American Ball!

Don’t worry everybody I'm here, late but better late than never. Wonderful week last week. We had another baptism of a wonderful older lady named Oliva. She’s a sweet lady and did everything was asked her without fail or complaint. She got excited when we walked her to church. She liked the fact that two handsome young men in suits came to take her out for a while. The success continued in the zone with 10 baptisms. The assistants complimented me and said that Linda Vista is really getting better, in March we ended up number 2 out of the 10 zones losing by one baptism. The success is the Lords, I still don’t know what I'm doing nor ever really will I think. This time our patience, diligence and hope paid off, this week will be good too. We just need to find new investigators and desperately.

Today we played American ball and ended up playing tackle on dry grass so my knees are all scratched up. But everyone was afraid of me hahaha no one had really played before and so when I would go at them and stick my face in their gut and not try to rodeo them they would all go down pretty easy. I was good to relax and get some of that stress off. Changes will be in a week and I'm sure Cardenas will be going, he’s been a good comp, still has a lot to learn but sometimes doesn’t want to learn it, his loss... and I will receive my last comp or my killer as they call it here. I know the end is near but its hard to understand what’s worrying me is in these 7 weeks I've got to get 9 baptisms to get my goal. We have 6 for this week :) God lives and Loves us. He is aware of us and wants our happiness. It’s late and I need to go to bed, gotta start this week with a bang tomorrow.

Love you all so very much.

-ELDER SOLOMON

Bummer one and bummer two

Finally had a bit of success in the zone, we had 13 baptisms in the zone and 4 in our area. Patience pays off. And hope is knowing that the promises of the Lord come through. The only thing is that you only have a few hours to celebrate the victory cuz Monday night its back to the fight. The people we baptized are awesome, a young couple called Armando and Brenda and their cute two cute little girls. And Agustina with her 13 yr old boy bayron. We had a lot of sweet experiences this week. The spirit was felt and tears were shed. We were also helping the sister missionaries prepare a couple for baptism that had to get married so we spent a lot of time preparing it all and a lot of money in taxi, I'm pretty much out. But they got married Sunday in the afternoon and baptized 30 min later.

I've got a lot more to tell you all about but I had two huge smacks to the face today.

Number 1: I had been saving money Nana had been sending me and had about 120 dollars all protected on my desk. When I looked for them this morning they were nowhere to be found. My comp also had some money disappear a week ago and the only idea we have is that it was the plumber who was fixing our bathroom took a bonus off our desks. The hard part is that it was all protected good. It was a hard hit to take especially cuz that was a lot of savings I had and need it every now and then cuz the monthly money never reaches. I hope he really needs it and uses it for something good.

Number 2: I just connected my ipod to get some pictures off cuz we are gonna print some and it froze for a sec when I plugged it in. then it turned back on blank... with nothing. It says it has no memory so I'm hoping and praying that it just got blocked or something and that everything didn’t get erased. I had moved all my pics and videos on the ipod cuz i thought it would be safer there than on my memory stick and erased a lot off the memory. Oh boy...

Ok well, sorry for the depressive letter but I was all happy and enjoying life when I got blown away from somewhere I never expected. Thanks for your love and support. They say that the last 3 months of your mission everyone starts writing you again. That’s a lie I've got less than 2 left and I'm lucky if mom writes me.

The good thing is we are playing tackle football in the afternoon.

Take care

-ELDER SOLOMON

[In mom's defense - she did write him! That just goes to show how down he is]

Super sweet

Hey everyone, how’s it going? I'm doing good. Thanks for all your prayers. I'm feeling a ton better but now dealing with the heat. It’s pretty hot here, not like in Arizona but because of the elevation and the smog it makes it more intense. We definitely need a fan or something in the house. We had another 2 baptisms on Sunday a mom and son duo called Veronica and Jair. They are super sweet people and it was a beautiful service. A lot were crying. I was planning that Elder Cardenas would baptize them both but at the last sec Veronica wanted me so I threw on one of those big baptismal suits there in the chapel. The bad things were I was walking around commando until we could get back to the house to put on some dry garments.

We keep having a lot of success in the area but little in the zone, which is really killing me. I was expecting a lot more success and I really have no idea what to do... need to spend more time on the roof I guess. Today we went to Camarones and played basketball with some people there, I really don’t like it here, everyone plays really dirty and the rules are retarded, someday I'll tell you. It usual ends up me yelling at someone for slapping the crap out of my arm nowhere near the ball. Patience.

I've been trying to think of the FHE theme I could share with you today but I really can’t think of one. Someone else will have to come up with it. I've got nine weeks left and every day is one less. My whole life has been focused on getting on a mission and now that its ending... its hard to think in the "next life" I know it will all work out though. We had the opportunity to address a couple of priests in a multi stake youth conference and we talked of the preparation for a mission and the blessings received. Read D&C 31 it’s a good one. The blessing is great towards the faithful servants of the Lord. Boys prepare yourself well. There is nothing more important that you can do than get on a mission in this part of your life. Guard your chastity and virtue, that is one of Satan’s greatest tools for destroying youth. Nothing is more important than being pure and clean walking into the MTC. We shouldn’t send boys on a mission to fix things they need to go ready, cuz its hard correcting things here and precious time is wasted. Time that isn’t ours. If you have things to fix. Fix it on your time cuz this is the Lords time. It gives me chills thinking that there are still 3 in our family waiting for their turn. By the time all our mission cycles are over the family will be a bit bigger, mom will have daughters again, (lets hope) haha well the future is bright. God lives and I know it.

Be good and know I love you.

-ELDER SOLOMON

Speedy fast

March 9, 2010

Ok, so its Tuesday night at about 10 and I finally got a chance to write, just had things get all stuck together and a lot to do. So this will be a short one cuz I am tired, but not sick anymore. I'm also running out of time! They gave me my flight plans today... May 17 I will be landing in Phoenix Sky Harbor. Wow, but we keep working.

The work keeps on going strong. We had 2 baptisms on Sunday of two teenagers who are super excited about the church and are pretty cool. From sun up to sun down its work work work! Last week we had 27 lessons and 11 new investigators, which is really good, but we are always looking for more. This place just does not run out of people. Today we had the good old zone leader council. It was good and I learned a lot from impressions of the spirit. I only have one of those left which is a relaxing thought cuz I've nearly got a year of those things... this last week was great and I learned a lot. Glad to hear you all are doing well, I always pray that God will bless you and it seems that he does.

Know I'm doing good, workin hard, I'm happy, and a bit anxious about getting home, its gonna be hard I think... the pres finishes one change after me and he was talking about his mission and mentioned how it really hasn’t been a sacrifice because he has received so much more than he should in change for what he has given. I feel the same. In the New Testament it says that if we forsake for a moment all these things, family, house, goods, cars, girlfriends, that God will recompense us with 100 times more and in this life too. Wow, I'm afraid that the blessings will cease in a certain way, that would be the real sacrifice. But it’s all good. It’ll all work out.

Ok well that’s it. I'm going to bed! Take care.

Love you all,

-ELDER SOLOMON

The birds are singing

What a change of scenery it is here in the casa. In the old one there were always a lot of traffic and people yelling selling gas, tamales and collecting garbage. Here we live on the third floor in a residential area. The hermana has a lot of birds and parrots so they are always chattering and its nice and calm. In fact we always leave the door wide open. I am so happy to be here in Ticoman. The ward is incredible and has grown a lot. In fact they don’t fit in the tiny chapel. There were a few people standing up outside. It’s also great for work. We had 26 lessons this last week and are hoping to have baptisms every week. It will be very possible. I'm also happy to be here in the zone. We’ve got some new missionaries. We are blessed to have two sister missionaries who are training right now and those two areas are leading the zone. Its amazing to see the difference from one sister who has the desire to be here and feels like its a blessing compared to an elder, Melquesidech priesthood holder, who almost has to be forced out of bed to do some basic missionary tasks... I wish I could inject that desire and will into some of the elders. Things would be different.

Wednesday was the leader council and it’s was a bad day... The night before I was up all Night with a temperature and in the morning I didn’t feel too much better but grateful for the sunrise. We left the house at 7 to get to the offices at 8:30. Thanks to construction, bumper to bumper traffic, and some stupid taxi driver who almost took us out of mission limits, we got there at 10. We walked in to scowls from the assistants but whatever. I felt bad cuz I was doing the head nod deal during the whole conference. Afterwards the president just said "animo elder" he’s never talked to me much anyway. But there is nothing some good old knocking doors and giving lessons can’t fix. I had a good week after that.

Saturday, my bday, was a weird day. Everyone wanted to do stuff and eat and party but all I wanted to do was see if we could get a baptism and make sure we had people in the church... It’s weird to think I'm now 21. I’m now in the third stage. Ok well my plan is just keep working and let the Lord do His deal. Sunday I realized that the instrument shouldn’t complain against its user, it just has to be humble and do what it’s supposed to and not get frustrated if there are no results. It should be upset with a fault of performance but not the results. The Lord provides that. I want to be that instrument, so that the Master can use me in the way and with the results that He wants¡ I just gotta give my best.

Well love you all, that’s about it for this week. I love you and am looking forward to see you all in such a short time. Take care

-ELDER SOLOMON