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