Weekly - Truth that Flows

Hey everyone! It's been such a cool week.

Our main guy Jason is really understanding and living the Gospel. He's a little scared about the baptismal commitment, but we had a really powerful experience with him after church where we got to watch him receive truth from God. He knows what's true and he's willing to work for it, which is all you need to do.

We had a super cool lesson with a lady named Wanda this week that was super powerful and really strengthened my testimony that God speaks to each of his children, through experiences and through the scriptures. I also have a strong testimony of the restored priesthood. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we now have the priesthood authority that we need for baptism and for temples. 

One of my new favorite scriptures is in Mormon 9 it says:

"And again I speak unto you who deny the revelations of God, and say that they are done away, that there are no revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking with tongues, and the interpretation of tongues; Behold I say unto you, he that denieth these things knoweth not the gospel of Christ; yea, he has not read the scriptures; if so, he does not understand them. For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?"

I know that God lives, and I know that the Gospel is true. It's blessed by life and I love teaching other about it. I hope y'all are having awesome lives back home.

Stay lit! 

Elder Bond 

I have more pictures but I'm having technical difficulties so here's one 

I needs to lose weight

Hey everybody! Its been a solid week. The whole finding from 5-7pm has been an amazing change, coupled with an awesome exchange I went on this week that really helped me improve how I talk to people on the streets. We had the coolest lesson with our boy Jason this week. So funny story first. We texted him on Tuesday to ask if we could stop by and talk about his baptism real quick but then when we prayed about where to go do our companionship studies a park came to mind and we went there and he was hanging out haha so we ended up talking with him for like 40 minutes and had a crazy cool lesson about the holy ghost on the spot haha but he had some cigarretes in his beanie, which worried us so we decided to teach him the word of wisdom the next day cause we knew he could handle it and it was so cool! He's gone from being protestant to atheist to messianic Jew so he has a really good understanding of the scriptures and so we thought it'd be cool to just read through Doctrine and Covenants section 89 with him so we did and he totally ate it up. We prayed about it with him and he committed to live it that night! He's got mad blessings in store haha 

I went on a dope exchange with one of our zone leaders elder boychuk and got some good learning in. I've never felt very good at how I approach people on the street so I told him about it and he taught me how not complicated it is haha in that one day we set like 3 return appointments and got contact info for 5 or 6 different people, even though most of them are YSA haha it was still really helpful for me to learn to just relax and converse with people. 

We also met a German mail lady sitting outside a cafe. She was super closed off at first but pretty soon after I used some of my brand new conversation skills she opened up and we ended up teaching the entire restoration on the spot and she responded really well. She talked about how strongly she felt the Spirit and we have her a Book of Mormon and told her to read Enos 1:1-12 with her family. She also gave me some grapes #blessings.

We went and hit up voodoo donuts and saw some of downtown as a district which was awesome. Good stuff is happening. This  ward is amazing.  I got to go up and bear my testimony to fill some time in church yesterday and it was great to have a spiritual experience with the ward like that. Also, Doctrine and Covenants section 6 really carries me through the hard days. Check it out.

Love you guys!

Stay lit!

Elder Bond

I’m Still Alive

Hey everyone! I'm sorry for being a bad friend and slacking on keeping y'all updated. The mission has been so awesome the past few months. After almost 8 months in Hillsboro I've been transferred to the Beaverton Stake in the Raleigh Hills Ward. Our ward goes from downtown Beaverton to the south waterfront area in downtown Portland. For all of you Oregon people, voodoo donuts and the keep Portland weird sign are now in my area. Be prepared for pictures next p day (we're gonna go check it out next week). I really miss my wards in Hillsboro and the amazing people I was able to work with and learn from. It was especially hard saying goodbye to my ward mission leader Brother Carstens in Quatama ward. He is such an amazing man and I learned so much from him about being a better companion. When you spend as much time together talking about the needs of others as him and I did you can't help but feel a special love. I'll never forget an evening when we were in their home and they were struggling with all of the stresses in their life at that time and we were able to study D&C 6 and I was able to bear my testimony of the personal experiences I had had of the grace and love of Jesus Christ to them. They're an amazing family, and I won't forget them. 

But this new ward is amazing! It's made up of a mix of newlywed dental and medical students, most of which have newborns and toddlers, and a lot of retired or nearly retired dentists with not much in between. There are only two actie youth in the entire ward (brothers) which is interesting. But everyone is extremely missionary minded and very involved in ministering to one another and helping to teach others about Christ. Good things are happening here. 

My new companions name is elder Andrus and he's dope. He's been out a transfer longer than me and the members love him. He's done really good work at establishing relationships of trust, and I'm excited to see how I can help. We've had lots of good laughs together, and we're guilty of staying up too late screwing around 😂

We don't have a ton as far as people we're teaching at the moment, but we committed one of our investigators Jason to be baptized at the end of the month yesterday at church! He's an interesting story. So he was out walking one day way up north of Hillsboro for some reason and he needed a drink and he saw a church building where there just happened to be a mission leadership meeting going on. He went in and asked for a drink and got some water and a counselor to our mission president talked with him and taught him a bit and Jason expressed some interest in learning. That was about a month ago. Fast forward to this and the lessons I've been here for. He's a recovering drug addict and he's looking for goodness in his life. He is extremely wise and attentive and he knows the bible REALLY well. We taught him about the doctrine of Christ (having faith, repenting, being baptized, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring) last Wednesday and it was absurdly powerful. We committed him to be baptized in that lesson but didn't feel like we should bring up a specific date yet. He also said he wanted to go to the temple!! We had the lesson at the church and as we left and he said he was gonna hang out on the church grounds to pray (the best possible thing to hear as a missionary 👍👍) so we left him be. He called us later and said he wouldn't be able to make it to church so we invited him to come to a different ward that met in the morning when he'd be able to make it. We met him there but had to leave early for a meeting and he stayed all three hours! We caught up with him just to ask about church and he just went off about the good things he had felt and been taught. We bore testimony to him and then he asked when the next service was when we could get baptized and we talked about a date. My favorite part though was he was late to the first part of church and when we asked why he said he couldn't wait and he went and drove down to the temple with his friend to check it out!!! He's so prepared and I love him and getting to watch him learn and experience Christ's gospel even after only knowing him for a week.

I know that the work I am doing as a missionary is of God. I know his son Jesus Christ is my personal savior. I know that through Christ, a man can change. I have changed as I have learned to really pray with my heart and mind and willingly ask God to remove my weaknesses. I've still got a long road of change and improvement, but I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to. I know God is my Father, and he is yours as well and loves you with wisdom and patience that I can't even comprehend. He has a plan for us, and its real. Don't forget to pray and you will always be shown the way. I hope you're all doing awesome. 

Stay lit!

Elder Bond

I Suck at Laser Tag

What's up friends. It's going to be a short one this week. We had transfers this week and I'm staying in Hillsboro for a fifth transfer! I'll still be district leader which is dope. My new companions name is Elder Baker and hes from Utah and hes been out a transfer longer than i have. He's a talker haha for those of you that know me, I'm not the most talkative person so it'll be a bit of an adjustment for me haha but he's super positive and I'm excited for this transfer.

It's been awesome this week, and things are going really well in our area. Also 2 Nephi 32:4-5 are dope verses. I love you all.

Stay lit

Elder Bond

Couch Hunting

What's up friends!

It has been a crazy week. We got our transfer news and I'll be staying in my area for a 5th transfer #nevergonnaleave. I'm really excited haha I was kind of hoping I'd get to stay cause there's been a lot of things with the wards that was going to be hard to keep going with different elders. I'm excited to stay and the wards are excited I'm staying which feels good and it's just going to be an awesome transfer 💪

Things have been going great for Bob and Sheryl since their baptism. They've been getting really fellowshipped by the ward and they're just going real strong. It's been so great.

Susie is back home from her open heart surgery and is recovering really well. She's disappointed that she's going to have to push her baptism back but she says she wants to get baptized as soon as she's cleared to get in water haha I'm also glad I'm staying cause I was going to miss meeting with her a lot.

We've been doing fat stacks of service. Our ward mission leader in Quatama is building an add-on to his house and we've been going ham with him getting it done and our ward mission leader in Beaver Creek has a TON of wood he split so we went over for a couple hours and split a couple cords of wood for him. 

We had a crazy good fireside last night for the stake about getting members and missionaries more involved with each other and their efforts and it was so good. All of the members that came were just super pumped, it was great.

I can't really think of anything else that's been super cool or out of the ordinary this week. A member gave me a big bottle of sriracha flavored Tabasco #blessingsonblessings

Anyways I love you all. I want to testify to each of you that if you will study from the Book of Mormon every day and continue to offer real, heartfelt prayers every morning and night you will be blessed with answers and with strength. I've seen it for myself on my mission and it's been such a huge blessing.

Keep it lit friends  

American Ninja Warriors

Hey friends! Happy Fourth of July week. We had an awesome time on the fourth, we got to walk in the Hillsboro parade with the stake family history float and hand out candy and cards for the familysearch.org website which was a blast. Then we did some service and helped one of our investigators hang some sheetrock which was fun, then we had some dinner and hung out with Bob and Sheryl for the rest of the night.

Speaking of Bob and Sheryl, THEY GOT BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY. It was such a great experience for them to be able to be baptized and begin their journey as members of the true church of God. The service was pretty awesome too haha the relief society room was full with members from the ward and some of their friends and family that had come to support them, all of the talks and musical numbers were on point and the spirit was just super strong for everyone there. After they got baptized we invited them to stand up and bear their testimonies and Bob just basically told his life story and it was dope and then Sheryl stood up and decided she'd rather sing than talk and so she went over to the piano and started playing this song and it went for like 8 minutes and she was accompanying herself. The song was called "I've decided to Follow Jesus" and it was crazy powerful. There were a lot of tears in the room. Probably my favorite part of it was before the service started we were working on filling the font and I walked into the room and Bob was reading through my Book of Mormon I had with me and I asked what he was reading and he said he had just opened it up to a random page and started reading and he opened up to 3 Nephi 15:24 which says "But behold, ye have both heard my voice, and seen me; and ye are my sheep, and ye are numbered among those whom the Father hath given me." which is DOPE haha everything was perfect for them. They got confirmed in sacrament meeting the next day and it was crazy powerful again. Sheryl was crying and everyone was crying and it was really awesome. 

We also did another round of our district finding time last night and set a goal to find 2 new investigators and we found 3 in our area within the hour #miraclesnevercease

Things have been going awesome. I'll most likely be getting transferred out of this area in the next two weeks or so which is a little sad cause I really do like this area and this zone, but I'm stoked to keep going with the mish.

I hope you all are doing great and enjoying your summers. Keep it lit.

We also got to help our ward mission leader cause he's adding a new living room to his house so we've been helping him get ready to pour foundation #doingwork

Tisms or Nothing

Well this week has been an experience haha Bob and Cheryl are AWESOME and are officially getting baptized this Saturday which is soo exciting. We went to the visitors center with them last saturday and it was super cool. THey both loved it and were feeling the spirit and bore their testimonies and got to learn a little bit more about the temple and what happens and it hardcore pumped Cheryl up haha the other day in a lesson we were talking and she was like "Oh Elder Bond I have something to show you!" and walked outside and came back in with a stack of like 30 pages and it was all family history work she and her mom had done! She was like "I think I've got my work cut out for me at the temple". She's so dope. And then Bob is just hilarious and makes the most random comments during these super spiritual moments but deep down he's super grounded in the gospel and he said the other day he went out to the woods and found his own sacred grove and prayed about this decision and what it would mean for him and his wife and he said that he can't deny that this is God's plan for him and that this is the true church haha it was such a powerful experience listening to him talk about it. We're stoked for them and stoked to see how their personalities and their testimonies are going to benefit the ward they're in. I love them.

We had our zone conference week and it was a great experience and I loved all of the training but the last part of it was about the new ministering efforts the church has been focusing on and our ward councils were supposed to come and participate in the training so that we can get pumped up and refocused as a ward and be able to minster in a more holy way which we were hardcore looking forward to and then out of our two ward we had one ward mission leader and one young mens president show up. I was slightly annoyed 😅 BUT it just means we get to work extra hard to get everyone on the same page and chugging along like we want them. It'll all be good.

I've been thinking a lot this week about revelation. In the Bible Dictionary it says "'The principle of gaining knowledge by revelation is the principle of salvation. It is the making known of divine truth by communication with the heavens and consists not only of revelation of the plan of salvation to the Lord’s prophets but also a confirmation in the hearts of the believers that the revelation to the prophets is true. It also consists of individual guidance for every person who seeks for it and follows the prescribed course of faith, repentance, and obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ". Honestly these couple sentences have answered so many of my own personal questions about the gospel and helped solidify my understanding of so many principles of the gospel. The role of revelation is so crucial, and for a couple weeks I was really trying to truly understand it. My questions were really all centered around how we could stress personal revelation so much but then at the same time try and teach that the scriptures contain the gospel, and for a little bit I had a bit of a headache over it. BUT through prayer and study it's all been resolved for me haha If you have questons or are trying to understand something, search the scriptures but DO NOT forget to pray about it and make your concerns known to your Heavenly Father. I know that when we ask in faith that we can receive clarity of mind and new ideas AND the simple yet powerful confirmation of what is true.

If only you could put pictures in the title

It's been a pretty hilarious and awesome week haha but a lot of it has just been stuff that's not reallly worth describing, hence the subject line haha but yeah things have been going really awesome! We went on exchanges with the zone leaders this week. elder jensen and I (the zone leader that came here) had a crazy day. We went and stopped by michael and robin (investigators from a couple months ago who had to stop meeting because of some pretty severe health issues) and they're doing a whole lot better, but michael had still been having seizures. We gave him a priesthood blessing and without going in to too much detail it was just a crazy powerful experience for everyone there. And then we met with Bob and Cheryl and they've decided they're ready to get baptized! We're taking them to the visitors center this saturday and they said they want to get baptized the saturday after, we're just waiting for them to pray about it and make sure they're both confident in that decision. They're both experiencing such huge blessings, and it's so great to be able to work with them and help them with their progression. We've had a couple new investigators flowing through the pool, two of which are pretty dang solid and we're exctied to see where they go haha and yeah.

On saturday we did a "Random Acts of Kindness" day in the Quatama ward and it was a lot of fun. We split up into groups, and our group went and gave bubbles and flowers to kids and moms in walmart, we gave microwave popcorn to people at a redbox machine, we heart attacked the front door of a 9 yr old that got baptized last year, we wrote inspirational sidewalk chalk messages outside of peoples homes, and we went and brought root beers to a family whos last daughter just left for college #newemptynesters haha it was a fun day and the ward really loved it.

I also got to speak about repentance in sacrament meeting yesterday which was an amazing experience. It's really humbling and also rewarding to be able to bear my testimony about such fundament gospel truths and be able to feel what Heavenly Father wants the members of the ward to hear. I've spoken multiple times and sang a couple musical numbers, but this one was just especially dope haha so yeah. I hope y'all are doing awesome and enjoying summertime.

Keep it lit

Elder Bond

Mr. Worldwide

What's up friends?

 It's been a pretty dope week haha I've been serving as a district leader and we've been really trying to hype up the zone and so we set up a zonewide finding competition and set some super hyped baptismal goal to help stretch us and some other goals to help us along the way and we've all been KILLING it. Us and a set of sisters went whiteboarding where we just ask a simple question on a whiteboard and go around and ask people to write their answers on the board and teach people who show a bit of interest. We got three new investigators and gave out seven Books of Mormon in less than two hours haha and it was just a really fun experience.

Then on a bit of a more sad note we have an investigator in the hospital :( SHe's getting open heart surgery which is scary, but we were able to go visit her and it really brightened her mood haha. 

We also went and visited Bob and Cheryl and had an AWESOME Lesson. We decided to try a bit of technological fanciness and we projected part of the October 2009 general conference onto their 70" flat screen TV and it was a super spiritual experience and we had been praying and planning on trying to recommit them to a baptismal date but the spirit prompted us to wait. Well the next day we were planning and knew we had to be back there so we rolled up in the evening and Cheryl was standing outside and was like "you guys are just in time! I need your help!" and we helped her plant some flowers and work on her garden haha Bob just messed up his back and shes pretty weak haha and we were there for almost 40 minutes just chatting and helping them to know that we genuinely care about them and it worked wonders for them. They're really seeing the blessings of the gospel in their lives, and its awesome. 

Then that evening we decided to try something new. We set a side an hour where we would all be out on the streets as a distrcit. We fasted for breakfast and lunch the day of and prayed to know where God wanted us to be and set a goal to find 3 New Investigators as a distrcit within that hour. Well ELder Measel and I gave out 4 Book of Mormons and found 3 potential people to teach, but then two of the sisters in the district accomplished our district goal and got 3 New Investigators in that hour! It was so cool haha we're all so pumped and really seeing Heavenly Father help us to accomplish our goals. Then I sang a solo musical number in sacrament meeting yesterday and it was super spiritually uplifting and we had this asian lady roll up that we had never met before so I started chatting with her over google translate and her name is Alyce and she wants to get baptized!! We were just like what the heck haha so she'll be in San Franscisco this week but we got in touch with a guy in another stake who speaks mandarin and we're going to have him come translate for a lesson with her. It's going to be really cool haha. 

Then after our 7 hour block of church we were just exhausted so we went and took a quick power nap at our place and then felt kind of bad about it so we prayed and just asked that we could still be made tools and so we went and stopped by this potential investigator and she wasn't home but we met this dude named Bob Terry at the mailbox and he was just like "yo. My family and I have been looking for the right church for my entire life and haven't found it yet" and we were like "well we have the answer!" and we have a lesson with him on thursday. God is working miracles through us and it's really awesome. We also did a wafle breakfast this morning with some other missionaries and it was tight.

So yeah. I love you all. Have an awesome week :)

It’s Been a Minute

Wow. Hey everybody haha sorry for the radio silence the past couple of weeks. Our P-day got bumped to wednesday last week so that we could go to the temple and I didn't really have any time to email. But it's been an insane couple of weeks. The work has been kind of slowing down, and we've been struggling a bit to make things happen. There's a natural ebb and flow in the work, but we're doing our best to be out and being effective with our time and being where Heavenly Father wants us to be. He really does have a way of putting others in our path, and we've seen lots of instances where we're in the right place in the right time to bless someones day, be it a member, nonmember, or whoever Heavenly Father knows need a boost that day. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate remedy for any cure, and being able to live and breathe it is so rewarding, even when there are hard times for us personally or for our areas/wards.

We had two amazingly powerful lessons the past few days that I wanted to share. So we met with Susie the other day after about two weeks of not being able to see her. We always work in her yard before our lessons, so we went out and worked and then came in and sat down for our lesson. We had a pretty bomb lesson plan about covenants prepared for her and her husband, but I felt like we just needed to make sure they were doing okay. We chatted for a bit and I tried to kind of lead the discussion to how they were doing personally and they ended up opening up about some pretty serious struggles. I won't go into detail, but they're just not doing too hot right now. So the lesson plan went out the window and we had a very spiritual, personal discussion about Heavenly Father's hand in our lives. We read through parts of Alma 37 with them and then I felt prompted to just sing a hymn for them so Elder Measel and I sang Come Follow Me and then just bore some simple testimonies. It was an awesome lesson, and the next day we were able to go back (Apparently they've been getting snakes so I got to go into their crawl space and look for more snakes 👍) and she said that being able to feel the spirit with us like that made all the difference in the world for them. Then the next day we had a lesson with Bob and Cheryl and the same type of thing happened. We had a baller lesson plan, but the spirit directed otherwise haha Cheryl opened up about some issues she's been having in her relationship with her mother and how it's affecting her and so we focused on that. All of these scripture kept coming to mind and so we would just read through them together and discuss. Then Mosiah 4:10-12 came to mind, which are some of my favorite scriptures, and I knew something good was about to happen. We read them with her (check them out) and I made her a simple promise that Heavenly Father not only knows what is happening in her life, but He knows exactly how it is making her feel and that He is standing ready to bless her. With that in mind we invited her to pray with us and try out the promise King Benjamin makes in those verses and wow. What a prayer haha it was POWERFUL. That lesson ended up being over two hours long. Whoops.

All in all it's been a long and hard but also good couple of weeks. I look forward to getting to bed at night but I also look forward to getting up and doing my best to work in the morning. If you're struggling with really anything in your life right now, I'd invite you to turn to the scriptures and look for something you can do and to look for the blessings that are promised if you do that thing. Then I'd invite you to DO that thing and I know that if you have eyes to see God's hand in your life, you will recognize the blessings that you were promised in the scriptures. This is the process I've adopted lately, and it's given me a new perspective of what faith truly is. God will always bless us, and recognizing our blessings is an awesome way to build our faith that we serve a Just, Merciful and Loving God.

I love you all, and I hope you're doing well. This gospel is true. The scriptures are true, and I know that by studying and by doing we can receive the grace of Jesus Christ and be made strong. Have a great week

With love,

Elder Bond

1. We had another car wash

2. The temple was SO GOOD

3. We found a dope park and had some fun with the panorama thingy that our tablets do haha