WK91 'Change of Lives'

Dear Family and Friends!

Well once again a week full of eventful activities and HUGE miracles as always! I am excited to share with you the things that happened this week to change my life and the lives of others.

First and foremost, this past Saturday we had a mission conference with an apostle of the Lord, Elder Dallin H. Oaks. It was amazing the things I was able to learn from and most importantly the Spirit that was felt as he spoke with 200 missionaries. Some of the things that stood out to me that he spoke about are:

-Our focus must be on the ordinances of the gospel. Because within the ordinances the power of godliness is manifest. We must be baptized, receive the gift of the holy ghost, continue to partake of the sacrament, receive our endowment, and be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. Others goals are worthy and good, but the saving ordinances of the gospel are the most important!

-We must act with TRUE INTENT in order to gain a testimony. True intent means willing to commit to something.

-Also what matters most about your testimony is your conviction and conversion to the simple and basic doctrines. Not how much knowledge you have.

-The temple of God is were we are taught, make covenants, and receive promised blessings.

-Man is absolutely nothing without the Lord to guide him.

But a huge tender mercy from the Lord to be able to sit at the feet of an apostle just like unto Peter or Paul back in the times of Christ. Nothing he said was to profound, but everything he said he had no doubt it was true and from God.

Another huge miracle we saw was being able to baptize five of Gods children yesterday! It was amazing to see the different situations of each of them how the Lord stepped in and allowed them to partake of the first saving ordinance of the Gospel, especially since all five of them were from different households. One was an inspired contact on the street, ever since that day the glow of the gospel has grown and grown and grown. Another we knocked on her door, she felt sick, so we gave her a priesthood blessing. Ever since that day she was healed and felt the power of God more fully in her life! Another kicked out her boyfriend to be baptized so her kids can become like us. Another got married to be baptized and was able to gain the strength to do so through prayer. The last was a brother of my recent convert who just decided to show up to church and loved it! All of these souls are precious unto the sight of God, and as they were baptized I definitely felt the power of God!

But God is amazing! I am eternally grateful for the things I have learned so far on my mission and how I have grown. My mission has meant everything to me. And for the rest of my mission, I am excited to give the Lord absolutely everything I have. So He can change my life while He gives me the strength to change the lives of others!

With Love,

Elder Pond

WK90 'This Mighty Week'

Dear Family and Friends!

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

WK89 'I love the Ghetto!'

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

WK88 "In the Ghetto.."

Dear Family and Friends!

As always another amazing week in the beautiful land of Opa-Locka! Something President Anderson shared in his email today touched me and I really wanted to share it with ya'll:

"My Father is a convert to the Church. It was a small miracle when he was baptized; he knew that he would never be the same again. He knew that he wanted to be with his family for eternity. Later he and my mother knelt at the altars of the Temple, to realize their dream to be sealed for time and eternity as a family. Their five sons, including myself, dressed in white were ushered into that same sealing room to kneel at the altar by their sides, to have that sealing power and miracle made complete. Direction of lives changed, advanced and improved in an incredible, eternal way. All five of their sons and ten of their grandchildren have served full time missions throughout the world where hundreds of souls have come to the Gospel and ordinances of the Temple. To those souls, direction of lives also were changed, advanced and improved in an incredible, eternal way. It started with the small miracle of my Father feeling the Spirit and progressing to baptism. It has progressed currently as huge miracles to all of those that have embraced the Truth and have been blessed because of the Gospel. This great miracle is eternal; it will not end, but become greater as we gain Eternal Life with our families in the presence of God. You will encounter many “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” miracles in your mission."

As I pondered on this inspiring experience I began to ponder on a family that I taught and baptized in Wellington who will be entering the temple this month to be sealed together as a family. I remember finding them, and how it was a little small miracle of following the Spirit to a family who was praying for us. I remember teaching them with members and the family feeling the Spirit. I remember the magnificent day of their families baptism and truly how all the small and simple things led up to something huge! Then onto them receiving the priesthood and callings in the ward. Now to this day where they are about to qualify for exaltation one day with their Heavenly Father. By small and simple things truly are great things brought to pass!

This past week we saw huge miracles. On Monday as we set out to work hard and unfortunately an appointment fell through. As we were about to go to our back-up appointment the Spirit told us to harvest. So we set out to knock a couple of doors really quickly. We knocked and met this lady who's apartment was just broken into. She felt the Spirit immediately and began to cry. She accepted baptism and church and anything we told her! Then we kept pressing foreword with faith and the next door we knocked on was a complete miracle. We knocked and this family opened immediately. They began talking about how they prayed to be able to go to church just yesterday and now here we were on there doorstep. They said after the blessing that they finally felt the peace they have been searching for and couldn't of been more set on coming to church and getting baptized. After that blessing then walking away to our next appointment, I couldn't help but express how grateful I was for the amazing tender mercies of the Lord!

It was also a huge tender mercy of the Lord to baptize once again this past Sunday. One huge thing that impacted me was the light that came into their countenances as I brought them up out of the waters. There was a glow that I had not seen in either of them before and I could definitely see and feel the difference within them.

An experience that actually happened yesterday that made me smile I wanted to share! I was out with my new companion Elder Harris and we were following up with people in this super ghetto apartment complex who unfortunately did not make it to church. Elder Harris just randomly decided to ask them what our street names are. They came up with amazing ones which we will now be called! Mine is "Low Key Dawg" and Elder Harris' "Hot Boy Harris". They loved it and most importantly it was amazing to see us build that relationship with them.

September was definitely a month to remember! The two months of September I baptized more than any other months of my mission. But a huge scripture that I am going to face this transfer around is Mosiah 4:11-12. I invite ya'll to read it and ponder how you can apply the teaching of King Benjamin more fully.

With Love,

Low Key Dawg

AKA Elder Pond

WK87 'My God is Awesome!'

Dear Family and Friends!

I am eternally grateful unto God for this past week absolutely full of miracles. All Saturday and Sunday all Elder Burgon and myself could do is talk about how amazing God has been to us. I love my Heavenly Father! Also for the huge miracles this past transfer. And upcoming now this transfer I will be STAYING in the beautiful land of Opa-Locka and Elder Burgon will be leaving! I am super grateful God is allowing me to stay here once again in this amazing area! Huge things are coming this transfer!

 

Cherloune Baptism

But this Sunday was a huge miracle because we were able to baptize six people! It took a lot of work but God provided the miracle after we gave all we had. Sitting in sacrament we realized that we had six people there who could be baptized. But only two of them were set with a firm date. But we went foreword with faith and got second interviews for a family that then got permission to be baptized. That family of three was baptized! During there second interviews we went and invited one of the other people to be baptized that same day. She gave a whole bunch of excuses, but I looked her in the eyes and said, "You need to be baptized and you know it." She agreed and was baptized as well. Then the two who were set walked out of Relief Society and said they had to go because their feet were swollen up really bad. But we acted in faith and bore testimony that God would give them the strength that they need to be baptized. They stayed as well and were baptized. I learned a lot of lessons from these huge miracle experiences. The most powerful being our motives must always be love or it will not work. The importance of being led by the Spirit. And how we MUST be bold like unto Peter in Acts 2!

Fritz Baptism

The Zone is doing amazing though as well! A huge outcome of that is us reaching our baptismal goal of 30 baptisms in four weeks. This week we are working hard to baptize 13 people and do what has never been done in any zone in the FFLM in one month.

 

This upcoming transfer I am excited for new things as well as new miracles and records broke! This week I want to challenge you all to do something that you have never done before and return and report!

My God is awesome!

 

With Love,

Kiki Baptism - Gotta love Elder Pond's tent!

Elder Pond

WK86 'Hasten the Work'

Dear Family and Friends!

Last night I was actually thinking about obedience as we took a recent convert with us to teach. He said, "Sometimes we block the blessings God wants to give us because we don't obey!" As he said that, it rung home. We must be exactly obedient always, so we don't block Gods blessings! So find this week one thing you can be more obedient with, and be very diligent with it. Account with the Lord nightly on how you are doing, and I promise you will see more blessings from God!

 

This week we saw a huge miracle while on exchanges and harvesting though! We began a harvest as a zone and set out to see a huge miracle in our area. We knocked on a door of this man and he immediately let us in. We left a blessing for his family and he talked about how that is exactly what he needed. Then looking towards the future his whole family showed up at church on Sunday! As I spoke with him after he talked about how he loved it, and is excited to be baptized next Sunday to receive those blessings from the Lord! I'm always eternally grateful that God leads us to those that are elect.

 

But once again, I am excited for an upcoming powerful transfer. I can't believe it is that time already but next week is transfer week! Whatever God has in store for me this transfer, I am ready to go and do what he wants me to do. This transfer I focused huge on humility and have grown an incredible amount. Elder Burgon has been an amazing example to me. I love him.

 

Huge miracles are coming this week though! Let's go hasten the work of God!

Love ya'll!

Elder Pond

WK85 'Countenance of Christ'

Dear Family and Friends!

 

This week definitely huge miracles have come and I know will continue to come as we continue to rely upon Christ! As I ponder back on this week I am eternally grateful for the power that comes from the heavens as we exemplify Jesus Christ in our countenance. No matter who we are but especially as missionaries, others must see Christ in us, and then power comes from heaven. But to do so we must do the things that Christ has done, and ahead to his counsel of "Come Follow Me"!

 

This Monday we were out working hard. We were with a member and decided to follow up with a lady that we blessed a while back. Her children came out and immediately started talking with us. One of them was in tears because something just happened with her family. But they explained how they use to always come to church but then they moved and lost contact with the missionaries. Also the member we had with us was friends with one of them from school. We prayed with them, the spirit immediately came, we taught them the doctrine of baptism, and they all accepted immediately. They got interviewed the next day and we baptized one of them that Wednesday! A three day baptism. Now looking at her it has been amazing to see the countenance change within herself and she decided to follow the Savior. She always has now a happy smile and attitude about things. Looking back now I love how the first time we met her she was crying, but now she is a completely different person! I can definitely see the Savior within her now!

 

We also saw a huge miracle with baptizing on Sunday! A week ago from this past Saturday we got a spiritual prompting to call one of our former's who came to church many times but we lost contact with. She answered so we invited her to come to church! But she stated how she likes the Catholic Church more and doesn't wanna change. So we set up an appointment to stop by the next day after church. We brought over a member to that appointment and through down on the doctrine of the kingdom. By the end she knew what she needed to do, but was still being very stubborn and not wanting to change. But when we saw her on Tuesday she explained how she had a dream where her brother came to her and told her to listen and get baptized immediately. Since then everything changed. Saturday when we met with her she exclaimed that she should of listened to us a long time ago, and gotten baptized. She had us pray and ask God to help her keep her promise and keep coming to this church and not the Catholic anymore. She then found out that her sister is a member of the church in Haiti and always tried to get her to come to church but she never did. Then at her baptism she had complete tears of joy! God changes people.

 

The work is amazing, the area is amazing, my companion is amazing, and MY GOD IS AWESOME!

Love ya'll and see miracles this week!

 

With Love,

Elder Pond