Be Christlike

WAZZUP FAmily!!!!!!!!

Wowsers what a crazy week it was here in FLORIDA!!!! Do I have another amazing story to tell you or what :) BUT first lets start with all the housekeeping business!! So this past week I didn't have a chance to talk with president about when I would be coming home. It's really hard that man is always so busy and doing his best. I really was trying to find out for you all this past week. BUT it came down to this solution. President Anderson wont even be here when I go, and during my last interview he told me I could go home whenever I needed. SOOOO honestly like I can talk to him but what I would say is just tell Ayns to put her availability date for whenever she wants and I'll make sure i make it home in time :) I could talk with him tomorrow probably at transfer meeting! That would probably be the best time for me to do it! But that will force yal to wait another week to find out. SO to conclude all this.. either Ayns puts her date for when she wants and I'll make sure I'm home. Or else i'll talk with president and then let you know next week :)

 

More Housekeeping.... So this past weekend was stake conference! GUESS WHO I SAW AGAIN!!! haha I saw the Steeles. They walked into stake conference almost expecting to see me this time haha it was fun though. Drew and I didnt have the chance to talk last time I saw them but this time we got to talk for a bit. They are truly amazing! President and Sister Anderson told me that they talked with sister Frei. They said it was so much fun talking with her haha Small world right!! It was funny! The Steeles really want me over for dinner so this transfer im going to try and make it all work out. When I go on exchanges with the DL I can probably swing something ;)

Also you will not believe it but do you remember Elder Millett? My second son? I am pretty positive that he went home yesterday :( His health problems i guess got the best of him. I sure hope and pray though that he can get well and get back out here in the mission field. Its soooo dang fun and I wouldn't want him to miss out of the rest of his mission. This past week I went on an Exchange with my other son Elder White. He is serving here in my zone and we did an exchange with them to help em out a bit!! He is a stud haha it brought back soooo many good memories! I love him!!

 

Dad I love the story about Waddoups hahaha he is always emailing me and it's fun to hear his testimony and excitement about ball combined together haha he's an amazing example!!

ALRIGHTY... I think thats it for the housekeeping. Now we are onto the good stuff!!!!! 

SOOO you will not believe it but once again GOD blessed us tremendously this past week. Elder Loucks and I were able to help God baptize a man named Kevin Tinney. This wasn't just another baptism or another man haha this man is AMAZING!!!! straight up!! To say the least he basically Baptized himself. In all honesty!! He is about a 60 yr old retired banker. He played the stocks and did a few different things and he seems to be well off. His wife is also a doctor or something at the hospital. So, right now Kevin works at bass pro shop. He works there just for fun, it's more of a hobby but at the same time he's making a lil extra cash! Anyways... (plzz forgive me this story will be hard to explain haha) Kevin works at bass pro with another member. For a long long time this member was always talking to Kevin about church. Kevin loves god and always has wanted to become a better person. That was the thing striving and pushing him the most. He wanted to become like christ or in other words DO WHAT CHRIST WOULD DO! Well one day the member gave Kevin a Book of Mormon and our phone number. Well... a month later Kevin calls us up. This was back when I was with Elder Hall by the way. Kevin calls us up and says he wants to meet us and talk at the church. We said okay and set up an appointment. Keep in mind when he called us we knew nothing about him. We didn't even know a member had been talking with him. SOOO We met with Kevin at the church that very first day and he just starts talking and talking. This wasn't a normal talk... It was like a professor in college that just rambles on and on because they are SOOOO smart. He honestly blew elder hall and i away. He was a genius! Anyways after proving a point to us about how smart he is... He then said okay guys. I'm not here to prove you wrong or to ask you questions and play stump the schwab. I am here because I want to be surrounded by good people. THE MORMONS are the best people that i see in this world and I want to be one of them. He then goes on to explain that he was in Ether in his reading the book of mormon. He then tells us that he was at a Stake conference months ago when Elder Dallin H Oaks was here. List goes on and on. Well family, the 3rd visit with this man he hands (Elder Loucks, now) a 50 dollar bill, then he looks at me and hands me a 50 dollar bill. He says guys, I really admire you and look up to you for the good work you do to this world and for the people here in florida. I want you to take this money and use it for gas or whatever your needs be. Use it to serve and help those around you. Put it in the missionary fund. haha So we then showed him how to fill out a tithing slip and mark missionary funds on it. We put the money in the envelope and then gave it to the bishop for him on sunday. That same day he asked us about the church website. LDS.ORG. He asked about ensigns, mormon messages and even Quad scriptures. Well the 4th visit he had told us he had subscribed to the ensign magazine. He told us that he had bought 3 Quads. One for himself and then 2 to give to us. He says I don't care if you keep the quads or if you give them to another person but whatever you do with them... PLEASE PLEASE don't give me the credit. (keep in mind these are like the leather most expensive quads) ANYWAYS family you get the point. This man was elect. This man wants to be christlike. He wants to be surrounded by Gods children that do right. We didn't teach him anything. He taught himself. We met with him once a week for 6 weeks. He would read the pamplets, websites, book of mormon, D&C and Pearl of G.P. (which he is now done with both), the list goes on and on. Well family he was baptized on Sunday! What a special amazing baptism it was! We love Kevin SOOO much! He has changed my life and set such an example for me! To Be as the Savior would be. Do as the Savior would do. Think as the Savior would think. AND NOW share as the Savior would share. Kevin is currently sharing the gospel with his wife Robin. She came to his baptism and now tonight Kevin is taking us out to dinner with his wife Robin. A way for us to talk with her about our believes and what not. Robin is a practicing Jew but Kevin said her heart is as easy to break as his when it comes to doing good and being around good people!! We are excited and can't wait to teach Robin!!

 

FAmily I want each of us to learn from this man. Learn the BEAUTY of being good. Doing good. We each can do it. We each know how. Lets go and do it now! Plzz focus on being christlike this week and for the rest of your lives! I will always and forever remember this man. The man that helped me to understand more of what it meant to have pure love for others!! 

 

I love you all and say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen!!

 

Elder Ovard!!!  

J.D Houlton

FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!

 

Una semana mas YA PASO!!!!! I tell ya what man.... It's not getting any slower haha transfers are coming up next week and so I will be losing Elder Loucks. He is headed back to Morgan UT. It's been fun with him though and we've seen some miracles before our eyes that's for sure!!! 

This past week we saw another amazing miracle!!!!! We were able to baptize J.D. Houlton!! He's an amazing guy! Funny story. So like 3 weeks ago we were walking down the street and there was a big family all gathered together. We walked over to them and said a prayer with them. I'm about positive they were all drunk but hey it was a prayer sent from god so hopefully it touched them in some way. They weren't really feeling of the spirit at all though because they were drunk. SOO we tried and tried and it came time that we had to just leave them with a mormon.org card and move on. WELL family during this process. Right as we got ready to say the prayer with this crazy family a man walked over to the edge of the grass up along the fence. He just stood there waiting and waiting. After the prayer we looked up and he was still over there. He was a man with a Big Big Beard and in all honestly a man that kinda looked scary a bit. WELL after we finished everything with this family my companion and I begin to walk off towards this guy with the beard that had been waiting. As we approached his direction, he walked over to us and said. "Hey guys I don't want you coming over here to this house or neighborhood anymore. The people around here are crazy and the cops are always here" We thanked him for warning us and looking out for us and then we had the prompting to share a prayer with him as well. So I looked over at my companion and then this man and said "Hey can we say a prayer with you that comes from God? You helped us now the least we can do for you is offer a prayer for ya!" He said sure! He told us his name which was J.D. Houlton. Then we said the prayer. Afterwards we said how you feel man? He said amazing. We testified told him that was the spirit of God then we invited him to follow those promptings by being baptized just like Jesus Christ was. J.D. looked at us straight in the eyes and said, "I want to, but i can't. I'm a SINNER!" We told him that Jesus Christ died for him and will give him the strength to become sin free. He smiled and with joy and hope in his eyes he said.. yes elders I'll try and do my best to prepared to be baptized on Jan 21st!! WELL family I was a witness of this man. Literally changing his entire life for the better in 3 weeks. Changing it to become more like Christ. He went from smoking 3 packs of cigs a day to now, as of Friday last week smoking ZERO!!! He did it! He stopped! God gave him the power and the strength. The scripture that kept him going the entire way was Alma 7:15 which talks about literally allowing Jesus Christ to remove the bands of sin from us. It was a blessing and a miracle to see J.D. baptized and confirmed into the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints!!! #GodisGood :)

 

Also another extremely funny story that happened this past week:

I was on a split with a member. We went and visited a less active older lady that hasn't been to church in a good lil minute. So we go see her. We get there say a prayer with her and then she begins asking me question about where i'm from and stuff. I say St. George UT. Then as I look at her face.. A tear slid down her cheek. The member and I looked at her and said whats wrong. She then said I went to school at DIXIE in St. George UT and I love it there. Immediately we connected and began talking about St Geezy haha Then long story short she said "Look I'll prove it to you", she then went into her closet and pulled out a yearbook from like 1963. As I flipped through the pages I recognized a few of the people. They were people that are back in my home ward. haha it Iwas funny asking her about them. Then as the member and i flipped through some more pages we came across the basketball sports page... we looked at it then the member was like NO WAY.... he points.... and there he was ELDER JEFFREY R HOLLAND of the 12 in a basketball jersey!!!! hahaha oh boy it was hilarious to see. Then we flipped over to the next page and.... there he was AGAIN.. this time VOTED MOST PREFERRED MAN of the school hahaha all the ladies wanted him!! :) I guess you couldn't expect anything different though right... I mean, he is an apostle of the Lord!!!!!! :) Lol How funny is that though? haha What a small world it truly is!!! 

 

Well Family that is about it for this week :) I am so very blessed and so very grateful to be serving a mission. Aynsley it will be the best decision of your life. It'll be hard but SOOO WORTH IT! I promise. Keep praying. Keep going with it! You'll know it's right by the feelings you get when you fill out the paperwork! It's truly has changed my life though and helped me to grow up :) Love you a lot!! BWEEZ and TLANG happy BDAYS haha wow i swear it was like yesterday i was sending yal hats from miami saying happy bday to ya haha WAIT that was a year ago. It's so crazy. I love you both though and glad that your one year older and wiser too :) 

 

Have an amazing week! Siga trabajando duro en todo lo que estan haciendo. Yo les prometo que dios les bendicira mucho y que el siempre esta alli alado de ustedes. Andando consigo cada paso que toman :) Los Quiero MUCHISIMO!!!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

                                                       J.D. Houlton's baptism!

 

 

                                          Studying with the sisters in Hollywood!

Javon Sanders

FAMILIA!~!!!!

 

Una semana mas ya paso en los libros !!!  WAZZUP!!!!! haha Wow What a week! I am soooo very grateful to have a computer in my hands today! I have soooo much gratitude to give yal and also to God :) First and foremost yals are the best! Thanks for letters cards everything you do for me! It means a lot and I know that the harder the work the more blessed you are. That alone helps me push myself at times!! So thanks :) Secondly, God is GOOD! Once again God has placed one of his beloved children in my path!! This past week we had 1 baptism. His name is JAVON SANDERS. Javon is this black man thats like 25 yrs old and lets just say he's a stud. He got outta jail like a month ago and has had desires to better the quality of his life ever since. We met him like a week after he got out. He came to church he's been living the commandments and everything.  He even will go around his house telling people that their sinning when they drink or smoke haha He's so funny! Anyways he came to church yesterday and got baptized. He has a tattoo right in between his eyes! To a lot of peple he looks scary, but man oh man he's chill! Funny thing though. There at church there is this cute fairly young black girl that is single. She has 2 kids just like Javon. WELL, this young balck girl is already a member. When she found out Javon was getting baptized she stood around to watch. Sooo after the baptism we look at Javon as he is checking out this member. Javon turns his head and talks to a different member. Then we look over at this young single black sister in the ward as SHE BEGINS checking out Javon. Shocked but yet excited we look at Javon and say" Hey man what you think? You should go talk to her man?" hahaha all he does is SMILES with a big ol grin on his face!! He is like yeahhh shes cute. And shes a Mormon. And she likes God.  hahaha "match maker match maker make me a match" It's going to happen. We then committed him to come to church every sunday after that. We said, "So Javon if you want to get that girl then you gotta come to church ERRRRRR sunday to talk with her and show her you want to be in a family of God." He smiled once again and said I'll be HERE!!!" haha yeahhhh

 

This past week we met a family from the Dominican Republic... #BASEBALL. They have like 4 kids and all play ball. I'm sooooooo pumped to go and teach them! They were awesome! Finally I find some people that love baseball haha I told them that when I come back we needa play catch and stuff so they should be planning on it :) Ill keep you update though! Im PUMPED!!!

 

What a blessing it was though to see Javon get baptized! I loved it because throughout the week that was my focus. To help the individual become converted. Making sure the lessons and plans everything I did was focused on them. Just by doing that I was able to see a miracle. Not only the miracle of Javon getting baptized but we found new cool people and we just are seeing a lot of success in our area once again! I feel extremely good about it!!

Also this past week i was able to go on an exchange with the AP's!! We had so much fun! haha  Those elders are amazing! I love them! Then also this past week we had a meeting with president Anderson. All the Zone Leaders and District Leaders came together. It was soooo cool. President Anderson told us that Elder Richardson will be our new mission president. That was really weird. Also he told us the temple info. It should be done here soon they are having the open house in like March and aApril and then the dedication in May I believe :) I'm extremely excited and grateful I get to be here for all that !!!

 

Other then that the Zone is still doing great! We are seeing lots of miracles! Our goal is 30 this month and we are sitting at a solid 8 right now. We need 11 each week to finish out January!! We can do it though! This week we have zone training. So that means we are really busy planning everything out once again. It should be really good though and Elder Loucks and I are excited about it. Elder Loucks goes home on like the 30th so he wants his last training to be boss! We will make it happen :)

 

Love you family and keep up the great work! TOGETHER WE CAN TOGETHER WE WILL!!!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

 Javon Sanders Baptism!

I Can Do More With the Help of God!

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK..... Someones gotta stop the clock haha plzzzzz! I remember telling myself. Dang when Nick goes home i will be right around the corner following him. ITS HORRIBLE hahahaha

 

Anyways FAMILY what is new?? Sounds like yal are starting school back up and just getting busy again. I think Paige has the best job of em all. LITTLE MILES!! haha dang that was so much fun seeing him and watching him. I always see babies that are around his age or like 10 months and I immediately think of him. CUTE LIL GUY!

 

How was the new year for you all? I sure hope it was exciting! I'm glad you all enjoyed my last email about the experience I had at the hospital with that family. Sorry the story with me trying to express it in writing was probably really confusing but you all seemed to understand pretty well. It was such a great experience. To anwser a few of your questions: Yes all were non members except for the member that called us. The member was the one telling the parents that we could give them all blessings. The mother (girl) that passed away she was probably like 28 or so. I'm not 100 percent sure if she had kids or anything like that. She was young though. I believe she had 2 kids but idk. As far as HOW she died.. like i said all i heard or found out was there at the hospital when the nurse was explaining to the parents that she was already dead after they had left the beach. All i know is something happened at the beach and it didn't end well :( Sorry i needa find out details haha

 

Anyways!!! On to the happy stuff now!! haha I LOVE you all! I'm grateful for this new year, new experiences and new opportunities!! It will be a year full of them for each and every one of us!! I'm excited to preach the gospel and do what has brought me the most joy and happiness in my life! I feel like each week something happens that changes me and the person that I want to BECOME. This past week was so much fun! It was a little bit more of a challenge but A LOT of things were learned. President Anderson came to our district trainings the past week and we were able to role play and even go out and harvest with him for a little bit. He is such an inspiring man haha I love it! He reminds me a lot of dad! Like I said though it was a trying week for us. At the beginning of the week we had 6 people preparing for baptism. 6 people that in all honestly were pretty set and solid. One of the families of 3 that we had called us on tuesday and said "HEY what's up elders. Just wanted to let you know we are moving into a new apartment acrossed the street from our old one but wanted to let you know that we are EXCITED for our baptism on Sunday. What more do we need to do to prepare?" haha we told her that we would just stop by a couple times before Sunday and they''ll be ready to role. Well right after we hung up the phone that Tuesday we haven't been able to get in contact with them since. It's soooo sad. They were an awesome family. Then they didn't show up to church yesterday so the hunt is on. We will look for them and see what we can do to help them. THEN we had another family of 3 that was really solid set for baptism on sunday as well but they called us sunday morning and said "Elders we might needa wait until next week for the baptism, we wanna learn a little bit more and really make sure that it's something we want to do." Sadly we told them okay thats fine and we would love to continue helping them. SOOOO went our week. Trial after Trial, Hard Time after Hard Time. As I sat and reflected on our experience though i thought of other missions. Other missionaries. The areas and people that they are helping and how some just are harder then others.(how blessed am I) Then I thought about Jesus Christ. He taught the humble and helped the humble to be baptized. I then thought of the investigators that we have now. The ones that didn't get baptized. I thought of what Jesus Christ would do. It was then that i realized  "I CAN DO MORE" I realized that i need to help them strengthen their faith even more in Jesus Christ and let the spirit work through them and convert them. It wasn't up to me, to convince them of the truth or tell them what to do. It was up to GOD. He knows his children and He knows the path each one of them will need to take in order to help them get into the water of salvation :) What a blessing and lesson it was that I learned from this week! So I have made plans not only for the week but for this new year to help me with that! To help me help others feel the spirit and the inspiration of God!! After all "I do not boast of myself as to my strength I am weak..." I must first become humbled if i want to help those god has already humbled :)

I love you all family! Keep on fighting, DONT YOU QUIT, the finish line is near, we WILL reach the peak and we WILL reach the gold! Love you all and have an amazing week!!

LOVE ELDER OVARD

p.s. sorry its a short one this week haha

The Pure Love of Jesus Christ

FAMILIA!!!!!!

Here i am once again... haha Sounds like you've been getting A LOT of Elder Ovard time this past week! I'm glad to hear you got the pictures and Christmas card. Sorry it was a little late haha but funny story with the christmas card. So obviously that was back when I was with Elder Hall, but funny part about it all is that there are some sister missionaries in our zone. Sister Sablan and Sister Bean, both are hilarious. So they are serving in a rich ward right now and the people there have some money haha One of the members offered to take Christmas pictures for them and then print them off for their Christmas cards. ALL FOR FREE!!! soooooo long story short Sister Sablan and Bean say "We have to get a Christmas card to our FAVORITE zone leaders" hahaha so they gave us one. WELL funny part of it all is the picutures they used on their card were of them holding book of mormons up to their faces. Then they had one of them both in front of a christmas tree or something. SOOO Elder Hall and I said how funny would it be if we copied their pictures but made our own cards?? HAHAHA soooo as you can see thats what we did!!! We took the pictures then went to Walgreens and had them made. Then the Monday before transfers elder Hall and I gave these sisters a card. THEY LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED hahaha It was hilarious!!!!! I sure hope this story all made sense haha but it was so funny!!

Okay on to the good stuff now! I loved talking with you all on Wednesday! Gotta love the technology now a days! I remember the old fashion way of just talking straight over the telephone like we did with Blake haha it's always fun to see you guys in person though. I was getting a little worried when the camera wasn't letting me see you though! BUT HEY it all worked out! Thank you all though for everything! I had a lot of fun talking to you and it was by far the best Christmas present ever :) As far as last year and how nervous I was?? haha I don't remember. All I remember is being nervous to speak spanish in front of yals!! Maybe thats why... OH and hence you all telling me I'm fat!! hahahaha jk

Okay onto the work. SO you wont believe it but we fell a LITTLE BIT short of reaching our goal. It was such a bummer. We got 29/32 baptisms here in Ft Lauderdale! Something that has never been done before here in our zone. It was amazing to experience and be a part of but it was sad to see at the same time. The zone worked soooo hard. Everyone was converted to our goal and that's what helped us get so close. It was amazing to see the heart break throughout the zone though after telling them all that we fell short. Each companionship immediately made plans to improve and hit our goal next month. We still haven't came up with the goal yet but we'll get there!

As far as our area goes. We had a goal of 8 and we got 6!! Which is really good! God blessed us soooooo much and we feel blessed. Our goal for our area will probably remain the same but his month we are going to reach it :) I love the mission because it helps you learn how to set goals and then make plans to achieve them! Soooo going into the NEW YEAR each of you should make goals. Make plans that will help you accomplish your goals. THEN always have the vision of these goals. A constant reminder of the things you need to do so that you may reach your goals. For example, type out your goals and plans... then print out a paper and put it on your bathroom mirrar or on your wall in your room or something. Do something to help you stay focused so you can earn what you so dearly desire!! Anyways ENOUGH preaching ;)

OKay story for the week!! So the day after Christmas we had a rough go at it! We got a phone call from a member. We weren't able to anwser and so she left a voicemail. In the voicemail she said her friend/family was in the hospital and she needed a blessing. So she texted us the room number and her name and stuff to the hospital. After receiving all the info we called her and she filled us in on the details. So off we went to give this lady a blessing in the hospital. WELL family right as we got to the hospital and found the room there was a calm feeling that came over me. A calm feeling that let me know that i need to be strong. I didn't know what it meant but i felt it. As we approached the room there were friends and family outside, a big big group gathering of people there outside this room. We were a little confused. Everyone looked sad and we didn't know what to do. Thats when the member that called us came up to me and said.... "Elders it's too late, shes gone. She passed away minutes ago." So there we were with this family that just had a 26 yr old mom pass away. It was sooooo sad. I wish i could express my feelings to you all. So we walked into the room where this girl lay as the family and friends were crying over her dead body. The nurse then came in and explained to this girls parents how there was nothing the doctors could do. She was basically dead right as they left the beach. (all this was in spanish by the way so I had to do everything because elder loucks speaks creol... haha) So the parents argued the cause a bit trying to get the doctors to do more but hey.... there really was nothing they could do. So they proclaimed her officially dead and began talking to the parents about the process that would take place now. As this is all going on I asked the mom of the girl if it'd be okay if we said a prayer with the entire family around her daughter. She said yes lo me encantaria. So I offered a prayer with all these latins in this room. probably like 25 people in all. We prayed and prayed and all I could say in the prayer was to please touch the hearts of all the family members there in the room. That they may know their daughter and friend is okay, she is with God, etc... After I prayed the room was filled with the spirit and it was soooo neat to see everyone have a different outlook on things. Obviously crying and sadness continued, their was a life lost BUT at the same time it just felt different. So the member and family and friends thanked us. Then the member asked the parents of the girl if they would like a priesthood blessing. They both willingly did accepted and wanted one. So after waiting for 30 min or so while the nurses cleaned out the intestines and stuff of this girl we watched the family cry and sorrow over their loss. Then once the nurses were done we went inside the room again with the daughter that had passed. Smelly it was but that didn't matter. The love of Christ was still in the room. I then went on and blessed the mother and the father of the girl. Shortly after other family members that we didn't know began sitting in the chair waiting for a blessing upon them as well. So it went for 5 more people. A lot of blessings we gave that day but family let me tell you how amazing it was to be there. To feel the spirit with that family and to HELP them and LOVE them in a time of need. What joy the plan of salvation brings.

As i ponder on that story I can't help but think of the new year! The new year of struggles. The new year of tribulations. The new year of tests. The new year of hardships. THEY WILL HAPPEN. THEY WILL BE THERE...... but........ as i ponder on the story it's not the hard times of the new year that i focus on or that catch my attention the most. It's the pure LOVE of jesus christ. It's the pure KNOWLEDGE of knowing my potention. It's the pure UNDERSTANDING that i'm a child of god. It's the pure EXCITEMENT of knowing that god has designed a plan for me! Family focus on those good things. The good things that each one of us have been blessed with! I know that as we do that, Christ will be in our lives and he will be the one lifting these burdens off of our shoulders (mosiah 24:13-15) WE CAN DO IT! HAPPY NEW YEAR! I love you all and always remember that :)

ELDER OVARD