Elder Pomar Homecoming - August 2016 

Hey everyone!

 This will be my last letter in the mission (that’s a weird thought) but I am so grateful for all that I´ve experienced. We ended last weekend wet with the baptisms of Maria Jose and Byron on Friday. It was such a great experience. I baptized Byron, and it was the last time I would set foot in a baptismal font in my mission. There was a ton of opposition, but God came through. We also had a fun time on Saturday because we had a temple trip with the ward. While driving on the freeway, the radiator hose busted and we had to wait until help arrived. We played around and had fun, and we had to cross the freeway and take a bus to get back to San Antonio. We worked normally in the sector, when at 6:30 we received a call: the member in charge of the baptismal font had forgotten to fill it, and the baptism was at 8. We scrambled to get to the chapel and find the keys. We had to jump the railing of the baptismal font to open the door from the inside and use the fire hose along with the fonts cold water to fill it up fast. But the drain was jammed open so it wouldn’t fill up. In an act of desperation my companion Elder Moura took off his sweater, jammed it in the drain and stood on it so it wouldn’t float. He stood still in the freezing water until it was filled up and didn’t get out until the ordinance was performed like at 8:40. That was a ride. The next day God blessed us immensely and 5 investigators attended church. All of them have baptismal dates for the 13 of August. I know that when we work until the end, we are immensely blessed. This is the time for miracles.

I am so eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for all that He taught me during my mission. It was both my furnace of affliction and my refiner´s fire. I am not the same and I will never be the same. Only two years have passed, but I feel like I’ve aged 10. I am so happy that I had the chance to fulfill what one of my favorite hymns says:

“Called to serve Him, heavenly King of glory,

Chosen e'er to witness for his name,

Far and wide we tell the Father's story,

Far and wide his love proclaim.

Onward, ever onward, as we glory in his name;

Forward, pressing forward, as a triumph song we sing.

God our strength will be; press forward ever,

Called to serve our King.”

During these 2 years I have served my King. I have felt time and time again his love not only for me but for those whom I have taught. I have felt the spirit working through me with a force that I have never known before. I have felt and know that I have authority from God to invite others to be baptized and reach the Celestial Kingdom. I am not finishing my mission, rather I am just starting it. Rules and duties change, but the principle is the same: bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

I know that Christ lives. He is our savior. He reaches out to us with pierced hands and beckons us to follow him. Obedience to him is the only way that He can sustain us. We cannot do it in our own way. we must do it in the Lords way. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He saw the Father and the Son. All need to come and be baptized by someone with the priesthood authority of God to be clean enough to enter the presence of God. Until we see each other again. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Caleb Pomar