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.