Julie's Dream

FAMILIA!!!!!

 

Boy oh Boy am i excited to have this opportunity to email yal once again?? It was a week full of excitement and energy her in FLORIDA!! Aynsley i am so excited for you. Truly i can't describe or even put into words the excitement i have. I think back to when i was in your shoes.. waiting on a mission call. All you want to do is KNOW. I remember as i was waiting on my call i was reading in the book of mormon about Alma and him Baptizing hundreds of people in the waters of Mormon.. It made me think of my mission. It made me desire and want to do the same. Most importantly though it comforted me.. letting me know that if that was gods will for me then it would happen. If not then he would send me to another place maybe where i would only baptized 1 person but yet i would know thats where GOD wanted me to be just as he wanted Alma to be there preaching to all those people. SOOO as you read your scriptures this week pay close attention to those desires of your heart and what trigger your thoughts. That is how you might might MIGHT get a lil glance of where you COULD be headed ;)

 

Mission Work here in the vineyard of Florida is going strong!!! We had a rough crazy week full of excitement and craziness! Oh Wednesday we had our Zone Training and lets just say that Elder Tesch and I had a lot of fun!! We may or may not be known as the party animals :) We trained on being converted to our goals and also being converted to the things the Elder Kopischke taught us 2 weeks ago. It turned out to be a really good training and it actually led the zone to an amazing 8 baptisms this past weekend. It was soooo cool. A perfect start to a new month in march.. a 5 week month no less :) Our mission has had a goal of 175 baptisms in a month and we fall short every month. The closest we've ever came is like 164 and that was last march. SOO we got a lot of work to do but all the missionaries know that this coming march is the month!!! We pumped. Idk if i'm going to be here in ft laud for it with transfers coming up again in 1 week. It's crazy how fast time is flying by. Elder Webb will be home before you know it :)

 

Investigators are going well. Unfortunately we weren't able to have any baptisms this past week and that family we were supposed to baptize isnt quite ready... BUT they will be this weekend:) The mom just has to leave behind 1 more cigarette. After that, her as well as the 3 kids are ready :) Their amazing. Elder Tesch and i worked hard doing our BEST to help them this past week. We helped them in so many ways. Calling, texting, daily contact, encouragement, etc... list goes on and on. So we honestly felt like we did everything in our power to get them baptized this past weekend. BUT obviously long story short they didn't get baptized. That caused my companion and i to think and reflect on things that we can do EVEN more of to help this mom (Julie) to progress and stop smoking. After thinking and praying we found the solutions. 2 solutions that we haven't applied yet when it comes to HELPING our investigators. The first being to have a special fast for Julie to stop smoking. Not only us fasting but having them fast with us!!! Then secondly involving her with members:) Using member testimonies to solidify and help her stop smoking as well! We feel as though these are the perfect plans and exactly what her and the family need! After coming up with these plans we went over to their house after church on sunday and Julie told us of an amazing AMAZING experience or dream that she had saturday night!

( in order to help you understand better i'm going to back track a little bit. ) So on like Thursday or so we taught this family about the plan of salvation. Specifically focusing on the spirit world and how we do work in the temple for people there waiting on us. We felt really inspired and prompted to teach them about this because Julie had  brothers that were shot and killed years ago. Its been hard on the entire family and really sometimes they don't understand why it happened to them. It questions their faith sometimes. SOOO we figured what better way to tell this family that they can be BAPTIZED for their Uncles (or Brothers). Their family members that they love so much and would do anything for!!! It was a really really spiritual and powerful lesson. (Okay now that you know this part lets fast forward to this lesson sunday after church now) 

 

SO Sunday after church we go and we visit with this family! Immediately as we sit down Julie says Ovard and Tesch i have something to tell you!! We said okay and anxiously listened! She then began to tell us that last night (Saturday) she had a dream. A dream about her god mother inviting her to go to church with her. Julie said this was a miracle in the dream because the god mother was the biggest partier, crazy going person alive. She never ever wanted god or church in her life. So Julie was really suprised and she accepted to go to churh with her god mother. So they walk to church but as they walk she notices that the church they are going to is outside in the street. There is a lot of people and then she looks up at like the preacher and stuff and there was one of her brothers sitting there listening to her other brother preach to this multitude. He was preaching about the plan of salvation and how HE and HIS brother and MANY OTHERS were waiting for this multitude to go do the work for them in the temple. To go be baptized for them. Julie couldn't believe it! She was amazing. Shocked and confused. Then the dream goes on and the god mother HEEDS the counsel of her brother and goes and is baptized for herself to cleanse herself from sin.

WELL this is where the dream ends. Julie wakes up and is thinking a lot about this dream. She cant believe what happened. THEN THEN... you wont believe it.
She goes and gets on Facebook! She begins scrolling down news feeds and she sees a picture of her god mother in the domican republic, she is dressed in white and she was baptized earlier that morning!.... 

WHAT AN AMAZING STORY/DREAM RIGHT??? how incredible is this? Elder Tesch and i just looked at each other in shock. We couldn't believe how real it all was. We then looked at her straight in the eyes and said... Okay Julie so what did you learn from this dream that god gave you? what is he inviting you to prepare to do?? She smiled put her head down and said.... I KNOW.. I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO DO. I NEED TO BE BAPTIZED!!! Immediately there after we presented the plans tesch and i had come up with earlier that day about the special fast that we would have to help her stop smoking so she can be baptized....

 

It was honestly another testimony builder for me. To know that god is aware of each individual need. HE KNOWS. He will make things happen in our investigators lives if we show them sincere love interest and support! I learned a lot from this experience and this past week. Lessons that never in my life will i forget! 

 

I love you all a lot and look up to you a lot :) Always know that god is always there for you to look up to! HE KNOWS YOU BEST!!!!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

p.s. i hope the whole dream made sense. It's kinda hard to write in words hahaha love ya

Elder Kopishchke Training & Cirio's Baptism

My family!!!!!!!!!!!!

Una semana mas ya paso en los libros!!!!! no se si tiene sentido en espanol? haha

ANOTHER ONE DOWN!! I can't believe it has already come and gone. What a blessing it was to be a missionary this past week. Elder Kopischke came and toured our mission this past week and it was so much fun. I got to be with him thursday from 10am-4pm and then friday from 8am-1pm. What an intelligent smart man he is. Honestly like ALL his trainings were set up in a Question/Anwser format. He would take a question and then expound on it and share doctrine from the scriptures and pmg like it was nobodies business. He would anwser the question but at the same time provide like 10 different solutions or anwsers! It was soooo inspiring and such a learing experience!! My talk that i gave haha was good i guess! It was so much fun to be able to stand before half the mission and tell them of an experience i had. I did end up telling them about novelty down in homestead. I as well as 2 others shared their stories too. After our stories Elder Kopischke was going in to his training. SOOOOO he started out by reviewing our testimonies/stories. He went through each one and said what he learned and then opened it up to the missionaries for them to share what they learned. It was soooo awesome to see the different things people learned from our experiences. It was awesome!!

Want to know something else thats awesome??? GOD IS SOOOOO GOOD!!!!! you wont believe it but we baptized a man named CIRO this past weekend :) He is amazing!!!!! IT was such a miracle and something that honestly came straight from gods tender mercies! Ciro was a member referral that bro rodriguez brought to church last week. At church last week we set up an appointment with him. Well our first lesson we helped him to recognized the feelings that he felt at church and how he was feeling of gods love and spirit. Immediately after we found out that the biggest thing that Ciro desired was to be able to have more understand and knowledge. SOOO we taught him about the holy ghost. We told him how by having this constant companionship of the H.G. he can know all things. We then explained that the ONLY way to receive this H.G. as a companionship is by being BAPTIZED. We then invited him to be baptized right there at the members home after the member had just got done baring powerful testimony! Ciro was a lil scared to accept but he knew it was right and he knew its what he needed to do. WELL, thats when the fun began. We taught Ciro that night and then one other night we taught him about the restoration. After that the only other day he could meet with us was on sunday because he had work the other days. SOOOO how in the world were we going to teach him all the commandments and get his Baptism interview done before church on sunday?? Long story short God made it happen. Ciro made it happen! We talked with Ciro's member friend bro rodriguez over the phone a little bit asking him if he could foresee any problems with the WofW or the LofC. We knew that it wasn't going to be possible to baptize Ciro if he had problems with these things going in to sunday when he was supposed to be baptized. The member told us NO he didn't have any problems with that stuff as far as he knew! SOOO with Faith and Hope with went about everything as though Ciro was getting baptized on sunday!! Sunday morning an hour before church started we taught Ciro the LofC, WofW and Tithing.... FAmily I can honestly say and testify to you that this man was prepared. He didn't have a problem with anything. He was 100 percent clean and worthy. He wanted to be baptized really bad and he was sooooo ready so WHY WAIT?? just as it teaches us in mosiah 18: 8-10. The last thing Ciro needed was a baptism interview. SOO during gospel principles class we pulled him out for a minute and the District Leader of the spanish ward interviewed Ciro and BAMMM game over last batter out!!!!! CIRO WAS BAPTIZED!!! What joy and happiness feeled my heart to have seen god perform this miracle before my eyes even again! MIracles just dont stop ever.... as long as we are obedient... diligent... urgent.... and truly sacrifice our will to line it with gods!! I love this work soooo sooo much!!!!!

 

Another quick story...  So our battery in our car stopped working saturday night. SOOO long story short we had to get jumped by one of our investigators.. Well sunday morning, church time rolled around and sure enough it didn't start again so we got jumped by the sister misisonaries. Then after church it didn't work so we got jumped again, etc...... SO long story short we were carless sunday night. We didn't know what to do. We couldn've rode bikes but by the time we would get where we needed to be we would have to turn right around and come home due to curfew! SOO we decided just to be diligent and show our faith. We decided to walk down the street and just go and harvest a complex. We walked and began knocked these doors. WELL god knew we needed to be there and he led us to that complex. We knocked into a lady that immediately accepted a prayer from us. She said i would love a prayer from jesus christ. We said a prayer with her. THEN after the prayer she said.. I don't have much time right now but i want you guys to come back!! WE accepted and said we would love to. She then said " ELDERS i was baptized into the mormon church 13 years ago. I haven't been back since just because i didn't know there was one this close to us!" Soo we showed her the address to the church and told her we would stop by the next day to talk more. She THEN before we left said okay good you can meet my daughter tomorrow... WE HESITATED AND SAID WAIT YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER?? HOW OLD? That is when she stated... 11 years old!!!! hahaha oh yes!!!!! The tender mercies and blessings of God!! God was allowing us to not only reactivate this lost daughter but to ALSO baptized her daughter :) We are going to meet with them tonight :)

 

What blessings come when we do what god asks! Family i love you all so much. I'm grateful to be a full time missionary right now in my life! It is the best journey, roller coaster that i could ever ride!! Love you all a lot!! Keep being amazing. Keep learning and progressing in this game of life! Its the best! :)

 

ELDER OVARD

 

p.s. this week we are looking at a family of 4 getting baptized but ohhhhhh i love them sooooo sooooo much. I'll tell you about them next week!!!!! They are from the dominican republic and they are hilarious!!!! GODS GOOD!

Love you