November 26, 2012

Dear family and Friends- Missionary work has been awesome this week. Sister Luker and I were out of our area Tuesday and Wednesday on exchanges. We went to Mexico (got a tan, felt great), Mo. :) We arrived just in time for a gathering put on by a member in our ward. They rented out this old Presbyterian church and they held a little program filled with remembering, giving thanks, and singing. It kind of reminded me our our family thanksgiving programs minus our funny turkey song. But it was great and we had one of our investigators come along. She seemed to really enjoy it. Thanksgiving we were told to just enjoy the holiday and spend time with ward members our investigators eating. I love holidays, although i sometimes don't know what to do with myself. I don't handle free time that well. We played some volleyball at the church with some of the elders from our district and then we had a lunch app. @ 1pm with the Ereksons. They are an amazing family. They're also really good friends with a young women who we've been trying to get a hold of. Her name is Lauren, she's the dry Mormon i think i told you about. Anyway, she was there and it was good to see her, I've been missing her. After the Erickson's we had a dinner app. @3:30pm with the Shumway family. I'm grateful that I've learned how to pace myself. Dinner was great, and then afterwards they asked what sorts of things we did on thanksgiving. I mentioned that we played card games...They know how to play ROOK! We played a couple hands. It felt so good to have a card deck on my hand. They play the right way, but they're not as competitive/aggressive players as we are. At first they started the bid at 50's and had a hard time going past 120. The shumways then invited us to Shaw park where they were hosting at the local skating rink. I guess its a tradition every year to rent out the rink for two hours and invite friends/anyone to come and skate. We didn't end up skating, but we did talk to many of the people there and found a good contact. She's a friend of the shumways and another member in our ward. The last three days we were playing catch up. The lord really blessed us in teaching this week. We had appointments fall through but our back up plans always went through. I guess that's because our first plan wasn't the right one. Thank goodness for back ups. Sunday Eugene came to church. This was his fourth time coming since I've been here. We called him prior to sacrament to remind him and told him we'd save him a seat. Sacrament started and he wasn't there. He ended up coming half way through which is better than not coming at all. I asked him what happened, and he said SATAN. haha I guess everything went wrong for him. We were able to see him that night with a member in our ward and taught him part of the third lesson. We reviewed Faith and then went on into Repentance. It was an amazing lesson. Eugene gave the closing prayer and afterwards he sat up and you could see that he had been touched by the words that he had said in the prayer. The Lord is very much aware of him, he's changes so much its so exciting. He has a date to be baptized on Dec. 15th. He still needs to overcome smoking and drinking coffee. Heaven Father is such a loving merciful God. The more i learn and desire to serve him the more i see his hand in my life and the lives of others. I just finished the Book of Mormon again and started this morning and am excited for things i get to learn this time around. I know that the book of Mormon is is true. It truly testifies of Christ and as we read it our capacity to love God and those around us increases. There's a song on a CD a fellow missionary gave me. Its titled aren't we all beggars? On the way to the library i always see this homeless young man holding his sign. And i think at first we might think that he did that to himself, that he could get help if he truly wanted. And maybe he could, but I'm not the judge. So finally this morning i decided that i would put a bag of food together for him. I forgot to tell my companion what i had planned so when i quickly veered off the road into the nearby gas station she was a little started. I'm not sharing this story for recognition by any means. The point i wanted to share is that truly we are all brothers and sisters. We are all in different situations, and some need more help than others. This Christmas season please take the time to look around and find those who could benefit from your help. I know that when we are in the service of our fellowmen we are in the service our God. love you all sister salmon