"I Know His Face"

बुला विनका ! 

Summarized: Sweaty Blood Tears. Category 5 Hurricane sent our nation back 2 centuries temporarily. We had to mobilize into emergency mode and I had to secure save the lives of missionaries under my stewardship. We were locked down in our house afraid the windows would explode.  It sounded like a massive wave ready to pound on the beach just before it slams down in impact, except that that sound never stopped.  Dog bit my eyeball.  You have no idea the truths that have been revealed, the miracles that have taken place, the power that has hit this nation, and the amount of souls coming  unto Christ in the work here. I have no power to convey it to you through typed words only your eyes can see. If you could be present with me! Oh if you could see! I would have to go deeper than any of these communication channels can convey.  A living prophet of God who speaks with Him face to face, visited us, rivetted me with a constant stare from a distance of just less than 10 feet for 15 minutes, and angels were round about us in glorious celebrations and dangerous evacuations.  I will try to share what I am able and allowed to. 

I can say that there is a bigger perspective of this life you are in and living than you ever thought.  You will come to wake up just as soon as you'll be willing and humble enough to be ready and see the big eternal realities of eternity. If you haven't already, you will have the faith to seek out from Missionaries serving like me.  We have sacrificed our lives and all we are, and our very futures and every hour of 2 years, and 10,000 beads of sweat and 10,000 tons of love, aching, care, passion that consume our whole hearts and being...  here to help you be ready and to know The Savior, Jesus the Living Christ--the Creator of everything we know.  A day of drastic change and transformation is the one you and I are to now.  We must come unto the Savior Jesus Christ now and find Him--for now I know and must call out to every reach of the globe: He is an actual living, breathing, talking, physical, glorious, eternal resurrected personage of love and reality.  This message I am 12,000km away from home sharing for 2 years is not a story or something I have one shadow of doubt about in any reach of my entire being.  I raise my voice unto all the world: the message I share is true.  This church and gospel haven't been restored by any person--my message really is direct from God the Eternal Father and Jesus Christ.  They are real, actual Beings that are familiar to your heart and soul.  

​My companion and I have about 20 amazing people who this and next month are coming unto the Savior Jesus Christ and knowing and following His voice out of the hurricane of darkness, fear and death, unto the perfect light of this Restored Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is only found in this His church. 

President Henry B. Eyring came and personally visited us missionaries in a chapel just before the worst parts of the class 5 hurricane.  He made and kept almost non-stop eye contact with me and said things like, "after your mission, you won't take the badge off.  You have been endowed with power beyond anything you've ever imagined. You will feel the joy that comes from this."  He and Elder Cook of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles shared things that transcend this world and that this world can't receive.  President Eyring shared the most powerful words I have ever heard any living General Authority of the Church speak.  After sharing that there were many things that they can't share in public, the spirit filled the room and each of us more powerfully as the wind picked up and the Prophet was shaking and weeping.  He shared these powerful words that then became forever etched into the walls of my eternal soul and heart:  "I know The Savior.  I know His voice, and I know His face."  The things that the Prophet shared were the same things I had been learning from God in my personal conversations with Him over the past 2 years.  It is amazing to see the Holy Ghost speaks the same language and messages to all who will seek and hear, heed and surrender all their very will and life and soul to the Savior.  I know that the eyes that looked into mine that day are indeed and in reality eyes that have looked into Jesus Christ's very eyes and held conversation with Him in our day.  The message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is the only message that will lead unto all that the human family came to earth to know, become, achieve and receive as eternal family in fullness of lasting, rich, deep, true joy in this life and in eternities unending.  I seal you my special witness since I have been preserved alive:  I challenge you to accept the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and be Baptized in the Lord's church.  Anyone that reads these words is reading them because God has led them to be reading them.  I give my life and name up unto the world and heaven as a bold testator that the message that young boy received in a grove of trees from God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, is true.  Joseph Smith was a true Prophet, and Thomas S Monson is in reality God's channel to this earth.  I don't have faith and I don't believe... I know that the message I have been taking unto this nation and shall take forward all my eternities to come, is true.  You have one chance to find that out for yourself and act on it.  I invite you to do just that, even today.  And for each of us who think we have a strong enough testimony of those things--rise higher.  You and I don't have limits.  We are children of the Almighty.  You are the only one who can limit yourself.  Rise to what you've never dreamed of.  Keep your covenants and promises with the Lord and don't just give more of your time, talents, will and being--give it all.  I seal my testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

_Elder Howard

Suva Fiji Mission

I share this brri

Unisan on Fire

Hello!

In just a month and a half into 2016 we few Missionaries in Fiji have already had about 250 Saints: Baptisms and Returning Members; Children of God who have risen above all odds and transformed their lives to follow the Savior Jesus Christ!  They are all preparing to receive the blessings and glories of Eternity.  Armies of people with their eyes set and fixed on the House of The Lord, the Temple--to make their families eternal and receive the blessings God has in store for them.

It has been an amazing week.  We have a goal of 10 Saints this month, and potential of 20 in the District for this month. We currently have 6 amazing individuals who were Baptized and Confirmed this week, and 2 Returning Members who have gotten ready for the Temple, and my schedule is packed with Baptismal Interviews for families and groups of amazing people deciding to follow Jesus Christ, set for Baptism on the 27th of this month.

The Savior is personally coming, and because the message is true, the Mission is on Fire!

The two things I am most grateful for, is that we started off this month with a District fast and have had very powerful District Meetings and unity activities and that we all hold each other up and above the trials and challenges.  Nothing has negative power over this district, because we face it like a family.  This is a group who lives true to the name "Unisan." And the second thing I am most grateful for is that we aren't ever just having surges of success and then dry spells. We have learned how to be consistent, balanced and steady in all aspects of the work.

We have already set up and planned the month of March, and in just this companionship of Nasinu Hindi we have 17 individuals who want to be Baptized in March or April.  Each of these individuals is SO dear to my heart.  I almost weep as I type about them.  I am privileged to know these Indians who are leaving behind the world, for that which never perisheth.

Each night in my nightly prayers, I kneel and open the sacred records I keep of these missionaries in my District and their struggles, joys and progress.  These sheep have my heart wrapped up around their lives.  They mean everything to me, and I won't let anything in my mission take higher priority than their growth because the work is all in proportion to their spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and social health.

Nightly I always pray for each Elder by name and spend time on just him and his record and sincerely seek Heaven's help and comments or revelation about him and feel Heavenly Father guide me just as if I were their father in how I can help them reach their next steps of growth or higher vision or more perfect focus on the right areas they can improve. 

Heaven really does answer.

On the back, I plan exchanges (24hour period where I swap companions with another companionship for training purposes) and write the outcome of the exchange and any commitments they gave me, and commitments I gave them.  No exchange I will ever go on on the remaining 8 months of the mission will be anything less than transformative and full-mission impacting in the short and long term for these missionaries and myself.  This District will know how to have a high vision and set the powerful, smart, consecrated, wise goals to make all the highest vision they could imagine, reality. 

There is so much to share about the District.  They have no walls.  What I mean is, they confide in me whenever they are going through a struggle and each looks forward to exchanges and District Meetings.  This is a District of 8 Teachable Elders who have built Personal Realtionships with Jesus Christ that have led us to put our hearts on Exact Obedience--and these 3 ingredients are why we are each Working so Hard. 


Elder Delfin and Elder Mo'unga gave us powerful reviews of the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast and challenged us with very meaningful commitments as to how to implement those trainings in our work this week.

We then had a Training and Discussion I led, and which each member of the District participated in very freely.  The Holy Ghost was strong and led what was shared and gained as a contributing body of Elders edifying one another.  I gave the Training Heavenly Father taught me when I first became a District Leader, of "Comp... Comp... you have been given who and what you've been given and you don't have power to change that.  All the success of the District, Zone, Mission and Worldwide Mission Hastening all starts at the basic unity: your Companionship.  Strengthen it and fill it with only the pure love and light of Christ, and you've got a District, Zone, Mission, World that functions on Miracles and Powerhouse of Fruititious Labor.  But it is all up to you what you do with the raw materials you are given 'Comp... and Comp....' You spell the rest: 'Ete' or 'Lete.'  The only difference is if you choose to put 'The L in it!' Love and Longsuffering."  Then we opened it up to what the Holy Ghost taught each of us while that was taught.  We discussed what Longsuffering means.  We opened it up to the Senior Missionary Couple in relation to Marriage and Compromise and respecting Agency but choosing love no matter what. 

Eyes of each of the District Members sparked up as we then went on and talked about how our relationships are like blinking eyes.  They are one and function powerfully--and to the outside world it looks like they just do without effort; but the reality of the matter is that they are doing constant, consistent little things called a blink.  We committed each other to for the rest of our missions always do little blinks.  Acts of small and simple gestures of courtesy, love and charity for our fellow men wherever we be or whomever with. 

We talked about how we must teach in unity as a companionship of not 2, but 3.  We recited the Mission Motto with a twist: only use your voice, not tongue or lips.  Then we used voice and tongue, but not lips.  Then all 3.  This is like our companionship of 3.  Only when all 3 work in flowing harmony can the message get to the ears and hearts and souls of God's children. 

Then, Elder Van Der Linden (who the whole District just loves!  We have a special respect and admiration for this Elder) shared a story to relate his time in Nabua.  I cried! It changed the way I see missionary work!  He taught us that it isn't about being the missionaries everyone thanks or remembers or sees or praises or acknowledges.  It is about being the missionary that the Lord trusts to do the real work--the kind Christ did; the kind that wasn't in the headlines or favor or applause realms, but the kind that really got the kingdom and Christ connected to a child of God that needs love and needs real needs met.

The things that the people we are working with are struggling with are often things I once had to overcome. It   makes me laugh to see God using who I once was to perfectly help my "children" now facing the same things God took so much time and love to show me.  I know that the Mission is designed perfect!  I know that the Lord is smiling(:  The rest of my mission is to build others like God was so kind and patient to do for me.  Building my brothers and sisters one with Christ and Father in this perfect work of love and progress is all my heart is set on; for now and ever after the mission.

I have never sacrificed more, walked more, gone through more pressure... never been happier or more satisfied and fulfilled!  I LIVE TO BE ON FIRE FOREVER.  We are all meant to live in the flame of the most uncomfortable zone our life has to offer--if we wish to be refined to our highest destiny.  There is no comfort in the growth zone.

This is a drawing that Elder Van Der Linden drew.

Some pain and 'remodeling' and new views and do's must be a constant if growth and improvement are to be a constant.  The life without ceiling or barrier is only for the few who are willing to do what most all won't. Be one of the few. No limits.  No comfort.  Christ knows you can.  So you do.  Simple as that. 

If you're not changing your life for the better, you're not having faith in JesusChrist; and you are drawing away from Him.  Are you having the faith to make "pain changes"? 


A miracle of our week:  one of our dear people we're working with had told us that they weren't going to be Baptized because they felt comfortable in their Hindu culture and weren't willing to leave it.  This was the 5th time they had been invited to be baptized.  They know the Book of Mormon is true and that what we teach is right and they experienced the Temple and want to go back there... but the cares of the world had a hold on their heart.  We prayed and prepared and then came back the next day and the Holy Ghost touched them as they read the scriptures.  They promised themselves they will be Baptized!  It was such a happy moment of relief!  We laughed and said, "look, we all want it now, but we need to make sure nothing can shake us so that 3 weeks from now we forgot we wanted this more than the world. So lets promise ourselves and agree we'll put Christ first and make this goal happen!"   This family is progressing toward Baptism with their eyes on the temple!  

The best thing is that this is a family I had just started teaching as I left Nasinu months ago.  Now, I can see the fruit coming forth after all this time.  This is a season of seeing fulfilling fruit of my labor all coming forth on every side!  We had a fast with them for this Baptismal goal as well.  They fasted!  The scriptures have the power to change hearts!  It is true! 

What are you willing to do to receive the things the world can't give?  Will you give up the world or lose your own soul?  We all are faced with this choice.

Another one of the amazing Recent Converts who are so heroically strong and an example to me, said: " I now am so happy every day.  No matter what.  I used to come home after school and be sad if I had a bad day, but now it's like nothing can bring me down.  I have a smile on my face wherever I go that can't be wiped off! I am really a totally different person because God sent my 2 angels to save, change and guide me.  I cannot wait to serve my own mission and share the true resorted gospel and bring others to feel this joy like I have."  

I challenge you to make sharing the gospel to be part of your nature.  Let it flow out of your mouth as freely as sports or cartoons.  Speak Christ always.

100 Families Eternal! Thousands, but it's all about the one...

I have never had a more miraculous 2 weeks to report in my life. 

​We took 135 children of God in Fiji through the Temple, and they ALL were touched and want to be taught. Each and every last one of them were Indians, and we were able to have the wonderful privilege of translating the tours into Hindi for them. All of them want the blessings of The House of the Lord. Eternal Family, Do the Work for Ancestors who passed on, or be Temple-Recommend holding members. 

I have never worked harder in my life.  We set a goal of getting 100 of the Hindi people in this area through the Temple and on the path to becoming Eternally United, Happy Forever Families.  We exceeded it!!!! Thanks to Heavenly Father, our striving for exact obedience, pouring our very souls out till we were only running on reserves and empty tanks all day.... MIRACLES shot more than through the roof.  Jesus Christ is the head of this group of missionaries.  I know the success that came to this mission's labor came because no mortal is our leader.  Christ actually lives, and actually leads us personally and directly through the Prophet, even down to our local leaders, and on a personal level.  This work is true, and it is aimed to save and exalt every individual and family in the entire world--all the nations of the earth and each inhabitant therein who will come and bask in the fresh, blossoming, abundant life, and endless happiness, peace, and love that await. This is meant to be yours!   This church is true, and I am a witness that God our loving and personal heavenly Father is real leads each child of His, personally to this gospel.

My companions and I were working with LITERALLY all our heart, might, mind and strength EVERY minute of each day for 2 weeks to bring souls to the Temple.  I am not even exaggerating when I say we laid everything on the table.  Through consecrated work as a companionship and mission-wide family, much sunburn, a lot of hunger, empty dry wallets because of endless back-and-forth bus and taxi fare, endless happiness, stress, satisfaction to last lifetimes, well worked sweat glands, soaked sunday shirts, and a few happily gray hairs, 1,774 people directly told the church they want missionaries to come and teach them and their families as soon as possible...and there aren't even 200 missionaries in the mission to handle that near 2,000 head-count referral load. 

Here in the mission I am at the perfect prime time to see the fruits of these things come to season.  I know that Jesus Christ visits this Temple in Fiji.  Going through the Temple every day and sitting in the Celestial Room and feeling of His actual presence there daily was one of the greatest privileges a mortal can be afforded while in this life.  We each need to get there as often as possible!  On my birthday, I received some of the most heart-warming and vision-sparking prophecies and promises in the Temple just being with and listening to and conversing with heavenly Father in His House.  I know He has personally tailored and has perfectly satisfying and fulfilling promises and gifts planned and READY just for you, waiting for you, to make the choice to accept this gospel and be Baptized in the Lord's church and have every decision and priority you ever make, lead you to the Temple.  This is the way to destroy all bounds set on life and death.  Become limitless!  Become all you're meant to be.  Become close with Jesus Christ.

Since my companion and I were at the Temple almost every day for 14 days, bringing the people we love to the place we love, the media took a lot of photos of our groups.  Thank goodness, because we hardly had a second to stop and do good journaling ourselves.  I also got the overwhelming privilege of seeing again almost every person from my old areas I have finished serving in thus far on my mission!  They came from Bau! Lautoka! Suva! Everywhere!  And I got to have 100s of sweet, excited, happy, huggy, precious, heaven-like reunions!  I got to see people I had loved and labored my whole heart out to serve and teach and help and change in old areas, finally being within the Temple walls and telling me, "Elder Howard, do you remember all those months ago I promised you I would get to the Temple?  Well now I am here!  Are you proud of me?"
22,483 Tour Fiji Temple <<<<  ---- [Editor's note:  This links to an LDS Newsroom article and LOOK who is in the third picture!!!]

12,000 people toured through the Temple on the first week of the Open House.

Doctrine and Covenants – Section 4

 1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.

 2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.

 3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

 4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;

 5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

 6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.

             7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.

Indeed the field is white already to harvest. Now is the time for us as Children of God as one united team to see that we serve him with all our heart, might, mind and strength because a marvelous work is already happening as prophesied; we are living D&C 4.

You have a part to play.  Not just a part-- you have an IMPORTANT part to play.  Only you can stop you from doing it.


As a District Leader with a District of 8 Elders, it is of profound meaning to me that the Savior has led everything to this point.  It is special, because I was raised in a family of 7 children and I am sealed and set on the goal of at least a family of equal size of my own after the mission--and Heavenly Father knew it.  That's why He sent me to the perfect training grounds.  I am raising a family of 7 of the Lord's greatest servants.  Their joys are mine, their burdens, mine.  They are so open and united with each other as a perfect team.  It is one of the highlights of my life to serve with such a group of perfect friends.  We will be a lifelong band.  The training and experience I gain in this position in this District was meant to prepare me for the most important role in time and eternity--Parenthood.  I know the principles that have become who I am are being instilled in me because the Lord knows the kind of Spirits that will be sent to me and my not-distant-future-wife.  What you are going through right now, whatever it is, can prepare you perfectly for the grander step ahead.

Nasinu is our area Jesus Christ has entrusted to us as His band of Disciples.  Nasinu spelled backwards is unisaN. 
We are the unisan group.  We are united in everything.  Every week we are going to be getting together for an hour and a half every week to write each other's Investigators and to each other's families.  We are one as the Savior prayed we would be.  There is a feeling of such power in this kind of unity.  We love each other and know when one of the District Members is going through a struggle and just how to lift them and love them and encourage them right back to peak.  I love each member of this family.    

As a District and Zone we have fasted and worked and counseled together and even prayed many times in simple heartfelt prayer on our knees as a team in chapels to know the Lord's exact and direct will for us and the saints we are bringing into His everlasting Kingdom.  We know what we do now will have an effect with no end.  We are building and shaping eternities.  We are committed to high goals that will forever impact this part of the vineyard the Lord has entrusted to us.  

Some of the experiences of this week were, there was a taxi driver we caught to get to the Temple one day... and we invited him to come up to the Temple.  He did!  He said to us in effect, "I knew it was a decision between working during one of the most prime times to get money as a taxi driver, but I chose God first.  I went through this Temple and felt God.  I am already Christian, but I want this kind of Baptism and to make my family Eternal. You call me any time and I will drive to you and you can teach me."  And, "You have changed us from who we were, to who we are now.  It was God who sent you to us and changed not only our eternal lives, but, who we are.  Our whole nature."  Heavenly Father has members of His family waiting for you to go out and bless.  They are in your home.  They are on the street.  They are wherever you will allow yourself to be the Savior's instrument.  

In the photo in the last section of the email, Elder Mo'uga had accidentally forgot his name tag, and I carry extras with me, so we spent the whole day as "Elder Howards."  Everyone noticed, and as they would comment, we would smile, throw our arms around one another's shoulders and say cheerily "That's how united we are!" So, we had a professional photographer from the media at the Temple take a picture of us.  

Saturday was one of the highlights of my mission.  I have been wrapping my heart and time around my beloved little brother, helping him be ready and able to follow the Savior Jesus Christ down into the waters of Baptism.  This has been about 6 months of labor.  And after fasting, working, praying, and staying with him, and never giving up, the Lord opened the doors.  Hearts were touched and softened and we were all led by the Lord to this day.  The salvation of  One soul is what this labor is all about.  It isn't about the 1000's.  It is about One.  God works with all His children on a personal basis--not mass blob of humanity.  We are children of a perfect and intimate Father.  Nothing less.  He is everything we hope and wish, and more.  I love this family so much and have built so many memories with them.  We even have our own Hindi they invented and we speak with each other!  This family is going to make it to the Temple.  I know the Lord has prepared the way ahead of them.  Riznal asked me to come back to my old area I got transferred out of so I could baptize him and sing a solo at his service.  That was such a sweet privilege.  I tailored a special original musical number I performed for him.  It was one of the days of my mission never to be forgotten.  He will be a great Deacon, great Priesthood holder, Missionary, Leader, Valiant son of God and bring his family to the Temple.  Everyone from this nation and this mission is super-glued to my heart.