Hey Everyone!

So this week has been insane! To start off we went to a members house for dinner and had a lesson after. We finished the lesson and were just talking and i fell asleep! haha Just sitting there listening i totally dozed off so the member starting laughing and clapped and i jumped and was totally embarrassing but hillarious. then we had a lesson with this investigator named gail she is an older lady that has been investigating the church for the past 10 years and finally wants to be baptized we just got to get her to go to church. after the member that accompanied us took us to his house for lunch and fed us shrimp.....so nasty!! i hate shrimp!! so i had to choke it down uuggghh! so our toilet has had like no water pressure so finally a plummer came by and a root had grown up through our plumming system and it was huge! i'm attaching a pic of it with email. so we visited a less active named jim wellen who said he was way close with the Osmonds and he fed us and whipped out a huge collection of every Osmond record there was. and while we were talking he had us listen to "the plan" haha i was laughing but he said he is in contact with marie but as the night went on i think he was just an obsessed fan. so here is the juicy part of the email. thursday i got a call from president colton telling me that he was bringing in a fourth missionary and it would be my new companion. this missionary had only been out 3 weeks but his trainer was really disobedient and he wasn't learning anything so he now is having me train elder sharp from los angeles california. he is a great kid and wants to work hard just hasn't been given the opportunity so i told him i'm gonna whip him into shape. the ap's called me when they were about to drop him off and told me that they had told him that i only had one arm so i hid my left arm in the back of my shirt and elder sharp totally believed it! haha it was awesome to see his face when i caught him laughing and got all offended saying what you laughing at? you laughing cuz i have one arm and you have two? i could still take you with this one arm so you better respect? so he went quiet and i couldn't help but bust up laughing and brought out my other arm and he thought it was hillarious. so the sisters had us tract this ghetto neighborhood by martin luther king blvd. and for those who don't know much about MLK those streets are the most violent streets in every city. so personally i was pumped! i love teaching black people! haha its like way sketchy (kinda scary) at first but afterwards i just wanna just tract gang neighborhoods haha we got to teach so much on doors and have some investigators that have the potential to really progress.

i love you all

elder salmon

Tree Root that clogged our toilet...sick!!

Hey...

With Elder Gordon...cool glasses

June 21st Email

hey everyone

its great to hear from all of you. it really helps me to know i have all that support at home. this week was great. elder gordon and i have been tracting like mad men and i'm not making this up this past week we have put over 100 miles on our bikes. my legs are jacked now! i'm ripped from the waist down and fat from the waist up haha. we have 12 new investigators going into this week! we have some bad news though. elder king who is in the other clearwater area who has only been here 3 months is goin home for 6 then coming back. he's taking care of some things first. i'm glad i was here though. he and i had a 2 hour conversation last night about how to handle everything and everything he needs to do at home to be ready to come back out and be ready by the time he lands. the lord is really blessing me with opportunities to share my experiences and my testimony and help other missionaries. this past zone conference was the last time i will get to see the coltons before they leave on the 30th. it was really weird. i'm excited to meet pres and sis summerhays and see what they are goin to do with this mission. we set a date with a lady named corina but then dropped her cuz she refused to talk to us or let us come by. it happens. i'm not here to drag people into the gospel i'm here to find the elect and plant seeds. the field is white and ready to harvest! so with elder king gone it'll be me elder gordon and elder bailey in this whole area. it'll be hard but a lot of fun! sorry so short we are taking off to go ball it up!

love you all

elder salmon

June 14th Email

hey everyone

this past week has been a crazy one but in a good way. my new companion elder gordon is from logan utah and he is a stud. just loves the work and just wants to do everything he can for the lord. my first training actually went pretty well this past week. i took two of the mission cars and parked them side by side and had one elder push each in a race. but here is the difference. one got to have one constant push to the end while the other could push once and had to wait for it to stop before he could push again and i likened it unto missionary work and working smart. the one that was pushing constantly represented getting the work started and maintaining that work ethic and maintaining the work in the area. while the other was doing it in spirts and just worked every once in a while. we then went inside and came up with ideas to help maintain the work and stay working hard through each transfer and what we could do for each area to help the missionary work progress. later in the week we had a zone and district leader with the mission president and discussed things in the mission that needed to change and how we can better each other as leaders and be a great example and help to the other missionaries. i learned a lot and am trying my best to be the best example i can be for the other missionaries. we visited with a recent convert named joel this past week. we talked about looking at life through the eternal perspective and to see the greatness of his spirit and the sincerity that he had was amazing. he said he'd be happy to make it to the celestial kingdom as a fly on the wall, or even doin janitorial work haha its funny but it puts it into perspective how much he wants to be worthy to be in our heavenly fathers presence. last night was crazy! i'm supposed to call and get numbers from my district for the past week and i couldn't get a hold of a set of elders. i kept calling and calling. i talked to my zone leaders the tried a couple times and told me to keep trying and call them when i find out anything. one of these elders is brand new so they thought that he may have just lost their phone. 1145 rolls around and i can't sleep so i ask elder gordon what he would do if he was me and he said pray. hello something so simple and i couldn't figure that out haha. so we had a companionship prayer and we both stayed on our knees for a while after we sat up and looked at each other. i had a huge knot and a bad feeling in my stomach so i asked him how he felt before i said anything and he said i don't feel good and i said me neither. so i called the zone leaders an AP's and they said to drive up there so we did and when we got there we pounded on the door multiple times and no answer.....something told me to open the door so i reached for the door knob and it was unlocked? and it was pitch black. i reached just my arm in to find a light switch and the switch didn't work!! so by this time we are freakin out so i use my phone as light and walk in and finally found a light switch that worked and went back to the bedroom....they were in bed!! but boy did they freak out when i hit the wall to wake them up haha the phone had fell into a box and was on silent so they didn't know we were calling haha but we all had a feeling we were supposed to come up cuz there door was unlocked and they are located in a pretty rough neighborhood so we think we prevented a break in. i think i'm going to end on that note ;)

i love you all

elder salmon

GATORADE !!!!!!

Bro Muran & Sis Clark

I'm eating well...My double chin

Brother Rodriguez !!

I LOVE a good storm !!!!!

Debbie's Baptism

Ok...Pose... pictured with Elder Cheever

Sister Alexander !!!

Sis Forth made me a scripture case

Eating AMAZING Chili At The McPheron's & They gave us a Spider Plant

Made My Pudding at Gospel Studies Class :)

RARR !!!

hey everyone
transfer calls were this past saturday and my time here in zephyrhills has come to an end. i have been called to be a district leader in the clearwater area and i have to give a training on wednesday!! crazy!! well this past week has been an eventful one. we had a huge storm that came in and we had just got in our car from tracting and as we were saying a prayer it just dumped on us. the winds were insane, trees got thrown and houses and roofs torn apart and we talked to a member and i guess a mini tornado had touched down just outside of town. it was so sweet!! we had a investigator we tracted into, invite us over for dinner and a lesson so when we had gotten there she had cooked us each our own game hen! it was so good! i've never eaten so well and let alone at an investigators house haha. the lesson went great and she was amazed about the first vision. we are supposed to meet with her again this week but i won't be here haha. we are still teaching tracy and he and I have gotten way tight the past couple lessons. i give him a hard time and joke with him cuz we have similar personalities so he dishes it right back. we had to push his date back to the 19 cuz we haven't met with him enough to prepare him for this saturday but i told him i'd make it back for the baptism. we also tracted into this lady named cindy. as she opened the door she was really surprised to see us. she asked us if we just heard her praying because after her prayer we had knocked on her door. i love experiences like these! she's gonna take a while she has to give up smoking which she already agreed to and she needs to not talk so much in the lessons. we only get 1 or 2 principles in each hour in a lesson. elder cheever and i were talking a couple nights ago and i was telling him how much different this transfer has been compared to the ones in the past and he made a good point that i'll never forget and i'll pass on to other missionaries. he told me when i was first out i was all about the fun of the mission, fun has an end, its temporal. what i'm doin now is i'm having joy in the work which like in gal. 5:22-23 is eternal.
i love you all
elder salmon

Florida Tampa Mission Picture w/ Elder Neil L Andersen of the Quorum of The Twelve

this is gonna be short only have a 30 min time limit. sorry this is so late everyone it was memorial day on monday and the libraries are closed and yesterday we were so busy we didn't have time to email. we had a great zone district meeting this morning and i actually helped with the training as far as talking to the missionaries in our zone. i've been helping the past couple weeks to put them together but they wanted me to help train this week. it was a blast! i requested in my presidents letter to stay here but other missionaries said i might head to apollo beach to be with elder hyer before he goes home so either way i'll be happy. doris wasn't baptized last week the radiation is has really taken all her energy. we visit her every other day she still wants to be baptized but just doesn't have the energy yet. debbie was baptized on saturday and it was amazing! i have now been in a font, the ocean, and now a pool on my mission and it was aloud! haha. we went to church last sunday and i talked to this guy who didn't seem familiar and just made some small talk. so i had the feeling after the sacrament meeting i needed to ask if he was a member or not. so we confirmed debbie and after the bread and water the man, his name was tracy, came up to me and elder cheever and asked to come out in the foyer with him. so when we got out there he had told us that his in laws and wife are less active members and he has come to church a couple of times and after seeing debbie's confirmation he wanted to know what he had to do to be baptized! holy cow! its unreal! so we taught him and set a date for the 12th of june. the only problem is with his work schedule right now we can only teach him at church so depending if that changes or not we may have to push it back. i'm learning humility and am being like a sponge to learn as much as i can from anyone to help me know and teach this gospel. i'm sorry its so short.
i love you all
elder salmon