Well be ready for the best email ever!
Haha. But thank you soo much for your emails and letters this week! I
truly do appreciate them. This week I had a lot of reflecting to do and
huge miracles seen that I am excited to report on.
As I was in personal study one day I was pondering on how I can
finish strong and completely return with honor. I was studying in the
doctrine and covenants 30:1-2 and it talked about how we must dwell and
focus more on heavenly things than temporal things. This is something
that is definitely tough to do but extremely important. Temporal things
will perish after this life and have no true meaning, but heavenly
things carry eternal importance and meaning. We saw this huge this week.
We had a couple of appointments fall through so we decided to go to a
new place and find people to teach. As we were walking down the street
we were stopped by a homeless man asking us for money. As we began to
testify and invite him to be baptized a lady walked past us and the
Spirit told me to go talk with her. As my companion dealt with the
homeless guy I went to go speak with this daughter of God. As I began to
speak with her I could feel of the difficulties she was going through,
because for the most of her life she has sought more after temporal
things. Well this daughter of God came to church on Sunday. She had a
complete smile on her face the whole time and she is getting baptized
this Sunday! Her life is improving. Brothers and Sisters, we must seek
more for heavenly things than earthly things. Yes it takes faith, but
yes it is always worth it!
Another huge thing that I saw this week is the spiritual power that
comes as we keep the commandments, especially keeping the Sabbath Day
holy. In Presidents email today he talked about this same thing:
“This
is a commandment with a promise. By participating weekly and
appropriately in the ordinance of the sacrament we qualify for the
promise that we will ‘always have his Spirit to be with [us]’ (D&C
20:77). That Spirit is the foundation of our testimony. It testifies of
the Father and the Son, brings all things to our remembrance, and leads
us into truth. It is the compass to guide us on our path... The
ordinance of the sacrament makes the sacrament meeting the most sacred
and important meeting in the Church. It is the only Sabbath meeting the
entire family can attend together.... In his writings on the doctrines
of salvation, President Joseph Fielding Smith teaches that we partake of
the sacrament as our part of commemorating the Savior’s death and
sufferings for the redemption of the world. This ordinance was
introduced so that we can renew our covenants to serve Him, to obey Him,
and to always remember Him. President Smith adds: ‘We cannot retain the
Spirit of the Lord if we do not consistently comply with this
commandment’ (Doctrines of Salvation, comp.
Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:341).... How can we have the
Spirit of the Lord to guide our choices so that we will remain
‘unspotted from the world’ (D&C 59:9) and on the safe path through
mortality? We need to qualify for the cleansing power of the Atonement
of Jesus Christ. We do this by keeping His commandment to come to Him
with a broken heart and a contrite spirit and in that wonderful weekly
meeting partake of the emblems of the sacrament and make the covenants
that qualify us for the precious promise that we will always have His
Spirit to be with us. (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, General Conference, October
2008)
Yesterday we had an investigator come to church who we found this past Wednesday. We were running around during church and did not have much time to talk to her during church. But after relief society we went to talk to her and she was walking out saying, "I love this church! I am getting baptized this Sunday! This finna be my home church!" Then she began to walk up to Bishop Andrade and ask him if she can be baptized and be a member of his church. He explained how it isn't his church but Gods and how she absolutely can. That all came to pass because of the spiritual power that she felt as she kept the Sabbath Day holy. We too must keep this commandment and we will receive spiritual power as well!
Well
God is good as always. Keep pushing foreword and know if you keep the
commandments, then He will be on your right hand and on your left to
bear you up through all manner of afflictions!
With Love,
Elder Pond
