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

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

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

Transfers

What's up my peeps. It has been the craziest week. All of our investigators are progressing so well, and we're looking forward to having a lot of success. 

Last monday evening we had a visit with some of the members in the Beaver Creek ward and they invited some of their friends named Joe and Lori who aren't members but have been going to church for over five years now. I guess they had a bad experience a couple years ago with some missionaries and so they kept coming to church but didn't want to meet with missionaries anymore. After that visit we were able to set up an appointment with them and then those same members came with us to the lesson. Not gonna lie, it was by far the worst lesson we've ever had. We planned to just teach about the Restoration but we didn't communicate well enough with the members and it was just a confusing jumble of a lesson. I can't even begin to explain how bad it was haha we only said like four words the entire time, the rest of the time was the members just rambling. But then somehow we managed to have enough the Spirit there that Joe committed to a baptismal date! It was so tight haha.

Then we had a lesson with Bob and Cheryl. Cheryl is seriously golden. We just felt prompted to read through 3 Nephi chapters 11 and 17 with them. All of our lessons with them are usually around an hour and a half hahaha Cheryl texted us the other day and said "I believe absolutely that the Book of Mormon is the anointed word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" and holy cow we were stoked haha it was tight

We also got our transfer news. Elder Anderson will be leaving and I'll be staying here in the same area and I'll be training a new missionary. I'm looking forward to it haha he's going to have a good time in this area

I've been studying repentance a lot and I want to share some it with y'all. Growing up it's really easy to just think of repentance as just "oh i did something wrong. I better confess and try not to do it again." But it's so much more than that. I could talk forever about what I've learned, but instead I figure I'll just send some of the scriptures that helped me understand it better and leave it up to you guys to learn for yourselves. 

So I'll send these scriptures in the order I studied them and the way that made most sense to me.

Mosiah 24:12-15

Alma 37:43-46

2 Nephi 31:10

John 14:15

Helaman 5:11-12

Helaman 15:7-8

D&C 19:23-24

Moroni 8:25-26

3 Nephi 11:10-11,14

Alma 7:11-16, 27

2 Nephi 31:13

John 14:26-27

2 Nephi 31:15,19-20

Also check out Romans 5:1-11, it's an awesome chapter that kind of sums it all up as well.

Jesus Christ loves us so perfectly. He is perfect, and everything he has ever done is centered around giving us an example of how to live and an avenue by which we can truly come closer to Him and allow His grace into our lives.

I love you all, stay lit

Elder Bond

Hitting the Grind

Hey everyone, it's still lit in Hillsboro. It's been a pretty slow couple of weeks, our investigators are all progressing well and we've been busy as ever. It's been good.

Elder Anderson crashed our car into a pole a couple of weeks ago (we're both fine, it just messed up one of the doors) and we're finally getting around to getting that fixed this week so we're going to be on bikes for the week, so that'll be fun. We are actually kind of excited haha whenever we go out on foot instead of driving we always meet WAY more people and we've been needing to meet some more peeps.

Easter Sunday was awesome. We had the chance to listen to General Conference which was amazing, It makes such a difference to know that we have a Prophet on the earth today who literally speaks the will of God to us. I've found peace and comfort as I've prayed for a personal witness that he is indeed a true and living prophet, and I've received it for sure. Hearing the talks and the direction from the prophets and apostles was such a blessing, and I'll be referencing my notes for months to come haha

Being on a mission is so hard, but I'm continuing to learn how to find little things to get me through hard days and how to forget myself to make it so the days aren't as hard. There are so many things that happen and that I can do that make all the diffference I need when I'm struggling. Me and one of the other missionaries from a differen area are starting a hot wheel collection (mine is way cooler). We played some football with one of our investigator's sons and it made his day and meant the world to her (she says he needs more postive male role models in his life). We go and do yardwork for another one of our investigators a couple times a week and she said she'd love to adopt us as her grandsons haha hearing her joy from our service and being able to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is such a blessing. Just being able to help others is the whole reason I'm out here. I have been called to serve as a representative of Jesus Christ. A big part of that is teaching others about His gopsel and inviting them to Come unto Him. But an even bigger part of that is simply serving others and bringing them peace and direction, just as He would have done. Ironically, doing that makes it even easier to find people to teach haha spreading the good word involves LIVING the good word. I hope that my experiences are things that can help you in your day to day life. Do something for someone else, no matter how small. I made a burrito for Elder Anderson the other day and he said it helped him tons haha it doesn't have to be extraordinary to make an extraordinary difference.

Be yourself. Love others. It's lit.

I love you all.

Elder Bond