Well I come home this week

Well i come home this week. soo ill see you soon! I have loved my time. I definitely have mixed feelings. But today i host a BBQ. it will be great! i am taking our car coordinators truck and his Grill! haha connections. and we had some missionaries talk to the mayor (because they baptized his grandkids) and get this park reserved and tables out for us which is usually 300 dollars. So things just worked out. gotta go

Love Elder Salmon

Sprinting to the end

I am doing really good! im sprinting to the end. But i dont have a lot of fesire to email... sorry. haha

But the weather has been nice! We get thunderstorms every so often. 

OUr investigators are doing great! Jet is ready for his baptism this saturday and this other 8 yr old we are teaching is also getting baptized this saturday. The family was LA and are now active. 

Connor Green is likewise ready to be baptized and it was supposed to be this saturday but they pushed it back so that family could fly in and attend. they also want to do his baptism, confirmation, priest ordination and sealing all on that saturday... It put elder Northrop and myself in a sticky spot as we klnow thats not the order of things. the church doesnt do things that like for convienience. each one is an ordinance and is very special. this doesnt teach him the importance of the ordinances. Thye insisted on asking our president and so i wrote hijm about ti today. i do not think they will get the exception. 

Also this week i had a baptismal interview. It was a very interesting one. The person was not ready and i could easily tell. he didnt believe in joseph smith or the book of mormon. they really wanted me to interview him because they wanted me to teach him why he cant get baptized if he doesnt believe those things. i had a good hour talk with him. And by the end the conversation ended with, "Paul you believe in the apostasy, you believe the church has been changed since the time of Christ. You better believe that the restoration happened or it will happen soon. Other wise we are all lost." he believed that. so i also convinced him he needs to pray about it and he said he would. so i hope i helped him. 

anyways gotta go

Love YA

Elder Salmon

 

The zone

 

 

I love learning from the Brethren

Dear Family and Friends,

this past week was good. We taught a far amount of lessons to connor and jet who are both prepareing for baptisms for the end of this month. A very sad note when i was going down to temple square i left my scriptures at one of the trax stations... i am very sad because i dont know where they are. they were gone when i went back. i hope no one stole them... and i hope a member picked them up becuase it has my patriarchal blessing in it, and i really want my name tag that are on the scriptures. so that was a damper but the lesson we taught was very effective. Connor loved the whole thing and the idea of being with his family forever. He doesnt want to wait to be baptized. now we just need his parents on board and set a date for him! they are very hesistant as all parents should be but they are actually hindering his ability to progress as fast as he should be. Its a little frustrating because Connor wants this. Anyways his parents are thinking of a date right now. And Jet is doing well is is getting ready for his baptism on the 23rd. At the end of this transfer thye are going to split the stake as far as missionary work. i did not feel like i could give adequate time and attention to all the wards so i asked president to put another set of missionaries in here and i think he will do it.

Had another exchange this past week. my last one. It was very good. i got to see how well this district leader works with his members and he has some great ideas. I learned probably as much as he did. i was also sick one day this week. not sure what is was but im good now. THis week we have Don R clark coming to do a mission conference i am very excited for that. i love learning from the Brethren. They just know exactly what we need to here. Well gotta go. 

Love Elder Salmon

The Lord loves us

Dear Family and Friends,

Well this past week was kinda rough. we didnt teach any non-members until sunday night. but that whole week i was thinking if i want to baptized 1 more person i have to find them this week! i was praying really hard for the opportunity to help 1 more person and we put our heads down. there was adversity because we had meeting and service that people called us to do and i cant turn down LA members who need service. So some days it didnt feel like we got a lot accomplished. But i have faith that the no matter how much i work if its not the lords way it will be in vain. So i would rather have 2 hours of consecrated finding then working all day. So we kept at it. praying nd doing things we felt was right and the Lord provided. We got a referral from a bishop contacted it right when we got it and we picked up a new investigator and put him on date for the 23rd of august!! The lord provides. That was easily the highlight of the week. Well that and Preston got confirmed. Ordinances are soo nice. and we were asked to participate in a baby blessing for the strains. they are a family that we reactivated. They are a very good family and wants to do whats best for there kids and there kids love the gospel soo thats just what happens. the kids pull the parents into the gospel. 

Today we have a Pday activity with the mission president so should be pretty fun. Last week we just did the usual, and then had a quiet pday. played speedball, shadow and elder northrop and i enjoy the hard rain that came down. it was pouring and everyone else left and we just went to a big hill and slid down on our backs in the half muddy grass. it kinda worked. He is also from washington so he loves the rain as much as i do. i find the august summers soooo weird here. its always cloudy and rains randomly with thunderstorms. i would toatlly take sammamish summers over here. atleast its not random. 

We have a zone training meeting tomorrow, and we have been hitting the scriptures hard. We are going to teach out of numbers ch. 11 probably and talk about how we can get the investigators from on date to actually baptized. we have 18 people on date in the zone which is the best our zone has had in a long time! So we are working super hard to solidify the people on date. 

Well gotta go.

Love Elder Salmon

No time

i am sorry i really dont have time to email this week. it wasnt too exciting but we had another baptism!!!! sooooooo good. the father did the baptism it was worth it.

Fire alarm

Dear Family and Friends,

Well everyone i bet your dying to know what happened during transfers!!!! haha well im staying here in herriman as ZL with elder Northrop. wasnt much of a surprise really. I really didnt not want to move for my last transfer and my desire was granted. 

Crap fire alarm going off!!! NOOOOOOO I WILL BE BACK!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Okay part 2

so yeah the fire alarm went off with all of us missionaries emailing. elder northrop and i left instead of waiting for them to turn off the fire alarm. We went and picked up mail for everyone at the mission office and went shopping at walmart. 

But this past week was alright. transfers always make our days super crazy. we had an emergency zone meeting on Tuesday after district meeting then we gave everyone there information of what was happening, then we had everyone move on wednesday, elder northrop and i have soo much other stuff we have to do we didnt even proselyte until after dinner on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday we had another zone meeting so that everyone could meet each other and we can set expectations. Both zone meetings went well. But kept us on our toes. We had saras baptism on saturday! it was really good. She was freaking out a little about all the people and going through with it, but she calmed down and it was really a sweet experience. Then we had her confirmation after sacrement meeting the next day. we had to get an exception for that. but part of the deal was she still had to stand up and so that everyone could see her. Ya she stood up for the shortest possible time and sat right back down. Her confirmation prayer was very sweet. Her ex father in law did it and he knew her very well and gave her a very personalized blessing. Her daughter came to church who is a non member and she even was there for the confirmation. Saras daughter cami got a little teary eyed as well as every other woman in the room. She has a great ward and really great support. We will continue to teach sara and do the new member lessons and help her towards the temple in a year.

So mom i got voluntold to sing again at zone conference. i am doing a duet with a sister in our zone named sister garretson. Hse really good at singing so i hope i dont mess it up. We are just doing 1 verse as a duet and then other people will join us for the other verses but still kinda nervous. Tomorrow is our zone conference and it should be very good. But there i give my farewell testimony... and i am really not looking forward to it. Infact i just dont like anything that reminds me that i am going home. and it kinda kills me inside everyday when people remind me and talk about it all the time. but i cant avoid it. So i just deal with it. 

We taught guy last night as an impromptu lesson. We are going to have contact with him every single day to help him. we will probably send himm scriptures each day. Our other investigators are just slow progressing. We definitely need to find the elect right now. Prestons baptism is stalled... and the ward leaders are wanting us to even wait even more for him to be baptized. Stuff always happens when people dont keep there original baptism date. its very sad really. i still want him to be baptized this saturday, but it looks like and august 2nd baptism. 

I am doing a good job keeping up with my audio journal. i am glad i started it. It will help me remember my mission better. and its only like 5 min each night and i can do the whole day easy. 

Well life is good here in herriman. Be good. Invite someone to church this week! its easy. i do it every day. 

Love elder Salmon

Good week

Dear Family and Friends,

Well since we are done with the holiday weekend this past week was so much better. the week started off pretty slow as far as contacting and referrals and lessons. that was probably because we have meetings every single day from Tuesday until Friday. I am not a fan of meetings and some of these meeting were very long. We were mostly discussing MLS couples. Thats member leadership support couples. they are every missionaries dream or should be. they help us work effectively and teach people who are not progressing fast enough for us to teach them. so a few people we are working with we would love to give to a MLS couple but we dont have on in our stake. So we rely on the ward council which unfortunately isnt as reliable. So our meetings were all about working effectively with the,m.

I have some bad news preston didnt get baptized this last weekend. his father got called out to work in another state and is going to be gone for a few weeks. so we wont have his baptism until later. hopefully the 26th of this month. However Sara is looking really good for this saturday! we are very excited for her. she is committed and dedicated and we have a great support net around her. we made sure she has visiting and home teachers and everyone has met her on ward council. 

We picked up a new investigator on saturday. a 10 year old boy. he is a foster boy and he just got permission to get baptized and taught by the missionaries so we taught him twice, once on saturday and once on sunday. he is a sharp kid and accepted a baptismal date of august 9th. hopefully we can teach him enough as his family goes out of town for two weeks. i hate vacations! haha man soo many people have too much going on in there lives that they cant slow down and feel the spirit. i think as a people we need to commit to doing less so that we dont always have to be on the go. his nae is tristan and he comes from a tough family. 4 siblings and there are 4 different fathers for the 5 kids. i feel bad for him. 

Since guy called us we havent heard anything from him. he doesnt return our calls and infact our calls go straight to voicemail. we dont know whats up. 

This past week ive been so tired. i have just been crashing. i fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. But also in our spare time elder northrop and i have been planning minute to win it. and today we have to buy everything and set it all up and just have fun. im excited but a littel stressed getting everything done. Our zone will probably hit 9 baptism this month. Next month we are projecting 8 already. The work always progresses here. there is always something to do. always people to teach. 

This transfer comes to an end this week. we get transfer emails on tuesday and then we get to call everyone. people alwyas get nervous around this time. Personally i love it because i get to mess with all of them. and they all try to bribe us and ask us to call them first and all that. its very funny. everyone wants to be our friend right about now. Of course we just call people according to the order that we see it. 

Fun story, saturday night we got done with everything we needed to and we decided to help our land lady with her fish. so we ewent into her pond and went about cathcing 8-10 fish with a net and flashlight. haha it was a lot of fun. dont worry we didnt go swimming. the pond was like a foot deep and only 5 feet accross. its more like a river fountain thingy. anyways i enjoy it. 

Connor is also going vey well. our lesson with him was really good. we decided to focus on the ordinace of baptism and the lesson went really smooth. he wants to be baptized. no date yet but we know he felt the spirit as we taught him about that sacred ordinance.

well gotta go. hope this is a little longer.

Elder Salmon

Progress does come

Hello family and Friends!

so this was the week of the 4th... wasnt the best week to do missionary service. a lot of people went out of town so finding people home was terrible. It was a little frustrating but then i just thought about enduring to the end... of the day. haha friday and saturday were both bad. but we had blessings from working hard. we did get a lot done for our investigators to prepare them for there upcoming baptisms. We taught preston twice and we had good contact with sara. Also a tender mercy, while at church yesterday guy called us. We havent heard from him in almost 2 weeks and he called an was at church and said he wanted to meet again. he also said he wanted to take on the challenge of quitting smoking. he had already quit alcohol and was going to work on coffee and cigarettes.  TYhat made the week worth it knowing we have another appointment. 

This week are are trying to find new people so we are visiting random members and setting up appointments to teach them the message of the restoration to look for new investigators. so far we havent got any referrals but its gives usa  good excuse just to get to know certain families. Thats where the work is. letting them members know who we are so that they feel comfortable referring there friends to us. 

We are still having a really hard time teaching connor. the sister at temple square are not staying in good contact with us. they cancel lessons and set them up without us knowing so we are not even involved that much. We just need to be patient. the lord with make sure this young man gets the knowledge he needs. 

We also were teaching a less active family and have for a while now. this last lesson the father prayed and it actually felt like he was praying to god. it was amazing! so progress does come but sometimes its very slow. 

Well gotta go. 

Love Elder Salmon

I know the Lord will bless us

Dear family and Friends,

Well we didn't have as good a week as we did this week as last week. We didnt pick up any new investigators or anything and we still have had no contact with guy... he has basically fallen off the face of the planet. Because we have sicked members on him to find him and it hasnt worked. So its a little frustrating because we want to help him quit smoking but he wants to smoke. soo thats a conflict of interest. OH well. we keep praying for him and hope we can meet with him again. 

We had a meeting with president this week and we learned all about leadership priciples. we also discussed the unwritten order of things. i really liked that. i love learning from our mission president. he is very smart and has some great incite. 

We also had our interviews with him this past week. they were great as always.

Sorry i dont have that much to talk about this week. we have been really busy this week. I feel like we never have enough time to contact all we need to contact but then i am soo tired at the end of the day. Tomorrow we have a meeting which i will be presiding at. it should be good. we will be training a lot on the responsibilities of the junior and senior companion and also how to plan. We really have a great zone and some great missionaries here in herriman. This next 4th of july we are not doing anything. it will be a normal work day and we will do our normal procedures. except we are allowed to go to all the parties and stuff and meet people. elder northrop and i will come up with some clever ideas to get missionary work done. 

We are continuing to teach connor over skype with the temple square sisters helping us. its a very spiritual experience but it also tries me because we have to break every single principle down as far as it will go and teach him that way. And we dont get the aid of pictures because he is blind. i do love this challenge though. i know the Lord will bless us. 

Love elder Salmon

PS Sara is definitely getting baptized and so is preston nell! haha yes!

The best week in a long time

Dear Family and Friends,

well we had a very eventful week. it was probably the best week i have had as far as missionary work in a long long time. we taught a lot of lessons and did a lot of work. Since we conver 12 wards there is soo much work to be done and i feel bad because we can';t give adequate time to each of the wards. they really need to split this stake as far as missionaries go. we need another set here. WE are teaching 7 people right now. Jugling all the things we need to do for these investigators takes up most of our time. but somehow we are still picking up new investigators. this is the 10 week where we have found at least 1 new investigator. 

So this week we went on 2 exchanges. 1 with the assistant and 1 with a district leader. and we have another exchange this week with our other district leader. They were both very good exchanges, and it was nice to learn and then also to teach missionary work. Although i dont really like to exchange because i hate packing up. sooo thats while i stayed both times. elder northrop has been getting to know other areas haha. 

It was a good weekend though. I was thinking of hannah and kevin all weekend and i even got my tie last monday so that i could wear it last friday. i hope you enjoyed the picture of me in my tie. i had my landlady send that for me so that you could enjoy it. There was also a parade/ fair friday night and saturday morning. and it was right across the street from where we live. it was not good. i wanted to go soo bad, haha but obviously i wouldnt. the music was super loud and it kept us up at night. but i did enjoy the fireworks saturday night. they even started and ended before we had to go to bed so it was all good fun. we watched it from the porch of our house. so that was nice.

Sunday was good as well. we were expecting 5 investigators at church but only 3 went.:( thats not bad but also not that good either. but funny story at church. Sitting next to our investigators there was this awesome family in front of us. they were so nice, and they have young kids that were fun. towards the end of the meeting i was listen looking down at the ground and i see this liquid pour down from the seat in front of us. it came between the crack in the cushioned bench seat. i was going to tell them that they had juice spilling when i saw the mom just grab her forehead in frustration and probably embarrassment. i saw the exchange of whispers and lip reading as i saw the mom tell her husband that there child just peed there pants and also the bench and the ground beneath it! hahaha. felt soo bad for them but it also was pretty nasty and it smelled the rest of the mtg.  

Spiritual story of the week- We picked up a new investigator sunday night. Conner Green is an adopted son from china. almost the exact same situation as scott walker. except he is blind. so same situation we don't speak mandrin.  we took hijm to temple square to have the sister talk to him. the sister that translated for us was from the same city as connor and even spoke the same dialect. The Lord is mindful of all his children. Connor is so much like chirst already. so loving and kind. he loves everyone and does not have the bias of looking at them. he does not judge. The lord knew he needed this sister to help him. so of course i called president chambers and got the okay for her to continue to help us teach him in the home. President and i are close like that. haha. 

Today is Pday because we are going to the temple. i will enjoy that. i love the temple. i cant wait until i can attend more often when i am home. 

Well gotta go. 

LOve Elder Salmon

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Dear Family and Friends,

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD! i have the best dad. and i didn't get to call him yesterday soo everyone gets to here about it. D&C 29:47-48. i am grateful for the lessons that i learn. and that i i am accountable and i was taught by m y father to make good decisions.

So we had a really good week. i at least really enjoyed it. We taught more lessons then we normally do and just made some good contact and received some great referrals the work here is very much alive. i wish the members of this stake knew that. i wish they could see all the people around them perishing in unbelief. it is a real problem and we need to be more charitable as a church.

So i am going to update on the people i have met that know people back at home. Mom and dad i dont know if you know the babcocks? they know you. they lived near president chambers. anyways they live in this stake. Also when i was at temple square i met a sister briggs... yeah so i dont remember her at all but she knows me and claire. apparently she lived in hampton woods or herritage hills and was in the other ward i think. soo some clearity on her would be nice, i just really dont remember her. which doesnt mean much because heck i dont remember much from that long ago. Oh and i much the angus family. she is a sister to brother olson! she is in my stake as well! haha so that was cool. Soo yeah these are the people i have met here. 

Soo teaching Sara! oh my goodness! she basically accepted a date! we have been working soo hard teaching her and trying to gether to pray and read and come to church and now she is telling us she is inviting people to her baptism... just dont know what day yet. she hates dates but she is soo awesome. Umm we picked up a new inv this week and we taught 2 lessons and he is on date. yes the lord blesses us. i am grateful for that. Our polygamist inv. (guy) is also doing great. we gave him a paper he needxs to fill out to be baptized and i think he really wants to do it. we had a great lesson with him and a high priest we took. guy was super old but added a lot of power to the testimony. Things are going well here. i am super busy and i love it. The Church is true. 

Its been actually rather cold lately and i dont mind it at all. i could use some rain though... we never get a good rain storm here... not ubntil late august then it will thunder which are really amazing storms. well i got to get going. got to pick up the mial and i have to drive 30 mins to the mission office. that part i dont like about being a ZL. Love you all.

Love elder salmon

I love it

Dear Family and Friends,

Well we had transfers and i get to stay in my area!!!! finally i am soo happy to stay in this area. Elder foster got transferred to riverton as a zone leader in the YSA stake and i get to take over this area as ZL 1 in the Herriman zone. So i am actually really excited because now i get to do things how i would like to. of course i always take into consideration my companions opinions. I love it. we have such greats elders and sisters that came in. they are all pretty cool and seem like great missionaries. Our zone is doing pretty good and could always get better though. So elder Northrop is a lot more excited about working out in the morning than elder foster was so we have started doing a variety of things in the morning. one oif them is hiking. we have trails and mountains in our area and hiking always ets my heart rate going. we also jog and do a jump training exercise. and its super hard.

So i have been mildly freaking out with the more responsibilities that i get now but it is a lot of fun. i realize i just dont have time to waste time. if i want to have a successful area i need to do the most effective things while i have time to proselyte. so its really helping me to focus on the most important things to do. We picked up a new investigator and he is a polygamist and he accepted a baptismal date! haha soo we have to go throught the first presidency if he wants to be baptised. its pretty cool. i dont know how solid he is but he does want to change his life so we will see how this goes. Last monday we went hikinh it was soo much fun. dont know what we are going to do today for pday but im sure we will come up with something. 

Well gotta go. 

Love Elder Salmon

Pretty good week

Dear Family and Friends,

Hmm so we had a pretty good week this week. We are always experiencing miracles and meeting lots of really faithful people. So we went on an exchange with one of our district leaders and i stayed in our area again. and we had some great miracles. We decided to talk to this guy who was out smoking and found out he had taken the lessons wasnt baptized and was interested in meeting with us again. He is a son of a well know polygamist soo we will have to get the first presidency approval if he wants to be baptized. But that was really cool. he was so nice we will see if her has real intent. Then ater that day we had dinner with this family and the dad really wanted to go visit some of the people in the ward. Because of where we went and the people that he instigated talking to we set up two lesson with 2 new investigators. It was amazing. i have a testimony that the members are the real missionaries. he showed genuine love and concern to the people where we could not. he had the relationship that we did not. it was soo good. 

So as far as our investigators are going, they are progressing but they are not accepting baptismal dates. so we are fasting and praying for each of them. we have really cycled through people. we have picked up a lot and dropped a lot. there are plenty of people are will listen but they wont act. we are having problems getting them to act. we also need the involvement of the wards more. they are too involved. I mean they come to lessons but they wont do anything more. Fear is very prevalent. We are always inviting member to invite there friends to do things. then we follow up later in the week. of all the members we have talked to non have fulfilled what they said they would do. if members cant keep there word i dont know how we can expect others to keep them. 

We have transfers this week so i will have to get back to all of you what happens. i hope i dont leave. i just want to stay where i am for the rest of my mission. 

Elder Salmon

We received miracles

Dear Family and Friends,

sorry for the short letter last week. i felt bad for not writing something longer. but sometimes when the monday comes i just dont have a whole lot to say because nothing has changed. i am still doing missionary work. i still testify to people and still invite them to change and most everyone still says no. But that really bugs me. i dont know why it is soo hard for people to just let us teach them. or just try to live the gospel just once so that you can see the blessings that come from it. this really got me thinking about this subject when earlier this week we stopped by a part member family and we talk and testified just perfectly the spirit was there and the husband just said the same lame excuse that he had been saying the whole time. "no we are good. i can get closer to god my own way." i told him that he may be right and he would lose nothing if he allowed us to sit down and have him try praying reading the scriptures and coming to church. we told him he would feel closer to god and he still refused. saying he didnt need a brick building to get closer to god or to show others that he has faith by going to church. Well thats basically how the conversation went. we have tons of logic and the spirit to back it up and they are just stubborn. i just dont get it. 

So we went on an exchange with the Ap's last friday. it was really good. i got to say in the area with elder bramwell (use to be my zone leader in south jordan) and elder foster got to go with elder bennett (i trained him) in west jordan. it was a good exchange. we talked about doctrine and about mission policies. we decided our mission is too relaxed on music. so elder foster and i changed our music and we received some miracles from it. We are just listening to motab and talks now. when earlier we listened to disney and other efy and stuff. on sunday we had a man come up to us and tell us that his neighbors are non members and want to learn more about the gospel and we got  a text late sunday night from a a girl who said her friend wants to take the lesson and possibly get baptized before she goes back to the netherlands! the lord blesses us when our hearts are in the right place. we should be really busy this wek teaching lots of people. 

So i dont know where the time has gone because this transfer ends in a week... and this next one is elder fosters last and my second to last... its getting really scary and surreal. these last two transfers here are looking to be very busy. which is exactly what i want but will also cause the weeks to go by fast. i have loved my time here in utah. it wasnt the most glamorous mission, which is a horrible reason to go on a mission, but it was the perfect one for me to learn and progress. 

We didnt catch any fish last week... maybe today we will. anyways i know jeremiah calls us fisherman but we really are fishers of men not of fish. because we are horrible at catching fish.  

So sarah decided to go see her husband this last weekend. first time in 2 months she has seen him. she went to church with him and everything. hopefully she is not getting divorced and will make this marriage a happy one for eternity. inour last lesson we asked her probably 4 times to be baptized and she said no to all 4. not sure what is holding her back. but we will get her. we have good contact with her almost every week. our other inv. which are actually a lot are not progressing and they will all probably be dropped as we pick up these other people this week who are willing to be baptized. 

Love Elder Salmon

Herriman

Dear family and Friends,

SOo we had another good week here in the Herriman fire bones zone. The mission training plan that elder foster and i came up with is working we are starting to see some improvement. It was really exciting to see the numbers improve where we actually wanted them too. I just hope they continue to do the things that we have trained them to do. I feel like there are always people to contact here in herriman we have lots of things to do and we are seeing some good fruit. But sooo many people cancel on us. its really frustrating. And we didnt have any of our investigators come to church... it was sad. they all siad they would come and none of them did. Really though our problem is we are not meeting with them enough. we need to have more frequent lessons so we can help them progress. 

So today for PDay we are fishing. Hopefully we catch something because last monday we didnt. We are going to use worms thins time. 

Got my hair cut today at sports clip and it was the most amazing thing ever! they had massage chairs, and warm clothes and i just love it. 

Love you lots

Elder Salmon

#notgettingtrunky

Dear Family and Friends,

Soo i had a great talk with my parents and family back at home. good to see everyone is doing well. Althgouh i feel like everyone was talking about me coming home. ;) #notgettingtrunky

So not much happened since yesterday  but i do want to share something funny. so we were teaching a kids about the gsopel of jesus christ and we taught about baptism and we asked what we do after we are baptized to be forgiven of our sins and he replied we need to take the "Bread of Liberty!" i haven no idea where he got that from but it is so true. i kinda like that name myself but i dont think the prophet with want to change the name. 

Elder Salmon

May 5

Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry about the abrupt nature of my last email. We were in a rush to get a lot of things done. Because i am in Herriman we are the farthest zone from the mission office. It takes us around 25 minutes to get there and we have to go every Monday. And Because we are zone leaders we have to move everyone's stuff around get the mail and just do a lot of random service for the members of our zone. Today we have a little more time. Not as many things to do but we stiull have to help 2 sisters change apartments. So that is going to take up some time. 

So i love this area that i serve in. We have soo many potentials its just hard tying all of them down and getting them to meet with us. We picked up 3 inv in the last 2 weeks which is really good. and it looks like we should pick a up a few more soon. 

Soo here in the Herriman zone we have another name that we use. we call everyone Herriman fire bones because we have fire in our bones like it talks about in jeremiah 16. its kinda funny but elder foster and i have really run with it to help motivate and get everyone excited about the work. Like we made an Acronym for F.I.R.E. and it was pretty funny but we were able to bend it so that it would actually be what we needed it to be. We are also planning on getting t shirts for the zone... what ever. its what the zone wanted.

OUr land lady is really cool. she bujys all of our groceries and will make us food on any day that we need it. and she doesnt let us to our dishes. i got in trouble when i was doing my dishes. And i think i told you about my kind size bed! oh my goodness it is the best sleep ive ever gotten. 

This month Elder Foster and i also had to make the training plan for our zone! this is what all the district mtgs and the commitments this month are based off of. it took us a long time discussing and asking the lord before we made something we liked. As well as the mission training plan we taught some doctrine about the atonement in our Zone training meeting. We are really focusing on the atonement as a mission and i love it. Our president understand soo much. he can answer all my questions. its just whether or not he will answer them. haha. 

So i guess i will call next week on mothers day. soo  we decided we will call at 7.  so i think thats 6 your time. soo expect it then. 

Also HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! i know its late but hey i remembered. that's better than most years.

Love Elder Salmon

I am loving this and where I am

Dear Family and Friends,

OH my, Well i got transferred soo im no longer in Sandy with elder ramos. i am in Herriman with elder Foster. I love it soo much! i am sooo excited to be here. we are in the corner of the mission. I cover the rose canyon stake and we drive a truck and go up into the mountains and the cove! it is soo much fun! i really love it. i dont feel like in in utah because ive seen soo much deer and even a few peacocks that a family has wild. We cover 12 wards and its super crazy. I am still a Zone leader and i have a lot of responsibilities to do today... sorry ill send more info next week. 

But We found a new investigator this last week and we are really focusing on testifying to everyone and its soo much fun. i am loving this and where i am. Oh its snowed in the mountains the other day here. its crazy! anyways i love you all and ill write more next week. 

Elder Salmon

HAPPY EASTER

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it is the end of another transfer. our transfers go by so fast now... It was a disappointment really Elder Ramos and i did our very best but we did not see many fruit. it was a tough transfer and we are praying to god to help know what we must do in order to be good leaders. i know that we need to lead our for this zone and its hard to help other people become better missionaries when they don't see us being successful. This was a very good Easter week with studying the atonement and thinking of the atonement and the resurrection. on sunday we had a bishop call us up to give a talk on the moment and i am grateful that i had been studying it and had it on my mind. 

We didnt have contact with any of our investigators this week with it bein spring break it was rough contacting people. But although we are having hard times Elder Ramos and i are still having fun. we just started walking around our area during times when people are outside and its actually kinda nice because we dont have to rush anywhere and we can take time talking and getting to know people and inviting everyone. we have had no success from it but i feel like im doing really good missionary work when i talk to lots of people. 

So for easter our landlord had us over for dinner and he made some great stuff. ribs and ham and deviled eggs. It was really good then they made us join in on the easter egg hunt. and they put money in there eggs. I made $25 and elder ramos made $23. haha it was pretty cool. i enjoyed it. And its been great weather for spring. in the mid to high 60s everyday with the sun shining! i think that i am starting to enjoy the sun but i still dont like the heat. that kinda sucks still. 

HAPPY EASTER to everyone. i hope that you enjoyed it and were able to enjoy  this time of the year. i know that we have a savior who paid the price for us because he loves us and that he has called us to follow him. and we show our faith and devotion by making covenants so that the grace of god can change us into the people that God wants us to be. The atonement of god does not take away our personal responsibility to keep the commandments. But it des save us from physical death so that we can be brought before god to be judge according to what we had desired here in this life. And we will be raised to that state we were in when we left this world. that means we have to decide to follow him here. For in Heaven there are many mansions and Jesus will prepare the mansion that we want to live in. And for those of us who have not learned how to be godlike, we wont want to be around someone who is a god. Just like we dont want to play in Carnegie hall if we cant play the piano, or be a major league baseball player if we never hit the ball or any number of analogies i could use. But if we continue in the gospel and try our best the atonement will change us. i know that god lives and that he has a son. 

Elder Salmon

This week was kinda crazy...

Dear family and friends,

Well this week was kinda crazy... Dealing with some disobedience in our zone. we have had to waste a lot of our time correcting this problem, investigating this problem and making sure that the members were not negatively affected. we havent really gotten to the bottom of it all so over time im sure all of it will come out. but unfortunately that is what my week was full of. interviews and talks with many missionaries. Its nothing too serious, i doubt people will go home but it is a total disregard for the sacred trust that they have been given and i and very disappointed in many of the zone members. 

However despite the distractions we have we did find a new investigator. It was such a spiritual experience and i thought for sure when we extended the baptismal invitation that she would accept. But she didn't... in fact she kinda blew us off and said we could come back some other time. So we need to somehow make her see that she needs this... this weekend she said we can come back. 

Our other investigator bree did come to church and she feel off date again... We did all we could and we even had a ride at her house at 10:30 and found out she was sick. man somethings are very disappointing. this is probably a good thing because then its allows us to meet with her and her mom more often so we can get her mom activated. 

This week we have a few lessons set up for new investigators however i think they might be set ups... i dont think they are sincere and they just want to bash. i think they dont realize is that my companion and i combined have almost 45 months experience together. i mean we are not going to bash if they want to but i dont think they are going to get anywhere. But i am still hopeful that they are actually interested!! which is why we are going. 

Thanks for all the birthday wishes... we will celebrate when i get home! august swim party!

Love Elder Salmon

I love conference time

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a really good weekend. i love conference time. it is like the super bowl. infact i think this is the most excited i was for conference in a long time. so i was able to attend 2 sessions at the conference center. the sat am session and the sunday pm session. its was very fulfilling. But despite what you saw on the camera it was not sunny and there were not a whole lot of flowers out! haha it was rainy and cloudy the whole weekend. So that stuff they show before conference definitely not use or filmed recently. i think they just pick and choose the videos they want from past videos! haha 

So i was thinking about all the words and i think that we need to be better at the information we have on family search.org. there are not sources or stories from any of the grandparents or great grand parents and i think that we as grandkids and great grand kids would read them if they were up there. it would also be very nice to have the stories of all the conversions in our line. 

This past week we picked up a new inv! Yes! i was so happy. its an 11 year old girl named breanica Erickson and she just moved into her active grandparents house with her less active mom. so hopefully we will get the mom active. it was a long time since we were able to teach an investigator so it made my day. 

Oh and i have to tell you of a dinner expereince we had the other day! There was a lot of mix ups and she thought were were coming at 6. well we showed up at 5 and she was just peeling the potatoes... and i dunno we just didnt realize that she wasnt close to being ready because she said she was. then she told us to cook a little bit while she left... so she left and we started cooking. she grabbed this 93 year old to eat with us and while she finished cooking he told us story after story after story. i dont know how many were true. they were pretty far fetched. To make a long story short, we didnt start eating until 6:45. thats when dinner was finally ready. Dinner actually was very good. Except! i put poopy seed dressing on my salad and after i was eating it for a while i saw that it expired in 2007... i was 14 when this dressing expired! to be polite i ate my whole salad and drank a lot of water! oh man it was nasty. i didnt get sick though...

Well life here is going great. i am gratefulfor this mission and for the testimony i have recieved. gratitude is something i am trying to be better at.

Love elder Salmon

FYI

Dear family and Friends,

hmm well we had a pretty uneventful week. I mean we taught 3 non-members and all which was great but they are all leaving...

So we taught 2 Japanese students who were here learning in America and we taught them about God and how to pray but they go home this week to japan. and We taught this guy named Ken! it was pretty cool because we just thought to stop by the fellow shippers house to ask about him and he was there and he wanted to be taught! which was tight! i thought it started off poorly and we was asking a lot of hard questions... i said a quick prayer and slowly the lesson got better and better. The sad part was we learned he was leaving the next day to go to the eat coast to visit for like a whole month and a half because he has relatives who are failing in there health and he wanted to be near them. so we probably wont teach him again until may. other than that we didnt teach too many other people. we have been trying really hard to find a new investigator. We are trying to set a good example for the zone and lead out but its just not happening for us. 

it has been kinda discouraging and the members are the bulk of the discouragement. With this huge emphasis on missionary work people are changing there excuses from "i dont know anyone" to "No one is ready." it is really irritating because sometimes the people are READY they just dont invite. and we dont go over because they ask us not to go over. All we ask is an invitation. it is not our decision to make if someone is ready or not! that is the lords and there's. We invite they make a decision. but if we don't invite they don't get a decision. 

Well i am doing well. still trying to find new investigators. Don't come up with lame excuses for your missionaries. we are smarter then we look and we don't call you out on it because we have to use you in the work. FYI.

Elder Salmon

Hey from Sandy

Dear Family and Friends,

Well i have a few mixed feelings with a few things that happened this last week. first i got transferred from west Jordan! which i was very sad. i really enjoy it over there and i was getting a lot of good work done! the second thing that i am not too excited about is that they called me as a zone leader... on one hand its less stressful. on the other im not sure i want to lead like that. Its a lot of trust and its fun. i have a great companion. the oldest companion ive ever had. hes at 21 months. and it looks like i will kill him(send him home) because he goes home in 2 transfers. 

I got sent to sandy to the same-ish zone i was in the last time i was here in sandy. (the zones have switch a bit but my old area is in the zone.) sandy is not too bad i guess. i could be here for a long time. i like staying in areas for a long period of time so mayby i can be here for the long run. Unfortunately we dont ahve an investigators... so i was a little bummed coming from a place where i had 6 investigators. oh well it means there are people for me to find here. and we have to find becuase we need to lead out in the zone and that means we need to find people to teach. i know the lord will provide people who are ready we just need to put the work in. 

The sandy crescent ridge stake was very welcoming. they all knew my name basically before i even met them. the stake president sent out a mass email to everyone telling a little about me. Now im back to memorizing peoples names. Im grateful im not leading the area! first time in forever! i just get to give my 2 cents and help while my companion leads the area. i am trying to learn it as fast as i can. but i have more than just my area to think about. 3 district and over 20 missionaries is a lot to think about. that part is a little overwhelming. 

Its really good hearing from all of you. i do enjoy getting your letters and emails and im sorry if i dont have time to reply a whole lot. But i just got even busier. I love you all! 

Elder Salmon

Another Day in Paradise

Dear family and Friends,

Well this transfer has come to a close. that has been really weird because it feels like i just got here. But it really has gone by quick and we have done a lot of work here. i still feel like a new comer here but i am starting to know a lot of people. So in the morning i scored this free pass to work out at a gym not too far away and have been going there in the morning for my workouts. That has been very beneficial for me. i get a good workout and i dont feel as guilty now when i eat a little too much at dinner time. 

We had a lot of cancellations like last week. We are at the point where we need to drop investigators, but my companion doesnt like it. he thinks im giving up on them. when in reality im helping them more. but he doesnt see it. We did pick up 3 new investigators this last week. they didnt accept a date, well really i didnt have enough time to put them on date. the lesson went over. But they will ahve a date next lesson. They want to join the church but they want to learn more. I believe its just a matter of time. I believe when a ward believes and they put the effort into helping us the Lord gives us investigators. This ward wants to help us and they are the smallest ward but we have the most work there. And that makes me want to spend more time in there ward. 

So on Saturday Elder kulu, now John kulu took me and my comp out for lunch. i got to catch up with him and see how he is doing. it was very surreal for me to see how much he has changed. he is working a full time job, hes going to college, hes not messing around with the girls, and he still does his studying in the morning. It was very good to see him. i love that guy and i know we will stay in touch. he is living in cottonwood right now and moving down to provo in a month or so. 

But life is going good. The work continues to move on and we are always looking. The weather has been pretty nice. not too rainy and very ward. we had a great winter compared to last year. We keep thinking its spring when we see the suna dn its 60 degrees outside. but everyone keeps talking about how its still got one or two more snow storms left. i just pray it doesnt. 

Love Elder Salmon

"Ya'll have some crazy lives"

Dear Family and Friends,

So this last week was pretty dismal. not much went a on as far as missionary work. A lot of people had to cancel on us and we even lost 2 inv. they decided to drop us. soo that was problematic and it was a little disheartening. on sunday we had fast and testimony mtg in the 6 wards that we cover so we had a busy morning hitting up testimony mtgs ward councils and trying to get all our inv. to church. it turned out pretty good. we have 1 ward that has a brand new bishop and members of the council and they are on fire! they provide us with atleast 3-4 teaching opportunities a week. and this week they set up a lesson with a potential family. they have really made our job easier and it makes me want to work in there ward more and more. 

We starting teaching a couple who has been trying to come back to church. he just had brain surgery because he has a tumor in his head. he has 2 years to live. he wants to get sealed to his wife and i have not seen a more humble man. his only question is "what do i have to do?"  they are a great couple who struggle with the little things but they will make it to the temple. i know they want it. 

Sunday we got to meet a new family who has been taking the discussions in west valley but live in our ward. they want to learn more about the gospel and want to meet with us. we have a lesson with the, tomorrow. the mom and her 2 kids want to learn more. there husband is LA and with support but doesn't want to get active. they seem like a great family. 

I am doing well. im staying healthy and trying to work out and stay healthy. It crazy getting all this news about everyone. i feel like when news hits, it all comes out. Yall ahve some crazy lives. its hard to keep up with it all. But im glad you all keep in touch. its good to hear from you. 

With Love elder Salmon

"I'm just chillun up here"

Dear Family and Friends,

I cant believe ive been in this area for a whole month now. i still feel new but im really not that new anymore. It has been tough getting to know all the members and the leadership by name. i need like flash cards or something haha but i probably wont do that. that would involve me taking all of there pictures. that would be creepy. 

We had a pretty good week. nothing too abnormal happened. With our investigators a lot of them are just not on date. We have been struggling to get them on date for one reason or another. some are they are not coming to church others they dont see the need, the most frustrating is they can get permission from the parent guardian. So this week thats what i wanted to focus on. was getting people to commit to a date. we were able to put 2 more on date but we lost one! DAng it! Jaron snider broke his hand and is getting a cast! trying to put him back on date and just put a bag around his cast! haha. he was supposed to be baptized this Saturday so hang tight. this week could be a little crazy getting him baptized.

Also on saturday we picked up a new inv. who actually requested us to come. But i think he misunderstand what we do. he has 3 bad addictions and he wants us to help him over come it. When we met with him he told us how he wants to quit drinking and quit gambling. while we were talking though he was drinking and after we left he drove to a casino. haha he is in deep and he will need a lot of help. i tried to tell him if he wants to commit he must commit to god and work towards baptism. We are not really there yet. 

Today i got an email of a couple who i taught in sandy! probably one of the few people that i really touched. I never found out what happened to them and it was so great to hear that they are active in the ward. they give talks, and bear there testimonies! i think they even have callings and are working towards getting sealed in the temple this summer! i really want to go. that would be something special. We never did baptize there kids... i wonder if they got them baptized. 

Well im just chillun up here in west jordan. Yall take care.

Elder Salmon

Pictures

Elder Fuller and I with Rylie

My District

Sister May

 

The Johnson Family

Our chapel in Copperton

What the houses look like in Copperton

Milly our dog

Elder Medieros and I

"I love doing this work"

Dear Family and Friends,

So im under a time limit. im trying to write this email in 8 minutes before my computer automatically restarts. And so far i dont think i am going to make it. I cant get rid of it and its just ticking down the clock and all i can do is write faster to try to get everything in. 

So we had a baptism this last weekend! it was pretty cool. The baptism was great the ward involvement was great, the program went amazing and i didnt have to do anything. The only hiccup was that the uncle who baptized her called her by the wrong name... in the baptism and for the confirmation. apparently theres this long family feud about what her last name is and he brought it into the baptism. i almost freaked on him. i had to call president chambers and ask his advice as to what to do. There is no birth certificate for this girl so we actually dont know what her real name is. and her biological father wasnt there when she was named and her biological mother died. So its a mystery. apparently the for her to be saved calling by the right name doesnt matter. but we have to create her record with the name the uncle said. Not a cool move on his part. But im going to stay out of it. 

Last monday we went to the Mata family for dinner. it was great. they are from southern mexico and they asked me what we wanted. of course i asked for cow tongue! my companion was not too thrilled but after was had a few or maybe 10 he like my choice. i really enjoy cow tongue. if its prepared correctly. 

This last week we have been busy teaching and getting to know members and unfortunately we didnt find anyone. But we got a great referral for a family that is coming to church and and they ahve 4 kids unbaptized. 15 13 10 and 8. i was talking to the bishop and and we were joking and saying how great of a day it would be to see them all in white! With the father baptizing them. That our goal. March is tehre lucky month. they have been to church the last 2 Sundays and they love basketball so im sure we will get along great! 

Elder fuller and i are getting along great. He is a funny guy. when ever he wants to express himself he does it via movie quote. Half the time i dont get the movie reference because its been so long. But he usually explains it to me. But lifes good. I love doing this work. its the best thing for me!

Elder Salmon

"I am doing well"

Dear family and friends,

Well the start of my second week in West Jordan has been a great start. we are finding lots of successes here and i love the work. we found 3 new investigators this last week and have a baptism this weekend. March looks to be a very fruitful month as all 3 will be on date for that month along with a few others we are teaching. 

Its been great as ive gotten to know elder fuller a little more. He definitely beats me on the whole nerdy thing. i usually claim nerd status but he totally destroys me. i keep forgetting to get my camera and send pictures home. i have a few that are pretty cool. So where we live they have a dog named milly. She is a very playful dog. always wanting to play tug of war or fetch. She will stand there beg and whine until we do. if it gets too bad we have to send her out and lock the door so we can study! but she is a cool dog. i like her. and thats saying a lot because i dont like too many dogs. I probably wont like her if she steals my socks as is her bad habit. But we have the upstiars in there house, a bedroom and the den to study as well as our bathroom is up there. And we both live on the main floor. Our landlords are like 27 and i enjoy talking \with them. 

As far as my week it was a normal missionary week. We did our thing and we found peolpe to teach. Invited people to be baptized and and over came concerns.

We cover 6 wards here which isnt too bad. much better than the 9 in south jordan. i dont think i could even work with just 1 ward. i wouldn't know how. i dont know how they stay busy. But here we always have sooo many people to go to. planning is super easy becuase we can never get to everyone we need to correlate with or people we need to contact. So i hope all of you will make the missionaries lives a little easier by doing something to help them. if there is a task you can do but "usually" the missionaries do it, help them out. It makes our lives easier. 

Last weekend i got to go back to south jordan and attend a baptism of someone elder heath and i taught. It was pretty sweet to go back a see a few people i recognize. 

Well i am doing well.

Love you all

Elder Salmon

Transferred

Dear family and friends,

well i got transferred to west jordan west zone! this is a great change i am very excited to be here. i was in South jordan for a long time. So if you look at google maps im the farthest west you can get. at 75th west! i even cover copperton! that small town out there. thats a weird town. its a regular small town with 100 year old houses. The people are very nice and the area seems fairly cool. Everyone i see walking is smoking there but theres a pretty big ward there apparently. 

I am still trying to get down where i am going and where everything is but after about a week here i think i know it better than my companion who has been here for 6 weeks. His name is Elder Fuller. hes kinda a Goober but i like him. Hes always talking about taking over the world. As long as he doesn't kill me i told him im okay with that. we will have a lot of interesting conversations im sure. haha i do like him though. hes been out 2 transfers so i get to help him out of his training phase.

So im still a District leader which is a slight drawback but i have 3 companionships in my district now. So this is the biggest amount of elders ive ever been over and the whole zone is basically in my district (geographically) so i dont really have to get permission to go anywhere! because it all in my district! haha

We had a stake conference yesterday and saturday and Elder Larry S. kacher of the seventy was the presiding authority. He did an amazing job! the spirit was very strong and i knew he was who he was, an especial representative of jesus christ. it was great to talk to him for a little and hear about what he does. He was in the middle east for like 5 years! He has a lot of interesting stories. This stake conference was perfect for me to get to know the stake president and his councilors and see most of the stake.

I love this area! i was so happy when i came here. Our landlords are a youngerish couple. no kids. they are about late 20s and they are pretty cool. after we plan i go down and we talk. My bed is so comfortable. i actually sleep through the night now! i never did in south jordan. man a good nights sleep really helps me out! 

We have so much potential here! WE have 2 on date already and probably will have 2 more on date this week! i love teaching and this i feel will give me a great opportunity to teach many many people.

Well i better go. Elder fuller is done and i dont want to keep him waiting.

love elder Salmon

"Well our week was ok"

Dear family and friends,

Well our week was okay. We had an interesting experience with a young lady. Our neighbor the meldrums have a daughter who is 15 and she has a friend she has always been asking us to teach. So we went over and talked to her and her parents and asked her to call her friend right there and set up an appointment for last Saturday. we were very excited and the lesson went text book well. she had lots of questions, the spirit was there she accepted a date and was going to go to church the enxt day, she cried during the lesson and everything. the spirit was very strong. The investigator is named alyssa. Anyways about 4 in the morning on sunday she called her mom and left and went home and we havent heard anything since. We talked to the fellow shipper and she told us that she overheard alyssa was meeting with us to try and "stump us." little did she know we answered all her questions and the spirit was there. i think she was genuine when she accepted the date but im almost positive it scared her when the spirit was that strong. she panicked. She has not lived in a great living accommodations and her mom is not setting a great example. I will be interested to see if she comes back and wants to learn more. Regardless she felt the spirit and we did our job.

We are supposed to pick up a new inv. on Wednesday but he had to move last minute to west jordan. we have just had that kind of luck this transfer. But hey what can you do but keep chugging along. At least we didn't have to heal a finger this week. We are teaching quite a few Less actives and they are both going very well. They are coming back to church and keeping there commitments. i should get content with that because im called to baptize people but it does give me joy.

Danny pham who elder heath and i taught and baptized in december is already teaching every other week in gospel principles class. he is doing very well. He is getting the gospel and soaking everything in. We probably wont need to do all the new member lessons. He is progressing and getting the priesthood soon and i love seeing people like him progress in the gospel. and its nothing anything that ive done its just ive helped him and it makes my efforts worth it.

Love Elder Salmon

P.S. this past week we have been showing up to places right on time to help. One of our other neighbors the Clowards are really struggling. they are Less active but we showed up one day because i felt like we should see how they are doing and it was morning time and bro. cloward (who has severe dementia) was on the ground basically naked... We had to pick him up and help get him dress and into a wheel chair. apparently some days he cant walk and his brain is fried. he doesnt make sense when he talks and doesn't remember anyone. Im glad we were there to help. She will call us now when she needs us! she hasn't called yet since Thursday but i know the wards a lot more involved now.

"I Love Missionary Work"

Dear Family and Friends,

Well Elder heath and i had a few ups and downs this week. the beginnig of the week was very slow and it felt like no one was home. Also knowing where to go was difficult as we didn't have any potentials nor investigators. we had a training by our ZLs and they challenged us to talk to everyone we see. Now that is a challenge seeing how i've been in this area for over 7 months. I have talked to a lot of people here. It is also hard to talk to everyone when in a car. Haha so we just decided to do it. some people where really weirded out that we would stop them and talk to them from a car. we tried parking and getting out but so many people got away we just started driving up to them. WE haven't even found a lead from talking to everyone but that's not really the point. we are being obedient and the lord blesses us with our obedience.

Also earlier this week one of our bishops gave our number to a member who i think is a little crazy... He was asking the bishop to restore his finger and make it whole. he had lost it in an accident at a pasta factory. He wanted it back because he needed to switch jobs and he didnt believe he could get it without his finger. Anyways so he calls us up. and we go to his house completely blissful as to why we are there. the bishop didnt tell us. then he goes off on this prepared speech, along with scriptures and personal stories, to try to convince us that it was gods will to heal his finger. i am very uncomfortable during this whole time and my companion was lightly freaking out. this is an active member remind you. so he finally lets us speak and i explain how a blessing is supposed to work (ie. it comes from the lord and i have no power if hes not going to grant it) and i proceed to be voice. Right from the beginning i knew he was not getting his finger back! haha. and he didnt. but an hour later the job he wanted called, they knew about his finger from his last employer and he still got the job! haha the lord provides for us! but it is definitely his will how it happens.

The work is slow however. we picked up 1 new inv and she is getting baptized on the 1st and the bishop in one of our wards invited a nonmember to take the lessons and he said yes! i love missionary work and when the members help us out! Thats because of Elder heath and i talking to everyone! haha we got blessed. Well gotta go. temple session is about to start. I love you all.

Elder Salmon

It Only Takes a Small Miracle to Brighten the Day

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been so great to hear from so many of you through the many different means of communication. This is a very happy period of time where we focus on the savior, his ministry and especially his birth. We focus on the example the savior gave us and then we can look at our lives evaluate our effort and make plans to become better. I love this time (despite that cold). i am grateful for the pagans for making the mistake to put Jesus' birthday right before the new year so that we have the most perfect example before us before we make our goals to become better so that the goals we make are pointing us and are center on becoming more Christ-like.

Well the Past few weeks have been very unproductive. Getting into peoples house are hard and finding people home even harder. But despite the lack of work and teaching we ahve used the time to teacha  lot of active members in the stake and we have had a lot of spiritual lessons with them. In fact i think that did a lot of good for this stake. we got into a lot of homes and reminded them of the message of the restoration and the spirit was present. In the last week we have had 5 or 6 people call us and give us referrals or tell us they are going to invite someone to meet with us, or even call us to come over and teach there family. First time since i have been here that the members are really calling us and using our names and asking us to do things! i see a change for this next year for the stake as far as missionary work.

Not this alst sunday but the sunday before that i was privileged to give 2 talks and teach a lesson to the combined Sunday school. It was a lot of fun to be able to talk and teach even the older generation. But getting Participation is like pulling teeth! So i just call on people and i am very blunt about participation. The spirit will touch each of us and if we don't speak up we hinder the work of the spirit. it works the same way with a companionship. we must switch off, everyone i the class must participate. So we are not doing too much to teach non members but we are teaching. We are sharing our testimonies and we are encouraging others to do missionary work and i think we are still fulfilling our purpose even though i probably wont see any fruit at all from this. I love this stake and i love that people are trying to be soo helpful. people all the time are telling us that they are praying to have missionary experiences instead of praying just for us to have them. Life is great here. Some days are terrible but many more are pretty good. it only takes a small miracle to brighten the day and to let us know the lord is watching out for us.