust Him and His Atonement more than I did before. On my mission I have truly seen and experienced Jesus Christ carrying me or others through their hard times and I'm so grateful that I was able to learn that.  

Another highlight from my week was we did service at the Retirement Home again. I was in the kitchen and I turned around just in time to see Mikey walk into the dining room and he saw me and said "SISTER LLOYD!" and this old guy pushed his walker away from him and did the cutest little shuffle over to the kitchen to give me a hug and tell me Happy Thanksgiving. He was so sweet! After we served lunch we played the piano for them and this one lady made a point of asking me, "Will you play that Titanic song?".

This week we also were asked to come into Primary for their "I can be a missionary now" lesson. It was so fun! The kids were so excited that we were there and almost all of them told stories about what they were doing to be missionaries now. It was so sweet! 

One fun experience that we had this week is that we have been "heart attacking" people in the ward. Which is where we cut out hearts and write some scriptures on them and tape them to people's doors. Well, this week we went and did a couple of people who live in apartments right across from each other. The first guy, Dave, is pretty homebound. So we figured we would remind him that he is loved and missed. But when we got to his door we noticed that it was cracked open but we couldn't see him through the window so we decided to just be quick. So we taped all the hearts on and we only had about 5 left... .when all of a sudden... his dog starts barking. and all of a sudden the door opens as I'm reaching out to stick a heart on the door. He was so surprised until he realized who we were and then he just said "OH! Hello girls! What brings you here?" and then he saw his door. So we talked with him for a little while and then left to do the other member's door. but as we were leaving I looked over towards his apartment and he was sitting there looking up all of the scriptures that we had written on the hearts. It just made me so happy to think that maybe they were something he needed and brought a little light to his life. The next day at church the other lady we heart attacked told us how much she loved and appreciated us doing that and that it even opened up a missionary opportunity for her. Her neighbor asked her about the hearts so she got to explain it was the missionaries and who they are. I thought that was so neat! 

Well... this week was pretty uneventful so I'm sorry that this email is a little different than normal but it's kind of been a weird week! But I do want to invite all of you to participate in the Light the World Initiative that the church is putting out. YOU GUYS IT IS GOING TO CHANGE CHRISTMAS FOR YOU! If you participate in it I promise that it will bring more of the light of Christ into your holiday, it will make you feel better, it will make others better, and it will give you opportunities to share Jesus Christ with others that you wouldn't normally have. I promise that if you participate in the initiative you will be blessed and you will feel a difference! I love y'all! Have a great week! 

--

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

"Half way there, Whoah! Living on a prayer!"

November 20, 2017

Well Friends, this week I hit my 9 month mark. And you know what that means, I'm half way there. So that's kind of gross. I don't feel like it could possible have been 9 months yet, but I have done the math and checked calendars about 20 times and it is, in fact, true. Another thing is that this week was transfer week and we found out that nothing will be changing in our area. Sister Fife and I will both be staying in Mountain Home for 6 more weeks! 

Well, this week has been an adventure. I'll just share some of the highlights because, per usual, I'm running out of time rather quickly. 

This week we put our ten year old investigator on date for baptism! His name is John and he is scheduled to be baptized on either the 22nd or 23rd of December which we are SO excited about. He's a sweetheart. 

We did service at the Retirement home we usually go to and I LOVE doing service there. As I was walking around helping them and getting them the food and drink they wanted I was walking past a table and I smiled at some of the older ladies and as I walked away I heard one of them say "she is a happy little girl, isn't she!" and the other said "and a sweet one too. I like her!" and that just made my day!  It was so sweet to hear that. Later I was doing something else and this little old man, Mikey, came up to me and said "Sister Lloyd, I wanted to give you this. I won it playing Bingo and I just wanted to say thank you for being so nice to me." and he gave me a little angel magnet. It was so sweet! It just melted my heart. After lunch Sister Fife and I took turns playing the piano for them and this one older gentleman, Bill, kept on just saying how much he loved it and thanking us. When we were about to leave he asked for one more song so Sister Fife played one more and I looked over and he was crying. We said goodbye to him as we were leaving and he said he was so grateful for us coming and helping them and for the beautiful music. He now asks us to play the piano every time we go. 

This week we also got to help our recent convert, Ethan, write his talk for stake conference. He spoke on Sunday and gave a great talk about the Sacrament and how important it is. He did a great job! It was such a cool experience to be able to start teaching him right after his baptism and then work with him and see him get all the way to where he is now, speaking in stake conference. While I was at stake conference I was sitting there, taking notes and someone sat down a couple chairs down from me. I looked to see who it was and it was Samuel! My recent convert from the YSA! I just looked at him making sure I wasn't wrong and then he looked at me and we both realized who the other actually was and we were so excited! He slid down and sat next to me and updated me on his life. It turns out, he is from West Plains which is where our stake conference was and he was visiting home for the weekend. It was such a tender mercy to see him and get to catch up. I'm so grateful I got to help teach him. 

Another cool experience I had this week was that Sister Fife and I were looking through our area book trying to find ideas on people who we could go see for a spare hour we had. We flipped through and found a few ideas, but none that really stood out to us. So we closed the area book and Sister Fife, at some point, has written down one of the couples that we talked about in that space. so we just went with it and went to visit them and they were so awesome! We went to see them and they told us that they want to come to church and that we are welcome back to talk with them anytime. It was so cool to watch the Lord direct us.

Well, this week something I've been thinking a lot about is making sacrifices. We have some talks on CD that we play in our apartment and a theme that I've been noticing in these talks is that when we make sacrifices for the Lord we are blessed. This has been on my mind for a couple reasons. The first is that when I left on my mission, I thought I was making a sacrifice for the Lord, and in a way I did, but I have received more from my mission than I ever could have imagined. I have grown and learned and improved. I'm a better person than I was when I got on that plane 9 months ago. My "sacrifice" was actually me doing what God wanted me to do so that he could bless me and make me better than I was. Another reason I have thought about this is because I have been pondering something that our mission president asked us to ponder. What are the "little things" that we aren't doing that we should be? Little things that don't seem like a big deal so we don't do them but that we should be doing. How much more blessed would you or I be, if we chose to make what now appears to be a sacrifice so that the Lord can give us back WAY more than we anticipate? I would invite each of you to look at your lives and pick on thing that you can "sacrifice" and I know that as you make an effort to sacrifice that thing that you will be strengthened and you will be blessed. I love y'all and I hope you have a great week! Happy Thanksgiving! 

--

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

Picture 1: Me burning a skirt in honor of my 9 month mark

Picture 2: Me at the Flippin Church of God

Picture 3: Me and Mikey :)

Picture 4: Me filling our car up with gas (picture credit, sister fife)

This girl runs on cupcakes and Jesus

November 13, 2017

This week was awesome! So many good things in one week! :) But I am running a little low on time so I will just share the highlights 

On Tuesday we got to go to the St Louis temple ad it was AMAZING. I love the temple. after the temple we got to go and see the St Louis arch which was really cool! I can now cross that off the bucket list. :) Yay! 

Also this week, we had a really cool experience. We have been working with this recent convert who has been struggling to keep the word of wisdom. Well, we asked him if we could send him a scripture every day and he said yes, he thought that might be helpful. Which was great! So we started sending him scriptures every day and the second day we sent him one, he actually responded and said "thank you so much" which isn't  a super big deal but it was nice. Well, we had a lesson with him later in the week where he told us a really neat story. He was at work and for some reason had NO patience that day. He was just grumpy and in a bad mood and at one point he was so frustrated he looked up at the sky and said "Jesus, give me strength." and then his phone went off. He thought "are you kidding me? what now?" and pulled out his phone and it said "Missionaries" with a scripture. He said he looked around to see if were close by, we weren't. He opened up to it in the scriptures and read a little bit and he said he had a better rest of the day.  I thought this was really cool, God is so aware of each of us and knows what we need. He also has a really good sense of humor. :) 

We also had Interviews with our Mission President this week and I had a really cool interview with his wife. We talked about light and how we need to be doing something that brings light into our lives. I took this to heart and have started listening to talks in the morning  and I have started singing more often and dancing in the kitchen to gospel music when I'm cooking food and it has brought so much light and happiness into my life it's crazy! It's amazing what trying to bring light into your life and making more of an effort to bring happy things that are Christ centered into your life can have on you and your emotional state. It was a cool experience to have. Small, but neat. 

Well, that's all I have for you this week. I hope y'all know how much I love you and how much the Lord loves you. What an amazing life we live and what a cool opportunity we have to come to know we are children of God and to realize how much he loves us. We are so blessed. Have a great week! 

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

Pictures:

Picture 1:Sister Fife and Sister Lloyd and the temple!

Picture 2: Sister Lloyd and Sister Sanders at the temple

Picture 3: Sister Fife and Sister Lloyd at the Arch

WOO PIG SOOIE!

November 6, 2017

If you didn't know, that is the call of the Arkansas Razorbacks which I am now a fan of. I haven't watched any games or anything, don't get any crazy ideas, but where I'm now an honorary Arkansaian I am a Razorback! You can be jealous, I would be. ;) 

Well this week was good! We got a lot done.

Monday: On Monday we helped the Primary President set up for the trunk or treat and then did all of the other things that need to be done on prep day. It was a good day!  Nothing too crazy happened. 

Tuesday: Halloween! What a fun day! We spent the morning doing normal missionary things. We started the day doing service at the Retirement home and that was great as usual. A bunch of the little old ladies brought in candy and gave it to all of the helpers. One came up to me and was like "Say trick or treat!" and so I did and she handed me some candy and had the BIGGEST smile in the world! It was adorable! After that we went and visited some less actives  and then went to the ward's trunk or treat. It was so funny because Sister Fife and I switched name tags because we couldn't do much to dress up and this little boy came running up to us and just started laughing and said "LLOYD IS FIFE AND FIFE IS LLOYD!" and then ran away. It was adorable. After that we went home and waited for trick or treaters and only had one. But we gave them candy and a pass along card!  

Wednesday: On Wednesday we had District meeting and we talked all about the Christmas Initiative that the church is putting out this year, the Light the World Initiative! It's the best and we are SO DANG EXCITED. If you didn't do it last year ( I didn't) now is a great time to decide to be better than you were a year ago and do it! It is going to bless you and others and it's a great way to share the gospel with others! You should all do it! After that we came home and we did some service at the humane society walking dogs. That evening we had a lesson with a little ten year old boy we teach, John. We taught him the ten commandments and it was so fun! I love him! After that we went to mutual and learned about budgeting and getting the best deal for your money. Which is a lesson I really needed to learn! So that was good! 

Thursday: On Thursday we drove almost an hour to do service at a food bank and it was closed, it was sad. So we recorded a lip sink to frosty the snowman to cheer us up. It's pretty good. The rest of the day was visiting less actives and teaching a lesson to our recent convert Ethan who was baptized right before I got here. That night we had a lesson with a less active couple that we teach. So we went home and weekly planned and got about half way done. It was a good day!

Friday: On Friday we had a good day of trying to visit a bunch of people and no one being home and so then we would try to visit someone else and no one was home. It was a LONG day. I don't remember anything of too much importance other than we finished weekly planning. I hate slow days on the mission.

Saturday: On Saturday we had a lot of really good lessons. We had a lesson with the pant less lady I talked about a couple weeks ago, she still is working on finding her pants! But we did vacuum her living room so I mean that's good! We also had a lesson with a lady named Laura who is working on becoming active. I was really nervous because when we walked into her house she was really grumpy and was telling us that she didn't think that what the pamphlet we gave her said lined up with the Bible. So we sat down, had a prayer and then talked about her questions. Turned out she didn't actually read the pamphlet, she saw a word she thought meant something it didn't and then got way ahead of herself so we were able to calm her down and everything was great. 

Sunday: On Sunday we watched a really good Regional Broadcast from the church as kind of a preparation for Stake Conference. It was super good! After that we had a lunch with some members and they were awesome! We talked about all of our favorite scripture stories and we were talking about Moroni when he spent 40 years by himself and I jokingly said "Just imagine spending 40 birthdays by yourself!" (quoting a Hank Smith talk I had just listened to) and then started talking about something else and suddenly the 14 year old son starts CRACKING UP and we all looked at him confused and he says "What if.... Moroni threw himself a SURPRISE PARTY!" and he just started cracking up. So we all started cracking up! It was seriously so funny. That night we had a lesson with Ethan and we had another lesson with a lady named Debbie.... Debbie is a little crazy but overall it was a really good lesson! She called us later and thanked us and told us it made her feel like someone loved her which was actually really cool. 

Well This week I have been thinking about the idea that, it doesn't really matter how slowly or quickly we move forward, but what matters is THAT we move forward. Forward is forward. I think this is important because sometimes I see other people who appear to be moving way faster than me and I get discouraged, but I shouldn't compare myself to them because our circumstances are different and our strengths and weaknesses are different. What matters is that we are moving forward. I would invite you all to give yourself a break and give yourself credit for the strides you already have made or are working on making. You're doing better than you think. God loves you and so do I! Have a great week!​​

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

"Would there be enough evidence?"

October 30, 2017

This week was good! A lot of super cool things happened that I'm excited to share with you!

Monday- PDay! We did all the things that every missionary needs to do in order to be a successful missionary the rest of the week and moved on with life! 

Tuesday- On Tuesday we started our day with service! Every Tuesday we go do service at this assisted living home for older ladies and gentleman and I LOVE IT. It's seriously so fun. There is this one super sweet older gentleman who is seriously so sweet. He always looks at me and with the biggest smile says "Thank you Sister Lloyd!" and this week he looked at me and said "I'm not trying to flatter you, but it's so nice of you to be so happy and friendly to all of these people." and it seriously made my week! After that we were able to have the opportunity to practice using our back up plans! In our mission we have a super strong emphasis on "planning our day with the Lord" in that we try to pray and set all of the things that we have planned and that we feel like we should do and THEN we set back up plans for the whole day so that IF something were to fall through we aren't like "oh shoot... guess we can go home" but instead we have something else planned. Well, on Tuesday we had a bunch of things fall through and we were able to practice back up plans. I won't lie, I'm not very good at setting back up plans. I just want my original plans to work out and have life be good! Buuuuut that doesn't usually happen. So I was humbled and reminded that back up plans are important and that I should probably take them a little more seriously. 

Wednesday- On Wednesday we went and walked dogs for our service... this was... one of the best decisions we've ever made. W go to the Humane Society and walk the dogs that are there and they are seriously so sweet. It makes me so sad but the dogs just LOVE to be walked and talked to and it's so fun. So that was awesome. The rest of the day we had some visits with less actives and did a little bit of tracting with no success, unfortunately. On Wednesday night we went to mutual and taught two of the young men about missionary work. We asked them if they wanted to talk about ways to share the gospel casually now or practice being missionaries and teaching the first discussion and they picked practice teaching the first discussion. So together we went through the Restoration lesson in Preach My Gospel and picked out two or three important parts from each section of the lesson and then had them teach it to their young men's leader. It was actually really good and we invited them to go through it again during the week and mark those points and study that section. It was fun to teach! They're both going to make great missionaries some day. 

Thursday- On Thursday Sister Fife and weekly planned! So boring! For real! But it helps us to be better prepared for the rest of the week. After that we had dinner at a member's house and they fed us rabbit! I had never had rabbit before (that I can remember at least) and they breed their own rabbits and raise them for food storage. But anyway it was really good and I was happy! I feel bad though because all I could think of was Peter Cottontail. We came home at the end of the night so tired but... got an idea.... neither of us are too terribly fond of Halloween.... we both have a strong love for CHRISTMAS. SO... we decided it was close enough to set up our Christmas tree :) There is a tiny little Christmas tree and some ornaments in our apartment so we set it up and decorated it and put twinkly lights all over our apartment and listened to Christmas carols.  

Friday- On Friday we had a Zone Conference. So we got up at 5am, left our apartment at 6, a member drove us the two hours to zone conference and then sat in zone conference for six hours. It was a long day. BUT Zone Conference was so good! We talked about how we can be better representatives of Jesus Christ. It was super awesome and I learned a LOT. I have so much to do to be a better representative of Christ but I'm excited to see that I have already made improvements. On the way home, the member was driving and I was sitting up front. The member (an older lady) was talking to me, telling me a story and she looked over at me as we were coming around a bend, for some reason my eyes were glued to the road and then suddenly I noticed that there were deer on the road about 100- 150 yards in front of us and our member was speeding... I shouted "DEER!"  the member screamed "HOLD ON!" and slammed on the breaks, Sister Fife woke up in the back seat when she almost hit the back of my seat and somehow... the member stopped in time. I am convinced that there were angels pushing and pulling our car to a stop. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father is aware of us and was able to protect us. By the time we got home we had just enough time to have dinner, have a lesson with a recent convert, have comp study and go to bed. I was EXHAUSTED.

Saturday- On Saturday we had a good day! We had a few lessons and spent a lot of time visiting less active members. We had a little bit of weekly planning to finish and then after that the day was done. Saturday was a good day but nothing too notable happened. 

Sunday- On Sunday we had church which was good and then we went home and had lunch. We did a little bit of studies because we didn't have time before church, after that we were able to go visit some less actives. We had dinner at home and we found this chicken and rice casserole thing in our freezer and made it! It was actually really good! :) After that we went back out to visit less actives for the rest of the evening and per usual nobody was home. So that was a bummer. We come home and had companion study and then went to bed. 

Well, at Zone Conference this week there was something that really struck me. was President Loveland asked us a question "If you lived in a country where being a believer in Christ was illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" This struck me and it has been weighing heavy on my mind and heart as I evaluate my "evidence". I would invite y'all to look at your "evidence" and make any changes you feel like you need to make. I love y'all! Have a great week!

 

~Sister Madisen Lloyd