Dear Family and Friends,
My
God is Awesome!! The story of Lot and his wife is actually one of my
favorites and one that President Anderson shared with us in his email
today. It has helped me in my life to move on from past mistakes and
have hope with faith that God will provide a fruitful future for me.
Much like our missions, we can move on from what may have happened in
the past and press foreword with an eye single to the glory of God.
This
week we saw a huge miracle as we pressed foreword with faith! My last
Sunday with Elder Torres after church we decided to go out and harvest
so we could keep a commitment left by Elder Stewart and get 15
blessings. This was one of the most amazing harvest sessions of my life
because we got 11 blessings and 10 of them said yes to baptism! What was
even more amazing is the first person that we blessed that day got
baptized yesterday. There were many things she had to overcome, but as
we exercised faith and never looked back God allowed it to happen. The
grace of Christ is sufficient for all men!
We
also had another HUGE powerful spiritual experience with harvesting
this week. Elder Smoot and myself were driving away after an appointment
and passed this duplex. For some reason every time we passed this
apartment I couldn't help but to look at it. This time the Spirit struck
me hard that we needed to go knock it. I tried to put it off but the
Spirit kept prompting me so we turned around and began to walk up to it.
The first door of the duplex was a Latin couple who unfortunately would
not let us bless them. But we did not cast out our seed of faith and
went to the next door. There we met Prince, who readily accepted a
blessing, and was pumped for baptism afterwards! As we listen to the
Spirit and do not cast out our seed of faith then God will immediately
bless us!
The
Zone is doing well. We have all the pieces that we need now we just
need to put them all together. Our missionaries are becoming more
converted I can see it! I absolutely love this work and know that it is
Gods! But the Stuart Zone is amazing and geographically is HUGE!! In one
week we calculated that we drove a total of thirty hours!! But the
people are absolutely amazing I love 'em lots! Lots of people from
different countries as always in South Florida! But this zone honestly
is Zion I love it!!
On
a more personal level I had a very powerful spiritual experience that I
would like to share with ya'll. This past Sunday was very tough for me
due to things that were happening with the ward. We have been feeling as
if the ward has been pulling the opposite direction and things were
happening that were very frustrating. But God in his infinite mercy
allowed me to baptize our baptism after church. As I brought this
daughter of God under the waters of salvation I felt the up-most power
come from God. I saw this amazing sister of mine influence the Atonement
as never before. Then as I went back to change I knelt down and prayed
to my creator, my eternal father in heaven. I beckoned him for His
strength, His peace, and to know what to do concerning the ward. As I
said the words, "God, I need you. My soul anguishes without your
presence. You are my strength," I felt the most over-whelming feeling
from the Spirit of God. Then it was able to speak to my soul that I
needed to show absolute Christ-like charity. This experience changed my
life and I will always remember it! Then as we spoke with the Bishopric
after the baptism and as I exercised complete charity God allowed
everything to work out. I absolutely love my Heavenly Father, and I know
that He is real!
With Love,
Elder Pond
