Just trucking along

Hi there everyone. Had a good and super busy week. On Tuesday was the changes, got my new comp Elder Tuft from Utah and then we got to go to the temple for a sealing and then to the mission home to play soccer with all the ZLs. we slept there and had the Zl/DL Council getting home at like 6. The next day, Thursday we got to work and Friday we had Zone conference. So a lot of meetings and not too much time for working in the area. The good thing is that it’s all over and it’s just pure work now on out.

We really don’t have a lot of investigators right now. We are working with family members of recent converts but things are a bit sure they’ll pick up we just have to keep looking and working. I've been really trying to read a lot of the Book of Mormon cuz I have the goal of finishing again before the end of the mission. Sunday was a great day. Catching up from General Conference we had 8 confirmations in the ward and 6 ordinations to the Aaronic priesthood. Along with 2 baby blessings there were like 15 minutes for testimonies, which is fine by me. The less apostasy the better. What was even cooler was seeing a few recent converts get callings In the ward.

We are in a threesome right now. We have 2 elders in the zone waiting for new missionaries to come but they still haven’t gotten here! Sounds familiar... poor elder he is so anxious to get to get to work in his area but cant go alone. We sent him with a priest on Sunday so he could go to his ward and baptize someone. Lets hope they get here soon. Well I really don’t have too much news. Just truckin along. Hope all is well with you. Love you and take care.

-ELDER SOLOMON

You've done a good job, Elder

The Familia Basilio

Left to Right: Javier, Elder Cardenas, Armand, Antoniao, Margarita, Luis, Martina, & Me.

Olivia

Brenda and Armando with Augustina and Bairon

Veronica and her son Jair

Elder Cardenas y Solomon with Ivan and Luis Manuel

I don’t want the end to come. This is a weird feeling. When people ask me who much time I have left I ask them, for how long did Jesus fast? And that’s it.

Transfers! And the last ones, Cardenas is taking off and I'm receiving another American!! Elder Tuft. I cant believe I have another white comp especially being a ZL its got to be the first one in the history of this mission. Elder Tuft is a really good guy and I'm excited to be with him, they changed the zone limits around so there will be new challenges and problems but we now have the stake Zarahemla, (an older chapel with an indoor wood court, there are only 2 in the mission) so that’ll be fun. This last week was crazy, 6 baptisms, the family Basilio was a reference from a recent convert and we taught the mom then the kid and invited the dad to church later and went. They are super special, especially the dad, Armando. He is one of the most faithfull people I know. I can’t really explain how I feel that way but when he talks and prays just leaves you (as a missionary) impressed. Walking out of the house we always just look at each other and shake our heads. He understands the doctrine so clearly and perfectly. Most people when they receive a baptismal challenge they look for some way out saying, "I need more time" or "I need to know more" but his reply was" I know I don’t know very much but this is something I want to do cuz we really need this and God will bless us" his wife Margarita had to have a special interview with the mission president so they all showed up to the chapel, while we talked to the kids President Fuentes talked with both of them. After a short time I was outside on the phone and the President came out and said ready to go. He then said, "Who taught them?" I said "well us president" he replied "you’ve done a good job elder, they are a solid family and the three kids will all go on missions, congratulations" that doesn’t happen that much. Cardenas and me were walking with our heads high on that day. I'm so grateful to be able to know them and be a part of their lives. I'm hoping to put on the calendar of 2011, "sealing of the family Basilio"

Conference, wow. I had the opportunity to go to every session this time. I don’t know if it’s just for being a missionary or being more mature but I love it! It hurts to see the "fair-weather members" just go to the morning session on Sunday. There were a lot of awesome themes through the whole conference. The first and foremost being the responsibilities and influences of the parents, not excusing sin or disobedience, not lowering standards even when everyone else is etc. I have pages full of notes. I wish I had one of those magic remotes that I could hit pause and rewind. If I every get my ipod fixed I'm downloading the whole thing right away. Elder Holland, wow lets stop cutting at the branches and get to the root. The difference between love and lust, that makes things a lot clearer. President Uchtdorf and the patience, well I didn’t feel near as bad as dad cuz that is pry my strongest attribute right now but I still realized of what I’ve got left, Elder Carlson and the obedience, Elder Oaks and the blessings, I could go on and on I love it. It seemed that they talked directly but exactly how it needs to be said. I realized how very far I have to go as an individual.

Ok, well that’s all I got for this week. Have a great week, strive to be better. I love you all

-ELDER SOLOMON

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