A week of Gratitude!

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

What a week of gratitude:) haha thank you all for taking that to heart and thinking pondering and praying about all the wonderful things god has blessed us with!! I tell you what though i am excited to write you all today!!!! GUESS WHAT!!!!!!!!! God loves us! God is good! God is great! He blessed us (Elder millett, whos been in his mission for a week and I) with 5 amazing baptisms! We couldn't believe it! All baptisms that i know are converted and have shown their faith and love to god! One of them was novelty! Novelty if you all remember is the guy we have been working with for about a month and a half or so... when we first met him he has ZERO faith. He barely believed in christ being like the son of god. Well he was one that was baptized. He is the best. He asked me to baptize him which made me feel super grateful and loved. Before he always told us he wanted his friend who was a member to do it. The one that actually introduced him to the church at work. But a few days before the baptism i asked him... so who do you want to baptize you?? he said.. well I want you!! You have helped me recieve blessings. You've helped me understand how god works. Your helped me recognize the spirit... etc.. it was something that i will never forget. I love him. At the baptism a lot of the member focused on the other family that was being baptized and they kinda forgot about novelty. So after the baptism i went up and said sorry to novelty and told him we didn't know why everyone forgot his name. He looked me straight in the eyes and said... God knows. He's the only one that matters..... When i heard him say that I just teared up. I couldn't believe it! He's amazing and i love him. His wife teresa will follow his footsteps here shortly. give her a week or 2. The other family that was baptized was Delio Gamboa and his family!! Delio, Pamela, mayte and melanie!!! I love all them as well :) a BIG family haha to see them all go and take the step of baptism together was a different kind of special!!!! If you remember they are the family that randomly showed up to church on sunday with pamela's mom! The one that was a member in New York. They randomly showed up after elder thomposon and i had done everything we could earlier that week. This family was a blessing from god and now they are baptized! It was super funny, so earlier this week we had to get them all interview and ready for their baptism. So I was on an exchange with a zone leader. Well he went inside the home to interview the mom and i couldn't go in because there wasn't a man in the house. So i ELDER OVARD had the brilliant idea of say hey let me at least take all the kids off your shoulders and i'll play with them outside while you doing the interview. So thats what happened!! Well little did I know that Mayte is super smart and ALWAYS asking questions. Melanie has autism and michelle the youngest one has ADHD. Oh boy!!!!! It was probably the roughest baby sitting experience of my life hahhaaha wow!!!!! I was not like watching the terry kids. haha I was like drippin sweat after watching these 3 girls. I literally was like sore the next day because i was doing everything in my power to keep them out of the street. haha anyways they are all alive and safe and BAPTIZED :) haha Both of these families have changed my life! Never will i ever forget everything that they went through to get where they are now. Which is into that gate of eternal life. They are on the path. God will help them through their conversion to stay there:)

 

We continued to see amazing miracles this past week!! Elder Millet is doing really good!!! Still an excited hyper missionary that i love:) He desires to work and thats a great quality to have!! It's sounds like back home it was an exciting week huh!! Branson and Amberlee i can't believe that! I'm excited for them! Paige i can't believe is getting ready to have a lil boy! He'll be like his uncle!!

 

Thank you all for the package this past week. It was bomb!!!! Lots of good nice WHITE shirts and even a beautiful tie:) I have found out that my new addiction are ties and watches haha shoes.... not so much but trust me... ADDICTIONS always come back unless the lord helps but i haven't asked him for specific help in this category :) wonder why right?? haha I can't believe the year mark has come and gone though. I thought it would always be a happy day but in all honesty it was quite sad :( haha it's crazy!!

 

Anyways i want you all to know how much i love the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is todopoderoso as you would say in spanish. Through him he will always support us in times of need. Even if were having a rough day. Ask him for help. He WILL help you. Just as he helped Novelty receive an anwser to his prayer and also just ask he Helped us to receive a miracle from god and have delio and his family randomly show up to church one day. Now their all baptized. I love you all and please remember that!!

 

ELDER OVARD

 

                The Gamboa Family Baptized!  Delio, Pamela, and their girls Mayte and Melanie.

 

              Novelty Being baptized by Elder Ovard.  Also it is Elder Millett's first week in the field.

New Greenie Elder Millett

WAZZUP FAMILY!!!!!

 

Wow another week down and the first year down.... i guess!! DANG haha i can't believe it. Time doesn't exist in the mission field but BOY OH BOY do i have a lot to tell you all this week.

 

Starting with my new comp! He is from sandy UT. His name is ELDER MILLETT! he is an amazing kid. Super nice and friendly and he definately has some greenie fire:) i love that!! Anyways he went to the mtc in mexico before coming here to florida. I thought that was crazy. I was jealous until he began telling me about it and the food and stuff haha. No bueno. He actually reminds me a lot of the elder on the best 2 years. haha to the max!!! I say that out of love though i truly do. He just is an excited missionary to be out in the field. He asks so so many questions haha it's hilarious!!!!! then afterwards he's like ummmmm should i write that down?? hahahhaha oh man!!! Then we are sometimes talking to people in english and they will ask him a yes or no question and he will reply... SI !!!!! Like yes in spanish hahaha oh boy he keeps me a laughin thats for sure! I love it! He's a stud and we had a lot of success this past week. We KNOW it was thanks to god though. He is good i tell you what! We saw so many miracles i'll share a few of them with you know :)...

 

So it all started with transfer meeting. President Anderson is a stud! He talked about the sons of mosiah. When they all left to go their seperate ways. Then he talked about before them leaving how Alma blessed each and everyone of them so that they would have success in their endeavors. WELL guess what.. President is an inspired man and there standing at the pulpit he blessed each and every missionary by the athority of the melchizedek priesthood. It was amazing!!! each of us were like crying! The spirit was so so so strong! I love president so much. He blessed us that we would see miracles and wonderful things would come to us as we were caught doing. It was awesome. So it all started with that... THEN.... my companion and i talked about how we were going to recognize all these miracles that we recieve from god through a prayer of gratitude. We thanked GOD for everything!!!!! We THEN were excited to get to work. The very first day we got home from transfers and put the bags down and got knocking doors. We knew miracles were waiting for us. We found like 3 families that day that all accepted return apts and accepted church on sunday. Each of them were a lil hesitant about baptism though just because they had the catholic background but it was nothing that the spirit couldn't change! Immediately after each blessings with these So one day as we were following up with one of these families we walked outside and gave a prayer of gratitude once again. Right after we did that we looked up and there was this girl out walking her dog. We went right up to her and contacted her. We told her we were representative of Jesus Christ. We said god wants us to say a prayer with you. She didn't hesitate to accept. During the prayer my companion who just got here to the mission field 2 days earlier was surely taking a beating from her dog. haha I was praying and the dog was jumping all over him. He was doing everything he could to calm the dog so that cynthia (this lady we contacted) could feel of the spirit. Well guess what... After the prayer we asked cynthia how she felt. She said "I feel amazing.. peaceful.. i know that you guys were sent from god. Me and my husband have actually been visiting around to churches to find one that we want to join and this sunday we actually didn't have one to go to.." We then immediately testified of how we were sent from god and how he wanted her to come to church with us on sunday and prepared to be baptized. She accepted them and said okay we will be to church. Well she and her husband and their 20 week old baby all showed up to church. They loved it. And it didn't stop. One of the speakers in sacrament meeting was actually a guy that cynthia knew from work. WHAT A MIRACLE RIGHT!!!!! it was insane haha so so amazing to see god perform that miracle. We didn't hesitate once again to offer up a prayer of gratitude. Gratitude is the Best!! I know that it was through the gratitude that the miracles continued to happen this week. We ended up getting 8 people in total to church this past sunday. 5 of which were two different families that will be baptized this saturday! So that will be 6 people baptized on saturday. What an amazing way to start a mission for a new missionary full of faith and desire. I love this work so so much i love the gospel and the chance that i have once again to train one of gods babies! I love each of you and I want you to always remember that!

Remember the principle of Gratitude. Recognize the blessing that you recieve this week. Then offer up a prayer of thanks to god. I promise you if you do it your week will be full of excitement and full of help from god. Earn the miracle first through obedience faith and repentance, then notice it by giving god a prayer of gratitude and then do it again. Continue to have the mindset of miracles. God WILL bless you familiy i PROMISE will all my heart!!

 

Also guess what!!!!! SISTER ROGERS AND I are in the same zone hahaha how crazy right??? she is the area directly north of me. I will see her on friday once again at zone conference. Its fun being in the same zone with her. Also elder hunter and elder white are both in my zone. We truly do have fun. I just have to continue to put trust in god to help me to help elder millett!! He will be a stud!!

 

These 2 families that are getting baptized this sunday are novelty and teresa. Novelty is the one that had god anwser his prayer at work. After the member invited him to pray in times of need.

Then the other family is the family that randomly showed up to church that one sunday. After Elder thompson and i had done everything in our power to get people to church and we only got 1 person  but then this family walked in. They are awesome. We got Delio the dad to stop smoking. We took his last box of cigarrettes with us:) I LOVE DOING THAT!!! i'm excited for this saturday. It'll be amazing. I have dreamed of baptizing families!!

 

Anyways i love you all have a great week and Todo esta bien aqui en Homestead :)

 

ELDER OVARD

                                       
                                                                              Elder Ovard and Sister Rogers

                                       Elder Ovard's "New Greenie"    Elder Millet and Sister Rogers with her companion.

Training again!!

Well whats up family!!!!

 

SO HERES THE BIG NEWS FROM HERE IN HOMESTEAD!!!!!!

 

ELDER THOMPSON............. TRANSFERS

ELDER "OVARD......... STAYS.........................................AND.......................................TRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

What the heck???????? hahahahhaha i can't believe it!!! God wants me to train another one of his new beginning missionaries!! I'm so dang excited!! I will find out who he is tomorrow at transfer meeting haha so we'll see. I am praying and hoping like crazy that it is a Latin. I think it would be so much fun to train a Latin. We could just tear it up. Latins are hard workers and thats what i want. I am going to miss Elder Thompson so dang much. He's got a girlfriend that can be a lil hard for him sometimes but he's awesome. He knows his purpose. Anyways. It makes me happy to know the trust that god is giving me once again. I'm excited to train and get another baby boy!! I will have 2 kids in the mission already haha most people don't train twice. The people that do.... well they've told me a few things haha they say, " you never get 2 sons that you enjoy, prepare for a rough one" haha they say that because elder white and I got along so well. They don't thing my next son will be as fun BUT to be honest i'm not worried at all. I know God will give me who he wants me to have. I haven't had a problem with any companion yet and i know it's because of the attitude that i have towards them. If I love, serve, and help them all the problems wiill be resolved so i have no need to worry!! Im super excited though to go up to transfer meeting and see all the former comps. I love them all.

 

This past week was cool though! Thanks for sending me a package i should get it tomorrow! We had a few amazing things happen this past week. One of our desires that we have been focusing on is getting members involved with like every lesson and allowing the members to invite the investigators to keep commitments. It's been awesome. This past week we had a different family come to church. They were named Novelty and Teresa. Both Spanish from Columbia. The other family that god blessed us with. We are still working with them and they should be baptized next saturday:) anywyas. Novelty and teresa came to church. Novelty lacks faith. He doesn't believe much in like the power that god has. He knows he is there, but he doesn't believe in like god anwsering his prayers and stuff. SOOOO we took a member over. Bro Stancliff who is actually from like provo area. We prepared bro stancliff before we went in and taught the lesson. We told Brother Stancliff that we wanted him to invited novelty to pray about baptism and to pray to know if the church of jesus christ is the true church. So it was a really really spiritual lesson and bro stancliff invited novelty to pray. Well a miracle happened. A day later Novelty called us and said Elders you will not believe it. I am here at work and i got a call to go and change someones lock to their house. Well they misinformed me and the job that they want me to do is a 2 man job but i was the only one there. So i tried and tried to change this lock. I had a crow bar in the truck and even used that. I tried for an hour to change this long and i couldn't do it. After being depressed and mad about them misinforming me i decided to do just as the member asked. I decided to offer up a quick prayer telling god to help me because these clients would be mad if i didn't get the job done that day. So he offered up a prayer to god. Well right after the prayer Novelty told us that he heard a voice that said... Try using your hand...... Novelty ignored it. The voice again said .... Try using your hand.... so Novelty thought that is a weird idea but ill try it. WELL family that was God talking to Novelty through the spirit. Novelty opened and changed the lock withing 5 minutes after that. He knew without a doubt that that was God helping him. His faith was strengthened because of that invitation from the member. It was so so so awesome to see. Now Novelty and Teresa will WILL be baptized :) I love missionary work so so so much!!!! I know that when members invite there is so much more power and so much more commitment. THE MEMBERs ARE TRULY NEEDED IN THIS WORK>

 

Other then that, it's another week for us!!! A great one. We're sad to leave each other but ready for a new start!!

I love you all have an amazing week and let me know if theres anything i can do to help you all!!

 

ELDER OVAR

The Lord Is In Control!

FAMILY!!

 

Here we are at it another week!! I Can't believe it once again!!

 

1. my shirt size will be a 15 1/2 still. I like that size the best! I can fit into them no worries. I will probably need around 5-7 or so i think. That will last me the rest of my mission hopefully!

2. I still do my best to write in my journal as well. It just is soooo cool in the recorder haha no worries i'll do both. I will buy that memory card and save everything onto that so it'll be safe!

 

Sounds like each one of you are doing awesome!! Each of you are having amazing things happen in your lives. This past week was a great one! Elder thompson and I had a lot of success finding new families! We worked so hard. Something really cool that happened was saturday we went to all our investigators homes to remind them about church. We then also called them saturday night to remind them. Then once again on sunday when we woke up we called them. We worked so so hard. As we did all this one by one our investigators had things come up. Such as emergencies, sicknesses, vaction.... whatever it was all of them said they couldn't come except for 1. We didn't know what to do. We needed to get more people to church so that we would have more people to work with and help progress towards baptism. So we truly did do EVERYTHING in our power it felt like! So we trusted in god! We got to church and our one investigator showed up.... we then waited and waited. Sacrament rolled around and right as the young man said amen a family walked in. Elder thompson and i look at each other were like WHOS THAT?? neither one of us knew them. so axiously we sat and watched this family of 4 all through sacrament meeting. Right after the meeting got over we ran up to them and introduced ourselves. They weren't members!!!! YESSSSSS haha their mom who was a member was visiting our church from New York and she brought her daughter and her family along with her to church.Her daughter and this family lives here in homestead. We talked with this family for a lil while. They mentioned oh yeah we saw you guys get up and bare your testimonies haha we were like yes that was us!!! haha anyways we hit it off immediately with this beautiful family! We were so so so grateful! God blessed us with this beautiful family!  It was just amazing to see god take over and perform once again an amazing miracle right before our eyes!!

 

Also earlier in the week i was able to interview 3 people for the other elders in our district. I interviewed a mom and her two kids. The moms name was katina. She is amazing!! As I was interviewing her she began to like explain her story and why she wanted to be baptized. As she was sharing her story with me i got the impression or prompting from god to relate her story to Joseph smith! She told me about how as she is trying to do whats right everything else in her life is getting tougher. She said after she meets with the missionaries and feels of the spirit.... later on that same day the devil will take over and try and attack her. I told her about joseph smith and his first vision. How the devil came upon him and did everything possible to keep him from seeing god the father and his son Jesus christ. As I explained all this she looked at me straight in the eyes and said.... THATS ME... I am joseph smith. I experienced all of that just as he did. Once again it was so awesome to see god work through me. She went on to passing the interview and being baptized. Her kids dropped out at the last minute but they'll be baptized this upcoming week. It was such a cool experience though to interview her and see the testimony that she already has!!

 

Everything here for me in homestead is going well. Next week are transfers ALREADY!!! it's crazy. So i'll email once again on tuesday and i'll be able to let you know if i'm transfering or staying. It was so funny this past week i met this black girl. one of A LOT here in homestead haha but anyways i asked her if it was possible for a white guy like me to have dreds in my hair. she laughed and laughed and couldn't believe it. She said honey if you do that i will be all over you i'd marry you soooo fast!!! hahaha ahhhhhhh i then realized that i will never ask that question to a black girl again hahaha it was funny though!!! The black people are so dang funny! The latins obviously just make my life though! Thats once thing i love about homestead they literally are from everywhere!!

 

Anyways thats about it for me i love you all and hope all is going well! Let me know if you need anything! I pray for each of you everyday!

 

Love ELDER OVARD

Raheem and Jaheem are Baptized!

Whats up FAMILY!!!!!

 

I can't believe i am already back here emailing you all once again!! The weeks just fly by and pretty soon i'll be over the hump which just doesn't make any sense at all to me!!! haha but It is what it is and i still have a lot of work to do in Florida thats for sure!! We had another amazing week though!! We truly did!!

The highlight was obviously yesterday at church!! We were able to get 2 families there for a total of 6 people. The one family was Derek and his two boys Raheem and Jaheem or (aka RARA and JAJA) haha they are studs that....... GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY :) haha i'll tell you about that later on. But also we had angela and her two girls come. She is a miracle that is for sure. What happened was angelas water in her apartment got turned off. 2 days later we knocked on her door and gave her a blessing. She knew it was a sign from god. She knew not having money to pay the water bill was a trial or a test sent from god. The only reason she didn't have money to pay it was because the check that she is supposed to receive each month got sent to the wrong house and that person stole it and cashed it. So she basically has nothing for this month. BUT she understood it was a test sent from god and god made that happen so that she would be open to our prayer when we knocked! It was awesome! We helped round up some money for her and we helped her... but we didn't help her with all of it. We did that so she would have to show faith and desire to receive it from god. Each time we went over she wanted us to help her soooo badly. We told her we would have loved to but we didn't have extra money like that. We told her all she can do is trust and god and have faith in him so that he can provide a way for her to get the other half of the money she needed to pay her water bill. Well one lesson afterwards we told her as she was crying... Angela we want you to get on your knees and ask god to provide a way for you to receive this money! As she did she said the most beautiful prayer!! It was amazing! she was crying and pleading to god with all her heart. It was a sincere prayer. Well 3 hours later she called us and said she found a way of getting the other half of her money! She did it... God did it! He prepared a way for her. It was such a testimony builder for me with the power of prayer. We have to be sincere and do it with all our heart! God grants us blessings according to our desires!! What a great god he is!!

 

Okay on to the baptism!! :) So we baptized RARA and JAJA... well their father derek baptized them. Derek is a recent convert and was baptized 3 months ago.Big buff black guy with GOLD TEETH!! haha Now he baptized his 2 kids. I was so special! To see him do it was something else. It took him awhile to finally get it right but he got it!! They were both baptized and right afterwards they came up to us and said... WELL we will see you at church next week!! haha Their both 11. TWINS. Elder thompson and i were so blessed. We have been working with them and teaching them for a few weeks. They were ready and were awesome! We just have to keep them involved and loving the gospel. I'll send a picture of them:) i'll try at least!!

 

I got the package!! It was the best haha i loved it! I've been talking in the recorder everyday! i'm going to try and send some recordings home today we'll see if it works. Idk if it'll let me but we'll see. I need to go and buy a little memory card for it! I want to do my journal on that. It really is so much better. I can say everything in like 5 minutes with detail and it's super funny!! Then after the mission i'll have to hire aynsley or someone to type it all up for me so i can put it in a book haha but anyways i love it!! Even used it in a few lessons!! Espanol lessons :)

 

Anyways i love you all! Crazy to think my bro is falling in love though!!! Wowsers!!!! a new baby and a wedding what am i going to come home to?? hahaha jk jk im glad i'm happy if your all happy:) Jealous of a few things.... Dad out on the mountain!!! haha no i can handle it! I'm glad the sheep and bucks are still waiting there for me!!

 Keep working hard!! Everyone still has work?? staying busy?? keep it up. we taught the gospel principles class at church and it was on work and self responsiblity. I loved it so much. I learned so much!! It helped me understand how great of parents i have!! I love you! QUE DIOS LES BENDIGAS!!!!!

 

ELDER OVARD

 

Diana's Baptism

wazzup!!!!!

 

Wow okay here we go gotta be fast today!!!!! haha how is my beloved family??? I love you all!!!! Love the updates you give me each week. Your lives are changing and ALSO for some of you your body figure as well ;) haha wow i'm excited to see miles grow!! Aight so it was an amazing week!!! CRAZY but amazing!!!! I am so glad you were able to meet elder hunt! Like i said i tood his place and am with his son now and loving it!!! What did he say?? He told me he was going to go visit you guys but i didn't believe him haha i love that kid! I truly do! He was a stud misisonary! Hope he only said good things about the one and only elder ovard!!

So this past week Elder thompson and I......... Drum roll please......... BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha it was so awesome!!! We baptized a girl that we have been working with. It was an amazing story as well. So this girls name is Diana. She is only 16 yrs old. We have been teaching her familiy like ever since i got into the area. All the family wants to be baptized but each one of them has their own little problem. Whether its with a commandment or what but the rest of the fam couldn't be baptized yet. Diana was ready though. We were trying to push her back so that she could be baptized with the fam but that wasn't going to fly with her. She would always so I AM READY I WANT TO BE BAPTIZED!!!!! haha. so we talked about it. Talked to our bishop. Talked to president. Together we were able to come up with what we needed to do! She needed to be baptized anyways so that she would be able to help her family. She could be that example and show them the way. We talked with diana about this and she said... wow you guys are good. Thats was like exactly my thought process and what i was thinking and i never said any of that to you all. It was awesome. I guess thats what a lot of PRAYER and trusting in god through talking with his leaders he calls can do for you!! ANyways she ended up getting baptized :) It was a beautiful baptism but now many people showed up. I ended up conducting it since the guy that was supposed to didn't come. It was too bad. Her familiy was there though and they really enjoyed it!! Now our plans and goals are to work with them a lil more. Her mom is pregnant and due like anytime and each time i go over there i think of paige AHHHHH dang you hahah jk im excited it truly am it's just too bad that he is going to have to go a year A WHOLE YEAR without meeting his favorite uncle and family member :) haha jk i love you guys!! Anyways so this family has what it takes and they have DESIRE which is truly all they need. We will work with them!!! God will work with them and he will be the one that motivates them to act! Funny story we played basketball with dianas brothers. They are kinda punks and think their all that haha so anyways... they began talking crap soooo i had to show them up. I had to. I told them i would take me vs. them two. If I win then they need to stop talking crap and be respectful to others. hahaha i'm telling ya they are crazy. they always disrespect people. So we played!!! I lost hahahaha jk jk I WON!! I BEAT THEM!! Really rusty but my plan worked out. It was just funny to see their faces afterwards. They thought there was no way possible for a tall white kid in church clothes, could beat them. Anyways it was good because it  helped them to be quiet. Now each time we go over there they don't run their mouths as much. it's funny!! I love that family though i truly do! They are the best!

Also today for pday guess what??? I think were going to a batting cage!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! finally haha baseball! I think there is like a fiesta fun batting cage here somewhere close. We are going to go and hit it up probably! We also have to clean the apartment so we'll see but im looking forward to swinging it a lil bit! See what these 30 poulds can do for me :)

Anyways!! I better get going! There has been lots of rain here. It's awesome though. It just pours and pours then stops and 5 min later it's sunny! Key largo was awesome! Were going to go back this week sometime! I still am yet to see a gator but i want to. Some members still wanna take us to the everglades so we'll make that happen sometime! I love you all so much and hope you have an amazing week! Let me know if there is anything i can do to help you! Can't believe i've already been out 11 months WOW!!!! Goes so so fast. Love you bye

 

ELDER OVARD

This is Diana!  She is a goofyone but, we sure do love her!!!  She is with her mom.  Her mom is the pregnant one that always makes me think of Paige.  As you can tell this family keeps us laughing.  They couldn't even take a normal picture!  We LOVE them.

LOVE

Beautiful FAMILY!!

 

How grateful am i this wonderful monday morning here in southern florida!!! I will continue to tell you all how much i love it here. It is truly the best! Country is the best just put it that way haha i love VISITING the big city though. I am so very grateful for God. All the many wonderful blessings and miracles that he bestowed upon me this past week. My district was able to reach numbers and goals higher then ever before. We as a companionship (Elder thompson and i) were able to get 8 people to church and probably 4 that have a baptism date for this sunday. We truly are seeing amazing miracles here in homestead and in the mission field. I pray to god each night that he will protect and guide my beautiful family. As i have reflected on the week and also through studying my patriarchal blessing I have came down to the conclusion of what lead to this success. The anwser is as simple as..... LOVE!!!! In my patriarchal blessing it says something like "it doesn't matter any problem or concern that someone has the pure love of christ will always always healeth them" This Love was was i focused my district training on last week. So obviously the love of christ lead to helping and blessing the lifes of other. So how do we show people the love of christ? ITS SIMPLE! Tell them. Don't be afraid to tell someone you love them. This past week i commited every missionary in every lesson to tell every investigator they loved them. This helped us as we taught in place of christ. Look for ways to serve them. Through this love we were able to notice ways to help others. For example.. one of the older ladies that we said a prayer with one day. We knocked on her door and told her we were representatives of jesus christ then we asked her if we could pray with her. She said yes. She said she wanted to include her health in the prayer because she was sick. So after the prayer elder thompson and i asked her a specific question... can we take your trash out? she said no no you don't needa do that... then we persisted in doing so. She gave us 2 big bags of trash to take out to the dumpster. Well we weren't finished showing our love for her. We then asked her when we could return and share a quick message with her about our loving heavenly father. She said on tuesday. So we told her... okay we'll be here tuesday at 4.. also we're going to bring you a bowl of soup that way it will help you feel better okay:) As we said this and showed her this love of christ she basically broke out in tears. She felt how much we cared for her and also how much god cared for her. It was amazing! This love lead christ to perform miracles in our hands. These miracles are always happening to us. It's important that we recognize them!!!! As i was on an exchange with one of our zone leaders (elder jones) we went to visit a lady at 4:30. When we got there she wasn't there. Seconds later elder jones looked at his planner and said dangit thats my fault we were supposed to be here at 4 so she probably is gone. Well we looked at each other and said there is a reason god put us here. Next thing we know a lady was backing her car into a parking spot. We said to each other... this is it! We approached her and like the first words that came out of her mouth were heyyy i was baptized in your church! We went inside and asked her if we could pray with her fam none of which were members. She said yes. We went in here house and left a powerful priesthood prayer with them. Then the spirit prompted me to let this beautiful family know about the miracle in which god performed minutes before we met them. How we were outside this apt building 30 min later then we should have been. How we were supposed to even be in that area at that time... Well i followed the prompting and told this family. As i told the family about the miracle they all softened their heart and wanted to come to church on sunday. They accepted baptism and now are progress as a family. This family was prepared from the beginning but pointing out and helping them recognize the miracle is what changed them for good. The next day in my personal study i was reading about Alma when he was preaching in the city of Ammonihah. He got rejected. Not one person listened and accepted his teaching of christ. So he left the city. As he was leaving the city an angel appeared to him and told him to go back. So he did. Well on the other side of things Amulek was also visited by an angel. The angel told amulek that a prophet of god would be coming into the city and he needed to feed him (alma). So thats what happened. As they went two by two preaching the gospel amulek testified and specifically mentioned the miracle in which god had performed. How these two alma and amulek met up and how god put them together to preach to them at that time. It was amazing to read because as amulek did this the heartts of the people softened up a lil bit. Thats exactly what happened to me and elder jones when we saw that family!! IT WAS AMAZING!!!!

 

Ok onto some worldly fun haha we had a lot of spiritual fun this past week. WELL as i found out this past week on of the keys is in our area. And we have less active members down there. So elder thompson and i jumped on the bus and went down to key largo this past week!!!! We had to take the bus because we don't have miles for that in the car. It's like 30 miles away! It is awesome down there! The keys are crazy haha lots of fishing and fun! To get there we had to drive through some everglades and wow they are beautiful and SCARY to me at the same time! I am still yet to see any gators or snakes though. A member told us they'd take us one of these pdays. There are like parks and places to go see them like 15 min from our house haha so we'll go hit that up one pday!! Key largo was awesome though. We helped a LA member reopen up his pizza shop. It was the best. We know that through that LOVE and service they will return to church and his wife will be baptized.

 

Also we taught some funny lessons this week!!! haha one of the families we are working with that came to church :) they have 2 ysa age daughters. So we passed them to sister dunford and quiocho (who were in my last district) haha it was good to talk with them.... well turns out we ended up teaching this family and the ysa girls with the sister missionaries. So there was 4 of us missionaries there! We taught DOCTRINE haha it was the best. the first lesson we taught with them was one of the most spiritual lessons ever. then we went back a few days later and taught them again with the sisters. We taught about how CHRIST PATH IS STRAIGHT and we have to stay on his path or else we are on the path of satan. Then the sisters jumped in and taught how we stay on this path by  keeping commandments. We then all taught the law of chastity. It was INTERESTING haha one of the ysa girls... well turns out she is lesbian. So we taught it all and really showed her our love haha and she commited to live the law of chastity. Every member in that fam went to church is is preparing to be baptized.

 

I love you all!!! Today we are hittin up some shopping malls that are like along the swampy banks of homestead haha they will be sweet! Everything is like swampy around here. I love it though! I truly do. Elder thompson is amazing and we get along so so so well. He is a stud. He loves riding motorcycles so he may convince me into getting a bike when i get home ;) i love him though he's the best! I love you all family

 

Always remember..Love is what changes everything and determines the trust that god has for us!  BE LOVING... if there are people that are crazy and hard to deal with I know that the love is all they need. I have seen it here in the mission. Do your best and god will do the rest! I love you all and please please focus on the LOVE!!! i promise you a week and life of happiness and smiles. not only that blessings that come straight from god. Direct blessings!

 

ELDER OVARD

                                                                              KEY LARGO!   Gotta Love it!!!