"I really love being here"

Dear Family and Friends,

Well this week was a very rewarding week! It was the highest numbers that I’ve every had in the mission. And i don’t think it’s because of me. The Lord blessed us. People were home and we were able to talk to lots of people and find a new investigator. We had a baptism and we went to temple square. It was a good week.

Our district changed. We got some sisters in our district. We now have 8 people in the district. its cool i know there are lots that we can learn from them.

So first the weather had been sooo much nicer. I didn’t wear any jacket or hats or scarfs and it felt great. The snow is kind of melting. Where the sun hits, the snow has melted, but in the shadows there are still like 2 feet of snow. I did enjoy a little rain the other day! i was very happy. I’ve missed the rain and i had a good walk in the rain while my companion wasn’t too happy. But there’s not much i could do. Since the weather has picked up I’ve definitely noticed that my attitude has picked up. When i talk to people I’m perkier and it’s a lot easier to get into the gospel. So i enjoy it.

SOOO!!!!!! i had a miracle the other day. The Johnsons are a less active family that i met almost the first week in the field. And for the 5 months I’ve been in Kearns they haven’t come to church. But the Mom always said don’t give up on me. So i didn’t. This last Sunday they said they would if they found things to wear on Saturday. i was praying really hard and they found clothes for all of them! It went really smooth and they were at church and they liked it!!!! I was soo happy.

We also had a baptism yesterday. Carlos Ruben Martinez got baptized. He is from Blackfoot Idaho and has lived here for only about 5 weeks when we met him. When he committed to baptism after that day he would pray for patience to wait for the baptism so me being the kind missionary just moved it up a week. I know so merciful haha but it was a great service. Not a lot of support from the family but a lot of support from the ward family. We also had a lot of tender mercies because some people who fell off date decided to get baptized on the date originally set for them and i was excited. I didn’t have to worry about anything, the Lord took care of everything for us and i am so grateful for that.

So i finished my first transfer of training and it wasn’t that bad. I have one more transfer of training and I’m kind of looking forward to it. We get a lot more blessings because i don’t know what I’m doing.

I am just getting so many blessings and i don’t really know why. We are having great success and the Lord is doing a lot of work for us. i know that what we are doing is bringing people closer to the Lord. I’ve seen people change. Everything about the gospel makes sense and i learn so much every time i study. Studying really is an act of faith! i know that there is always something that i can learn and i do every morning.

I really love being here. it’s pretty cool seeing all the miracles. It’s good to see that everyone is happy. I’m glad that everyone is doing alright and having fun. Take care.

Love Elder Salmon

"The Future Only Looks Bright"

Dear Family and Friends,

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SOOOOO!!! We got the Interesting news of the mission changing and yes we are probably losing the whole east side of our mission. But we won’t know for sure until later. Elder Clayton of the presidency of the seventy came and told us the news. And gave us some awesome information! i learn so much whenever we get a general authority. WE will also get a new mission president. President Robert E. Chambers; A religious teacher at BYUI. i don’t know him though. But this just means with all the new missionaries and them splitting up the missions everyone will be training a lot! And we will all be getting leadership positions probably! I’m the 3rd oldest in our district aside from the district leader and his companion, so I’m a little worried about getting more leadership positions. I could also go to the east mission. The president there will be president Eberheart i think. He’s from a sandy stake. He was the president there.  Very exciting times! I’m excited for Washington! i honestly didn’t know there was that much success there. But that really cool! i am excited to see the changes.

This last week was okay. No baptisms but we worked hard and found a new investigator.  We tried to teach a lot. In March it looks pretty good, 4 people who i would say look pretty good have dates. But that also means we are going to lose 4 investigators! haha so we have to do a lot of finding next month. We are riding our bikes more because it is warmer and on those days we have way more success. We move a lot faster and everything is just dandy.

So we had an awesome Blizzard for like 2 hours! i was having so much fun! i made elder bennett walk in it with me to our lesson. i wanted to walk but we had two rides there an i turned them down! haha i was enjoying it. I basically skipped and sang the whole way there! I’ll send an awesome picture of me in the snow.

I am very surprised to hear about Grandma! i didn’t know about the fast however i did fast last Saturday and hopefully the Lord knows where i would like those blessings to go. Grandma will stay in my prayers. Keep her healthy until i get home. I will need her to tell me more about family history because i am kind of just getting interested and probably will be interested by the time i get home.

This is truly an amazing age to live in! The signs of the times are here! i know it is. Things are happening way too fast. All the missionaries are kind of pumped! These next 5 years will be great. The future only looks bright and many hearts will be softened by the Lord. He is preparing the people for us to find. i can see that in the people that we do teach. They are ready and we are looking to make real growth and we will be working hard to bring others back into the fold. I gave a talk on becoming a true disciple of Christ. i thought it was one of my best talks ever. I could tell people were captivated. People need to and see that they can’t stand idle especially here in Zion where it needs to be so much stronger than what it is.

Anyways Love you all take care.

Love Elder Salmon

"I am sooo done with snow"

The wrinkliest Dog ever! He can't see out of his eyes unless he flexes his muscles and moves the skin

molcajete best lunch ever!

Awesome igloo

Found this it looks just like me! but its not me!

 Dear family,

It’s great to be here in email form in front of all of you haha! Well Hannah your time is running out... I bet you never thought this would happen. As I don’t think it will ever happen for me. I am enjoying every moment and it is a little scary that each Monday comes way too fast.

Yes father I do remember that 50 mile bike ride very vividly actually in fact it turned into 66 miles if I remember correctly. I remember almost hating it all the way there and all the way back. However I don’t think I complained while doing it. But it was fun despite not being able to feel your butt the next day. I had never been on most of those roads and I had never been to Gasworks Park before that either. And mother I do know what movie that is from it’s from Saturdays warriors. Please I know all the quotes. I often think of a random one and blurt it out and my companion has no idea what I am talking about. It is very funny for me because he is very confused and I just calmly move on.

We had many miracles this last week. Looking back we had a very productive week. Every lesson we had we were able to get someone from the ward to come with us. I know that is the best way because then when they came to church we didn’t have to do anything but remind people they were there and we let our investigators enjoy the church services. In particular we have two very strong investigators and they are in the same ward and about the same age. RaeAn butler is 17 and a senior in high school and Reuben Martinez is 18 and is working full time. Both really loved it at church and each are very special.

Reuben has expressed some very deep ideas and has trusted me with some of his feelings regarding his conversion. I don’t ever want to limit the spirit and I’m still learning how it works but he tells me that sometimes he sees a thin outline of something around people when they are speaking in church or when we are teaching to him. God works in mysterious ways. Reuben must have some important work to do.

Also RaeAn is also very sensitive to the spirit. The lessons with her are some of the most powerful lesson I’ve ever been in. She is very receptive and is very willing to accept what we teach. Not because of what we teach but because she knows what the spirit feels like and she recognizes that this is the truth. A few time I was prompted to share some deeper understand than what I would normally teach.

We are still doing our best to work hard. The baptisms this month have kind of fallen through. It was a little discouraging but they will be baptized just not as soon as I would like. Next month looks like 4 baptism for March right now. We are really blessed. I am stressing about doing the right thing but I can’t stress about to much that not in my power.

Mom I don’t think I’m that great of a trainer... Elder Bennet and I do well together but I haven't found a way to correct him without him getting offended. He was a zone leader in the MTC and I think he has a lot more pride than most greenies because he feels like he is a really great teacher. Compared to me he is alright. But I’m still a novice I feel like when it comes to our zone leaders and some other older missionaries. But it’s a great opportunity for me to practice being humble.

The temperature has been better lately. I didn’t wear a coat for the last few days because the sun was out and it felt soo good. We still have like a foot of snow in some places around here. I am sooo done with the snow. It definitely needs to snow though.

I cut my own hair today by myself, the whole thing. I think it actually looks pretty good. I didn’t use a mirror for the back but my district says it looks fine. So whatever.

Hope everyone is doing fine.

Love Elder Salmon