South Jordan has been pretty good to me

Dear family and friends
Hello everyone! Well this transfer has come to a close and we are getting transfer calls tonight. sorry i dont know where i am going. So far south jordan has been pretty good to me. Although we get way too much food and not enough exercise. We just had a baptism this last weekend. Scott walker got baptized! yeah! although he is the first one to come up crying... he was scared when he got into the water and he calmed down enough to let the father do the prayer and just as he was going down he freaked out and the father just put huim under. haha and he swallowed water and im sure he was a little angry. But after he changed he was all smiles. and the confirmation we did after the sacrament meeting at church because we didnt want him to freak out. All in all it wasa  good day. But the few hours before the baptism we were frantically getting the clothes, filling the font and getting the program to print. man and everything went wrong. which i really wasnt that surprised about because Satan does this with every baptism. nothing goes smoothly for a baptism.

Georgette one of our better investigators wasnt able to come to church this last week. Because she was sick her boss made her work on sunday. its soo frustrating because her boss is mormon and he is making it harder for us to help her. The last lesson we had with her was amazing! we taught the plan of salvation and it was great. She was understanding so much and scriptures to help explain were just coming to me and made the lesson really powerful. At one point she said "i need to bring my husband to this!" so i feel really good about her but the things of the world could delay it.

So that lady that i OYM'ed and i was really excited about turned out to be really disappointing. all they wanted us to do was bible bash with them. but as they were preparing i was praying so that the lord would help me to exlpain things so that i would not have to bash. i was getting into too many here and it kills the spirit. every question they asked i was able to answer it while teaching principles from the lessons taht are in preach my gospel. The best part was they could have no objections to what i taught because it was truth. Every time he tried tog et me worked up it didnt work and we left on "good." he invited us back but i doubt we ill go back until they humble themselves.

So Mom you will e happy about this ive decided that i need a good snack and now i eat celery and peanut butter every night for my snack and i actually really really like it. so thats going to be my snacks from now on.

Well lifes good.

Love Elder Salmon

september 16

Dear family and friends,

Hello everyone! im here in south jordan and this is the last week of the transfer. This week we have a lesson with a family and i am stoked! We might pick up a whole family of 5! which would be legit because ive never taught a whole family before. That lesson is on saturday so pray that they will be there. We had some sad but also some happy news this week. We had to drop an investigator because he was not willing to continue to keep his commitments. He had a confirmation from the spirit but he didn't want to admit it and follow the promptings that he received. It was very sad. But i think he will be baptized on his own terms. He just felt a lot of pressure when there really wasn't any at all. The good news is that we picked up a new investigator. her name is Georgette and shes Hispanic but very smart. she had a couple of degrees and she told us she was fed up with the catholic church. She definitely felt the spirit and accepted the date of baptism on the 5 of oct. i forgot it was conference but hey waht better time than then. hers husband is going to be a problem. he says he supports her but he might make it hard to have lessons with her.

Scott is also getting prepared to be baptized this saturday! im really stoked. He just needs to pass the interview which im a little nervous for because getting his comprehension is difficult. he has some mental problems but not much but some days he will talk a lot and some days he likes to joke around a lot. We will be teaching him for a long time because we will have to prepare him for the temple and for the priesthood. It was very touching because scott had to write the chinese government and tell them how hes doing and he wrote that he had a great family who loves him and he has friends. and he wrote elder heaths and my names for his friends. it was very touching but it also means we need to find him friends so he doesn't feel bad when we leave.

Other than that not much happened. we had stake conference and elder russel m nelson spoke and so did Elder packer. His talk was very interesting because he showed a talk that he gave a while ago. it was a video and it was very erratic. i could tell what he really wanted us to learn. i felt like he just threw out nuggets of information.

We had a good week. All is well. not like the scripture though.

Love Elder Salmon

"We had some interesting weather lately"

Dear family and friends,

Well we had some interesting weather lately. i have actually really enjoyed it myself but i feel bad for the rest of the district and missionaries who have to walk or bike because it has been rainy. and thunderstorms and everything. its a very wierd cycle because it will be hot and warm and no clouds in the sky then around ohhh 4pm the clouds will role in rain for 30 min and thunder and lightning dancing around and after those 30 min its all sunny. and whts worse is that its humid now. so what ever. We have been biking lately and everyday we hurry back to the car when we see the clouds and barely make it to the car and into cover right before the rain comes. we get pretty lucky.

This week was alright i guess. not as many lessons as last week. Scott walker looks really good. he is all excited to be baptized. The only concern is that we want to teach him enough so that he will also be prepared to go to them temple with his parents to be sealed with them and the chinese sister that is helping us leave in october. Im not too worried about it becasue the lord provides a way for us to help his children. where someone want to come unto the gospel the lord helps them. ive definitely seen that with scott. He is soo funny and has a great personality. i learn lots about him every time we teach. when he lived in the orphanage he was in charge of 3 other kids. he got them ready for the day and put them to bed. he will fit right in with his family of 18 kids. there are so many kids that are very young and need lots of help.

I called bud this week and he went on a rant for about 45 minutes talking about how he want to be taught and go to church but with everything that has gone on in his life he doesnt see how he could do anything. he sys he has no time nd he is only focused on his family and getting them all safe. he told me his problems and they are pretty serious but i still think if he made time for the gospel it would really help him.

We picked up a new investigator this week. We got a media referral from a missionary in california i think and he referred us to his sister and husband. he is Presbyterian and cant really see how the LDS church and the bible work together. i talked with him for a while and he doesnt seem to have any faith. ill probs go back for one more lesson and drop hinm if hes not willing to put the bom tot the test.

Zack hales is also struggling. he was supposed to be baptized this saturday but his dad has been telling him not too. His parents are divorced and they are in a custody battle. the mom who is a member and active is going for full custody. he is also struggling with faith. he has had a lot of prayers get answered and im really counseling with the lord as to what more i can do.

the work moves on and the end is coming. Lifes good.
Elder Salmon

"Anyone want to send me stamps???"

Dear family and friends,

Happy labor day! where we celebrate working by not working! So i want to share an experience that i had not too long ago i hope i haven't shared it before. So we came out of a lesson and we were late to correlation meeting with the other WML (i think i did share this) and i saw a lady on the other side of the street doing yard work. i knew i should talk with her but i was late and the meeting would be ending in 30 minutes. I had a guilty feeling because i was ignoring the spirit so i went over there and we talked about church and families and about her neighbor who was trying to get active and into the temple. She said we could come back in two weeks and share our message. well we went back and we have a lesson set up for the 21st. its a long ways out but i could have missed it had i thought talking about missionary work was more important than actually doing missionary work.

So we went mountain biking last monday! it was legit! im not very good but i really enjoyed it. only fell once. and it wasnt a bad fall. But i had a  good time zooming down the mountain side taking hard turns and getting air off jumps.

The other day we had a lesson with a family there name was story... very interesting family because hes a member less active, she was a convert but then asked to have her named removed. we went in to teach her and she was just looking to bible bash. and im still a little hot headed, but then i remembered my training and i asked if she was willing to put all that aside and read the BOM and find out if it is true. She said no. but Since the WML set up each lesson we are still going back...??? don't know why. But the husband the Less active who totally believes its all true was fighting against us as well...??? don't get it.
We are teaching scott 3 times a week  now. but the sisters can now come here to south jordan to teach so now we dont have to go down there every time. hes is learning soo much and progressing much faster than i thought he would. 

And i was just thinking are there pictures of my baptism??? it might be good if i had that. Im doing really well just pluggin along doing my district leader stuff and training elder heath. Oh im almost out of stamps. anyone want to send me stamps???

Take care everyone love you Elder Salmon