White Christmas!

December 25, 2017

Well since it's Christmas I am going to make this short... sorry! :) Well I had a cool thing to share! I was a little jealous this past week that Idaho was getting snow and Arkansas wasn't... but I had a white Christmas anyway... because JOHN GOT BAPTIZED! Our little ten year old investigator who we have been working with got baptized and it was so spiritual! He even asked us to pray at his baptism. We were so honored! I am so grateful for John's example to trust in Jesus Christ and do what he knew was right. He's amazing!

On Sunday (Christmas Eve) we walked outside and it was SNOWING! So basically what I'm saying is that God is good and tender mercy's are very real. 

I just wanted to take a minute and say how grateful I m for Jesus Christ. He has completely changed my life. I am also grateful for His Atoning Sacrifice and for the love that He shows me. I'm so blessed to be living the life I am and I am so grateful for it. I love y'all and I hope you have a Very Merry Christmas! :)--

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

Picture 1: Us and John right after his baptism!

Picture 2: A Merry Christmas selfie ;)

 

"I'll be home for Christmas... if only in my dreams"

December 18, 2017

This week was really good! Because today was kind of crazy I'm running low on emailing time so I will just share a few of the highlights.

We had interviews with our mission president on Thursday and it was great! I love the time that I get to spend talking one on one with my mission president and his wife. They are always so full of insight and answers to prayers that I say. After our interviews we got to have a "Christmas Experience" as Sister Loveland called it. We all brought cheapo gifts and did a left right game. It was super fun to celebrate Christmas with the Loveland's and all the other missionaries who are close by. 

On Friday we got a text early in the morning and it was from the church's referral center. A lady named Sarah had contacted them and requested a Bible and a Book of Mormon which is really exciting. We went and met with her and she told us that she had been in an accident with a semi truck and it was a miracle that she survived and was able to function after. She said that her relationship with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are the only things that get her through. It was neat because we got to talk with her about how the Book of Mormon will improve her relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. She said we could come back in a week and read the Book of Mormon with her! It was really cool!

On Saturday we got to help with the Primary Store. The Primary took a bunch of donations in November and December and then let the primary children come shop for their families and sold everything for a quarter. The missionaries were asked to come wrap the presents they bought so we did and it was SO FUN to watch the kids carefully pick out presents for their families and then pick out which wrapping paper would be best. I loved it. After that some members took us to lunch and then we had a lesson with Craig and Carol! We talked to Craig about his baptism and how important baptism actually is and how Satan tried to distract us. It was a super good lesson! At the end of it he said that unless he wakes up dead or gets hit by a bus he will be getting baptized on the 30th! We were pretty happy about that. :)

The last thing I want to share is about Sunday. For some reason I woke up pretty homesick on Sunday. I think it was just me missing going to church with my family during Christmas time. But I was a little teary. Well after a beautiful sacrament meeting a member came up to us and handed us a loaf of bread that he made for us that week. Just because he thought the sisters might like it. After that we were in Gospel Principles and someone poked their head in and waved for us to come out. When we did there was a little gang of six primary children holding hand drawn pictures and a plate of treats. They all told us Merry Christmas and gave us hugs and told us they appreciated us. Another member gave us a Thank you card for a small service we did a few weeks earlier and expressed how much she loved us. I felt overwhelmed because I was so grateful for the opportunity I had to see that even though I missed my family, I had people looking out for me and helping me continue on. I was so grateful for this tender mercy to see that even though we sometimes feel lonely, we have people around us supporting us. 

For my spiritual thought today I wanted to share the words to a song that was sung in Sacrament Meeting. I am a Christmas Fanatic and I thought I had heard all the Christmas songs, but I'd never heard this one and it struck me a little differently. I hope that you will read the words and let them sink into your heart. You could even look up the song and listen to it. It's beautiful. I love y'all and I hope y'all have a very Merry Christmas and that you remember that Jesus Christ loves you. Heavenly Father loves you and Sister Lloyd loves you! Merry Christmas!

"They journeyed far, a weary pair;

They sought for shelter from the cold night air.

Some place where she could lay her head,

Where she could give her Babe a quiet bed.

Was there no room? No corner there?

In all the town a spot someone could spare?

Was there no soul come to their air?

A stable was where the family stayed.

 

Do you have room for the Savior,

And do you seek Him anew?

Have you a place for the One

Who lived and died for you?

Are you as humble as a shepherd boy,

Or as wise as men of old?

Would you have come that night?

Would you have sought the light?

Do you have room?

 

A star arose, a wondrous light;

A sign from God this was the Holy night.

And yet so few would go to see

The Babe who came to rescue you and me.

This Child Divine is now a King.

The gift of life to all the world He brings.

And all mankind He saves from doom,

But on that night for Him, there was no room.

 

Will you come tonight?

Will you seek the Light?

Do you have room?"

~

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

 

Pictures :

1. A member who we were heart attacking had a turkey so I had to take a picture

2. Heart attacking is our favorite way to appreciate members

3. Us driving. This is what happens when Sister Fife has my camera and I say "I need to take more pictures"

14 Days....

December 11, 2017

This week was great! I have so many good things to share! 

Monday: On Monday we had P Day and it was great! We did everything that we needed to and then some and it was a wonderful day.

Tuesday: On Tuesday we did service at the Retirement Home we help at and it was so fun! I have learned how to carry 6 plates at one time! :) They keep joking that now I can't ever leave because they've taught me their tricks. They even asked me who they need to call to make sure I don't get transferred. I chuckled imagining my mission president getting that phone call. "Yeah I know the Lord wants her somewhere else... but she can carry 6 plates at once so I think she should stay here." Anyway, after that we drove up to West Plains and went on exchanges with the West Plains Sisters. They are so awesome! We had so much fun and between the four of us we found 6 new investigators for their area!  It was awesome!

Wednesday: On Wednesday we had District meeting in West Plains so we stayed the night with the West Plains sisters and then went to the meeting and it was really good! We just talked about different stories of Jesus Christ and the things we learn about teaching people from those stories. I talked about the story of the woman taken in adultery. Something I had never noticed before is that Jesus took the time to eliminate the distractions (wait for the Pharisees and Sadducees to leave) before he taught her. This allowed her to feel the spirit. I thought that was the coolest thing. If Jesus Christ were here teaching any one of us he would totally eliminate the distractions so that we could fully feel the spirit. I just loved that. That night we had a dinner with this cute old couple, The Powell's which was fun. She came and picked us up and she told me she actually grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho! She told us all sorts of fun stories. 

Thursday: On Thursday we did some weekly planning and then we decided that for Light the World we would take pictures of Christ to as many of the primary children as we could make it to. So we took pictures to little kids. That night we had a lesson with Skye and Lawrence who are AMAZING. We love them so much. I love that they can be serious with us but they can also be silly with us. We gave them some sticker charts we made for them so that they can track their goals that they've set. I am a huge believer in sticker charts. I have one or two myself. 

Friday: On Friday we walked some dogs for service which was fun. We also delivered a Bible to someone who requested one online. After that we tracted for a little bit and I had one of the saddest experiences of my mission. We were talking to this one lady and she said "Jesus Christ doesn't help me." and showed us a bunch of bruises and scabs she has from falling. I asked her "has there ever been a time that you have felt like Jesus Christ was there for you?" and she thought and then said "no. you can leave" and she shut the door. I'm not going to lie. I was so broken hearted for her. How sad is it that she doesn't recognize that every time she has been able to get up shows that Jesus Christ DOES help her. My heart broke and I made a vow that next time I have an opportunity to be more bold like I could have been with that lady, I will be. That night we delivered a Book of Mormon to a lady we had a first lesson with. 

Saturday: On Saturday we had a great service day. We did service at the Retirement community and that's always fun. After that we got a text from the Relief Society President saying that she needed help setting up for the Christmas dinner and so we ran over and spent the rest of the afternoon helping get stuff ready. I was really happy we went to help because we helped alleviate some stress. After that we had our ward Christmas Dinner! It was so fun! Santa even came! He even gave me a teddy  bear. ;) 

Sunday: On Sunday we had church which is always good and then we had a lunch right after with some members who were so kind to feed us Ribeye steaks! :) I was so excited. After dinner I wasn't feeling to great so we found some things to do inside the apartment so that I could rest a little bit. We ended the night with comp study. It was a good day!

I wanted to share a little story with you for my "spiritual thought" of my email. Today is my companion's birthday and when you spend every minute with someone it's hard to keep secrets. Well, I wanted to decorate for her but I didn't want her to see me decorating for her. So I did a little prep work and then when I went to bed I prayed that Heavenly Father would wake me up in the middle of the night so that I could decorate for her. Well... right at 3:15 I woke up to this HORRIBLE noise. I looked out the window and someone was cutting up a couch with a chainsaw. I was like "WHY WOULD SOMEONE CHOOSE 3:15 TO CUT UP A COUCH WITH A CHAINSAW IN THE PARKING LOT???" Until I remembered, because I prayed I would wake up and only that noise would do the trick! I got up and decorated for Sister Fife and she was so happy when she woke up. I just wanted to share this because it was a reassurance to me that Heavenly Father 1 cares about us. He wanted Sister Fife to have a good birthday and 2 that he hears our prayers. I am a heavy sleeper and I usually sleep through the night with no problems, no matter what goes on around me, but I wanted to do something nice and he helped me. I'm so grateful for a Heavenly Father who cares about what we care about. He has bigger problems than helping me decorate but it was important to me so he helped me. I love Him so much and I'm grateful to be His missionary! I love y'all and I hope you have a great week!

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

Pictures! 

Picture 1: all three Christmas packages came at once! I was so happy! 

Picture 2: Me and Santa

Picture 3: Sister Fife captured my excitement about getting a teddy bear from Santa... enjoy​​

 

"I love Jesus Christ more and more every day.... and Black Olives!"

December 4, 2017

So.... this week was awesome! I know I say that every week but I mean it every week! I love this time of year and I feel like I love it even more this year because as a missionary I try to focus on Jesus Christ everyday but this is the time of year when other people step up their game and think about Jesus Christ everyday too! It's the neatest thing to watch the general attitude of people change! 

Monday: P Day! We did the usual P Day things and it was great!

Tuesday: On Tuesday it was a great day because we had service at Baxter Retirement. We were serving lunch and this woman saw me and smiled and threw her arms up and gave me a hug and kissed my cheek and yelled "You're GORGEOUS!" and then walked away. I was very surprised and I laughed a little bit but it was a great start to my day! After service we played the piano and then we had to leave for a lesson with our investigator Craig. Craig has been investigating for a while and as had like 5 or 6 baptismal dates and he just is always "sick" and never comes to church. Well, we aren't going to baptize someone who is already not doing what they need to so we decided, a few weeks ago to drop him for a little while. Well, he started coming to church again after a couple weeks he called us and asked for a lesson. So we went to their house and they had made us fried chicken and they loaded a picnic lunch into their car and we followed them out to this lake and we had a picnic lunch and a lesson (because it's still warm enough here to do that). Well, we talked for a long time and had a really good heart to heart and at the end of the lesson he said he wanted to get baptized and that he was going to come to church every Sunday he could make it. So we set a baptismal date with him for the 16th of December and he is really excited about it and has come to church so we really think that he understands and is ready now which is so exciting! 

Wednesday: On Wednesday we had a lesson with our other investigator who is scheduled to get baptized this month, John Harvey. We talked about the importance of C.P.R. (going to church, praying and reading your scriptures) and how this will keep you spiritually alive. It was a really good lesson and he is excited for his baptism on the 23rd! So are we. He has been taught by missionaries for a long time and is so ready to be baptized. On Wednesday we also helped the youth assemble personal hygiene kits for the salvation army. It was really cool to be able to help those who are less fortunate in that way with the youth of the ward. We put little scripture verses in each one to hopefully bring some light into their lives. 

Thursday: On Thursday we did weekly planning which was not as boring as usual because we got to talk about LIGHT THE WORLD! We have been trying to plan little acts of service that we can do for the members of our ward every day for Light the World and it has been so fun to plan! We are really excited to serve our ward. We also did service for an older lady who isn't a member of the church. She was moving out of her house and needed to be out by the next day and when we got to her house we looked around and knew that there was no way we were going to be able to help her pack up all of this stuff. We could only stay for two hours but by the time we left we had all of the living room packed and a lot of the kitchen packed. We felt bad that we couldn't help more but we did what we could. 

Friday: On Friday we had Zone Conference! So we got up at 5:00 am, hopped in the car at 6 and started driving to Springfield. It was a great Zone Conference. We talked about our culture as a mission and the thing that we ARE as a mission. We also talked about how to make our mission more of a Zion Community so that we are uplifting and encouraging each other and help each other to be better. It was really a great Zone Conference. Another fun thing was that we were having lunch and SANTA CAME. We all got to take pictures with Santa and that was super fun. Sister Loveland took them on her phone so I don't have it to attach to my email but it's on the Facebook Page for our mission. We all also got a Christmas card from the First Presidency which was REALLY cool. After Zone Conference we hopped in the car and drove home from Springfield. We finally got home about 6:00 so we had dinner and then worked on the Light the World lesson we are giving to families right now. 

Saturday: On Saturday we did service at Baxter Retirement again and that was fun as always. After lunch Mikey came over to me and told me that "[He] loves Jesus Christ more and more everyday.... and Black Olives!" and it was honestly so cute and so funny. I hope that when I'm older I am that excited about Jesus and Black Olives. After that we put together a little hot chocolate packet to take to some of the members of our ward for Light the World because the scripture for that day was "I was thirsty and ye gave me drink" So... we gave them drink. That evening we went out and delivered the little hot chocolate packets to the members we had picked. It was honestly really fun! We got to visit some people we normally don't see and that was fun. We even went to visit one lady that neither of us knew and, apparently she is going to a different church now. But we gave her the hot chocolate and wished her a Merry Christmas anyway! I won't lie... she wasn't super happy to see us, haha. We went to visit one guy in our ward who is a fairly recent convert and he answered the door and I was still coming up the walkway and all I heard was him say to Sister Fife "I don't even have pants on! Hold on!" and then when I got there I could hear him laughing about how the missionaries came and saw him without any pants. Sister Fife and I couldn't stop laughing. But after words he showed us his pet turkey and all was good. He told us on Sunday that he had hot chocolate before he went to bed. 

Sunday: On Sunday we had a really good day! We went to church and one of our Primary friends in the ward, Blake, was there a little early so we went to say hi to him and he asked us if we would sit by him. We said of course and sat by him for Sacrament meeting. He sat right in between us and held the hymn book for us. It was absolutely adorable. After that we went to Gospel Principles which was good as always. Then we had a Relief Society lesson about the new Relief Society curriculum and that was really interesting! After church we had a lesson cancel so we went to see our recent convert, Ethan. Who we hadn't heard from in a while and he wasn't at church. We got to his house and apparently he's engaged! So that's exciting. His girlfriend is really nice and we like her a lot and she is hopefully going to become an investigator soon! So we are really excited about that. We had a good lesson with him and then we went and had a lesson with a new investigator. It's a convert in our ward's mom. We taught the Restoration and it was really good until I invited her at the end to read the Book of Mormon and she said "I just don't understand why you want me to read it..." I was kind of confused because I had just explained why but my companion re explained and then she said she would read it. We left and kind of chuckled about it but we were just happy she said she would read. We are really excited to continue to teach her. That night we watched the Christmas broadcast which was AMAZING. 

Well, this week I have just been thinking a lot about Christmas but something that I have been thinking a lot about was mentioned in one of the talks last night, about giving and serving even when it's not easy and loving even when it's not easy to love. I think this is amazing because, I can't imagine it was easy for Jesus Christ to love the people who nailed him to a cross. Or to love the people who spit on him and mocked him. He did it because, He's perfect. But I bet it wasn't as easy as it was to love his disciples or his mother or his friends. But he did it. Sometimes I don't want to love people because it's hard and it's time consuming. It takes effort to love someone and be a part of their life and sometimes I'm just not sure I have the time or energy to make that kind of commitment. I know it sounds dumb to say that but sometimes I do. BUT what a blessing if we can take the time and make the effort to befriend someone who ends up changing our life. Something we learned in Zone Conference is that sometimes "angels" that are sent to help us aren't heavenly beings. But the people who are placed around us in our everyday life. What if God is trying to send you and angel and you decide you don't have time and turn them away? This thought made me really sad. What if I turned away an angel God was trying to send me, or even worse what if I was supposed to be an angel for someone else and didn't think I had enough time? I am making a bigger effort to be an angel to those around me and to love them even when I'm short on time or energy or patience. God doesn't ask us to be perfect. He asks us to be willing to act. I love y'all and I hope that y'all have a great week! Don't ever forget how amazing you are and how much God loves you! I love y'all! 

~Sister Madisen Lloyd

Pictures! 

Picture 1: a little girl in our ward who wears a "future missionary" tag and wanted a picture with the missionaries

Picture 2: Throwback to when I was in Granby. This is me with Jesse