WK72 'My God is Awesome!!'

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

Fort Lauderdale Mission - Leadership Council

WK71 'Another Week in the Lord!!'

Dear Family and Friends!!

All is well in Stuart!! This week I was pondering on how we as Children of God are able to change. Many people think they need to change there entire personality for God to accept them. But through study and much prayer I discerned that this is not what God wants for us. From the scriptures we learn that we are created in the image of God, so from that we learn that God has given us our individual personalities for a reason. God has given all of us individual spiritual gifts! So what we must do is take our personality and through the Atonement of Christ apply Christlike attributes into our very being. And that is how we "become a Saint through the Atonement of Christ". This is what I will continue to apply in my life and help all those around me apply!

We saw huge miracles here in the amazing area of Stuart South this week! We worked as hard as we can and once again God provided us with another miracle baptism! We definitely had to exercise our faith to be able to get our friend into the waters of baptism, but in Christ's great mercy He made it happen! And as a result my love and understanding of the Atonement has increased even greater!

The Zone is seeing amazing things as well. This week we were able to do a lot of ministering and help our zone more fully catch the vision so thus they can become more converted. This past week we ministered on exercising faith, teaching repentance, and conversion to our purpose.

There is also a part of our June Zone Vision that I wanted to share with ya'll. We use it as missionaries but it can be applied to any aspect of life and I know is inspired from God.

Personal Growth and Conversion

Repent- Recognize area of personal growth and necessary improvement day by day

Study- Learn what you must do to improve. Create an If->Then Statement, which determines what you need to do (IF) and as you do that what God will do for you (THEN).

Pray- Take If->Then Statement to God

Act in Faith- 1 Nephi 3:7

As this formula is applied in our lives, I know we will see personal growth and our conversion unto Christ will continue to grow stronger and stronger day by day.

Well God and Jesus Christ love you and all His children eternally. I personally love ya'll as well. I am also grateful for my companions, Elders Smoot and Rockwood, they are amazing and I love them a lot. Continue to do all you can to show forth your faith in the Savior Jesus Christ!

With Love,

Elder Pond

Stuart Zone... 'The Big Three' - Elder Rockwood, Elder Pond & Elder Smoot 
with Sisters Dougal & Stegelmeier.   Thank you Sisters for the picture!

 

 

 

 

WK70 'Keep Jesus in Your Heart'

Dear Family and Friends!!

Well the rumors are true...Up here in Stuart South we are in a tri-companionship so we can more effectively minister to the amazing Stuart Zion Zone! I love my companions we call ourselves the big three just as LBJ, Dwane Wade, and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. Their names are Elder Rockwood, from Orem, and Elder Smoot, from Kaysville! We have already seen amazing miracles and will continue to see many mighty miracles ahead! Today I want ya'll to ponder on one word, it's very simple, but powerful! FAITH.

This week I was really able to come to an even greater understanding of the Atonement of Christ. This past Tuesday we baptized a man who only speaks Spanish so I was not able to speak much to him. But I do know that I always showed him and his family and incredible amount of love and always exercised faith! His baptism was one of the most spiritual experiences of my entire mission so far. Even though I didn't fully understand the words at the baptismal service, the Spirit of God was there and I could never deny that. As I was able to witness that amazing ordinance my understanding of the Atonement grew and thus my conversion unto the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! I know this gospel is Christs!

The Zone had an average month in May, we were able to baptize thirteen. We started off the month really strong but then had a weak finish. As we as zone leaders discussed what action needed to take place to fix the problem at hand we discerned that as a zone we needed to always act in faith, and understand greater how to prepare our amazing investigators to be baptized. So we are taking training's to all the missionaries in the Zone this week so therefore they can be converted and thus see more success!

Yesterday we had forty-five minutes to harvest and I asked Elder Grant, who I was on exchanges with, how many blessings he wanted to give. He stated four very half heartily. I then testified of faith and exclaimed we could definitely reach eight blessings. He looked shocked but eventually jumped on board with faith. The first three doors we knocked opened and we harvested. We then began to run from door to door harvesting with fire and faith. Then three of the next five blessings said a resounding yes to baptism and were very excited to come to church. This was a life changing experience for the two of us! I know as we give God everything we have and put fire and faith into it then He will grant us success!

But that's all for this past crazy week! We have been travelin all over the Stake and I have been lovin it! Keep Jesus in your heart always!

With Love,

Elder Pond

WK69 'Time for a Little Change!!'

Dear Family and Friends

Palm Beach and Stuart Zone Conference

I am eternally grateful unto God for this past week and the things He was able to teach me and convert me unto! This past week has changed my life and I would like to highlight some huge principles I was able to be converted to!

Trust in God and in others: For all of my mission I have always trusted in God and Jesus Christ all the time. I truly love them with every fiber of my being. But I have always struggled to trust in others, whether that is members, other missionaries, or my investigators. I have truly loved them and would do anything for them but I was missing trust. This week Elder Torres and myself were able to counsel more concerning these things and God revealed a lot to us. First that unity with anyone; your companion, spouse, friends, etc.; first comes as you trust them completely. Then that trust leads you to allow others to act in faith as God does. Many times God allows us to do things, we mess it up, but then He helps us to be able to fix it. We must apply this same principle with those that we come in contact with. Because as we apply this principle we will allow others to learn and grow and create lasting conversion in them!

Exact Obedience in the small things matters: I have always done all I can to be exactly obedient. But many times we can get lazy with the small things and thus we lose spiritual power. We need this spiritual power in the world that we live in and especially as we teach God's children and baptize them!

So I am extremely excited to see amazing miracles this upcoming transfer! I have made a covenant with God to apply these two principles and many others that I have learned this past transfer and I know as a result we will do what has never been done before! Thus God is already blessing us because we are baptizing an amazing part-member family today who we were able to marry yesterday! We also got transfer calls last night and Elder Torres will be leaving. I will be getting a new companion up here in Stuart!

But I gotta go peace and get everything ready for the new transfer! I love ya'll and keep up the Lords work!

With Love,

Elder Pond

WK68 'We Have Work To Do!!'

Dear Family and Friends!

Well we had an amazing Mothers Day yesterday full of baptisms! It was definitely an amazing time to reflect on the atoning sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ! We must always center our lives around the Atonement! While I was reading President Anderson's email it stood out to me, it said, "WE HAVE WORK TO DO!!". This is absolutely true! At the beginning of my mission I made a covenant with God that I would serve him with everything I have and I have always strived to live up to that covenant. I know that as I have given the Lord my all, He has blessed us tremendously through His mercy! There were a couple amazing miracles that came to pass this week that showed forth the mercy of Christ:
We have this part-member family who is getting married this Saturday so the husband can get baptized on Sunday and one day have an eternal family!
We were able to baptize two more amazing sons of God!
We were harvesting on P-day and this first two doors we knocked on accepted baptism readily!
I myself was able to become more converted, and help other receivers become more converted as well!
These are just a few of the many mighty miracles that our loving Savior Jesus Christ was able to give to us this week!

The zone is doing amazing as well! We were able to bring seven souls into the waters of baptism this week as a Zone and have many more miracles coming in the Stuart Zone! This week we have Zone Training and we will be training on gaining trust of our investigators, and creating spiritual experiences with the follow-up visit. We as well will be training on helping our missionaries become pro-active game-changers and play-makers. I know this will help our missionaries become more converted children of God and will create lasting conversion.

Lately Elder Torres and I have also been pondering about how we need spiritual power and conviction. This comes through true conversion and is something we want for all of God's children. So we will be doing all we can to help our missionaries, ward, and investigators gain spiritual power! But for those of you reading this, do ALL you can to gain direct spiritual power from God! Your life will change completely as you do so and thus change others lives completely!

But everyone I absolutely love my mission and the work I am doing! This work brings me indescribable joy! Now lets go do HIS work!!

With Love,

Elder Pond

WK67 'Revelation!!'

Dear Family and Friends!

This week has been amazing and full of miracles! This week we had mission leadership counsel and it was an amazing time to receive revelation and enlightenment. We also know that much more revelation will come in the upcoming weeks and along with that even more miracles!

Mission Leadership Counsel

This week we were able to see huge miracles from God. As we exercised our faith in Christ and were proactive we were able to see two of God's children come unto Christ through baptism!

Also another huge miracle that we were able to see was while we were with a member on Saturday. We went to an appointment but they weren't home. As we were walking away I saw a man sitting outside and I was prompted to go speak with him. So we listened and began to approach the man. He accepted the blessing readily and after the blessing he exclaimed how much he felt the Spirit of God. Then as we invited him to be baptized he said, "I've been meaning to be baptized for a while so absolutely! Also where is ya'lls church I wanna come tomorrow!" It was amazing to see God lead us to His children that are extremely elect as we opened our mouths! As we walked away the member exclaimed, "Wow, that was a miracle!"

Well this week it finna be short and sweet! We have been on the computer all morning creating our Zone Vision so we are gonna peace and do some more planning for this upcoming week!

But I love ya'll!

Elder Pond