The Elder Poe Report
This week has been an interesting week full of many exciting challenges and opportunities. In short prayer and fasting works, the scriptures are the word of God written specifically for you.
So the first big incident that caused a problem this week was that on Wednesday we went in to visit a less active member and although I had my planner when I got out of the car when we returned to the car after the brief appointment my planner was nowhere to be found, even after a diligent search. This was incredibly unfortunate as I have the memory of a goldfish if something isn’t written down, and so we had to rely for most of the week on Elder Fiefia’s planner all week, but it was a valuable lesson to me about the importance of having a remote backup.
The big awesome news this week is that we found a wonderful new investigator from Texas named David. It all started Saturday evening, our mission president decided that this fast Sunday that as a mission we were going to fast that those persons who have a baptismal date in August will be able to keep those dates, and that those of us who don’t have investigators will be able to find new investigators. So on Saturday evening we opened our fast with a prayer crying mightily upon the Lord that we would be able to find persons that are open and receptive to the Gospel and that those persons who had a baptismal date for August would be able to keep it. The following day (Sunday) we had an appointment at 1:30 with a wonderful young Indian lady named Guyetreah scheduled. I was really excited for this appointment because I figured this would be when the Lord answered our prayers and we would be able to teach her entire family and commit all of them to baptism. But then to my utter disappointment when we went there, no one was home. It was incredibly sad and depressing. However as we were about to drive home, a random person popped into my head. You see several months ago I went on exchanges with my district leader into the Strongsville West Area that I am now in, and while there we had done a little bit of tracting and found this guy who was really nice and had even given us some bottles of water while we were out, he had lived in Texas for a while and gotten in an accident and was in the hospital for a while and the missionaries had been some of the only people to visit him while he was in the hospital. At the time me and my district leader had talked to him he hadn’t really seemed interested but we left a restoration pamphlet with him and told him he could visit mormon.org if he wanted to learn more, and left it at that. Yesterday though he popped into my head, and I could see in my mind the exact street he lived on, and I got the prompting we should go visit that house. So acting in faith and trusting in the promptings of the Spirit we went and visited that house. That same young man, David was his name, answered the door and said that he had read through the Restoration pamphlet and thought that it all made sense and sounded true. We then taught him a wonderful first lesson, which was not at all because of us, but rather the Spirit guided and led that lesson to address it to exactly what David needed to hear. The Spirit was super strong as we taught a simple first lesson on the doorstep but the faith that was exercised by all involved parties allowed miracles to be wrought, David committed to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and when we extended the baptismal invitation he accepted it, and we now have a return appointment with him for this next Sunday it was wonderful to gain a surer knowledge that the Lord will answer any prayer we offer up to him in righteousness, not necessarily in our time or our way but He will make sure that the answer is for our good and benefit. I would encourage everyone that reads this to as it says in Malachi “prove [the Lord] now herewith if, [the Lord] will not open the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” God has promised that anything we ask in the name of Christ will be answered unto us. As it says in Alma 17, the sons of Mosiah had “given themselves to much prayer and fasting;” and through this they were given the power to bring forth the works of the Almighty God.
I know fasting and prayer works, I know that there is a hoard of blessings the Lord wants to pour down upon our heads but can’t until we ask, to preserve our agency, I know that he loves us and I know that He cannot lie, Christ has promised us that whatsoever we ask the Father in His name will be given unto us. When we exert the faith to trust in the promises of God there will be no thing on this earth that we will not be able to do, there will be no knowledge that God will keep hidden from us and we will be confident knowing that we will stand on the right hand of God at the great and terrible day of the coming of the Lord and what else matters except that.
God loves all of us His Son Jesus Christ loves us just as much and He wrought an infinite and eternal atonement so that all of us can be free from fear, worry and guilt if we will trust in Him and strive to do his works. This knowledge was restored through Joseph Smith who was called as a prophet of God to bring forth the fullness of the Gospel in these last days, and President Thomas Monson is the continuation of that line, and Christ is as the helm of His Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The Report of Elder Hunter D. Poe
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