Meet Wilmer

President!

What another amazing week. Once again the faith is being tested as we have to wait one more week to baptize a kid (Anthony) that we had planned for this past week but the lord knows his time and it'll be this week. We just know it! We're super excited! Also I loved the interview I had with you on saturday. I loved how once again you talked about obedience and how when were exactly obedient, thats when the exact and direct blessings come! I just love that because it always pushes me when in time of need. Also I loved you input of how I can make my studies even more effective then they already are! Your so inspired President and I know that is why this mission is as successfull as it is.

This past week Elder Benitez and I had a super awesome experience. We left the house after weekly planning to go and follow up with some people that we left blessings with the day before. Well right as we walked out of our apartment we ran into this jewish guy that we always see that just tries to talk and talk with us and convert us to judism. He always screams at us about how Christ wasn't perfect and why do we believe he is the son of god because God was never married.. so on and so on. He's always trying to weaken our faith. Well we decided enough was enough with this guys as we have invited him to church probably 10 times now :) so we left him. He was still talking with us but we just felt like we had to leave. He didn't want us to but we did we couldn't waste the lords time talking to someone that didn't believe in him. So we managed to leave him. We'll we got to our follow-up apointments and were locking our bikes to the stop sign when we hear another guy yell at us. "YO YO MY BOYS COME OVER HERE" well to be honest with you president Elder Benitez and I looked at each other, looked behind us and then whispered. "he wasn't talking to us was he? I hope not he is a gangster" So we tried to ignore it and act like he was talking to someone else. Keep in mind president that he had a beenie on with a cup in his hand and tattoos that looked like a long sleeved shirt. So thats when the second yell came "MY BOYS COME HERE I WANNA TALK WIT YAL" so i raised my hand and pointed at us and said "us?" He said "YA YA MAN" So president thats how it all began. His name is Wilmer and he came to church this past sunday. He called us out because he wants to change his life. He has 2 kids that he basically can't even live with because his life isn't in order right now. He has however began the process of changing it. We have taught him twice and he is awesome. Showed his faith by coming to church and repenting already. He has a baptism date for this coming sunday and he is super super excited about it. Out How to begin teaching lesson with him was just a desire booster that is pushing him and giving him the strength from the lord that he needs. Well President the point is that The lord put us in that spot at that time. Maybe if that jewish guy didn't talk with us and distract us for a minute then we never would have met Wilmer. Maybe he never would've have seen us and had the chance to yell an entire block just to talk with us. I know he has prepared people out there and I know through exact obedience and hard work we are able to be lead to those people.

Once again thanks for everything president and for the example you are to all of us!

 

 

QUE BOLA HACERE???

haha estoy aprendiendo como hablar cubano haceres!!! haha oh man what am I going to tell my family this week!! You are all so awesome and I love you! Whats everyone been up to?? Sounds like paige is pregnant and it's affecting her emailing fingers and also blake has to many apointments with the ladies trying to persuade them to like him so his emailing hands are tired from texting haha WHATS UP! Good news to start out. So remember how transfers were a couple weeks ago. Well I forgot to tell you guys.. Elder Webb is in my zone. Idk maybe his mom already told you haha but yes we are together!! Were going to play basketball and soccer with them today. Him and Elder Hunter ;) going back to the good ol mtc days haha It's so much fun! Our zone is just bomb right now!!

Also this past week I got to go on Exchange with one of our zone leaders again. He told me that he was praying and he was inspired to do an exchange with me. His name is Elder Toeava and is from america samoa. He's awesome well he told me he was inspired to inform me of a gift that I have that he has seen as he listens in on our role plays and things we do. He told me that I have a spiritual gift. The gift of spiritual prophecy and revelation and the ablility to talk with power through these gifts. I didn't believe him. It was something that I hadn't ever really thought about. Then it was always kinda weird because i hate when people talk me up or talk good about me. It's just so AWKWARD hahaha anyways so he went on for like an hour on this gift that i have and how i can use to to fulfill my pontential as a missionary. As we talked about it though I realized how big of a blessing he was. He really did teach me something. Helped me see a blessing a gift that i wasn't really fully aware of. It was interesting though cause right after we had this little one on one study session. We went and taught someone. It was Wilmer actually haha and after everytime i talked.. Elder Toeava would say.. Wilmer how do you feel right now? Wilmer would throw his hands in the air and say i feel amazing. I feel peace happiness like god still loves me. It was so awesome. He helped point out my gift in a lesson that we had. It was super awesome and he helped me understand that we are here to help our fellow missionaries just as much as our investigators. I love him for life.For what he did for me.

Okay we go from spiritual to the WORLD hahaha This week was the beginning of Spring break in MIAMI!!!! it was the Calle Ocho Festival. Google it.. actually no you probably shouldn't hahaha It was crazy!!!!!! Millions of people on one street. Happens to be the street with live on haha but it was all beer and little clothes and just a bunch of crazys. It was crazy i will have to send you guys some pictures haha wow I can't believe i was here to witness it haha okay google it!! During sacrament meeting at church we could like hear the music blasting outside haha I saw like the water in the sacrament cups like bouncing up and down hahaha

It was a super awesome week though. I wasn't able to see kinzie and matt or zack. haha They did call but i didn't anwser. I called president to see if it'd be ok and he said it's better we don't because lots of people come into miami and if one person does it everyone does and so he gets people calling him about it a lot haha oh well it was good. I just decided not to call them back and just tell you guys to tell them the situation today haha

Other then that the work is super amazing. We are planning for a few baptisms this weekend and we know if we are obedient and work hard then will happen!! love you guys and have an awesome week. I'll try and email mikey quick!!

Love ELDER OVARD

 

ps thats super awesome that their doing that for KJ. I'm super excited about it! Also mom BIENVENIDA A LA OBRA MISIONAL!!!! hahaha WELCOME TO MISSIONARY WORK ;)  love you all

 

Bienvenida A Calle Ocho.... I told you it was crazy!  It was like this for 30 blocks. SUPER CRAZY!

                                        We are alive and preaching the gospet still.

BMW I found in the middle of Calle Ocho.  I need to glue this to the front of my bike!  Hahaha

 

                         La Peauena Havana!  Little Havana Cuba! It's what Miami is!

 

                                                        See the Similarities?

Wazzup Calle Ocho!?! Que Bola?  Estamos Aqui enla pequena Havana!  This was a couple P-Days ago!  Yes I know a sweater in Miami right? What happened.  Oh and don't forget the 3 lines in my hair from my helmet!  I LOVE YOU MIAMI (I mean) FAMILY!

 

Some members decided to let us play with their swords. When you live in Miami you have to sleep with these things next to your bed!!  Hahaha

I think I threw up after seeing that pretty sight! haha  Got to love Cesar Naveriez!!

 

A recent baptism.  She is awesome!

 

Sara is a Gangster!

 

Manuel and my 2 companions.  I love all these guys sooo much!

 

Jeison is a 15 year old.  He is a friend of a girl in the ward.  The Morazan family.  Hno. Morazan baptized him.

 

All the baptisms last Sunday night February 17, 2013

 

Just preparing for a little BP or a Game or something.  Super Sick Stadium though!  Swimming pool and all! :)

New Companion Elder Benitez

I'm am excited for all the success the mission is having! 44 baptisms in one week. WOW!! I know that as we all continue in righteousness and follow christ he is going to bless us. Our mission is obedient and I know that is what makes us different! I remember when I first got to the mission and just hearing baptizing weekly sounded impossible. After going out and getting to work and seeing first hand that it IS impossible and we can do all things if we just rely on and trust in the lord. This week was super awesome. New companion. Lots of excitement and just a desire to work hard. My new companion and I just love each other. We are both always joking around and try to have the best attitude we can about everything we do. We talked our first night together and we came to the conclusion if we are always happy, loving and work hard then we are going to baptize. We are going to have that weekly baptism success. I know that it's possible President. We have set goals together as a companionship to accomplish these desirous and wants of ours. As we have learned if we desire something and put that faith in christ so that his hand can help us accomplish it.. then it's going to happen. We are super excited to get to work this week.

This week I liked the scriptures to myself as a missionary and my purpose! Something that helped me understand more of what god wants me to do. I read in D&C 15. I read the entire section but included my name in multiple places. After basically everytime it said you.. I would put my name. At the beginning when it says something like my servant (then i would put my name). I found that doing this in multiple sections of D&C helped me to understand what my purpose is here in the mission. What I have been called to do as a representative of Jesus Christ. I love this work so very much President. I am so so blessed in my life. To be here in this wonderful blessed land of SOUTH FLORIDA! Thanks for always being such an inspired man and example to us as missionaries! Love you and we look forward to accounting with you next week!

WAZZUP FAMILIA!!!

QUE VOLA HACERE!!!!

haha wow I love this mission!! I love Florida!!! I love life baby!!!! So my new comps name is Elder Benitez haha gimme another latin :) He is from paraguay but has lived in UT ever since he was 10. He lives like up towards ogden. Probably right new to the gun shop haha Anyways!! He's awesome. Elder gust (from stg) trained him. I am growing to love him more and more everyday. My favorite thing about him is he's always happy. Always smiling and trying to crack jokes. We get along super well haha He was elder samuelians comp and elder samuelian had a rough time with him haha but oh well. Once again after transfer meetins I had people telling me it's going to be a rough transfer for you.. keep on that kid and make sure he's obedient. SOO whatever that means. I don't listen to others when they talk bad about other missionaries. It's just a blessing to be able to be that person that gets to try and help them. Elder Dean was awesome and we both learned a lot from each other. It makes me super happy to know I helped him end his mission the way he wanted to. He's home with his fam haha thats crazy. I sure hope he's doing good!! Anyways so as you can tell Elder Benitez and I have some good goals and are going to continue to work super hard. Our week this past week was super good. We talked to each other in spanish all day everyday. I have to do something to continue to better my spanish ;) I love spanish.

Thanks for all the updates with where everyone is headed! It's always so much fun hearing that stuff. It's just crazy that I've been out almost 7 months already and they haven't left haha wow. The sisters will all basically get home around the same time though haha! When does Kacey Rogers go into the mtc? I'm super excited for her to get here! It'll be fun. I know she'll do awesome!

Well whats new in miami?? hmmmm.... Well this weekend is the CALLE OCHO festival haha uh oh. We will be staying away from that. Unfortunately we live on CALLE OCHO hahaha. So the calle ocho festival is something like millions of people come to. Who knows pitbul?? the singer?? haha hope you don't know him but anyways if you do he always sings about calle ocho and stuff and he is big into calle ocho. He loves it and always comes to this festival. So we have that this next sunday. It'll be crazy im sure. We've all locked our hearts though and are working hard. :) haha

Spiritually... The lord works in miraculous ways. I know he sent elder benitez to me for a reason. The lord helped us this past week in many ways. We had a week of finding and we knocked a lot of doors. We found so many different types of people. We found a less active that was baptized like 4 yrs ago. We left a book of mormon with her and are going back to see her tomorrow. She was super cool and was super grateful that the lord was watching over her. It was awesome. She knew we were sent from god. The most awesome thing about it was the house right before her was just some guy drinking beer and like telling us how stupid we were and how us mormons don't know what were talking about. We don't know jesus christ and how we worship joseph smith and all that fun stuff. hahaha Those experience are always ones that missionaries remember haha but just the fact that the lord was able to test our faith a little bit with th at guy but then build us up with this wonderful less active member afterwards. It's so crazy how the blessings work. mosiah 2: 27 or somewhere around there. Can't remember exactly but it talks about how the lord will give us immediate blessings if we keep his commandments and do as he asks. I have seen that to be true!!

I love this work. I'm thankful to be here in FL and to be a representative of Jesus Christ. The joy this work brings is better then all things i have experienced in my life. I love you all and thanks for the support. Letters Email and love just makes it that much better:)

Love ya Elder Ovard!!

 

p.s Those jerseys dad are SOOOOO sick hahaha WOW i'm jealous. Tell secrist to just retire that number 3 will ya?? haha jk Those are so sick. Thanks for the addresses and updates with everything. Thats so awesome B decided to go on a mission. I'm so proud of him. I wish Hayden would do the same but I guess he isn't ready yet and that still in the process of the lord. To help him get back on the path. He's a good kid and i know he will find the light of christ through peoples examples. Like B!! Love you guys! HAve an awesome week! 

 

 

Missionary work is in God's hands

President,

This week was a test in gods hands. He pushed Elder Dean and I to work the hardest we could but still come up way short of accomplishing our goals. It was a week of not being too successful with finding people home and finding new people. We know that it was god testing our faith though. As we worked super hard and did our best to spread the gospel, God gave us a blessing in return. We happened to get 2 people to church. These two people were ones that we hadn't came in contact with throughout the week.However they were two friends of members that wanted to come and so the member committed to bringing them every sunday. So just like that God blessed us for our hard work this past week. We talked and talked about how the mission brings such great joy and struggles sometimes. We talked about how the atonement and how Jesus Christ made it possible for us to look past our struggles and focus on the happiness and joy of this work. It was a good bonding and growing time for Elder Dean and I. We know that was the intention of God. I feel that we did everything in our hands to be successful this last week of Elder Deans mission, but God had other plans. He helped us talk about what we both needed to hear. Me in the mission and Elder Dean as he is headed home. It was all a blessing.

Throughout the week while all this was happening I read in the Book of Mormon about Alma the Younger. What an example he was to us. As we saw him change his life completely around and overcome those bad things and struggles in his life through the savior Jesus Christ. I learned that it doesn't matter if it's a hard time in the mission or a hard time in life. Everyone has them and everyone can learn and grow through them. Thats why God gives us the hardships because if we overcome them with HIS help he will bless us and he will never leave us (his children) in darkness. That light will always be there to help us and lead us and guide us. Love you president! Have a good week!

Elder Ovard

 

Well okay so that was my email to president this week haha The other Elders told me thats always a good thing to add to the letter home that way you don't have to write so much. Well knowing me i'll still write so much. I am known for being the missionary thats always writing and sending letters. Uh oh haha wasting all my money i get on stamps haha jk no i don't send that many.

Anyways it was a little bit harder week as you read. Elder Dean and I had some great times though. I'll miss that kid. Thanks for forwarding me his moms email. He is such a goof haha I love it. Oviously he is headed home here in like 2 days. His testimony and change in the mission alone has been such a great thing for me. To see where he'd been and the missionary he was to the missionary he has become is just something special. He gives me too much credit for being that person that has helped him change and of course he always says i'm his favorite comp but i don't like it when he says that haha. He's awesome! I'll miss him but i'm excited for him to go home and continue on in righteousness. Oh and get married to his girl hahaha he promise me he would be within like the year. Before i get home at least haha give him crap about it when you see him ;)

Other then that it wasn't much of a week. Transfers are this week. So my run with elder peterson and being in the MIAMI downtown big city are over... haha well he's getting transfered. IM STAYING!!!! YAYAYA I love it here. Elder Samuelian and I are staying here in riverside miami and the other two are gone. So tomorrow we will go up to FT LAD and get our new comps. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited as always. Were hoping to get some awesome missionaries, but i've learned already don't judge a book by it's cover right;) Elder Dean was one I was a lil worried about at first but get lost in the work and you'll get along!! It's was great!

I'm glad you guys like the package! It wasn't much but everything i loved. I better get though. I have to write the friend letter thing. Love you all!!

Elder Ovard

 

                       I WILL GO.... I WILL DO..... BRING IT ON MIAMI!!!!! IT'S THE BEST!

Missionary Names Places in the Cornerstone of the Ft. Lauderdale Temple

Here we are once again family!!!!

 

How is everyone doing? Crazy stuff happening here in Florida like always ;) haha

So this past week was super awesome. We had stake and zone conference. Zone conference was by far my favorite though. Mostly because I just love sister and president anderson. Their examples to us and their testimonies are just amazing. I'm dont joke around when I say he's going to the 12 haha. So President Anderson started out his talk with talking about King Benjamin. If you read in like mosiah chapters 2-5 you'll read about how King Benjamin holds like a General conference for the people. He goings on and talks about like service, keeping the commandments, Promises/Commitments, Promised blessings that we'll recieve and then how he records each of their individual names after they have promised to live all these things. Well President Anderson went through the process.He personalized D&C 4 for us. He taught us of all the things king benjamin taught while going through D&C 4. How it related to missionary work and what we need to do to have more of the spirit and his help in his work. After President taught this too us he said "Just as King Benjamin recorded the names of the people that were there... I am going to record all your names. Then we will place them in the Cornerstone of the NEW FLORIDA FT. LAUDERDALE TEMPLE where you guys will always remember the promise and the commitment that you made here on your missions, to give the lord all you have and to always always serve him and remember him. Then when you go back to that temple throughout your lives you guys will look back and always remember this promise and tell your kids and family about why and how your name is in that cornerstone. SUPER SUPER awesome. Was a highlight in my week for sure and I think it's so awesome that we have this opportunity.

Also this week we had 2 baptisms:) Remember Manuel? and Jason? Manuel was the one that was always looking up to us and thought I was sooo good with basketball and stuff haha well thats him. Jason is another 15 yr old kid that is a friend of a family in the ward. Both are super cool. Elder diaz and I taught both of them so much. Luckily I was able to make a phone call to Elder Diaz who is about 40 min north of us and he was able to come down for the baptism. He actually baptized manuel. It was soooo awesome. Just a cool Spiritual experience. The other elders also had on that night so we had 3 people baptized that came unto christ. One of the best expriences man. I love it. People don't joke when they say baptisms bring so much joy and happiness. Just a throwing that last pitch at the Championship game. My heart is just overtaked with joy each and everytimes it happens and someone chooses to follow christ.

Mom your question about our recent converts coming to church after baptism. Of course they do. Obviously sometimes we have to help them but most of them have that desire and stay strong. Right now we only have one that is lacking a little bit. But we still do our best. We don't know what to do with him. Drugs and Alcohol can take over and make it hard for him but all we can do is help him try and overcome his problems and get back on that path of righteousness.

We were able to get a few investigators down to homestead to the stake conference with us. haha so awesome. We went on a school bus and the entire thing was PACKED. My head was pretty much hangin out the window the entire drive ;) haha It was awesome though. Elder Haluck was the member of the 70 that was there. He was a mish pres in Samoa so i was wondering if maybe mitch knew him haha small world if he did. Anyways he was super cool though. Talk was a lot about the temple and how people need to start preparing because it's going to be sooo awesome! I'll be here for it!!!! hahaha YES!!! I feel bad elder dean and some of these guys wont.

Transfers are next week. I think on dads bday! haha Elder Dean is close to being a goner. He's still workin hard and were finding success. As long as we give it all we got success comes. Transfers are going to be interesting this one and i'm super excited to see what happens haha we always joke around in the apartment about whos staying whos going where and stuff haha It's so much fun. No one wants to leave miami. It's so sick. And this next month we have calle ocho. A big party thing that goes on like every weekend on the street that we live on. haha it's crazy. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

About matt and kinzie. of course i'll talk to my president haha but i can explain the situation to him and i'm sure he'll be perfectly fine with it. haha that'll be so much fun. I'm excited. How are they going to get ahold of me and stuff though? Should i give you guys my phone number then you can give it to them or what? IDK haha but it'd be super cool to see them. Well I love you all and super excited about all you guys and the things that are going on in your lives right now! Keep it up with school and work and everything! Que dios les bendiga :)

 

ELDER OVARD

 

p.s. spanish is awesome!!! I know it'll come haha it's the best

p.s.s the package will be there in time for dads birthday okay haha so you guys will all open it together probably next week. Promise the wait will be worth it ;) Love ya

 

                                       Miami Zone Activity on February 11, 2013

Heading to the keys for Stake Conference

I love emailing!!!!!!!! haha Another week baby!!!

 

How was everything with my fam this past week? Sounds like a lot more excitement and A LOT more crazyness! It's soo good to hear about MAYNERD and MICHAEL haha man I love them both so much and I know their going to be awesome. I'll be talking to maynerd in some good ol spanish baby!! Except ima talk like a crazy CUBAN and he'll talk like a crazy hyper mexican hahaha COMO ELDER DIAZ CHICO. Anyways. Thats too bad dad wasn't able to make it to michaels farewell. I bet he felt super bad. Michael would understand though so he shouldn't worry about it. I'll prob write a letter to Tammie this week and send her a piece of toilet paper :( hahaha it's so sad i know but it's so great! He's going to have so much fun. And just think... Jensens in TEXAS. RED NECK BROTHAS hahaha i'm excited to hear about everything.

 

So this week spanish was getting better haha still super hard but understand people was a little better. Everyone just says poco a poco. "little by little" I know it's true and all I needa do is give everything I got and don't worry about it.

So the changes here in the mission the next few months are going to be crazy. Were getting so many new missionaries in. Which means a lot of new trainers and leadership positions haha. Well i thought to be a trainer you probably needa know a lot of spanish right. Well we'll see haha this past week I went on an exchange with Elder Samuelian and supposively the Zone Leaders told him that he needs to talk to me about leadership and i need to be ready to be a leader because you never know what might happen. SOOOO that being said who knows? This transfer is rapidly coming to an end though and It's just crazy. I would be completely suprised though if i was training. Especially where i've already been here in miami for so long. We'll see though. I don't think i'll train but i guess you never know and god knows what will be best!

 

Past week was good and bad with investigators haha We are probably going to MARRY a couple or two this next week:) My first people that i have the chance to marry haha. She is super solid and wants to be baptized so bad. We found out this week though that the guy she loves and has 2 kids with and been living with for 10 years isn't her husband. So this week we will get them married then she can be baptized on sunday! CRAZY right?? Match maker match maker make me a match:) hahaha I'm pumped! Super cool. This area of miami is just the bomb. At the marlins stadium we teach all sorts of people mom. Lore and Lazaro? remember them thats where we always taught them. ummm other peoples that live around there we've taught. We taught another little fam that is super solid as well and they want to be baptized. The father the dad of the fam is headed to Argentina this week though. Maybe dev can get in contact with him and baptize him though haha he'll probably be there for a month or so. We'll have his wife baptized before he returns ;)

 

Also this week we had a baptism all planned up and ready to role then the guy didn't show up haha his name is lazaro. IDK if you guys remember but he's like 6'5 300 haha ya idk how we'll be able to lift him outta the water but we'll do it. He didn't show up though so we still needa meet up with him and figure out what were going to do. His wife is like keeping him from it I think. She doesn't like us for some reason, but Lazaro loves loves us haha too much.

 

Dad Blake Taylor... your all spoiled :) haha all of you got something super super sick. You can thank the wallet of Elder Ovard on that one. Well okay maybe like the santa clara 1st ward hahaha but anyways ima send it today. You guys should get it like friday probably. Not real sure. But anyways i hope everything works out and you guys like it. Blake sorry but you'll have to drive 4 hours to find out what it is. Trust me it's worth the drive haha

 

Well I'm getting excited for all the peeps we have planned for this weekend! It's stake conference for us so i'm headed down south towards the keys for that. It'll make it a lot harder to baptize but I know we can do it with faith. We'll for sure have one but were hoping we get others married and commited more to it this week. We have a lot of people who COULD be baptized so it'll be a lot of prayer and faith on our part.

 

I did get all your packages and stuff. They were bomb thank you all so much. I love CANDY haha Thanks for the notes as well! Thanks for Everything. Mostly I just have the best fam in the world. I love you guys so much! Let me know if theres anything i can ever do for yal!!

 

mom so you need a letter? or email for that friend thing?

 

Elder Ovard

 

                       Elder Diaz (in the middle) trained both of us!  Brothers in the mission.

Two elders I love the most!! Specialized training in Miami Lakes.  Elder Hunter and Elder Diaz

               Everyone I've lived with including Dean and Samuelian.  I love all these Elders man!!!

Letter From Elder Deans Mom, Nancy!

Heather,

Just wanted to share a few things from Elder Dean's email this week. "SUPER BOSS" are the words John uses for amazing!

"Well everything continues on with greatness here in sunny Miami!! My companion is a SUPER BOSS and has easily become one of my favorites, if not the favorite, companions that I have had in the mission field. We continue to be united and seeing great miracles."

"I have often times wondered as the weeks have gone by, how is it that each week is amazing and most times more than the week before. I would definitely say that the council of our leaders has helped us a lot in making every week a better week to always strive to create miracles and fully access the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This week we thought that the week was going bad. We evaluated ourselves and found that we were getting into a little routine, so we broke it. We used the Faith cycle and created miracles. We met a super solid young couple who have been looking for a church to join and they were struggling a little bit because Mary's mom had kicked her out of the house and wouldn't let her live there anymore. They felt sorrow and wanted to feel loved and wanted. The Lord provided them with these blessings as we came and left the blessing with them. They were crying after the blessing and quickly accepted the Lord's invitation to be baptized. They loved church and are continuing to prepare for the 10th.

We have been working with a youth named Anthony, and he has been keeping commitments left and right. He prays daily and continues to feel the Spirit. We went by the other day and shared the message of the restoration with him. We talked about faith and how it applies to him. Afterwards he gave the most humble prayer to know that what we were teaching is true. He felt a great desire to know more and to be baptized."

Elder Ovard may have shared these experience with you but just in case I thought I would send them on. Thanks again for your son!

Sincerely,
Nancy

Crazy Miami Peeps on Superbowl Sunday!

Well here I am back at the Library once again!!! haha Emailing my fam and watching crazy miami peeps haha

What another great week!! Thanks for forwarding the email from Elder Deans mom! I appreciate it. It's always good to hear things like that! He is a stud though haha I love him. He's had some tough comps and he has made a lot of changes but thats what lifes all about. And now we are giving it all we got so he can go home happy and with a feeling of success. I love him man.

 

So thanks once again for all the emails. You all have different things going on in your lifes and just seem busy busy busy haha Thats good though keep it up!! My week was awesome! The question about the sisters riding bikes... As far as I know they don't ride their bikes often. All the sisters have cars as far as i know so if it were me i probably wouldn't spend all the money to buy a nice one. They really only have to ride bikes if they don't plan their miles and they go over or something. I'm excited for her to get here though. (Kacey Rogers will be going to Ft. Lauderdale in April to serve as a sister speaking spanish.  They wanted to know if the sisters rode their bikes.  So I asked Elder O and this was the response.)

 

So mom i'm not the kids dad...  come on!! I didn't mean it like that. You made it sound like i was in love with lore or something and treated him as my son haha no no never. Just gotta be loving as a little child just as christ taught right :) ( I had to tease Austin and remind him that he was just a good example to Lazoro, not his father)

 

So sounds like mikey is getting all ready to leave haha WOW!!!! If possible will you guys like record his talk. IDK how but if there is a way like record it for me and send it to me. That would be super cool. I'd love that. I'm excited for him. I wrote his last week and he is going to do great!(Michael is Austin's really good friend and will be giving his farewell talk this Sunday.  Michael is going to Texas.)

 

This week was a little bit harder but still awesome! The only reason it was harder is because the peeps that we had for baptism yesterday were so so hard to get ahold of this week. We don't know why but they were tough. We did everything we could and because of that I know god is going to bless us and help us!  So this week will be awesome and we got the FE (faith)

 

For the superbowl haha wow yesterday man!!!! So idk how many drunk people we blessed but it was hilarious hahaha sad but they just were crazy. Other houses were playing like poker and stuff and they'd try and get us to play with them and what not hahaha man it's great.

 

Also this week more lessons at the MIAMI MARLINS stadium :) haha Dad thats crazy when you guys got like 1 discussion in your were happy. The lords work has definatily been hastened because now our goals are like 10 lessons a week with 7 member present lessons and like 5 less active recent convert lessons. So thats like 25 lessons a week and usually more with the whole blessing houses that we do. haha It's awesome and Im super blessed because it's through teaching that I have learned the most. This week we had a cool spiritual experience.

First of all we confirmed lore and lazaro. I confirmed lazaro. Lore text us last night and told us how grateful she was for us and how we helped change their family. It was cool. But also the other night elder dean and i were talking. We began talking about his past as a missionary and really he was just having a hard hard time getting it out of his mind and off his chest. I talked with him for probably 20 min about it and he was just like heart broken. I didn't know what to do. I was just trying to help him understand that god still loves him. He always will through the atonement. So I looked at him and said your fine man i know god loves you.. lets kneel down and say a prayer asking him to help you forget things so you can finish your mish strong. So we kneeled down and i began to pray. I prayed and got like half way through and i could hear him just crying. I continued the prayer and eventually finished. The spirit was taking over during that prayer. We both felt so much love and unity. We stood up and hugged and he said I feel good man. I know we can get these 8 baptisms this month. Ever since then he said he's had an easier time focusing and doing the work. It was awesome to see the spirit like that just take over :)

 

Well I love you guys and am grateful for my family. You guys are the best. Also if one of you guys want to like send pictures of like before the mish and just of your lives haha please do. We all love looking at pics at night. It's bomb. Also its ELDER SAMUELIAN mom the family that knows shan and sue haha i just asked him. He said he knows them!!

 

Love you guys!!

Elder Ovard

Specialized Training in Miami Lakes.  I love these 2 Elders!  Elder Hunter my comp from the MTC and Elder Diaz my Trainer.  Elder Dean is in an interview at this time so he is not in the picture! :(