Today's email

WOW, the Tornado siren went off last night! Elder Berg and I cowered in the closet. A member actually called us seeing if we were ok. I was surprised and was like, wow, someone who actually cares about us!! Then 5 minutes later it stopped. The tornado had happened close to the town of Dewey. Dewey is like 5-10 ish miles away from Bartlesville, so it was a fairly close tornado. Who knows we may have one hit here!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

This week we had Zone Conference, IT WAS PRESIDENT MERKLEY'S LAST!!!!!! He taught us his way of teaching the Law of Chastity to 11 year old girls. Because he was asked to do so when he was a Bishop. He came up with this way of doing so. He also committed us, when we get home that we will not hold hands until after 7 dates, hug after 14, or kiss after 21. Mind you these are dates, for someone like me to have 21 dates, that would last me like 6+ months. Anyways, lets not talk about that.

 

The Cool thing about this Zone Conference is the fact that I'm back into my first Zone again, when I was in Sapulpa. I got to meet Elders: Hamann (past companion), Bennett, Orr and many others, since there is a lot of them that I know here. It was a fun Zone Conference I loved it!!

 

Well, I have a story, and this happened to me.

On Thursday we were going to go to our appointment to go read a story to a member who doesn't have a big attentio span. We went to take a path on the bike trail that leads under the road. It has a small path and it has water on both sides of the path. Elder Berg was ahead of me and he saw a person who was sitting on the edge of the path and his bike was there blocking the path, elder Berg stopped completely, I, only having half of a brake, was braking but since it was downhil I got speed and wasn't able to stop. WEll, I hit Elder Berg a little bit and then part of the bridge and I fell off the path and into the water. With the bike landing on top of me. Everything in my backpack and me were wet. My camera got wet, but we put it in a bowl of rice and left it there for two days and it recovered and I can still use it. My new scriptures that I got for my birthday, well are ruined, they are very wet. Maybe I'm just not meant to have nice scriptures. Because the last ones that I bought at the MTC got wet over 3+ months ago. All of my electrical things still work thankfully, or else all of my pictures from my mission on my flashdrive would have been GONE!!!!

 

Well, we finished the Articles of faith, so now I guess I will just come up with scriptures. Today in my reading i read Helaman CH. 1-4, the one part that stuck out to me was in Ch. 3 verses 25-30. Where it explained that the scriptures are the way that we can learn of our forgiveness. That the scritpures teach us that Christ is always there for us and always wants us to come unto him and be perfected in him. (moroni 10:32-33) The Book of Mormon has many instances of Forgiveness. Alma talks to his sons in Alma 39 about his sins that he has done and how that he should repent. The Sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger are examples of that. Even for a time Laman and Lemuel, we penetant but then they succumbed to their old ways and rebeled and fell away from the things they have seen, even an Angel of the Lord came to them as they were smiting Nephi. Forgiveness is given to everyone, if they just humble themselves and ultimately forgive themselves of the things that they have done and come unto the only one that can heal, Jesus Christ. I am ever grateful for him and his sacrifice and his love that he has for us and all mankind. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

--

Elder Colby Stewart Haymond
Oklahoma, Tulsa mission

Today's email...

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!!!

 

Still in 3rd ward with my MTC companion elder Berg. We are still living at a 87 year olds house and are vigilant in looking for an apartment to go move into. We looked at an apartment on Friday I believe (can't keep my days straight anymore they all seem to run together) and it was a huge apartment in the inside but looked rather small on the outside. It is 2 levels and has big kitchen, living room and upstairs is fairly huge. President wanted to have us find an apartment that is more central to our area. Third ward (the one I'm in) is pretty much in the middle of Bartlesville, First ward is on the western side I believe and second is eastern. Hopefully we can get that apartment.

 

Well, I really don't have much to say now. Because we are just trying to find more investigators by visiting less-actives and Former investigators to see if we can be able to meet with them or if they are interested. This week I'm going on exchange with Elder Adams, look at that my first exchange with a District leader!!!! Also I found a hard cover Book of Mormon in the apartment and I'm using it as my own and I'm writing all these scripture references and and adding pages to it so that I can have all the information that I need all in one source.

The funny thing about Bartlesville is it's a fairly big city and it has a good amount of members there, so many that there are 3 wards there. Around here the only areas in the mission that have many missionaries are the cities which obviously have more members in it. Just thought you wanted to know.

 

Well, it's already time for the last article of faith, I still haven't found another thing to write my "spiritual thought."

 

13. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul--We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

 

well, this ones a mouthful, if you want to see this "admonition of Paul" the scriptural reference is the last chapter of Phillippians, where Paul says these things. This article of faith explains to those that we are a honest, true, chaste, benevolent and virtuous people. We seek after these qualities in our lives, later it states that we seek after anything virtuous, lovely of good report or praiseworthy. We are people who strive to be perfect as it states in 3 Nephi 12:48 and Matthew 5:48 that we should be perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect. These things we need to be anxiously engaged in doing. We need to continue to fix our lives in accordance with these things. This article tells the world that we should be engaged in activities that promote this, if anyone were to see us not participating in these things they will wonder and questions whether we are actually doing what we should. Always remember that we should be looking in the good in everything and want to have others do the same. We are members of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, that had fallen away after Christ had died and Ressurected, we need to be the examples to the world. As members of the living church we heed to things that are worth our time. Please, always strive to be an example to others and especially to those who are not of this church, they need to know that they are missing out on an opportunity to change their lives for the better. I leave you with this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

--

Elder Colby Stewart Haymond
Oklahoma, Tulsa mission
Bartlesville 1st, Oklahoma

Sunday...

Not sure why, but I've been missing Colby something awful today.  Can't think of anything in particular that would have triggered it, but here it is all the same... I DON'T LIKE IT.  Missing him, that is.  Next week it will have been 10 months since we sent him out, and for me, it's been 10 L O N G months.  I've heard the second year passes more quickly... it better!

I've been in his room the last few weekends painting and trying to clean up and organize... not that his room needs it, he pretty much boxed things up before he left.  But I've needed a project, and there it was... at the rate i'm going tho, he will be home before I've completed things. 

On a more upbeat note, he is working hard, doing "wonderfully" (his words =) and loving being on a mission and serving the Lord.  Makes my heart happy...

One year ago today...

Happy Easter!

Received this picture today from a member of another ward in Bartlesville.  Colby got to hang out and have Easter dinner with this family, AND his MTC companion, Elder Berg.  Doesn't he look great??

Love you, colby!  And thank you, thank you to the wonderful family that took care of him today!  Thank you for the photo!

I know this blog is where I'm recording thoughts on Colby's mission, but I'm SO thinking of another mother who today sent HER son off on his mission.  Maybe it's cheesy, but I've admired this young man for years... best wishes for a happy, safe, and successful mission, David.

{source}

Today's email...

FINALLY! Well, it spring break. Come in the library around 10:20 and EVERYONE is here. It seems that more people in this geographical region of the world use the library for their computer time. Which I guess is good, but at the same time it doesn't help us out since this is the only place in which I can use a computer. We then did our shopping and lunch and all the other stuff instead. Now I'm online!

Well, today is suppose to be a big rain storm, we did have fairly big clouds but it didn't rain all that much. I'm waiting for all this "bad weather" to happen it really hasn't happened. I can't wait for the rain so we don't have to pay to wash our car, we have so far gotten, a pretty good clean of our car but it could still use a better clean. On top of all this weather, I have a sore throat and really don't feel all that great. I can't wait for it to pass away!!

As far as missionary works goes, this was our worst week since I have gotten here!!!! It just seems that all of our appointments canceled and we were able to teach a couple of lessons. Well, hopefully a tornado doesn't come in this area of the mission!!!

well,. . . . . . that seems to be all that I have to talk about! Onto the 8th article of faith!!!

8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

aaahhhhh, this one. This one you will get a lot of varied responses. Some will say that the Bible is missing some things, others will say it's perfect, some will say you can't add or take away from the Bible, etc. All of that is nonsense, besides the first one. That is the main reason as to why we even have the Book of Mormon in the first place. The Book of Mormon is another Testimony of Jesus Christ, another witness to the Divinity of Jesus Christ. You would think people would love to have more to read about Jesus Christ. A decent amount of people probably don't mind reading it, but at once they don't see why. They look at it as another Bible but different story. Some of my companions have told me that people think it's the adventure of Brigham Young as he and the pioneers went west. Some people even mistaken it for the Doctrine and Covenants.

Like I said earlier before going on my rant. The Book of Mormon, helps us understand the Bible, at the same time it's not a documentary of the Bible. The Bible is a record of God's dealings with the people in Jerusalem, the Book of Mormon is the record of God's dealings with the people in the new world (America.) Their both history books in a sense. The thing that is different is the fact that the Book of Mormon was set for us, the people in this time/generation. You might ask why/how that is possible. When Mormon compiled the Book of Mormon he had about 1000 years of history from 600 B.C when Lehi and his family came over to the America's, down to about 400 A.D when Mormon was compiling the records. I cannot believe that 531 pages in today's syntax would have been 1000 years of history. In 4th Nephi that encompasses 300 or so years and it is only 4 pages long. I'm sure there could have been some good stories there, but Mormon didn't see them as something that could be of benefit to our generation.

I challenge you (the ones reading the e-mail) that you go through the chapters of the Book of Mormon and give them a title about what the chapter is about, for instance: Alma 32 is a chapter about faith, same with Ether 12. Ether 13-15 are war chapters, Alma 40 talks about the Resurrection, etc. So on and so forth. Do that with every chapter or most of the chapters. You will find a trend among the Book of Mormon and I will say to you all that those chapters that you find about faith, the one that has the most occurrences of that topic is what the world needs the most. I seem to be ranting, but I'll close with that the same thing Moroni did, the last book wasn't necessarily intended to be there, but he had the time. All the 10 chapters in Moroni are packed full of things that Moroni thought we would need. Who else was going to read the records? The rogue Lamenites? PLEASEE, they were too worrying about being wicked to want to read things that are spiritual.

I know that the Book of Mormon is a clarifying witness of Jesus Christ and the Bible, the Book of Mormon did not come into existence to do away with the Bible. Jesus Christ himself came into the world to fulfill the Law of Moses, he even observed it himself. Thus the Book of Mormon does the same, it comes to adhere to the Bible, but at the same time it extends our understanding of the message that Jesus Christ wanted us to here, I know that this is absolutely true in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.