Omer and Gema are Baptized. Elder Ovard is leaving Homestead!

Family!!!!!

 

ELDER MILLETT..... STAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ELDER OVARD....... TRANSFERS!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hahahhahaha well my loved ones! It's over. My run here in the homestead is coming to an end. I can't believe it. I am actually really sad to leave. Even though everyone says i'm going zone leader and all the open zone leader spots are with some of my favortie missionaries... but man i just don't want to leave everything behind here in homestead haha for example yesterday i actually began going around and saying bye to my recent converts. That is when i truly did realize how much they actually loved me and care for me. Everyone of them began to cry. They would cry and cry and all i could do was try and lift them up. I couldn't help but cry a little bit with them haha By the time time we left them though they were okay. I went around and gave them all framed pictures of their baptisms. Wal-mart allows me to do it without spending too much money haha so sorry for using my card but it was worth it. One recent convert i want to tell you about is Dilia. Idk if you remember her. She's the old old cuban lady. Little and has curly hair haha well okay so last night we stop by to see her.. We talked and talked and then i gave her the picture! She is soooooooooo happy! Like i have never seen a lady so happy!  Telling her at that moment that i had to leave was obviously not the smartest of times to tell her but it had to be done. So we waited a while longer and let her excitement calm a little then i said.... "hna me voy el miercoles. dios me ha llamado a servir en otro lugar." So i told her god has called me to serve in a different area and that i would be leaving wednesday. She then broke down and cried. She had tears rushing down her cheeks. She said no no please don't go. I eventually helped her understand that i didn't have a choice and that the new area is where god wants me to be. She then looked me straight in the eyes and said Elder ovard..."lots of people think i am crazy. They tell me i'm stupid. I have wanted to commit suicide and kill myself but i haven't.. i haven't because of the two of you. You two missionaries are my grandsons and each time i'm with you i'm happy. i want to live my life when im with you. My husband, he hates me. He pulled a gun on me yesterday and theres nothing i can do about it because i tell the cops and they just tell me i'm crazy. BUT the two of you. You missionaries understand me. You love me and make me happy..." As she is crying and crying and then she says "Elder Ovard i want you at my funeral. I want you there standing at my casket as they are putting me in the ground. When i go down i want you to give me a kiss on the cheek and tell me that you'll see me soon. I'll be waiting for you in heaven" she says I couldn't do anything but cry after that point. I couldn't believe how much we as well as the gospel and god had changed her life. She isn't suicidal.. She does love her life. I told her i'd write her and be back to see her and when we left she was okay but she truly did want us there at her funeral. I love her so much and that was extremely hard for me to tell her bye like that but it was done. She is one that just loves to be loved and the new missionary and elder millett will do a great job with that!

 

Okay on to the HAPPY news hahaha SOOOOO Guess what???? We had 2 baptisms this week!!!!! haha It was AWESOME! Margaritas brother and sister in law got married this past weekend. Gema and Omar!! Ones that we have been working with and they are the ones i told you about last week :) They did get baptized though and what a service it was. We got a new ward mission leader and his name is Ben Stancliff and WOW he's a stud. He planned an awesome service where the spirit was able to acompany. Gema and Omar loved it. They said that they hadn't ever really felt that way before in their entire lives. Unfortunately i wont be here to watch them get confirmed but i'm excited for them and their decision to be baptized. That will make another amazing solid strong family in the church! I was honored to be asked by omar to baptize him. Elder millett baptized Gema! They are awesome! They feed us food from nicaragua like everytime we go over there. Tonight we are going to say bye to them and we got them a picture frame with 2 picture spots so we did one of margaritas baptize and another with Gema and Omars. It is super special and i'm excited to give it to them! I love giving and seeing the happy expressions on the faces of others. Just like i got a happy expression when i received that halloween package from my beautiful family :) I'll send you a picture though of their baptism :)

 

Also ANOTHER EXCITING NOTE..... SOOO as i mentioned earlier there is a rumor on the block that i am headed Zone Leader. Will I?? I don't know but the exciting note is that there is a chance that I could be companions with ELDER WEBB! haha how awesome would that be?? he went zone leader last transfer so it's a possiblity. I'm excited though to see where god wants me to go. Also Elder Anthony! Can you believe its already here?? WOW i'm excited to see him tomorrow! I know a few missionaries that are training and they are all amazing so we'll see if Elder Anthony goes to one of them :) I'll keep you updated with him though! I'll see him tomorrow at transfer meeting!

 

Well i better get going! Leaving and area is always adventureous haha idk if i ever told you how before i left riverside how i had a couple girls in the ward express their love to me.... Well yes that happened if i didn't tell you. BUT i thought it was going to stop there. I thought wow okay those are just some crazy latin girls and that wont happen again. WELL guess what..... This past week i have had a few different girls here in the homestead ward express their love to me. WHAT THE HECK???? like don't they understand they can't do that??? It's horribly awkward!!!!! There is this family here and there are 4 girls.... Turns out all of them for some reason or not like me. They range from ages 15-20 ahhhhhhhhhhh haha it's so weird. Why can't the girls back home be like this haha i guess what they say is true.... ALL girls look for the missionaries and they look even harder for them after they've returned home haha

 

Love you All have a great week

 

ELDER OVARD

Omer & Gema want to be Baptized!

FAMILIA!!!!!

 

QUE VOLA!!!  wow what a week! I am so so jealous for all the success with the hunts!!! DANG haha what happened? Since when could people go and shoot a nice decent looking buck in the general Utah deer hunt?? Especially to have multiple bucks killed in the gubler family. I tell you what having all these missionaires out is even blessing the family with big bucks huh haha jk I was happy to see all that fun going down this past week for you guys! For me it was an amazing week as well :) YESSSSSS

 

As you all know teresa was planned to get baptized. Well......... SHE DID AND IT WAS AMAZING :) :) I love her soooooo much. Her baptism service was soooo spiritual. It was sad because no one from the ward showed up. I don't know if you all remember but our bishop is kinda crazy here sometimes and a while back we got after him a little bit for doing saturday baptisms instead of sunday. Saturdays are just too hard because no members come. Anyways thats exactly what happened for teresas baptism. No one came and so it was super sad but still amazing. She asked me to baptize her and i felt honored!!! She then said she wanted me to confirm her haha so i did that as well on sunday. IN SPANISH IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE WARD AHHHHHHH haha i was kinda scared but not really! I'm excited for her though and her family! TEMPLE here they come! Anyways it was funny sunday morning because in ward council bishop changed baptisms to sunday from now on. It was so weird but i'm excited about it. I don't feel bad for getting after him about it anymore. Sunday baptisms though will be so much better because the ward will be SOO much more involved.

 

As far as Elder Millett goes haha it's been rough. His health has been keeping us from accomplishing a lot. I know that god put me with him though to strengthen my patience and care for my companions. I love him i really do. He feels like a failure missionary just with all the health problems he's had. We are working on getting him better though. He feels like the success we are having is all because of me. I work a lot on the phone and just doing my best to set solid apts up with members and stuff. It works out. I do my best though to help him understand that the success is coming from the hard work we give god when we DO get out of the house. He will understand. I have another week to help him. He's amazing though.

 

We had another amazing experience this past week. So.... Do you remember Margarita?? The one that we baptized like 3 weeks ago. She was a doctor in nicaragua? Well guess what. We have been teaching her brother and sister in law. Their names are Gema and Omar. They have a 10 month old baby and i can't help but think of lil baby miles haha anyways well this week we taught Gema and Omar a lot. They were basically all 4 of our lessons haha. Gema and Omar really love the church. They have been going with us for a good 3 weeks now and just love it. They were the ones that wanted me to tell you as my parents thanks for raising me so right. They want to raise mateo, their little boy just like we were raised. They love the church and the standards that it has. Well we were having a hard time getting them to keep commitments and because of that they were not receiving a testimony and also they were not accepting a date. We knew that it was only through the commitments that they were going to receive their anwser. SOOOOO we went one night and kinda threw down a little bit. We had to help them understand the importance of these commitments. So one commitment that we left that we were really pushing them to keep was to watch the restoration video. It was awesome though because as we were explaining how the restoration video would help them, Margarita jumps in and bares SOLID testimony of Joseph smith and she said that the movie basically converted her and thatts when she knew without a doubt that she should be baptized. Margarita told them about after Joseph Smith translates the b of m and takes it to his dad, his dad begins to read it and search his anwser from god to know if the book is true. Then once he received that anwser the next thing he did was BAPTISM. Margarita told Omar and Gema that that is what converted her. SOOOO we left them with that commitments. A few days later we went back and guess what!!!!!!!!!!!????????? Margarita was like Elders guess what..... hahhaa we were like what? she said Omar and Gema have an anwser for you :) :) we began to get excited. we said okay what is the anwser?? Omar and Gema look at us.. SMILE... and say well we watched the videos (not only did they watch the restoration but they watched another we left before that too) we really really liked the videos. Just as margarita mentioned we loved the part when josephs dad was baptized. That part is really spiritual and it motivated us and helped us to feel the spirit. Elder Ovard and Millett we want to be baptized!!!!!! WAIT WHAT???? our jaws dropped???? You want to do what????? hahaha it caught us off guard soooo bad. We were soooo excited though. We then began telling them how excited we were and how it would be something that will bless them and bless mateo as he grows up. We felt so so blessed and we were so honored to have been the missionaries to help these souls receive an anwser to their prayers!! We cried as usual haha it just was amazing. I love this work i love this gospel I love gods blessings that come from hard work :)

 

I love you all have an amazing week and keep doing whats right! God is with us and will push us through!

 

p.s. mom no the bugs don't bite me haha at all! They are nice to missionaries :) love you all

 

ELDER OVARD

Elder Ovard Can Turn Pages!

FAMILIA,

 

Well here it is the moment everyones been waiting for!!!! haha ELDER OAKS!!!!!!!!!

It was amazing to say the least. After waking up at 5 in the morming and driving for an hour or so we made it up there and were ready to listen and be inspired by the words of a living apostle of god. It was such a great experience! But lets just start out by getting a good laugh out of the all of you... So LUCKY ELDER OVARD had the priviledge of being able to flip the pages for the pianist during the special musical number played for elder oaks... WAIT SAY WHAT???? Elder Ovard can't read music. WOW i was a trip. Elder Millett played the piano for this musical number and i didn't know how in the world to follow the song he was playing. It was abide with me but like a fast FAST paste mode. I was so so scared all week. We would go to church and practice and i just didn't know what to do. I literally almost searched somone else to do it. All it was, was 2 pages. I would have to turn them when the time was right but yet there would be an apostel of god watching and also close to 2 hundred missionaries.... YIKES!!!! I was soooo nervous. Like i didn't know what to do. 100 times worse than pitching in a championship or having to drive in the winning run with only one out remaining in the ball game. FLIPPING 2 PAGES for all those people was sooooo much more stressful!! BUT I DID IT!!!! Was I proud or what! Some people say i'm humble but lets just say after i successfully flipped those pages there was no no NO humility involved hahaha jk It was fun though!!!

 Elder Oaks is the MAN! I learned so much from him. He talked about the importance of a testimony and how that testimony is what shapes an investigators/New converts life in the church. Another thing i loved that he talked about was the importance of TEACHING AND BAPTIZING in order to get people to the temple. Sometimes as missionaries we forget about the temple part. We are just so focused on our purpose which is to baptize that the temple part kinda goes unnoticed. Well Elder Oaks helped us notice it. Our purpose as missionaries is to GET PEOPLE TO THE TEMPLE.... and in order to do that you have to be BAPTIZED!!! So it was really an eye opener for us as missionaries but something that we desperately needed to hear. It was awesome!

 

Also guess what!!!! remember Novelty? Way back when?? So this passed week we were going to see him but at the same time our goal and game plan was to set his wife.. Teresa with a baptism date! So we truly didn't know how to go about it. We've tried setting teresa with a baptism date for months now. She goes to church every sunday with novelty and their daughter. They are basically all members. Like their so amazing we will have investigators at church and i'll say ok well give us a few minutes and we will take you to class... THEN next thing i know teresa runs up grabs their hand and says i will take them for you elders no worries! haha we are like what??? why can't the members be like that haha Novelty and Teresa are the best i love them so much. So back to this lesson.. We go in there and she begins talking about church on sunday and how in class they talked about the family. She loves the family. They talked about more or less the plan of salvation and how after this life we will be able to live with our families for eternity. She loved it. She just was so happy in the lesson, we could tell. So that was basically going to be our spring board for the lesson we were going to teach. We were going to bring up that spirit she felt in class and then follow the spirit to know how to set her with a date. Well as we talked with her about this lesson on sunday she said oh elders guess what. After that lesson on sunday i came home and was feeled with the spirit. I was happy. I felt peaceful. It was a good day. Well then come to find out elders that night my son got in a Car accident. Both air bags went off and he totalled his car. BUT guess what... He walked out of that accident with just a lil scratch on his cheek. He was fine perfectly fine. Then she asked, Elders i feel grateful and happy for god watching over and protecting my family... HOW CAN I GIVE BACK TO HIM? WHAT CAN I DO TO SHOW HIM THANKS? hahaha immediately the light bulb clicked in my head. I looked at her and said Teresa God loves you. He loves your family. The one thing that You can do and that GOD WANTS you to do is to follow that example he put before you and to be baptized!!!!!!!!!! Right as i said that she said okay.... Your right i need to do that, its time. So she accepted a date for this saturday. The 26th of Oct!!! I'm so so so excited for her and i can't believe how great god is for giving me this opportunity to watch her walk into that baptismal font and make this covenant with god!! It's going to be awesome!! Not only that though God set everything up! He performed every little miracle there was to help Teresa receive this anwser about baptism!! I love God I love Teresa I love the MISSION FIELD. I love you all family and i look forward to writing you next week about this amazing baptism!

 

Also Margarita... She lives with her brother and sista in law. We have been working a lot with them and the've been to church 3 times now. Love it everytime and they wanted me to tell YOU my parents thanks for everything. They said you guys are like the best parents in the world because i am in the right path. The path in which god has put before us to be happy. So thank you mom and dad!!! Your helping me for 18 years is going to help a few investigators now be baptized. Through examples, the gospel, prayer and the spirit!!

 

Love you all and have an amazing week! Keep doing work on the mountain!! Peace!! Until next week my loved ones!

 

Elder Ovard

Kenneth and Margarite were both baptized!

Coach wad emailed me haha i loved hearing from him! Also let me know if theres anything i can do for you all! Love you! OH and p.s. I forgot to tell you about a funny story haha so Margarita had us over for dinner and the A.P. was on an exchange with us. The food was awesome but the drink there is a story behind haha so this was before we taught her the word of wisdom. What happened was It was one of the Arizona drinks. Lots of them have tea in them. So the A.p. and I looked over at the Arizona can and sure enough the one she gave us had tea in it. So the A.p. and i didn't say anything to margarita. We just figure we wouldn't drink it. Then 5 min later we look over and Elder Millett is just chugging it down hahahha chug chug chug..... Eventually the a.p. and i just start crackin up a bit. We didn't know what to do. We couldn't offend Margarita. She offered us coffee before and we had to deny her and it made her feel bad. So we watched Elder millett drink a big glass of green tea hahahahahha it was funny. We told him after and he had no idea. He was a little upset but then again we all laughed it off!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCLAMATION POINT hahahahha peace

What is up Family!!!!!!!!

 

What an amazing amazing week huh! I love General Conference! Especially as a missionary haha I tell ya what it's like CHRISTMAS in the mission. A time to sit back and relax and enjoy the show haha Honestly thats how i felt this past weekend! At the same time though God blessed us tremendously! Elder Millett and I started off the week solid. We worked as hard as we could with all the people that came to church last week. If you remember right last week we had 8 that came to church. Well one of them i think i told you about. His name was Kenneth. Kenneth is a thug haha g unit to the max!! He is a stud though. I love him. We actually met him about 3 weeks ago as we were harvesting and knocking doors. Kenneth i knocked in to on an exchange. From day one he was always talking about his past. What he had done, Where he had been, ETC.. It was crazy. We always enjoyed it though. Lots of the stuff he went through, he regretted. He didn't like the person that he used to be. His actions and choices eventually led him to jail. We love kenneth and everyday we went over to see him our hearts were filled by the spirit. His desire to repent and be forgive was off the charts. We taught him a lot about repentance and the power of the atonement. It was hard teaching him at the same time because he cant read to well and so it takes him some time to understand things. And as we learn from PMG doctrine (or what were teaching) understood changes behavior. So us as missionaries our goal was to help him understand truly the importance of repentance and the atonement. WELL sure enough as he understood he changed. He became a better man and GUESS WHAT he was baptized on sunday!!! YEAH YEAH YEAH haha he's a stud.  We love him. God Loves him. God loves me and i thank him for the blessing i had to be his guide in his conversion.

Now moving on to Margarita!!!! She was amazing. Margarita is also another lady that i knocked into with another missionary. She was so prepared and accepted baptism there at her door after we said a prayer with her. BUT the miracle is that I said this prayer with her like 2 months ago. For a month or so I was always going to follow up with her and trying to stop by to see her and teach her. It was nearly impossible to get in contact with her. We didn't know what was up. Well eventually we got in contact with her. We taught her for a week or so then guess what.... she disappeared again. haha We didn't know what to do. We were so close to dropping her because one, we couldn't get in contact and two, she hadn't kept her commitment of church for like 2 weeks. So we were planning on dropping her but we decided to put forth our faith and stop by her house one more time! As we did she was home!!! She let us right in and began telling us all about Joseph Smith. She told us the story of moroni appearing to josephs room and telling him about the book of mormon. She went on and on about joseph smith. We were so so confused. It had been a long time since we'd seen her and here she was telling the story of joseph smith finding the book of mormon better then i could tell it!!!! haha it was incredible!! Come to find out, the last time we were there teaching her we left the commitment to read the testiomony of the prophet joseph smith with her. She kept her commitment and read it. Then we find out she was a doctor in nicaragua where she is from. She is a doctor. Super smart and intelligent. She is awesome!! She as well after that lesson changed completely. She came to church twice and then conference this past weekend. She ALSO was baptized on sunday!! Funny story though. Her name comes from russia for some reason and so it's like 5 words long. WELL turns out i couldn't remember her names at all so she had to say her name then i repeated it as i baptized her hahaha ALL IN SPANISH as well. oh boy it was funny haha certainly something that brought some laughter as well as spirit:)

Kenneth and Margarita both were baptized and boy it was awesome. An amazing baptism service inbetween conference sessions haha. I will never forget that! God is good and i love him and all he has done for me! I've learned so much since being here in the mission. MOM i just knew you were going to love the EXLAMATION POINT talk haha i thought of you during that one! All the talks were super good and I learned a lot. I hope all of you did as well! Love you keep up the good work with everything. Miles looks like he is doing great as well. I love him already and just can't wait to hold him. It'll come fast though. Too fast is the problem. I can't believe it's already the 7th of october. HUNTING SEASON thats what i'm talking about! DAD start sending the pictures haha hopefully you can get a nice beautiful pic of you with some big curves huh!! haha love you all peace!!!

 

 

Members Invite Not the Missionaries

MI FAMILIA!!!!!!!!

 

What is up??? All of you just make me so happy and i can see through the emails the spirit that you each carry with you! I love that about my amazing wonderful family! I love you all! Keep up the good work and being strong in all that you do!

 

Miles looks as if he is growing and looking more and more like his uncle :) I love the lil mohawk he's got going on haha what a stud!! I'm glad to hear though that he is healthy and doing well... paige, quite the crying i'll be home in a week. LITERALLY thats how it feels. The mission is flying by. I can't believe nick and jake brown are going home in like 3 or 4 months. Thats crazy to me because i remember saying bye to both of them. I am super amazed though to see all that each one of my cousins and friends are accomplishing in their missions! It's the best! I think of my mission and how great it is, then i look at the big picture and think of all 80,000 missionaries and how they feel the same about their missions. They as well see the same success and happiness in the work. I love that about missionary work! It's awesome!

 

This past week here in FLO RIDA was a lot lot better:) We got to go get some work done!!! And god HIMSELF was a big part of it:) Elder Millett is now feeling better. He got done taking all his medication and now he is all the way their (if ya know what i mean) hahaha He's doing good though and feeling a lot better. This past week has been the happiest i have ever seen him i think. SO... he must be feeling better. The happiness and love that we had was contagious! You could see the diference it made in the work. We found, taught and helped souls repent by coming to church. This past week elder millett and i (and god) were able to get 8 people to church! What maravillosa verdad!! It was so cool. One of our big focuses were working with the members. The District Training which i gave was all about preparing members before lessons. Helping them to understand their purpose in the lesson and also the commitment in which we wanted the MEMBER to leave with them. That was the objective of the training. MEMBERS INVITE NOT THE MISSIONARIES. It was amazing to see as we applied that throughout our week god blessed us. We had one lesson for example with a guy named kenneth. Kenneth is kinda a gangsta so we decided to have one of our recent converts Derek (whom is black with grills hahaha) come with us. That way derek could be a lil thug with him but at the same time share short sweet powerful testimony. So before the lesson i was telling derek. Aight man listen up we need you in this lesson. Kenneth needs you. God needs you. We then complimented him for always reading his scriptures and going to church. Then we talked to him about church and how he liked church. How he feels there, etc. After that we said okay Derek we want you at the end of this lesson to invite Kenneth to come to church on sunday and sit with you. Will you do that?? he looked at us with a ( i pooped my pants ) kind of look. haha sorry for the description but it's the truth! He was scared to death and he said, "come on man i cant do that. You can't put that on me man. I can't vibe like that." hahah we then used doctrine to help him understand the importance of him inviting. Eventually he said okay i got it. I'm pumped. yeah lets go i'm ready. SO WE WENT!! That lesson we were teaching repentance and the importance of the atonement of christ. So at that end of that our plans were to explain to him he can show his desire to repent to god as he came to church the next day. THEN after that derek would invite him to church. WELL.... It didn't quite go like planned. After we got done talking about repentance i said. "So kenneth will you pray and ask god for a forgiveness of your past sins tonight?" Before Kenneth could even anwser DEREK jumped in and said "also my man we wanna invite ya to church this sunday. will ya come?" hahahha oh man so there was kenneth with 2 commitments running in his brain haha it was great!!!! BUT guess what HE CAME TO CHURCH!!!!! The invite from the member was all he needed haha he may or may not have ignored the commitment i tried leaving with him but it didn't matter because he focused and was paying attention to the one the MEMBER left with him. It was amazing to see the influence and difference that a member has in a lesson!! WE NEED THEM IN THIS WORK!

 

We were so so blessed this past week. God is good! He's the best!!! Also big new guess what???? ELDER OAKS is coming to our mission!!!!! :) He is coming OCT 19th. What are the odds right? Went to blakes and now to mine! haha i'm super excited though. I'm even more excited for conference this weekend. I encourage each of you to take notes and to do it how Elder Bednar taught us in the MTC back in the day when i was there :( sad day haha that was a long time ago. But.... In each conference talk look for the Doctrine that the speaker is trying to teach us. Then looked for the promised blessings that they talk about and last but not least look for the Invitations that are offered to us! I have done this as i've watched conference the past 2 times and wow i get so so much out of it! I love you all and may god be with you this upcoming week! Let me know if you need anything!

 

ELDER OVARD

Elder Ovard is an Uncle

WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

haha WAZZUP family!! Looks like there is plenty of excitement going on over there! I am just a little bummed miles couldn't wait for me! haha It has been a great birthday present though for me to be able to get here to the computer and see pictures of lil baby miles. He is a cutie that is for sure! Taking after the BEST UNCLE ever!!! I couldn't decide if i was laughing more or crying more for paige and not being able to have an epidural hahahahha oh man that was funny but i feel bad for you big sis :) Be sure though to send some pictures next package. I was just thinking how now we have an excuse to party on the 22nd 23rd and 24th of september:) haha happy late bday sophie!! Anyways i'm glad to hear all the excitement about lil miles and i'm grateful to be an uncle. Kids are the best:) I love them. Paige  and Tay congrats he's a stud!! All i have to say though is make sure you get that bat in his hands ASAP. He needs a lil bat and ball. Taylor will probably just give him a ball and a mitt but paige you do as your uncle commands and give him a BAT too;) haha jk bro!

 

This birthday has been once to remember!! I can't believe I am 20 already. I don't really like it too much. I'm getting old. One think i love about a birthday in the mission is it's just like every other day:) haha we have had some fun though. I did go to marshalls and spoil myself with some new pairs of pants. I had to the other ones were just wearin and tearin on me haha. Other then that we cleaned the apartments and just been chillin a little bit. I don't know what we will do. I wanted to go up north a little bit to a place called monkey jungle. Basically it is a place full of monkeys and their just crazy. Running around jumping all over you and stuff. We were going to invite sis rogers and daines BUT my comp has been sick haha so he wont be able to make it outside for a day. Elder millett still has something wrong with his belly. We though it was a paracite from mexico but we got the results back and it wasn't that. So know we have been back to the doctor a few times in ft laud and they haven't been able to figure out whats wrong with him. They gave him some medicine this past week and it basically has been eating him alive haha it's so sad. He is constantly in the bathroom and just laying on his bed. So our past 3 days have been kinda boring. We have been staying home for about half the day then going out and working! Its been a little rough dew to the fact that we are running few for investigators right now. We haven't had time to go knock doors and stuff but it's been okay. I have had the opportunity to go on a few exchanges and what not so no worries!! We've had fun! I have had a little extra time around the house so YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.... Elder ovard starts thinking pranks:)

 

So this past week I filled up a huge huge waterballoon. Like were talking a foot long! I filled it up then put it underneath the sheets of elder orullians bed:) (one of the elders i live with)  hahaha this elder every night before he goes to bed he Jumps onto his bed. So it couldn't have been any more perfect. I hid it there then that night he goes and does a BIG JUMP right onto his bed.... Seconds later he looks up and says...."WHY am i wet??" hahahha we all just began laughing and laughing!!!! He was so so confused and didn't know what was going on then we told him and he started cracking up as well:) Turns out he planned to get me back but i caught him. He tried putting shampoo in my toothpaste haha what the heck!!!! okay okay enough of the pranks! I have plenty more waterballoons :)

 

As far as work goes this past week though we didn't get much more done due to our lack of time and abilities. We did work hard with the time we had though and god blessed us with finding some new people and teaching some powerful lessons.

 

Transfers as you know were this week. Elder orullian is getting transfered and the rest of us in the house are staying! So it's not a big change for us. Sister rogers is staying with sister daines here in the homestead zone so i'll still see her a lot which is always fun! Anyways thats about it for me! I love you all! Let me know if theres anything i can do for you!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

I HATE REPTILES/Giving Novelty the Aaronic Priesthood

What up FAMILIA!!!!!!

 

I can't believe another week is down. Just sitting here thinking guess what.... NEXT time i email it'll 1. Be my birthday and 2. None of you will read my email until late late at night because you'll all be at the hospital with lil baby miles!!! HES COMING ON THE 24. I SWEAR I TOLD YAL THAT LIKE 3 MONTHS AGO :) I guess missionaries just get brushed off a lil bit for two years huh;) JK haha I love each of you!!! I'm so happy for paige and for the rest of you to be there and help her out! Sounds like each of you are being adventurous as usual:) I love it! This past week was pretty crazy around here as well. For example one night as i was brushing my teeth Elder Millett decided he was going to come in and brush his teeth with me. I thought okay i can do this... something that i had never done with him but definately done in the past with older companions haha ANYWAYS so we are there brushing our teeth and i point at the window. There on the outside of the window was a GIANT LIZARD. When i say Giant i mean it's pretty normal to see like 7 inch long lizards around here so you can imagine a GIANT one. So Elder millett decides to go and hit the window and try and make the lizards fall off. So he does..... AND FAILS. Then he gets the BRILLIANT idea of opening the window a little bit until it just falls off because he hits the other window as we are opening the one. Well turns out as Elder millett is opening the window... The lizard back fires on him. The Lizard like LEAPS inside the bathroom right onto the toilet. great..... NOW WHAT??????? I immediately ran out of the bathroom and shut the door.. keep in mind toothpaste just running down my cheeks. I HATE REPTILES. you all know that already. So i was not getting involved. I forced yes FORCED Elder millett to catching the thing and throwing it back outside. I didn't want a lizard in my bathroom. Well another factor now comes into play. This factor is the CLOCK. It was 10:28 and the Lizard was still roamin free in the bathroom. Running up and down our shower.... my towell... our sink.... etc.. 10:29 strikes. TIME FOR PRAYING. AHHHHHHH so we folded a blanket and shoved it underneath the door so that the lizard wouldn't be able to escape the bathroom into the house. So here we are laying in bed because it's 10:30 while a BIG GIANT LIZARD is chilling in a nice beautiful big pearly white bathroom for a night. Just living in paradise huh!!! AHHHH what a nightmare i had! It was crazy hahaha The next morning we were able to manage to get it out. It took us a lil while but we got it done! TALK ABOUT CRAZY HUH

 

On the spiritual side of things haha we had an amazing lesson with noveltys wife. Her name is tereysa. We have been working with her for quite some time now. Probably close to 2 months. It's crazy. We were able to trake a member with us though that once again helped a lot. This member was able to testify and relate to our investigator tereysa. By the end of the lesson we were able to commit her to a baptism date for this coming saturday:) Que Bueno Verdad?? Then to top off the miracle guess what else... Her husband Novelty whom you all know so much about, He was able to get the priesthood this past sunday. So now he will be able to baptize her if thats what she desires. It was amazing how everything set up perfectly and how god truly does have his own time.

 

So speaking of Novelty getting the priesthood.. guess who he asked to do it??? ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! uh oh... How do i do that?? haha i had to do a lil studying and reading just as a mission in whole requires:) but i figured it out and I was able to give our recent convert novelty the aaronic priesthood. It was pretty amazing and once again a great testimony builder for me!!

 

Other then that it was a week full of finding and knocking doors and saying prayers with people. We met many many wonderful souls that desire to come unto christ. Now it is our job to be there helping them and showing them the things in which they can do through ACTIONS to show god this desire that they have!

 

Also my spanish haha many of you have asked about it.... How is it??? hmmmmm many say it's good but i still am not satisfied. I can communicate with people and that truly is all that matters because i can fulfill my purpose but also I know I can learn more and progress even more with it. So i'll keep working and eventually i can be satisfied with myself:) I'm sure it wont come though on the mission and probably not even after as i study it at college haha

 

Also really quick i did ask president Anderson about baseball. He didn't give me much of an anwser but by all means he was COMPLETELY understanding and open with it all. He wants us to be sure that we are leaving opportunities open when we get home. He thinks it's great that i have a scholarship and want to accomplish great things with that talent god has given me. I told him the situation and he said we will just have to see what happens as time gets closer but if you only have to leave like a week or so earlier then transfers the i'm okay with that. I was so confused because he told everyone else they couldn't do that haha like Elder Hunter. It was weird so i was SUPER SUPRISED when he told me that. So as of now from what i understand i will be able to come home when i need to:) It doesn't matter if its half way through the transfer he said he'll make it work!! That was exciting to hear!

 

Anyways i love all of you and hope you are all staying dry as here in florida it has been kinda hard for that as well haha love you all and hope the blessings and miracles continue forward in your behalfs :)

 

Love ELDER OVARD

 

                                          Elder Ovard, Novelty, and Elder Millett