GROW: Adversity is Joy!

Pinpointing where you saw loving Heavenly Father's hand in your life this day, is a real and use-ably practical way to anchor yourself to Him.  I invite you to make it a practice, an exercise, and make it grow to be a habit of the soul as much as any other need of the soul.  Search, and you will pinpoint many kindnesses and personal, intimate, encouraging instances where Heavenly Father reached out to just show you He does love and know you personally and you are important to Him. 

Look for His hand--where it was today; and this will anchor you to Him and to the depth of happiness that the world's adversity won't ever be able to shake from you. 

Christ is a foundation and an anchor, and all other things aside from Him will fall and fail.  We must be firmly attached to Him, if the most precious fruits of life are to blossom and be enjoyed in us.

I bought a new camera.  The Lord blessed me to get a really good deal on it.  He has been kind in restoring this talent back to use for me. 

I have learned anew this week how we really need to live for nothing but Christ.  No other motive.  No other topic.  No other foundation.  No other thoughts.  No other acts.  No other motivations.  No other friendships above this most imperative one. Try it; it's what we are for.  For only by this route will we reach all the light of life, all the truth of existence, all the meaning and joy and character growth our time has to offer us on this earth, and only this route will take us to who we really truly are and give us an identity that can never fade throughout all the passages of time and eternities with our families and loved ones. 

The best thing we can do, is point people to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance or changing their lives to a higher plane of joy and freedom through His Atonement, and baptism into His kingdom, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, to be sanctified and transformed into men and women for the eternities, by the reception of the Gift of the Holy Ghost by those who are in authority in this restored fullness of truth God has once again given to men in this church in these last days.



Be who Heavenly Father highest created you to gloriously be!  That comes from losing yourself to His will and changing your nature and very being, to be shaped into His masterpiece.  

It feels so good to stand up for what is right, boldly--even if you are weak and don't exactly know how to do it.. I have decided boldness and passion and both for Christ and right, are what I will make my life.  You won't see me hesitate or fear man, but you will see me stand up and live passionately and do God's will.

It has been like winter here!  The Fijians are freezing.  I feel pretty fine.. but it is my first time being in weather like this while only wearing a skirt and no pants... haha. The joys of serving in Fiji! 

Trials come upon you because God has in His design to refine you and make you pure.  I do not pray that God will take from me the very experiences and trials which He has designed to improve me.  I submit to them (Mosiah 3:19) and learn from them, and trust them as having come from an all-wise and loving Father.  I allow trials to work in me a more excellent wight of glory.  I bear well my trials, and learn to examine them.  For there will come a day when I will understand all. 

How do we really come unto Christ? 1)Desire/Faith2)Obedience3)Do His works4)Repent5)Learn of Him in the Scriptures 

for 5 I have found great things in the index of the scriptures under "Jesus Christ" that have brought me unto Him. 

Trails are now my friend and joy, I partner with them and my Savior and these very things are what make me become more like God in nature, desires and possibilities.  

I enjoy knowing this perfectly, that I am best where I am not comfortable, for only from there will I grow.  I don't live for comfort, I live for joy which is only developed in Adversity teamed with faithful righteous effort and choices.

If we stop reading the Book of Mormon, we will fall.  I testify that we need to hold tightly to the Book of Mormon and the Holy Bible, for here is how we can never fall.  It must MUST be daily, or we will WILL fall. 

I may seek the hardest endeavors life has to offer, for only these yield the most precious fruit.  I will prove to Heavenly Father  that I only want His most precious fruit, by cultivating every seed He has placed and is placing in me.  Adversity is the only conditions that are stimulative to godly growth and refinement to joy unbreakable. 

Christ's Atonement is becoming all I breathe, think, am, teach, choose to use, access and love. 

I have been speaking more Hindi than Elder Singh.  He wants to learn better English, so we have swapped languages.  My Hindi is like native. I acknowledge fully that this is all from Him. 

I love you.

We will see what the Lord has in store for transfers this week. 

_Elder Howard

The Refiner's Fire is Real   Everyone has to watch this.  It's my message this week to you.











We went to the church farm here and harvested kasava



















>>>The Refiner's Fire is Real <<<  Really, watch this!  It's my message this week to you.

Climb to Perfection

This week there have been 8 souls that have come unto Christ through the Covenant of Baptism.


I also got proposed to again.  This time was definitely the weirdest though!  She kept trying to kiss my hand and it was way freaky.  We got out of there fast! 



took this picture from a member's balcony.  Our flat is in this photo.  
On the left side^ to the right of the towers.  This is the area where we live and work daily.

We in the Mission here, assisted with the US Navy Hospital Ship Mercy during the past few weeks. This ship provided medical care to the people of Fiji at no cost. Several LDS medical professionals from the states volunteered their time to serve on the ship for the past two weeks. The ship also brought in a significant amount of supplies donated by the Church to help the people here in Fiji. 

​
A miracle from this week: 

My whole district needed to get to this above shown hospital--and we had to get there straight away but we had no transport.  So, the Lord told me to pray that a transport would be sent our way by the Lord.  A few minutes later, there came a transport that had the perfect amount of seats!  It was a rare miracle to have one of those pass us just when we needed--but, thing was, that, it was overtaking a bus at the same time as it passed us, so it couldn't see that we needed help.  

The blue transport van was now long gone and in the distance, but the Lord prompted me gently, that I needed to pray again.  He told me in my heart and in my mind, to pray that the driver would be told by Heavenly Father, to turn around and pick us up.  

I prayed that directly and immediately. 

I felt perfect faith and trust because I had been prompted what to pray. 

And a minute later, we all saw to our extreme surprise, that exact blue transport coming back our way for no reason!  He stopped and we all got in and talked with him.  He was very tired and worked, but had heeded the Lord's voice to him to turn around. 

He took us to the hospital and we were able to get there on time!  

It was a great miracle, that none of us could deny.  It was not a miracle to prove  our faith, but a result of first exercising faith in-line and in accordance with Heavenly Father's will. 

I testify that we can ask Heavenly Father to guide us in what to pray for; and then, we can truly pray in Christ's name, for we are only praying for things which Christ would righteously ask for--and so we shall indeed receive according to our faith and our works.  We will receive every righteous desire of our hearts, if we align ourselves and then have the faith to ask and act. 

I know this is true.  I witness it daily. 

Heavenly Father is more real than these words before your face at this moment.  I can testify of Him to you as if He were before my eyes all day every day.  I know as a fact which I never shall be able to deny, that He really, truly does live and is personal and knowable and intimately aware of each one of us, His beloved children in these brief testing grounds of mortality. 

This was a dinner that a member family made for us last week.  This is a "Lovo"; a traditional Fijian-style of preparing and cooking really tasty food which they then put underground in a hand-made oven and throw dirt over the oven to capsulize the heat and leave it like that for over an hour. 

We had a 9-year old boy named Ryan who is beginning to read the Book of Mormon and right after we taught him how to pray, he confidently and humbly prayed on the spot! 


We have many young people here, who because of the work and lessons the Lord did through me and my companion and especially the power of the Holy Ghost, are all preparing to serve their full-time missions as well!

 We have been fasting for Shayal to get consent from her father to be Baptized.  She is one of the best investigators, and earnest daughters of Heavenly Father.  She is 15 and she is reading the Book of Mormon and taking the lessons, but her father is Hindu, and we have been fasting and praying that his heart would be softened and he would let his family be Baptized and follow the Savior Jesus Christ.  

Please pray for that in your prayers. 

Thank you soo much. 

“It is written in the scriptures that God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son to die for the world, that whosoever believeth on him … and keepeth his commandments, shall be saved. But this [sacrifice] did not cost us very much—freely given are all these glorious privileges. …

“… While we give nothing, perhaps, for this atonement and this sacrifice, nevertheless, it has cost someone something, and I love to contemplate what it cost our Father in heaven to give us the gift of his beloved Son, … who so loved the world that he laid his life down to redeem the world, to save us and to feed us spiritually while we walk in this life, and prepare us to go and dwell with him in the eternal worlds. …

“Our Father in heaven … loved his Son Jesus Christ, … for [he] had with him his Son, our Redeemer, in the eternal worlds, faithful and true for ages. … God heard the cry of his Son in that moment of great grief and agony, in the garden when … he cried out: ‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.’ …

“… He saw that Son condemned, he saw him drag the cross through the streets of Jerusalem and faint under its load. … He saw [Jesus’] body stretched out upon the wooden cross, he saw the cruel nails driven through hands and feet, and the blows that broke the skin, tore the flesh … and let out the life’s blood of his Son. …

“In that hour I think I can see our dear Father, … his great heart almost breaking for the love that he had for his Son. Oh, in that moment when he might have saved his Son, I thank him and praise him that he did not fail us, for he had not only the love of his Son in mind, but he had love for us, and I rejoice that he did not interfere, and that his love for us made it possible for him to endure to look upon the sufferings of his Son and give him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer. …

“… My brethren and sisters, … if I only knew how essential it was … that I should receive the spiritual life that comes from that Son, I am sure I would always be present at the sacrament table to do honor to the gift that has come unto us” (“The Sacramental Covenant,”Improvement Era, Oct. 1919, 1028–31).

This week we had another miracle:

You may remember her as Mohini, but it turns out her real name is "Priti." She was one of our investigators.  She disappeared and we lost contact with her.  Well, the other day as we were walking along the road coming back from helping a family build their house, we had planned for so many things and lessons that all fell through and didn't happen... and on top of that, for some reason we decided to walk all the way home instead of taking bus or taxi.  And as we were walking, I had the distinct impression from the Holy Ghost that we needed to check one specific house and see if Priti lived there.  We had no idea, but we followed the Spirit.  

When we called out to the owners of the house to see if anyone lived there by chance, by the name of "Priti or Mohini," and 30 seconds later we were blown away and amazed... she called out to us and came walking out from behind the house!!  It was her!!! Only the Lord knew where she lived!! And only following the Holy Ghost's whisper could lead us to find her once again! 

We sat down with her and it turned out we saved her life.  She was about to make a decision in her life that would have destroyed and dashed all her hopes of a celestial and joyful future.  The Lord spoke through us and we were very bold and told what to say from the Holy Ghost.  It was truly undeniable--we all felt the actual presence and acknowledged that indeed hosts of actual angels were in our midst, and the Lord Himself.  

She has now been changing her life.  

It turned out that she had just been having a conversation with Heavenly Father, through aloud prayer to Him, in her house, asking for help, right when we then came up to this house and called her name. 

She has since begun finally coming to church and committed to be Baptized and to live Heavenly Father's way, and is on the path to establishing a possible eternal and family in the foreseeable future.  These are steps I could hardly imagine she would ever reach the point of taking! 

Her uncle, Naresh, has given up smoking and grown in faith from not knowing anything about Jesus Christ or who Heavenly Father even is, to now having the faith to change his life, and he is smiling more and he is giving up his old ways and knows the Savior is real and loves and knows him individually and personally.  He will be Baptized next month. 

The Police Officer who lost her dear husband, is doing well.  We are teaching her and she is so touched by the truth of the doctrine of eternal marriage and families.  She on her own said she wants to start coming to church. We teach her on the job, so this last time, we had to abruptly end because she had to go save someone from being beaten to death a few streets away. 

Heavenly Father wanted me to experience this earth life.  I am glad I signed up for all these trials I have had.  I realized as me and my companion were talking, that if we look back on our lives, the only real times that grew us and advanced us and developed and refined us and prepared us for higher heights in the future, were trials.  Really, life is no joy without the ability to choose above our circumstances.  

My Hindi is peaked now.  I am able to understand everything anyone says, and I am able to convey nearly any idea I wish to express.  Elder Singh has taught me how to teach others the language, and he has told me that my language skills are perfect.  I will continue to rely on the Lord.  He has magnified me and with my 4 companions' help (Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and Elder Singh,) I have mastered Hindi and am ready to teach it freely--speaking, reading, writing; the Lord has given all these gifts, and I acknowledge fully that they have come from Him.  

All of our investigators are nearly ready to receive Baptismal Dates.  Our Recent Converts are strong, self-reliant, and decided they are determined and set to serve their full-time mission as well!  Soni and Kirti (baptisms from last month) are so strong.  Soni's husband and Kirti's father has returned and their family is being put back together and we've begun the long road to their goal of eternal family- temple marriage! 

We truly watched miracles in our 24 lessons this week!  

I personally have grown drastically in my time here in Lautoka.  The investigators have transformed and are blossoming!  The members are thriving in their unity and testimonies day by day.  The language was fully mastered here.  I am in love with Lautoka and the children of God here are strong. 

"Blessedness is defined as being higher than happiness.  Happiness comes from without and is dependent on circumstances; blessedness is an inward fountain of joy in the soul itself, which no out ward circumstances can seriously affect."

Exact obedience is the most rewarding aspect of mission life, and post mission life.  I am very pleased that my mind and heart learned this lesson.  

I am seeing the blessings. 

https://www.lds.org/manual/new-testament-teacher-manual/the-gospel-according-to-st-matthew/lesson-3-matthew-5-7?lang=eng

I have nothing to prove.  I am confident and humble and usable and exactly obedient. AND IT IS FUN! 

हमर डील से , एल्डर होवार्ड 

From Spark to Bonfire

Forgive me, I have about 5 minutes to write this. Haha :) 

We have been committing people to baptism right on the spot when we first meet them.  We are out to find the ones the Lord knows are ready, and hungering for the happiness and purpose and joy that comes from His message. 

We are being led to families who are ready to begin working towards having their families be sealed for all eternity. They are accepting and then we are teaching them.  The Lord is preparing the hearts of the people, and as we choose joy, all walls that stand in our way, become our way of ascent! 

No obstacle can hinder us when we are choosing to see them all as blessings and to see how we can bless others around us in the midst of it. 

We have been very sick this week. We have been facing tremendous opposition. Heavenly Father is blessing us by sending us through refinement. 

We had an investigator a few months ago, who was a Police Constable.  She was one of the best people we had ever taught, but then her husband told her that she could no longer meet with us because he was a pastor for another faith.  She was very sad because she knew that she and her family wanted this message and really felt the spirit of the Lord testifying to them when we shared it.  We had to drop them though. 

Well, on Tuesday, we were walking past her police post, and we saw her and were strongly prompted that we needed to go say hi and just see how things were going in her life.  We went over and asked how she was, and she said, "Not good.  My husband passed away."

She is now taking the lessons again.  We are meeting with her and strengthening her family.  The Lord has eternal plans for these dear people, and He opens doors as we allow Him to be His instruments in helping these families and individuals follow the Savior Jesus Christ and become eternal families. 

This was a miracle, and we know the Lord knows what He is doing. 

(all photos from lds.org: https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/mountains?lang=eng intellectual reserve 2015)

I truly am able to choose the better part. I am able to look back into all my past and find all the good and bring it into the now of my material present being. Heavenly Father is teaching me, one day at a time, how to be a fully refined and usable tool in this great work. 

The congregations here, the Lautoka 1st and 2nd wards, have both doubled since February.  It has been amazing to see what the Lord is doing to help and bless His children in this beautiful land. 

I am really happy. Now I am becoming the man that Heavenly Father wants my wife to marry.  I am becoming a completely different person, in only positive ways.  The mission is a burning fire of refinement to my soul.  All of my old self is shed and without a trace.  Only good stuff kept back now.  i am an adult now.  fully self assured, self motivated, and self reliant and usable and confident and with a clear direction of who I am and why, going purposely with fullness of life. 


I was once a spark. 

The Lord can make a spark a bonfire, but only if the spark is willing to fly where the Lord knows it's potential can be reached.  The mission certainly is that place!  It is the gasoline-soaked timber, and each of us is a spark. The mission is the best investment one can make in life.  

I only had the power to go on my mission because the Lord believed in me.  That gave me the power I needed, and sustains me in the hardest trials and pain and storms of life.  

He commissions me to say the same is true of you and His will for you: Take the step of surrendering-faith in Him, and He will show you the way.

Heavenly Father believes in You.  
I know and testify He will always be there for you. 


I have learned that this church is nothing but love.  It really is all love.  This is a big family. :)  And the more we lift others, the more we are lifted. 

In my view, seeking and even asking for humility and teachableness, from my Heavenly Father, perhaps was the best, direct specific investment I made into my future.
  
Matthew 18:3, All must be as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven
Only the humble and teachable progress and become refined and exalted and prepared for eternity.  In this life, it is truly amazing how far we can go and a how we can overcome our weaknesses if we will be humble and teachable and submissive and seek counsel and correction from Heavenly Father.  

This morning, I was reading this talk:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/on-being-genuine?lang=eng


I love the prophets.  They are so inspired.  The Savior loves each of us, His dear brothers and sisters.  And a good way to tell how close our relationship with Him is, is to look at our relationship to the living prophets.  Are we following their counsels? This will be a direct way to tell whether we really are close to Jesus Christ.  

We will meet Him personally, very soon.  

How grateful I am to have Him to help me through this life and prepare me for eternity. 

"Train insane or remain the same."

That is a truth of life.  

The time comes when we journey and find joy, by realizing that life is and always has been what we choose to make it.  Is what I am choosing today, what I want to look back on later?  Will the path I am on now and the choices I am making, lead me to really be all I can be--the best I can be, by the end of my mission; or, by the end of this short time on earth? 

I testify, you have a destiny.  And it's awesome. And it's up to what you desire and do TODAY. 

Eternity is always going to happen on a "today," so the best advice would be to make your today only and all about Jesus Christ. 

Only He has the key to your full potential. 

I testify of Him. 

I love Him. 

He 

is reliable. :) 

LOVE, Elder Howard

Again, A Gain

परमेश्वर के काम बहुत अछा चले ! हमेशा ऊपर जात्ता है ! 

こぞきゅ、げんき ですか ？ わたし わはっぴ でさ。

We saved a life this week.  He would have likely died if we weren't undeniably led by Heavenly Father to him.  We were led by the Spirit to him and were able to give him a blessing and teach him about Jesus Christ and then take him to the hospital.  It was a miracle. 

We are teaching him. 

His name is Naresh. 

The Work and my Hindi move ahead at a beautiful pace.  This week has been one of growth and change and dedication and decision. 

I learned this week, that I am the only missionary in the world at the moment, who knows how to read and write in Sanscrit Hindi (this kind of writing: देखो, बहुत सुन्दर चीज, नहअ?) And I actually know more than most of the locals here!  It is very humbling.  At the same time, just as any missionary, I struggle and stumble over the language.  I know I am nothing without the Lord magnifying me.  I have been blessed to enjoy this beautiful culture, and now I am fully joined to it!  I only eat with my hands, even! 

I sit down to a meal and look at the spoon and fork and knife and don't have a clue what to do with them.  We Hindi people only eat with our hands.  

This week, I again lost a couple hundred or so pictures.  It was extremely mysterious and surprising.  I had no power to stop it and there wasn't any way to prevent it, and there's really no way I can explain how it happened.  My camera just deleted itself.  So, I am going to buy a new camera today. 

It is once again as if I have taken not a single picture in the entire duration of my mission to present. 

But, again, it is only a gain. ;) 

Once again I lost all pictures.  Again as if not one picture taken on the whole of my time in Fiji.  Tho it happened again, again it is only a gain.  The Lord is making of me someone who no matter what losses or sacrifices or trials I meet in all my life a head, none can negatively (only positively) affect me.  There are no true negative losses in this world except to those who stop holding tightly to the secure rod of their covenants with God.  Now no material or sentimental "loss" can negatively blow me down.  Father sent me on a mission not to make pictures or even great memories--He sent me to make ME a grand and everlastingly useful tool in His hands.  

All external means, things and elements bedsides His children, are just no more than Father's means to and end.  

And to what end is that? 

To being forged for eternity, in every characteristic like Father, and possessors of all He hath even a fullness of joy, a fullness of unbounded eternal potential and progress, and everlasting progressive, continuation of the exalted family unit.  Father is teaching me how to be connected to no thing but Him.  Through Christ and only those things which have no fading and no end.  

What He is making of me, an eternal being from Him, has no fading and no end.  I make a choice to shout for joy for having lost my pictures; for, weigh all the above truths and principles in the balance, and judge how all I gained makes no loss!  

It is not easy for a Father to teach a son such eternal useful and inadvertently expedient lessons as these, these whose benefits reach into the eternities, but Father finds a way.  

I am learning how to transcend all the trials of this world.  And how to have them all only have positive power over me.  These are the gifts of learning of and accessing the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

The purpose of life is to learn to live happily. 

 And therefore, we must be thrown into unhappy circumstances, so we learn to transcend by choosing; and by using the Atonement's transcendent and real power in our minute to minute lives and daily minute decisions. 

We all have trials, and valleys and thorns and "unfair" sad things, and we all have burdens on our shoulders.  Sometimes we feel like we have no one to turn to or be understood by except for Jesus  Christ and Father loving, in prayer.  Life really refines and tries us, 

I admit this whole-heartedly.  Missions aren't easy.  

Whatever our current calling and station or position life currently has us standing in, it isn't easy. 

I want to extend my love and sympathy and understanding to all who may feel or have felt or will feel like no one is there for them, or like they are alone, or like they in the valley will never see the mountain tops again.  

Trials are the only way to learn the best lessons in life, the only chances we have to take steps forward and up, and only way to exercise our power to choose.  

I have learned how to have them only have a positive power over me.  Get to this point and your earth time will only be a time of excelling and positive power.

Trials and losses are where and when we have the only opportunity to choose to use them as tolls instead, to ascend. 


By the permission and commission of Heavenly Father, I testify the following as a promise that the Spirit is speaking through me to each of you:

You will get to the beautiful peaks of the grandest mountains again, if you keep looking more fixedly to Christ and don't stop walking upward and relying on Him in all things.  It is impossible to fail when we are falling upon Him as our comfort and our strength.  

You can't possibly fail if you don't fail to hold on to Him more tightly than ever.  The sun will shine again, and the more brighter. 

Anything in our lives that needs fixing, He can fix.  

The most powerful sentence in this whole existence, is this: You are His work and His glory.  He thinks about you, feels with you, walks with you, never abandons you, and one day you will see it all clearly and your sorrows will all be replaced with joys and eternal light.  

Enduring to the end is about choosing joy--in using our agency to hold to hope, lift up others thereby lifting ourselves, and holding to our covenants and the restored Gospel of Christ we have all sealed ourselves to. 

In the name of Jesus Christ I promise you He will strengthen you, if you desire to and then do this: strengthen His place in your life--give Him more room, attention, and time.  Strengthen His place in your life, and He will strengthen you and raise you and your loved ones up, up unto eternal life, and full healing and triumph. 

Be patient by choosing happiness no matter what your circumstances. 

The atonement is the key to everything.  Learn more of it. 

>>> His Plan <<<
 
Always be found as one who acts on any direction or prompting from the Holy Spirit. 

May we all know we are here for the grandest purpose imaginable, and this is the time to Choose and Know Christ. 

I love you all. 

In the name of Jesus Christ amen. 

Eternal Elder Howard, 
Fiji Lautoka Hindi