Daily Archives: May 7, 2013

President Anderson’s Letter – May 5

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.” 



May 3 2013 – The First Mission Leadership Meeting

575390_409871235778555_1143000106_n

 

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 Have Internet….

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.”