August 30th Email - ZL now and transfer to Tampa

hey everyone

sorry this week's email is going to be a little short cuz i'm doing email at a library and i'm timed. we got transfer calls this past saturday and i have been called to serve in the tampa 3 ward on USF campus young single adults as a zone leader in the brandon north zone with elder alber. also elder alber and i will be training a brand new missionary that we will pick up tomorrow morning. i'm so nervous about this load of responsibilty that has been given to me. but i know that with the Lord's help i can do all things. this past week has had its many ups and downs.

at the beginning of the week it rained all day everyday from monday - wednesday. normally its not too bad but it was bike week and they were some pretty heavy storms. thursday we finally could leave and we were on a role. we went out and taught 17 lessons at doors. and got 3 new investigators. we were determined not to come home till we had 10 lessons and we were able to pass that easily. i had a special opportunity to teach with someone very close and the experience is one i will have for the rest of my life. i won't be able to go into details now but i was really nervous going into the lesson but afterwards i felt a lot of gratitude for the experience that not many missionaries get. we met with bro hoard from our ward and he wanted us to go on the ward temple trip with them so he called president and president gave the ok as long as i gave a 15 min presentation on the elder perry program to the ward and helped with the temple tours. wow! the orlando temple is amazing! such a great spirit on those grounds. bro salyer from our ward is a member and his wife isn't. she loves feeding the missionaries and when bro salyer told her we were going to the temple trip she said she'd go. ( she had said no the first time he asked) and she loved it! she felt the spirit! bro salyer came to church the next day in tears because when he had woken up that morning she was already awake crying. she was so full with the spirit and amazed at the example of the church that we as missionaries were that she was just so happy all she could do was cry. bro salyer has been trying so long to get her in the church. he wants to be sealed to his wife and its just so great to see the spirit work in their lives. i have a testimony of temples and the spirit that is there. no words can ever describe it but i know it is familiar to us all.

i love you all

elder salmon

Stanky Leg Dance Elder Johnson

Great Bumper Sticker

St Petersburg Zone

Sunset

Big Ears = Tie Rack

Celestial Sky

Tampa Zone

My Street

Tracting For Alligators

Clearwater Bay

Terry's Baptism

Making Cookies From Scratch For My District

My first district

August 16th Email

hey everyone

this week has been so good and has had it downs but that's just how life goes. i was able to give a baptism interview to a woman named cheryl coming up in the palm harbor ward. i was able to meet her before and even visit when i was up on exchanges with elder johnson and she is awesome. we got through the interview and then i asked her to bear her testimony and she did and gave her conversion story. her husband is a member and she has been hunted down by missionaries for the past few years but she started coming to church with her kids and they both wanted to raise their kids in the church but couldn't figure it out. one day the kids in primary got a sign they made of Christ they would hold up when they made a right choice. her kids used it all week. every time they would make a good choice they would hold it up and scream good choice! and then she knew this was for real. she cried and she told me their haven't been any missionaries that made her cry ha. my eyes were all watered up but i used all my might to not shed a tear and i told her that and i also told her that it wasn't me, it was the spirit and it was so strong right now. ann who we set a date with for this upcoming sunday didn't come to church so we are gonna visit her today and see whats goin on. and we will have to push back her date to the 28th. a member took us out to eat at skyline chili. if you haven't had it you need to asap! he ordered for us and we had about 3 pounds of food per plate and i ate it all! thats right folks i pounded it like it was nothin and paid for it later! haha. we were able to teach 32 lessons at doors this past week. and it was all because we tracted off of martin luther king blvd. i felt like a minister haha black people in groups sitting out in the yard or the porch were letting us teach and i was very enthusiastic and preached with the power of the holy ghost baby!! it was just a spiritual high i loved it!! so now comes the rays game. i freaking love baseball!! our investigator scott took us to the game and paid for everything! it was unreal! there really is no words to explain it. me and scott are hitting it off cuz he was that jock type too and he wanted to know how the mormons raised such great youth and how they have their standards and morals in check and it was just a great enviroment to teach. thursday was my year mark!! and i burned and shirt and a tie and we had a whole big ceremony in the church parking lot in the evening and elder johnson drew on the shirt before it was burned it was awesome. i'll be sending the pics and video home shortly. i wanna share a story that bro tippett who is our 2nd counselor in the bishopric. we were talking about humility and in his last ward they were handing out the new home teaching assignments and a less active had shown up for the first time in a long time and the elder's quorum president pulled this less active aside after and felt impressed to commit him to do some home teaching. this brother refused and was very strongly against it. he began to chew out the elder's quorum president for even thinking of asking him to do such a thing. the elder's quorum president begged him over and over again to just take one family. this brother stormed out and refused this opportunity. before the next sunday this brother had lost his job and was diagnosed with cancer. i'm not telling you this to scare you into doing your home teaching or calling. i'm telling you this because the Lord has asked us to be humble. just like in Alma 32. blessed are ye that humble yourselves and he also says blessed are ye that are compelled to be humble. brothers and sisters please don't be those that need to be compelled to be humble. if i have learned anything on my mission it is this. recognize the everyday small blessings in your life. don't forget where those things come from. our Heavenly Father loves us but he wants to be humble and remember him in all that we do. so what my challenge is to you is just to stand back, look around, i promise that you all are tremendously blessed. if nothing else you have the true gospel in your life. don't let the worldly things cloud your head and make it big. the Lord will humble you. learn and humble yourselves. i testify things to you and want you to know that i know they are true in the name of Jesus Christ Amen

elder salmon

August 9th Email

hey everyone

this week has been a stressful one but in a good way. we have started teaching this lady named ann. she is an older black lady with 9 children and 36 grandchildren! haha and she has the most energy i have ever seen in a woman at that age. she is always cheering and dancing around it has been a blast teaching her. she was goin to come to church on sunday but our ward being the saints that they are didn't pick her up so today we will be doing some damage control....i talked with the zone leaders last night and they said if it comes down to it to go and pick them up and then after church call president tell him what happened and why it happened and he'll take care of it. so that's what i plan on doing this upcoming sunday if she still wants to come. so i forgot to add in my email last week a funny experience. we were at a recent convert's home and i was heavily on medication and fevering and afterwards when we were walking home i apologized to elder sharp for falling asleep and he told me i didn't haha he said i started teaching about Christ and what he did while he was on the earth just out of the blue and i thought he was joking but he was dead serious i told him i was out like a light so i guess what had happened was when i fell asleep in my sleep i started teaching about Christ's earthly ministry! how funny was that!? joel (the recent convert) loved it and was so entertained i guess from what elder sharp had told me. so i did exchanges this week and had elder gordon come to my area and spend a couple days. we found this young black guy in the ghetto named lee. he is so awesome! the only problem is he just got out of jail this past monday so we are gonna have to have him be interviewed by president to see what exactly happened. i have made it a year (this thursday) of my mission without having to give a talk on my mission. and then we got a call from the president of the young single adult branch and me and elder sharp had to give a 20 min talk yesterday on our testimony and how we got it, how we are strengthing it now, and how we will continue to strenghthen it after the mission. it was such a great experience cuz i've had some problems about being really nervous about giving talks or talking in front of people and as i began to speak i felt this weight or this sudden relaxation come over me and i went on for the full 20 min no sweat. i was loving it! then afterwards we go into our meetings for clearwater ward give our reports and 10 min before sacrament bishop comes up to me and says that they don't have a youth speaker and asked if i could speak so of course i had to say yes and it was so easy and i just love giving talks now. by all means i'm not goin to go and look and ask for opportunites to speak in sacrament but i feel confident that if i am asked to do so i will be able to step up and it won't be a problem. so i saved the best part for second to last haha rose was baptized yesterday!!! she is so happy and so excited for the journey that she has started. i had the blessing to baptize her and elder sharp confirmed her and gave her the gift of the holy ghost. so the very best part is today i won't have a p day and that is because we have been teaching scott and he is taking me and my companion and the palm harbor elders to the tampa bay rays game on saturday!!! so we have to switch our pdays. but i am so excited its gonna be so much fun!!!! i called up president and he thought it was a great idea and asked me to do some proselyting at the game and tell him how it went!! yea!!!!

i love you all so much!

elder salmon