June 11

Dear family, (President Degne and Sister Degne included!)

Announcements and apologies first:

Rachel, I am dearly sorry for not seeing your letter! However the good news is that I found it in the package!!!!! AHHH! It was awesome and I am sorry I did not see it. But I read it! You should be getting a letter back! As well as elizabeth and james. I am sorry for announcing the surprising news! I have a letter nearly finished for you in my binder all about that. Thank you Rachel for writing me, and sorry for not seeing your letter. Thank you Elizabeth for writing me and sorry I told everyone about the surprise. Elizabeth, another thanks for the pictures of Oliva. How cute! AND A VIDEO! YAY! Dad thank you for the two letters last week! Mom thank you for the letter as well as the package! Loved it! I now have two new photos showing proudly on my desk! Oliva and Chloe! Yay! Dad, mom, erik, and elizabeth thank you for your e-mails. As well as Uncle Mike from last week! I did read your email last week and plan to reply today. Last week was so crazy. I was getting tossed around like a rag doll.

HA! I love my new area! What are people saying? No idea! But I love it! Biking is sweet! My companion is awesome! Elder Monsolvo is awesome, obedient, and a little bit trunky, but he works through it! Woo! I am already really enjoying this new companionship a lot. The first three days were a little discouraging, (So Elizabeth and James sorry if your letter is a little bit of a downer.) But I have definitely enjoyed it so far. I must admit, I dont enjoy spanish. What I do enjoy is giving blessings and serving people. I have had to give three blessings (in english) here already. PLUS! There is ONE portuguese speaking woman in the ward who is trying to understand spanish. I have special permission from the district leader (My companion) to leave the area to teach her because I am the only portuguese speaker around! Woooooo hoooo! I stil can speak it! We had a great conversation at church on sunday. What a nice lady. (For the record, I dislike the keyboard I am typing on right now.)

Well this week has been a blur for me (If I hit the caps lock button one more time, I may destroy this keyboard) We sent off Elder Monsolvo's companion to Mexico this morning. (His visa finally came.) Before I was serving with Elder Monsolvo, I was filling a gap with Elder Liedecker, who was waiting for his trainee from the MTC. Oh man, Elder Liedecker and I had an amazing time. He was given a car to drive for the first time in his mission. Boy oh boy, he drove like a Las Vegan. He fit right in. I was pretty sad when I had to leave him. He was awesome. He was so kind and he is so pumped about missionary work. He seems to be really obedient and looks for a blessing in everything and therefore, he was blessed more. The area seemed to be growing before our eyes just in one day while I was there. He got a call from the bishop giving him a referal, and then the lady accross the street from the appartment called him and told him she thought the missionaries were so kind, she wanted to have lessons. So he has a potential investigator, RIGHT NEXT STORE! IT WAS AWESOME! Plus, we recieved a referal that was spanish speaking, so we sent it to Elder Monsolvo, and now I am serving with him. I sent myself a referal! How often does that happen! (Wow, I am a dork.)

This area, is going great, from what I can understand. I esspecially like Miguel and Maria. They are flakey, but they feel the spirit when we come. They understand they need to come to church, its all about just taking that next step. The ward is AWESOME though. I get to study my scriptures a lot because if I dont, I will fall asleep because I dont understand a thing! Yeah! But seriously, The ward is so humble. They love us, and they are extremely sincere. Its actually kind of fun to talk with them. They sincerely try to understand my portuguese as I really try to understand their spanish. Some of our investigators however, pretend to understand my portuguese. I never realized how obvious it was until people started doing it to me. So I try not to pretend anymore. I just ask them to repeat, slower, and slower or to reexplain until we understand each other. It has been a blast though! Wow.

(Interlude: William's medical case has just been reviewed and sent to the 12 to see what happens. Hopefully we'll know soon!)

Hope I filled you in well! I love you all! Hope I recognized everyone that wrote me letters and sent e-mails and packages. I LOVE YOU ALL! Couldn't be out here without you! Its pretty humbling.

Love, your missionary,

-- 

Elder William Lloyd Lovell

Nevada, Las Vegas Mission

9270 S. Maryland Pkwy. 

Las Vegas, NV 89123 

D&C 6:36 - "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not"