First let me remind you that because today is a holiday many families are home so it is a great Harvesting day for the missionaries. Also all the libraries are closed so many missionaries can not get to a computer. For those reasons missionaries will not be writing today…they will have more great experiences to share with their families tomorrow.

I usually only post the missionary experiences that President Anderson puts in his weekly letter but the counsel that is in this week’s letter seem to me to speak to all member of the Kingdom and not just missionaries. Our willingness to pledge to the Lord and then ask Him for a blessing is something that we all can do. “If I take a pass-along card with me today will you show me who you have prepared to receive it.”

Enjoy these great experiences…

As I have reflected on our Zone Conference, I have been reading in parts of Alma concerning the great missionary miracles of Alma and the four sons of Mosiah. Sometime after, Alma and his brethren had a wonderful reunion and shared their missionary experiences and successes (like we do at transfer meetings), he takes them all, including Amulek, Zezrom, and his two sons Shiblon and Corianton to preach and teach the Zoramites. Now this is probably one of the greatest “Districts” of missionaries in the history of the world.  Alma knew that reclaiming the Zoramites would be no small task so I am sure that is why he picked the best missionaries who he trusted, loved and was united with. He knew that the Spirit would be so much better in reclaiming them than going to war because of their gross iniquities:

 â€œÂ And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God. “ (Alma 31:5)

When they came upon the Zoramites, he was disappointed because of their pride and their corruption of the Gospel:

 â€œNow when Alma saw this his heart was grieved; for he saw that they were a wicked and a perverse people; yea, he saw that their hearts were set upon gold, and upon silver, and upon all manner of fine goods. Yea, and he also saw that their hearts were lifted up unto great boasting, in their pride.” (Alma 31:24-25)

He began a prayer that starts off seemingly angry with the Zoramites (Alma 31:26-29), but then his prayer and heart begin to soften and he prays for them, instead of against them. In the prayer he gives God promises (if we), and then pleads for the blessings from it (then, wilt thou):

If â€œI may bear with mine infirmities”; If â€œI may have strength”; If â€œI may suffer with patience these afflictions” (Alma 31:30-31). Along with these “if” promises, I am sure that Alma filled in the specifics that would show the Lord what he and his brethren would do. Promises of action (faith), sacrifice, obedience and diligence. Subsequently  Alma prays for then “wilt thou bless us”:

Then â€œwilt thou comfort my soul”; Then â€œwilt thou comfort their souls”; Then â€œwilt thou grant unto them that they may have strength”; Then â€œwilt thou grant unto us that we may have success… bringing them… unto Christ”. Then wilt thou â€œgive unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring… our brethren… unto thee”. (Alma 31:32-35)

What amazing blessings, what selfless blessings to ask for in return of their promises to earn, work and sacrifice for them. After his prayer the Spirit bore to his Soul that he prayed for what was right and that God accepted it:

 â€œNow it came to pass that when Alma had said these words, that he clapped his hands upon all them who were with him. And behold, as he clapped his hands upon them, they were filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Alma 31:36)

And God blessed them according to his prayer and faith:

“And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith.” (Alma 31:38)

I love the blessings that are coming with your own “wilt thou” experiences:

“Then we said a prayer and talked with God and we asked him ‘if we will do this……, then wilt thou bless us with a family that has been prepared and are ready to get baptized?’ And the spirit was so strong and we all knew…  that there was a family and so we got out of the car and my companion saw someone across the street and literally ran to him… we had to run right after him and talk to him but from that point on we ran from door to door, person to person, for that hour and a half and we were there backing each other up on whatever they felt we should go or do and it was one of the most amazing experiences I have had on my mission and the last people we talked to were a couple that knew about the church and they accepted to prepare to be baptized! We talked about it after and one of the greatest lessons I learned is first that there is nothing that brings greater happiness or greater joy than doing the will of the Lord and that as a missionary there is no reason I should not be making every hour of my mission and also life of only doing the lords will. His will is to bring joy and happiness and salvation to all of his children!! Who doesn’t want that?!!”

We testify to everyone, we are bold like Alma and his district “according to the prayer” of our faith, and they will be prepared for us:

“We went to the last door on the floor- a door that we almost didn’t go to, as we had just received a referral from the door before and we were planning on chasing the referral down immediately- and a guy with a goatee opened up, holding a can of Budweiser in his hand.  He wasn’t remotely interested, barely responded to our invitation, and began to shut the door in our faces when a voice called from out back and said ‘Who is that at the door?’.  The man with the beer yelled back ‘Church people!’.  The voice from within said ‘Well I wanna talk to them!’.  A lady in her late 20’s came up to the door, took a look at us, and her face was just filled with light.  ‘Elders!!’  she said happily.  Turns out her aunt was taught in another ward, and she had been praying for someone to come to her, as she had been wanting a way to repair her relationship with God and the Elders she had met years ago were the only ones who had ever been able to help her out with that.  When we had knocked on the door, she had been in the backyard and had the feeling she had to come inside.  When her husband was about to shut the door, all she saw were our ties, and she knew she had to talk to us.  We went inside, blessed the entire family, husband included (who softened right up when he found out we weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses or soliciting), and every last one of them committed to baptism!  It was truly incredible!!  We also took down the aunt’s info and passed it to the other ward, who have since contacted her and are working with her too.  Miracles will abound, as long as we have the faith to make them!”

God will bless us (wilt thou) with our vision of baptisms as we commit to him that we will do whatever it takes (if we):

 â€œWe talked about setting visions and then through ‘if’, ‘then’ statements relying on the Lord and trusting in him to help us accomplish our vision. It was awesome! Our vision was to find someone in the hour we had that was going to come to church the next day then prepare for baptizm the following week. So we then took it up in prayer and told the Lord, ‘IF’ we do these things ‘THEN’ will you bless us and help us find this family that will come to church with one days notice and then be baptized. WELL GUESS WHAT!!!! We found a FAMILY. The mom is from Honduras and all of her extended family are members there. She’s the only one that isn’t a member. She misses the church and wants to go. She told us her husband needs it as well and the kids need to learn about Christ. So we had all 7 members of this big family at church. They are amazing. 5 of them are baptism age. We are going to work with them this week and try and put forth other visions to help them into the waters of baptism this Sunday. It’ll be an 8 day FAMILY baptism.”

In the Book of Luke, Christ went into a ship with his disciples to travel to the other side of the lake. A great storm commenced and the disciples went and woke the Savior saying “Master, master, we parish”. The Savior rebuked the Storm and said to them:

“Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”

Missionaries, â€œWhere is your faith?” Just as the Savior knew that his disciples had the power to do what he did, God knows and I know you missionaries have the power to accomplish your vision to bring souls to Christ. Let us increase that faith to bring these souls.

“God has given us the capacity to exercise faith, that we may find peace, joy, and purpose in life. However, to employ its power, faith must be founded on something. There is no more solid foundation than faith in the love Heavenly Father has for you, faith in His plan of happiness, and faith in the capacity and willingness of Jesus Christ to fulfill all of His promises.”(Richard G. Scott, Gen. Conf., April 2003)

I know that all of you missionaries have the potential of this faith.

I have mentioned the site where pictures of the temple under construction can be seen. These two pictures have been added since I was there last and I thought I would post them for people to see and perhaps get them to go to the site themselves. The view from the air seems to be an official one while the beautiful evening scene comes courtesy of Scott Gillig.

Keep up with what is going on by visiting http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/fortlauderdale

We were happy to be able to go up to West Jordan and hear Wes Bowen report his mission. He shared experiences that illustrated the points of his talk. After the meeting we went over to his home and met some of his family and friends while having a delicious lunch.

Well you can take me out of the Fort Lauderdale Mission but you can not take the mission out of me. I know how much pictures means to families so i asked Sister Boice, another camera buff, to please take as many pictures of new companionships as she could at transfer meeting on Wednesday.

These are the great pictures she sent me. I think most of them are much better than the ones I took. I hope that you enjoy the pictures and I will try to put names to them sometime tomorrow.

Elder Orullian will be trained by elder Kafton down in Homestead zone. Sister Amiolemeh’s trainer is sister Hymas and they will serve at the opposite end of the mission up in Stuart zone.

Elder Benitez seems to be happy to have elder Levy as his new companion and they will serve in Stuart zone. Two missionaries that we got to know well, elders Brimley and Grant, are now companions and will also be serving up in Stuart zone. BTW Elders Smoot, Rockwood and Pond – sorry no picture – are now serving as a threesome as zone leaders up there in Stuart.

Elders Call and Urmston will serve together in the Miami Beach zone. Sisters Chiou and Espinoza, who I believe came in just a few weeks apart, are now serving in the Fort Lauderdale zone.

Senior missionaries elders Collins and Boice bookend elder Gutierriez and Whitney. Sister Fletcher, who served with us in FL ward, and sister Hansen who regularly read this blog after she got her call, are now companions. They will serve this transfer in Hialeah zone.

Sisters Garcia and Meiling are new companions in Hialeah zone. Elder Gust and elder Plowman said goodbye to elders Shipley and Stewart and now are the APs with elder Torres…sorry no picture of the new companionship yet.

Here are elders Gutierrez and Whitney with out the senior elders – they will serve together in Hialeah zone. Elder Harris is now companion with elder Van Wagenen. Elder Van Wagenen is the missionary elder Smoot tried to eat at our last Last Supper back in April. They will serve in Fort Lauderdale zone with elder Harris being the district leader,

Sisters Jackson and Ware are serving in the Miami Beach zone. Elders Marcussen and Brockbank are in Fort Lauderdale zone.

Sisters Holyan and McKay will serve together in the Hialeah zone. Elders McMullin and Winslow are now serving in the Coral Springs zone.

I was happy to see a couple of shots of the parking lot ballet…missionaries moving their luggage and bikes from one car to another as they say goodbye to one group of friends and get acquainted with another group. I really wonder who is under that Mexican sombrero. Elder Richardson is behind elder Rivera. He is going to serve down in Homestead with elder Mackley. In the second picture sister Holyan is just coming up to elder Plowman and sister Espinoza is moving some of her  luggage – where are the elders who should be helping her? I think that is elder Bay I see – he is going to serve with elder Allen down in Homestead zone.

Elders Pattberg and Page will serve up in Stuart zone. Sister Rogers is going to be trained in Fort Lauderdale zone by sister Bean. If she has a birthday while serving with sister Bean she will get a great birthday cake and maybe a mustache straw.

Sister Schneider will be training sister Biggs while they serve in the Palm Beach zone. It was great to see that sister Stegelmeier and sister Dougal – two of the new Sister Training Leaders – are serving together while staying in the Fort Lauderdale zone. I am hoping that I get a picture of sister Merrill with her new missionary sister Karl soon so I can post it. They are also serving in the Fort Lauderdale zone.

I have no idea how sister Stegelmeier managed to get into a picture with sisters Espinoza and Chiou but she must have gotten down on her knees to be that close to their size. Elder Taylor is now serving with elder Loucks in the Coral Springs zone where elder Loucks is a DL.  

It is good to see elders Webb and Williamson will serve together in the Miami Beach zone where elder Webb serves as a DL. The Lord finally moved elder Thorne out of the Fort Lauderdale zone and he will now serve as DL up in Stuart zone with elder Woodard.

Last but not least elders Skousen and ever smiling elder Hall will serve as zone leaders together down in Hialeah zone.

Darn but I miss being at transfer meeting and getting to see all the great missionaries we came to know and love. Hopefully we will be able to stay in touch with some of them through e-mail and FB.

If anyone has pictures of new companionships – or old ones for that matter – that they would like me to post here, please send them to me with any comments you would like to include.

Remember, after humbling ourselves we must be diligent:

 â€œOne amazing thing that happened this week was all thanks to my amazing companion. After a food appointment we came out to the car not starting. As we were waiting for Elder Bare to find us and help fix the problem, we realized we were near a park. The thought of going and contacting came to my mind but I brushed it out with the fact that we were in a really rich area, and we didn’t know how much time we had. But my companion then told us he felt like we might as well harvest, and then we went. As we headed to the park we got each other excited and went contacting. The first prayer was amazing and the man accepted baptism and church on Sunday! Then the next one too! After that we had to head back to the car but afterwards I couldn’t believe we had just found two amazing people in less than 10 minutes! It was such an amazing experience and a testimony builder. Now I love contacting in parks!”

Remember, after humbling ourselves we also need to exercise faith:

 â€œI saw a guy working on his car. He looked up at us and stared as though he knew us or wanted to say something. So I walked up to him and asked him if he needed help on his car. He declined, but we offered a prayer and he accepted that. We said the prayer and immediately after that he said that he felt a change and that he wanted to have a renewing in his life. We invited him to be baptized and he said he would even though he had been baptized before. Then he told us that he had had a vision a few days earlier where God had sent two guys to help him change his life and renew his commitment with Jesus Christ. We were sent to him. My companion and I were so stunned walking away from that experience… We both felt we should talk to him and we saw an amazing miracle!!!! What great things does the Lord do for us!!!”

Remember, after humbling ourselves we must “give heed”; we must be obedient:

“We applied what you trained on with teaching the how of repentance to our investigator. She is an incredible young lady who has problems with pretty well every commandment; from the law of chastity to the word of wisdom, she has broken them in almost every way possible. We’ve been teaching her for about two weeks now and had taught her all the commandments but she hadn’t wholeheartedly committed to live them. On Thursday night we taught her how to repent and a new light entered her eyes. As we testified of the steps of repentance and how she would feel as she went through those steps her smile got bigger and bigger. Repentance no longer appeared to her to be an insurmountable wall, but a bright, clear path. We invited her to go through the steps right there and she did it, recognizing, asking forgiveness, and forsaking. She was the happiest I have ever seen her! We then decided to set up her baptismal interview even though she hadn’t been to church yet. In the interview her confidence in being able to keep the commandments continually was very low. The Zone Leader though, taught her that keeping the word of wisdom and law of chastity was part of her repentance process. When she heard that, our investigator was beaming and so excited to keep the commandments! She came to church yesterday and boldly announced to everyone how she was going to be baptized next week and become a member of the church!”

Last week President Anderson held four zone conferences. Here are the pictures of all the great young men, women and couples of the Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission.

Homestead and Miami Zones

Hialeah and Miami Beach Zones

Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs Zones

Palm Beach and Stuart Zone

After a week of Zone Conferences President Anderson shared these missionary experiences in his letter of May 12…

Repentance will be a great joy for us and them, It only take seconds for them to feel it:

“About 8 days ago we were harvesting in a complex.  A man walked down the stairs.  We contacted him briefly, testifying that the blessing could help change his life. He just kept on walking, but we were able to get him to shout out his apartment number to us as he was walking away.  We didn’t think too much of it, but we were impressed to pass the referral to the YSA sisters even though we didn’t have too much info, saying something like ‘And if you want, you can try Dwayne in f9’.  Eight days later he was sitting in front of me in a baptismal interview, talking about the many ways that his life had changed in just a short week as a result of the sisters’ teaching and of having the spirit in his life.  He had obtained a strong and sincere testimony of the truth and was so happy! He was smiling the whole time. My favorite part of the interview was when he said ‘The moment I heard you guys testify that day as I walked past you, I felt something.  I knew that now was the time’.  I resolved in that moment to never let a chance to testify and invite to pass me by again. A 10 second contact has now changed the eternal course of his life!”

They will feel the Spirit and the desire to change from you and their new surroundings:

“A couple weeks back we harvested into a guy named Bruce, kind of a rough character, wouldn’t give us his name at first and acted real suspicious about what we were doing, but boy his composure changed after the blessing. His heart melted and he had tears in his eyes. He knew we were guided there for a reason. Later in a lesson we asked how work was going (he’s a construction worker). ‘Going good, today we were working over on this church on the 75’. That piqued my interest. ‘The 75 and what?’ ‘Griffin, you know, it’s got the gold statue of a man blowing a horn on top?’ Wow, Bruce is working on the Fort Lauderdale temple!!!! He saw my companion and I light up, and he did too . We then taught the significance of the holy temple, that it’s not just another church, our hearts filled with the holy spirit. Bruce told us that everyone working out there recognizes that it is a holy holy place, and they stay on their best behavior. No smoking, and they all watch what they say and are extremely careful in the work they do – if any part of the temple is dented, dinged, or cracked it is reported immediately. Bruce told us how blessed he is to be working on it, and then we told him about the worthiness requirements to enter into the temple and the high standards you must be living… he was speechless that he had seen and been inside such a holy place. We told our friend about the purposes of temples, how families can be forever together, and about temple marriages. Our eyes got a little moist as we told him how God wanted this for him and his family. He didn’t allow Bruce to work on the holy temple that wasn’t 20 minutes from his house and then guide us to his door for nothing. He knows this too and said, ‘God has something here for me, and I’m not going to let it go’. We invited him to prepare to attend the temple by being baptized, and he accepted. That was the best lesson of my mission. Isn’t it a miracle?”

Repentance will be evident, and you will be inspired to help them:

“A great experience we had this week in our personal area was with a man named Isaac.  Isaac is an older man who was happy as can be and accepted baptism from the start. The only obstacle that we encountered during the teaching process was his addiction to coffee, which he said, like most people do, that it would be impossible for him to give up.  We taught simply and testified powerfully about the blessings that come from repentance and living the WOW, invited him to live it, and left.  The next day as we were driving over to his house to follow up, I felt prompted to stop at a supermarket and pick up a $2 package of Hot Cocoa to give to him.  We showed up at the appointment and followed up.  As we asked him about the coffee, he said ‘I’ll give you my coffee if you give me something to replace it with’.  I smiled as I pulled out the hot cocoa and gave it to him.  As we were about to leave after the lesson, Isaac smiled and said ‘Now, don’t forget to take my coffee!’  He was baptized on Sunday.  This experience was great for me, and really taught me once again the importance of following prompting of the spirit, as well as the great changes that the spirit can bring to people’s lives.  His attitude and motivation completely changed overnight, and I know that it was because he felt the spirit.”

We have a responsibility Missionaries, to redeem God’s people through the Power of our calling as representatives of Jesus Christ. We are His “authorized messengers” to do this.

While we may not still be serving in Fort Lauderdale, part of us will always be there. It is wonderful to be able to read the President’s weekly letters to the missionaries.

“I can’t help but think that this was a great example of an “open your mouth” experience as the Savior spoke to those who did “not know him”. The miracle and result of the Savior testifying of His purpose was that the Spirit bore witness to these men and their hearts did burn within them when He testified of truth. We need to be aware of the great power and Spirit we possess as we share our purpose to those who do not know us. They are being prepared to have their hearts burn with the Spirit:

“We prayed about where to go, and then we each chose a place on the map to harvest. We went to the first spot to harvest, and it was a more wealthy area. We started opening our mouths, and we got 3 awesome blessings through opening our mouths! We talked to a guy who invited us into his home to leave a blessing. He said that he had always been interested about our faith, and he wanted to learn more. We came out and immediately went next door to a man named Alex who was washing his car. We offered him the blessing, and after some testifying, he invited us into his home to give him a blessing. He felt the spirit super strong, and accepted baptism. He also told us about how when he was a child, his grandmother would take him to our church in Columbia. He also said that he wanted a Book of Mormon before we left! It was super cool. After we left his house, we saw a lady and her daughter across the street, so we decided to go talk to her. Come to find out, she recognized my companion from his last area! It was awesome. We left a prayer with her, and then went and said a prayer of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for blessing us with soo much success in soo little time. After that, we went to our second harvest area. Again, it was a little rich. We started knocking doors, and we saw a family outside, so we decided to go and talk to them. Turns out, they are a part member family! They really want to come back to church, and they are super nice. We are really excited to start working with them. It was really a day of miracles when we decided to let the Lord guide us to the places that He wanted.”

Open your mouths, they are praying for us and expecting us:

“While unlocking our bikes an older man walked by and I felt impressed to follow him so I went. We walked with him for about half a block and at the end he didn’t accept. It might have seemed a failure at first but we decided to just keep going. We stopped where we were at the front of a home and prayed to confirm our next plans. After the amen, the person who lived there came pulling up in her car. Without a second thought my companion said hello and told her God sent us there to leave a prayer with her. She looked a little surprised and said yes. She readily accepted the blessing and afterwards accepted baptism, church and a solid baptismal date! After we left the blessing with her she was so happy and thankful to God. We asked what made her so happy and she told us the night before she had a dream that two people in white shirts on bikes were standing in her lawn and she had no idea what it meant or why they were there. After that evening she knew that Jesus Christ sent his representatives to help her come closer to him.” 

We wish we could have been there for the first ever Mission Leadership Council for the Fort Lauderdale Mission which included four very above average sister missionaries. The MLC replaces the Zone Leaders Council.

President Anderson wrote the following comment for this picture…

“Doing things that have never been done before! We now have an MLC (Mission Leadership Council) in place of ZLC! There are four amazing sisters in this great council and we are so excited! With this next transfer there will be 55 sisters in this great mission! We love you!”

We finally have an internet connection in our house so over the next week or so I can catch up with  our travels and President Anderson’s letters…Here are the experiences from his letter of 4/28.

The fourth principle is “serve the Lord with love”. I know no greater example of this than the Savior himself who served the Father with love as he taught His Gospel. Love will allow the Spirit to touch hearts because it shows the Children of God that you care, that you are sincere, that you are heartfelt, and that you truly represent and emulate Jesus Christ. I love how you show love in your work because you love them:

“One miracle we saw is last week while we were harvesting we knocked on this door that had a window in it. A lady looked through the glass and told us that she wasn’t interested and that she was ok. I told her that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and that we were there to leave her with his blessing because we loved her. When I said we loved her, she immediately started smiling and you could tell she was happier. My companion then told her that what we wanted to see and that we were there to make her happy. So she then opened the door and we left her with a powerful blessing. And after she was crying she felt the spirit so strong and she accepted to be baptized.”

I love how you plan with purpose and how you magnify that purpose with everyone:

“My companion and I were Harvesting in this area and after a few doors my companion told me that he didn’t think that we should be there because he didn’t feel the Spirit very strongly. We left the area and started making our way to another appointment we had. On the way we saw a man standing out all by himself in a soccer field quite a ways from the road. We decided to go talk to him. We rode our bikes out across the field and introduced ourselves to him. We asked him what he was doing out all by himself in the field and he told us he had been praying to God for help because his life had fallen apart. We testified and asked to leave a blessing with him. As we prayed with him the Spirit was so strong. Afterwards we asked him how he felt and invited him to be baptized. He said yes! He told us that we ‘had hit him right here’ pointing to his heart. He knew that we had been sent by God.”

I love how you teach the truth with your testimony and how you pierce their hearts with the Spirit:

“My companion and I had a couple of follow-ups mixed in with a day full of finding.  Our day went well.  We were able to bless 11 people, but what really stood out to me about the day was that the 4 most solid blessings all came from opening our mouths.  We contacted a kid sitting by the pool, a lady walking up the stairs, a lady sitting out on the stairs, and another guy walking past us in the hallway, and all 4 of them lead us back to their houses and let us pray with them.  In the past couple weeks I’ve increased my testimony of the importance of opening our mouths, and how it allows us to fulfill our purpose at all times.  It is a great way to increase our faith, internalize our purpose, and demonstrate to the Lord that we truly do want to find the elect.”

Our members, the Book of Mormon, and testimony become powerful tools as we admonish others to search the scriptures:

“This past week as we were harvesting we took a recent convert out with us and he carried a book of Mormon with him. We told him to give the book to whoever he felt prompted to. As we continued to knock we found this lady and we left the blessing with her. After the blessing she was crying and so thankful and we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. Then our recent convert whips out the Book of Mormon and says ‘Here, I want to give you this.’ Then the lady recognized that we were Mormons and said to him ‘You don’t really read this Mormon book do you?’  His response was amazing! ‘Yes ma’am I do, It has changed my life and kept me off the streets and has brought me lots of peace and happiness!” As he said that the spirit was so strong and Tina kept the book and told us that she will read it and come to church.”