Dear Family and Friends!!
Once again this
week changed my life! God has been blessing us here in Palm Springs and
the Hialeah Zone tremendously. Last night as I was praying I couldn't
help but to shout praises to our God and King! Our Heavenly Father does
live, and I promise I will do whatever He commands with exactness.
This week we were able to be blessed and bring five souls unto the
waters of baptism in our area. Things with the zone went extremely well
and we were able to baptize ten of God's children as a zone. In addition
to that we were blessed to hear inspired counsel from the prophets and
apostles at the World-wide Seminar. As we were driving home at the end
of the night I couldn't help but to think back and ponder on how much
God truly does love us. And that He truly will bless us as we put our
faith in Him!
This week we saw a huge miracle while harvesting! We had ten
minutes before we had to go to an interview so instead of just going
there early and waiting we decided to be diligent by stopping and
knocking a couple of doors. On the third door we knocked on a man yelled
through the door that he wasn't interested, but then we began to
testify. I saw that after each testimony was born he was becoming more
and more open. Finally he allowed us to pray with him through the door.
After the blessing he opened the door and thanked us for everything. The
power of God through the blessing softened him a lot. Then he began to
explain how Elders use to come over but pressured him and his girlfriend
into getting married and that pushed them away. But then he exclaimed,
"You know, I am ready for this now. That's why God sent you here!" He
then accepted preparing to be baptized. We walked away edified and
uplifted. But as we went home that night and were going through teaching
records searching for him we found his record. Then we saw that two of
his children were baptized. God lead us to this family at the exact time
when they were most prepared!
This week I went on an exchange with some Elders with the purpose
of helping them increase their faith. At the beginning of the exchange
we had a companionship study and I taught the faith cycle and expressed
we would focus on having a desire and not casting out that desire. That
we would do that by talking with EVERYONE and inviting all to come to
church the next day. We talked to an incredible amount of people
totaling 64 people invited to come to church, with 31 OYM's in the day.
At the end of the night they both expressed how they are going to have
more faithful harvesting, invite everyone to be baptized who comes to
church, and talk with everyone now to show forth more faith in Christ.
We gave everything we had and as a result my faith dramatically
increased.
But the Hialeah Zone is doing extremely well! I love it down here! I
have one English companion and one Spanish but we will see what happens
because transfers are next week! Hopefully I won't be two weeks and
done in Hialeah.. But we normally go on exchanges every day especially
since we have three missionaries in Palm Springs!
Well I love ya'll and hope all is well this upcoming week! Remember
to become as the Savior is, we must do as the Savior would do!
With Love,
Elder Pond
