My Christmas Wish List

I knew it wasn’t my fault you weren’t getting letters! No , I don’t want a portable dvd player I’m a good missionary. It would be nice but with 10 peso pirate dvds on every corner its way too much of a temptation. I haven’t gotten any package yet. How long ago did you send it? I’ll see the secretaries today so I’ll ask them. Christmas list? I’m still in that stage of not really wanting much. Ibought the new LDS version of the Bible that finally came out in Spanish. I love it the Bible isn’t as much apostasy as before since we were using a Christian Bible, I actually read it and use it in my study! I’ve become "hungry" for learning new stuff. My last comp lent me the book "the Great Apostasy" by Talmage and I read it in about a week. and I’m reading "A Marvelous Work and a Wonder" by LeGrand Richards. I’ve already read the Miracle of Forgiveness and Jesus the Christ. I’ve got a big booklist of books i want... but... books are heavy. I’m already carrying around too much stuff. So for a Christmas list... a sweater, normal like a hoodie. Other things that are on my mind is... ok a long time I bought a 30G ipod from another missionary at a good price, but now its being lame sauce. It only works hooked into the speaker deal, so I want to take that to get fixed and... um... a new suit. a motorcycle, a toy train, an x-box with flat screen tv or a projector, legos, a vacation out of this city and a pony. deal? Oh and a girlfriend…I’m tired of being with a man all day ;)

See how close you can get.

No, look I don’t want to leave stuff here and I don’t want to pay a bunch to drag it home. Send me some baptisms and missionaries that want to work… that’s all I want.

Bad week, the zone pretty much did horribly. The whole mission is just in a huge nose dive... the culture of work has been overridden by an attitude of "the numbers don’t matter" and pure laziness. It’s such a frustration. Then I don’t want to talk bad about my leaders but every time the assistants call me its "you need to do this" and "you have to do this" if i haven’t been in the refiners fire for a long time I would be in the pits of depression right now. But tomorrow comes. We had a good leaders meeting last night searching for solutions. Today we are going to have a zone council like a roundtable to get to see what is going on from the point of view of everyone and look for solutions and what we can to. The key not is focusing on how the things can’t be done but finding a way that they can. Then we have Zone Conference on Wednesday.

It was a cloudy week, a bit depressing with low numbers in our area but we had 1 baptism and 2 confirmations with 11 investigators in sacrament meeting. Sunday always comes. its the day of refreshment, a day of delight for me. I love Sunday even though it still is work.

Oh ya, I’m now famous. I’m in the Liahona in Mexico. In the news part for an activity we did. I’ll try and steal a copy.

I love seeing your faces thanks for the pics. I love you all so much. Take care of each other. Be united.

-ELDER SOLOMON

First Priesthood Ordination

Hey slackers!

Still not sure but I might need a new suit. Last night I had the opportunity to go back to the Cuautepec stake center. Fernando and Ricardo Diego got the Melchesidek priesthood and I ordained Ricardo. It was nerve wracking; I had never ordained the priesthood before. My hands were shaking like crazy. We ended at about 8:30 and it was absolutely pouring… we tried to look for a taxi to get home. The main street was a flowing river and even the big diesel busses weren’t passing. So we went back to the chapel and waited. It was getting late so we went back got on a bus just to go about a quarter mile to get on another that took us about a half mile and stopped. After a long time we got off and stopped. Crossing a little bridge the water was about four feet high… we had no idea what to do. We went to the sister missionaries’ house that was really close, but turns out they were stuck on the other side of the flood. We just sat there for a long time with no idea of what to do. We walked “upstream” up the hill where we started walking sometimes the water got up to almost the knees. Suit and everything. Then we got to the place where the busses that head to our area are and nothing… we ended up walking all the way over a freaking mountain being like 3 miles that we walked in the pouring rain. Got home at like 11 and stripped it all off. Put the fan on my clothes and they were all dry, (except my shoes) in the morning but who knows if they shrunk or something like that. At least we didn’t get sick. Or drown… we got caught in the rain a lot this week. I hope that old saying about working in the rain makes your future wife hotter…

Well after a short 6 weeks here in Santa Cecilia they are kicking me out already… I’m getting changed to an area called Molinito. Apparently it’s pretty similar to Cuautepec. Thousands of people, poorer and baptisms like crazy. Also really dangerous. I’m also getting moved up again to Zone leader senior comp with an elder who has little time left called Elder Cruz. Hope all goes well there, I’m nervous about the responsibility but am grateful Heavenly Father can trust in me.

Rain every afternoon, getting ready to stay for a long time and now I’m going oh well! Love you all. I’m growing progressing and enjoying the time that is quickly flying by. Love one another. Love can truly break any barrier. Don’t be afraid to stick up for the truth. This truly is the work of God, I know it. There is no other church on the earth designed to take us to the Celestial Kingdom and Exaltation. What other one can take you to the Terrestrial or Telestial, in fact you don’t need to do much to get to the last one. Our whole goal should be focused on exaltation. If not, well we’ve failed. London is there, will we reach her. Only depends on each and every one of us. Christ has done our part. Let us show Him our love.

Love you all, take care!

-ELDER SOLOMON