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

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.

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

Member Work

Yo. This week has been kind of interesting. I've been getting a little frustrated lately because we've been really struggling with finding new people to teach. There's been a lot of contributing factors tonthat, but it's still been kind of frustrating. So we kinda decided we'd keep focusing on the members and doing our best to support our wards. So throughout the week we did some service and helped some members out and then we had these two lessons with some less active families and holy cow. The first was one this newly wed family where the wife is super strong and has a testimony and a desire to stay strong in the Gospel but her husband is kind of lazy and doesn't really care a whole lot. Our long term goal is for him to get the priesthood, but for now we're just trying to motivate him to study the scriptures and pray. We had a lesson the other night and it was SUPER spiritual and then at the end of the visit he was just like "Could you guys come every week? I think it would help me a lot" and so now we're going to be doing an FHE with them every monday and eventually passing it off to the members. It was pretty dope haha and then we had another less active family that we felt like we should go stop by and we just chatted about general conference and about personal revelation and then they brought up that they've been wanting to go to the temple together so now we're working with them on that. It's so refreshing to see how the Spirit can open people's hearts and help them be more receptive to change and enrichment.

So I've mentioned Michael and Robin a couple of times. Michael has some pretty severe health problems and so it's hard for him to have time to meet. The other day he fell off a ladder and collapsed a lung and broke a couple ribs, and then he visited his doctor and found out he has some disease. He's really not doing well. He gave us a call and basically just explained what all was going down and that he wasn't going to have any time to meet for awhile, which we totally understand haha but the other day we felt like we should go do our studies in their neighborhood. So we were down there and we saw him walking. He came up to us with tears in his eyes and told us this story that the night before he had been considering ending his life but that at 2:17 in the morning he opened up the Book of Mormon and just said a prayer and asked God to tell him something. He opened up to a scripture that gave him exactly what he needed and it changed his heart and his mindset and gave him the strength to keep carrying on.He is such a baller, and I am so grateful for the knowledge that Heavenly Father is aware of each of us and that through the power of revelation He can truly communicate with us. If you need something, ask a question and open the Book of Mormon with a prayer in your heart and I know you will receive an answer. 

We also had a funny experience the other day with a guy on the street. We chatted with him for a bit and he told us he wasn't interested so we asked him if he had any friends who could benefit from some help or a message about Christ and he was kind of making fun of us and told us we should try out his whole building and so we went for it and the first door we knocked was this lady named Ophelea who said she'd been feeling kind of lost and we have a lesson with her coming up this week haha it was pretty lit.

At times the work can be pretty hard, but we have so many awesome experiences and I serioiusly know that I'm meant to be here with these people. Also it's been really pretty lately. We also did some exploring in our area the other day and found a primate research facility behind locked gates with a security checkpoint and everything, which was a little strange haha but yeah. I love being out and feeling the Spirit and seeing it change people's lives. The Gospel is the best thing for us. I've talked with a fair amount of people who try to bible bash and tell us we're wrong and it's just kind of impossible to get shook about it haha having the Spirit to testify of truth and teach us about the scriptures and how true they are is such a blessing.

I love you all and hope you're doing well

1 and 2. Elder Measel and I 

3 and 4. Dope Pictures 

The Patriot

yo this week FLEW by. It was pretty weird haha but lots of good things happened this week. I had an exchange with Elder Petersen our district leader and we had an awesome day. We've had next to no finding time lately and so we made a point to have some finding time and we got tons done haha we accomplished most of our weekly goals in that one day. We also had a lesson with Susie and set a date with her, which I'm really looking forward to. We've been teaching her since as long as I've been in the field.

We also had an interesting service opportunity on Saturday. Hillsboro has this big farmers market every weekend and then the School District joined in and did some booths and events and whatever. So they got in touch with our zone somehow and invited us all to come volunteer and help out and whatever. We got there and they were like "yo we have mascot costumes for each of the schools but no one showed up to be the patriot mascot and so I got to be the patriot for the day haha I just went around and handed out balloons and yeah. It wasn't anything too crazy but then I heard that there was going to be a mascot dance off and I was like "heck no" and fortunatley the person who was supposed to be the mascot showed up and took over #tender mercies

All in all it's been a good, productive week. I got to video chat home yesterday for mothers day (HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM AND ALL YOU OTHER MOMS) which was probably the highlight of my mission so far haha and yeah. I hope you all are still doing well.

Love you all. 

Stay lit

1. Elder Petersen and I with our freshly shaved legs 

2. One of our investigators (Bob) owns an excavation company and I want to be just like him

3. Jet spoons

4. No comment

5. We had a water fight today 

6. I forgot I had a quesadilla in the oven haha

Yeet Yeet

Alright, couple quick updates for y'all.

Our area and our entire zone are both doing extremely well. We're making members a priority and we're seeing some major success from doing so

This was a bit of a rough week, we had all of the new missionary meetings for Elder Measel and I and we had zone conference and we did almost 22 hours worth of service throughout the week, which led to almost no finding time for us :(

Zone conference was super good

Susie invited her friend Donna over for a lesson we had with her and Susie flat out bore her testimony to her friend and then talked about how ready and excited she is to join the church. She just has a couple questions she wants answered before she commits to a baptismal date

Bob and Cheryl came to fast and testimony and Cheryl talked to us afterwards with tears in her eyes and told us that this was the first time she had taken the sacrament in years and that she had never felt the presence of Jesus Christ so strong and that she was so excited to continue to learn and feel more of Jesus Christ and His gospel. I may have cried a little bit when she told us that

I waxed my legs for zone P-day

We had a district car wash and I got sunburnt which was weird

I'm loving the work and working with our people. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. 

I love you all

Elder Bond

New Comp

Well I have a new companion. His name is Elder Measel and he's from Detroit. He's also a ginger, which is kind of fun. We've got a lot of work to do this transfer and I'm excited to see how the busyness is going to help him adjust to the life of a missionary. This week has been pretty slow, it's kinda hard to keep things going with the adjustment of having one companion leave and a new one come in. Oh yeah, I'm training Elder Measel, he's a brand new missionary. So yea, It's going to be a good couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to seeing how our work goes.

I can't really think of anything else super exciting that happened haha missionary work is hard work, and it's so rewarding but also stressful and it lowkey starts to get kind of monotonous haha I hope you all are doing well. 

Love you all

Elder Bond

1: our zone last week. After transfers it's way different now haha

2: doin service

3: the newbie, Elder Measel

4: The Crew

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