October 14

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, its only been 5 days. i could get use to having a pday every few days. but thats not going to happen. We just passed our half way mark on this transfer. times goes by to fast. it has been a long time since we have found a new investigator and we are really struggling with that district wide. tomorrow we have a special district mtg on finding. lots of participation. i delegated out the training among the district. Also during tht time we will be having interviews with the mission president so the Aps will be attending our mtg. We got to go to the temple last thursday! WOW!! thats all i have to say. this made a lot of my impressions and guesses way clearer. i loved it! it was like a movie! but real! and i learned doctrine! all the things that i wanted.

So georgette is supposed to be getting baptised this Sunday. we are running into some complications from the west mission. i know it is the best situation for her to be baptized as well as confirmed in her home ward and so we contacted the missionaries over there. however what they want to do could very well cause a lot of conflict so we are working it out so that she has the best situation. i will make sure the baptism will happen this sunday either here or in her home ward i dont care. she has a very strong testimony. she knows that if she joins there will be conflict in her family and she is willing to go through that to be baptized. i am impressed.

well i am alive and well. 

With love Elder Salmon

October 10

Dear family and Friends,

Well, we have Pday on thursday just for this week. so i will email all of you on monday again. I am still in south jordan and coming to a close on training elder heath. we have 3 more weeks together. Conference was Great! man it was soo good. i love every second of it! we got to go to 3 session with permission form Zls, and i actually didnt see anyone i knew there. except for sister Gee. that was cool. i have missed a lot of my friends and try to stay in contact with them as much as possible. i am kinda in a rush this Pday because we are going to the temple and i need to make sure i have time. ill write more on monday. I am doing well and healthy.

Georgette our only investigator is progressing really well. she know the spirit is around when we teach her. She has made very many comments and i am very hopeful that she will be baptized on the 20th. that is her date and our last lesson with her was very good. we taught the gospel and hit hard on keeping the sabbath day holy. that is our only concern with her. 

Well lifes good.

Love elder SAlmon

Recap

Dear family and friends,

So since ive com here to south jordan i seen even another side of missionary work that i didnt know. The stake of which i am laboring in is the country park stake. It is a lot of fun and i really like it. im getting to know a lot of really cool people. however the teaching pool isnt as full as i would have liked it to be. we work really hard all day and hope for referrals from the members. the sad part is we still have to go to them to get the referrals. i have not had a member call me and give me a referral. i feel like a facilitator. i find the names, i find the fellowshippers and i commit them to do what i want them to do, like invite your friend to church! whent hey fail then i contact them and it never is as good as if a friend does it.

ive had two companions here in south Jordan, eler lila who is from Albania he was a lot older than me but he was still a handful. they left us together for one transfer then i took over and trained elder heath here. All this time they also wanted me to train the other elders around me. I was freaked out at first. i didnt know what to do. i feel way more comfortable with it now and i actually kinda enjoy it but i'm more tired than i use to be. here in south jordan i had the great opportunity of teaching and baptizing Robin Wimmer and reactivating her husband Richard. they are a cool pair and like to go camping and hunting. he had the longest beard the whole time while i was teaching them. He had to shave it the other day and i saw them at a store and i didnt recognize him and almost thought she was cheating. it was that bad. Also i had a great opportunity of teaching Scott walker. he is from mainland china and didnt speak any English and still really doesnt. we used a translator from temple square sister chen and her comp sister roffler then after transfers sister snow. It was slow teaching through the translator and helping him understand because all the other missionaries were out less than 3 months. so i was easily the most experienced of us all. He really understand more than i thought he would. He is a very loving kid and he will play hand games with you all the time. Tennis, and mercy and other such games. he really loves the interaction. he owns me at rock paper scissors. After those two we had to drop most of our other investigators because they weren't really progressing. And right now we are relying on the lord to help us find more.

The other day, we had 4 suits be given to elder heath and i! and these are designer suits! man they look good and luckily they are the perfect size. im not going to worry about buying any more. I cant believe how nice some of these members are. he probably gave us about 3000 dollars worth in suits or more. They all came from Nordstrom. This general conference is going to be good i can tell. i didnt get any tickets to go. i think we got less tickets than we normally get because i thought for sure i would go this time. Oh well. we will watch the conference with members and our investigators when we find some this week.

I love being a leader and having to learn to receive revelation. It does get easier and easier. Priesthood blessings are easier and training and teaching is so much easier. missions are truely inspired. i feel like i had learned so much yet i see so many flaws in myself as well. The scriptures are so valuable. i cant believe how much more i can receive from reading them. they are a gold mine for information and especially when you have the spirit with you. and i can see why studying them with a question is helpful. i have come to love serving. i can genuinely ask to serve people and mean it when i saw i want to. Charity is probably the hardest attribute to gain and i have really learned to love people. i love those i serve. I am still prideful but i think im less prideful. Missions are hard and they are to humble us and im grateful for all these experiences. I have come to know for myself that joseph smith is a true prophet and either the book of mormon was written by god or the devil because of what is claims. and i know it is of god because of all the good it has done for me. i love my mission and i love the gospel.

Elder Salmon