Dear Family and Friends!
In response to Presidents email today I was pondering on one of my favorite scriptures found in Proverbs 3:5-6. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths!" I remember sitting in seminary in ninth grade when we were studying the Old Testament. This was a time when I had very weak faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and my heart was completely set upon the world. As my seminary teacher read this scripture everything came down on me and I realized I was not applying this scripture so thus my life was full of disappointment and sorrow. This began my conversion. Likewise as missionaries we need firm trust in the Savior and our Father in Heaven. Elder Harris and myself were actually talking about this yesterday. As we trust in the Godhead, we will never fall no matter what.
“You
show your trust in Him when you listen with the intent to learn and
repent and then you go and do whatever He asks. If you trust God enough
to listen for His message in every sermon, song, and prayer ... you will
find it. And if you then go and do what He would have you do, your
power to trust Him will grow, and in time you will be overwhelmed with
gratitude to find that He has come to trust you.” (President Henry B.
Eyring. General Conference, October 2010)
We saw huge miracles this past week in our area though. We found a man on Wednesday who was baptized on Sunday just four days later. After his baptism he was smiling from ear to ear. God provided for us as we put our trust in Him. Another huge miracle was as we pushed foreword harvesting to find a family who needed this gospel the Lord lead us to a mother who was extremely elect. After the blessing she told her son, "Look, these are the TRUE disciples of Jesus Christ." Another huge blessing came as we applied your training from MLC literally a couple hours after we left the Mission Home. We have an investigator who has been wanting to put off her marriage until December. During the lesson we both felt a spiritual prompting to apply President Anderson's training he gave to us in MLC and have her offer a kneeling prayer asking specifically if God wants her to get married on Tuesday to be able to overcome her concerns. She did and after the prayer she talked about how she felt goosebumps and a peace come over her. Long story short, she is getting married on Tuesday and baptized on this upcoming Sunday!
Well in short, I love ya! Miami is amazing. I love the ghetto. I love the people. I love my God. He does provide miracles, just trust in him!
With Love,
Elder Pond
