Week 3

This past week has been crazy. TONS of classes and workshops and lessons, and I've learned a whole lot. Being zone leader has been such a blessing, I love all of the missionaries in our zone. We had a new district come in on Wednesday and that night we got to go in and just get to know them and do a little orientation meeting and help them get adjusted and prepared and it was just fun. They're all super special. One of them was struggling with some personal stuff and President Ford (our MTC branch president and one of the kindest and wisest men I've ever met) let me give him a blessing and offer my own advice and counsel and it was really humbling. Our branch presidency is so awesome. We did arrival interviews when we got here and then we did our departure interviews with them on Sunday and I met with President Ford and he asked five or six questions about how I've grown and what's been hard for me and things of that nature. It was only like a 10 minute meeting but I was amazed at how much I've grown. It felt like the Spirit was speaking through me as I was talking about myself and showing me the different ways I've stretched and grown and the things I can continue to do to become even better. I've learned so much about humility, not the humility that means being quiet and meek, but the fact that truly everything good about me and everything good I do comes from the Lord. Brother Glazier who served with Uncle Steven when he was in the bishopric came in and did a little study session with us about Ether 12:27 and we noticed that the "weakness" it talks about is singular. I think everyone just kind of assumes that that verse is talking about specific personality traits or things like that that we might want to change, but the weakness referred to is our mortal, imperfect state that we ALL share. Christ has given us that weakness so that we may be humble, aka learning to rely on Him completely and fully and with gratitude, so that through his grace and our faith in Him and His teachings we can truly be made strong. It doesn’t happen on our own. And sometimes it takes more then just us trying. Sometimes we have to be pushed. Our extremity is the Lord’s opportunity. For example, Elder Hoyt and I had a little bit of a disagreement the other night. Nothing too major. It was late and we were trying to have some quiet study time but he was being loud and I said something with mostly good intentions (he was admittedly starting to get on my nerves) but I said it in a way that sounded too accusatory and I offended him and he raised his voice and said a few things. I wasn’t super happy and wanted to just retaliate in anger. But instead I went and sat down and prayed and opened my scriptures to D&C 84 and I know the Lord was trying to teach me about patience and love and kindness. And it paid off. We waited a few minutes to cool down and just had a quick talk and were able to sort everything out. I was so grateful. So yeah. The Lord always wants us to *learn*, not just get through it. 

I’ve totally loved all of our investigator lessons and getting to learn to teach and help people. There’s been such a wide range of lessons. We’ve had some where our study has been truly directed and our lesson plan fits perfectly to our investigators and their questions, we’ve had some where they’ll ask one question and we’ll spend 40 minutes talking about that single topic, and there have been some where no matter what we do our investigators struggle. But out of the six investigators we’ve taught we’ve committed four to baptismal dates and then one of them we were able to transfer him to Missionaries in the area so he can prepare more for baptism. His name was Ryan and I have the most amazing story about him. He plays baseball for UVU, he chews tobacco and drinks a lot of alcohol, and he owns a business. He’s a really interesting guy. He had questions about who God was and how he could be happier in life. We had taught him about the Book of Mormon, prayer,  the Atonement and repentance, and a little about the Plan of Salvation. And so our third lesson we invited him to pray vocally with us. It was a very casual prayer but still very powerful. At the end he jokingly said “And God, make it stop snowing” and within five minutes IT HAD STOPPED SNOWING. it was so cool. We pointed it out to him and he was like “no. No way.” And then just started chuckling and we wanted to talk about it but we were out of time :/ but we were stoked cause we were like there’s no way he won’t believe in God after that miracle. We had our fourth and last lesson with him and to put a 45 minute discussion into a few words he said he wasn’t going to change his life just because it stopped snowing for a couple minutes. It was hard but also understandable and through the Spirit we helped him get to a point where he said that when he received a confirmation that he could be confident in he would get baptized. So we helped him to get started in the right direction. It was again really humbling. I’ve really been shown how important diligent study is. There have been so many times where the Spirit has brought a specific verse or principle to my mind in a lesson or discussion and it’s so helpful. The scriptures always teach truth and bring the spirit better than I ever could, and it’s helped shape our lessons and discussions in such an awesome way. And it’s strengthened my own testimony. As I teach the doctrine by the spirit and the scriptures, my own testimony becomes so much stronger. I don’t remember who said that but it was in one of our devotionals. 

We’ve had a ton of fun as a district and I’m going to miss them a ton. Elder Hassler is one of the missionaries in our room and he does the most hilarious impressions. He does Borat. He does George Bush. He does Russians. He does everything. The other day at lunch someone found a huge ball of this weird putty stuff so we started making sculptures and he made a whole family of different people, one of which was his hand who was “the strongest Russian” and I almost threw up from laughing so hard. We also play this game as a district where if you make eye contact with someone and blow an imaginary dart at them they have to freeze until someone who’s not in our district touches their ear. Its especially fun in the cafeteria 😂

Anyways. I’m so stoked to take everything I’ve learned and become so far and put it to use in the field. It’s going to be awesome, and I feel a lot of anticipation but not a lot of nerves. I’m so blessed and grateful for my district and our teachers and everything in the MTC. I love this work that I’m involved in and for the way the Lord has made me an instrument already. I’m grateful for His knowledge, power and love and for how fully we truly can rely on Him. In a little over 24 hours I’ll be in Portland and I’m so excited. As always, it’s lit

With Love,

Elder Bond

Here are some pics for you. The two big group photos are us with our two teachers. The dark haired one in the middle of the picture is Sister Cornejo and the blonde one in the middle of the other picture is Sister Siebach. They've been awesome. And then the rest are us at the temple this morning.

Week 1

Hello friends and family!

My first week of the mission is now over and it’s been so awesome. Ever since getting dropped off at the airport I’ve met tons of new people and made some awesome friends. It blows my mind how many missionaries there are. I got to meet my companion and the rest of my district the first day and we all immediately clicked. There’s 10 of us (6 elders and 4 sisters) and a lot of us are from Arizona Idaho and California and then one elder is from Canada. We’ve had a good time messing with him haha. We all have a tons of good laughs together and have awesome discussions. 

The food here in the missionary training center is actually pretty decent, besides some ham we had the other day that was pretty much a slab of rubbery, poorly seasoned sadness. I’ve been eating a ton haha me and my companion usually get two entrees and as many sides as we can for every meal. And there is unlimited chocolate milk, which makes me happy. And the best part is because we get an hour to work out every day so I haven’t even started to gain weight yet. 

My companions name is Elder Hoyt and he’s from Southern California. He’s the same age as me and he’s ridiculously in shape. He’s hilarious and we have a ton of fun together. More importantly, he’s extremely strong and knowledgeable in the gospel. We’ve already taught 6 or 7 practice lessons and him and I connect so well and they’ve all gone awesome. Our dorm room is a party. There’s four of us in a six person room. One of the elders has a video camera so we’ve started videotaping some of our conversations at night and they’re so funny to look back on haha

I got called to serve as a district leader while we’re in the MTC so essentially I just get to help the rest of my district out as they adjust to the mission life, I lead classes and discussions, and really it’s just been an awesome chance to look outside myself and love my district. It’s been helpful because it has definitely been a hard adjustment getting into the MTC, but I can honestly say now more than ever that one of the best ways to deal with our own problems is to turn outward and focus on loving and serving others. 

I have a testimony of this Gospel. I know that Jesus Christ lives and He is aware of each and every one of us and our personal problems and struggles and loves us perfectly and infinitely. He loves us so much that He was willing to live and die for us so that we can receive happiness and peace in this life as we rely on Him and that ultimately we will live with our families forever. I know that as we strive to come to know Him better through study and through prayer that we will be taught how to become like Him. I’ve seen this already in my life and especially in this past week as I have wanted so badly to know how to best help the missionaries in my district and as I’ve wanted to share His love with the people I serve and teach. I truly am happy, and more importantly I can feel myself becoming a stronger man of God. 

I’ve become especially aware this week of the difference between joy and happiness.  We all know how happiness feels. But joy is not necessarily happiness. Joy is *progression* and sometimes in order for us to progress we have to go through struggle. We have to deal with heartache and headaches. We have to fight and overcome our weaknesses. But as we do so and rely on Christ and our friends and family around us, we experience true and everlasting joy. I’m excited to be on my mission, to love others and become who I am meant to be. I love you all. I love hearing about home and what you have going on in your life, and I’m here to offer any help or advice that I can while I’m out. To sum it all up, It’s lit. 

With love,

Elder Bond

He Made It!

Elder Bond made it to the MTC safe. He sent us his first e-mail and he sounds great. His companion for the MTC is Elder Hoyt from California.

His MTC address is:
Elder Jared D Bond
Jan31 OR-POR
2005 N 900 E Unit 29
Provo UT 84602

Email

If you would like to email Elder Bond his email address is Jared.Bond@myldsmail.net.