Dear Family and Friends!!
It was amazing to hear from ya'll and feel of the Spirit that came from
the temple dedication this week! Everything is going amazing out here in
the mission field we are pushing to hit 150 baptisms as a mission this
month! I cannot wait and know it will only come as we are faithfully
obedient and always diligent! This week I also was pondering on how
excited I am for the future of this mission and where we are going as we
continue to do things that have not been done! I love missionary work!
Once
again this week the Lord prepared the way for Elder Hall and I to
baptize one soul unto Christ. Five weeks in a row He has allowed us to
baptize this truly is a miracle that came from the Lord especially after
seeing where this area was before! I know that this only came because
of Christ's strength as Ammon states in Alma 26.
A
huge miracle we have been seeing lately has been with the power of Book
of Mormon study as a family and family prayer. There is this amazing
family that Elder Hall and I have been working with for a while now that
have amazing desires to get baptized, but are not married and living
together. So they have been preparing for their marriage on October 5th
but have been facing heavy opposition where Satan has been trying to
tear their family apart. So we met with them and this day they were just
yelling at each other and you could just feel the contention in their
home. But we felt very prompted by the Spirit that every night if they
read from the Book of Mormon and pray as a family that the Lord would
bring their family closer together. They all committed to do so that
night and what was really cool is what happened the next day. We came
over and everything was picture perfect! Everyone was getting along and
the house was filled with the Spirit because they were showing that
Christlike love towards each other. When we asked what they did
differently and they said they just did what we asked, read and prayed
as a family and the Lord sent a miracle! There is power in reading the
Book of Mormon and communicating with God!
This
week we also saw how obedience in harvest brings indirect blessings.
Last week we didn't quite get all the blessings that the Lord wanted us
to get so this week we set out to get eight by Wednesday,
and fifteen at the end of the week (the standard that President
Anderson has set). While harvesting we didn't really find a ton of
people who were really solid but the Lord saw our hearts and definetely
blessed us indirectly by getting nine referrals of amazing people who
are excited to be baptized! I will always be exactly obedient in all
things not only to get the direct blessings, but the indirect blessings
as well.
Big
things are happening out here in the mission field and I truly cannot
wait! We are baptizing more than this mission or almost any mission
stateside has in a long time. We have a temple that will be dedicated in
less than a year. And the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored! I
love it! But yea the temples dedication date is set for 2013 Labor Day
Weekend so we pray every day that the temple will be open by that date!
It's been eight months since I've been to the House of the Lord and I
really miss it. I'm proud of you as well El Bell you finna tear it up in
the mission field! Love ya man!
Grandma
Ruby-Thank you soo much for your advice in your letters. I can really
feel the Spirit when I read them and they help me go out every day and
work as hard as I possibly can! I love you!
That's
really it for this week. Thanks for the packages and you should get a
letter with the SD Card in it! Love ya'll make sure ya write this week!
With Love and Trust in the Lord,
Elder Pond
Elder Pond and Elder Hall
