October 24, 2011: Another Great Week!

Family,
Wow, this week was a great week! We have been meeting some wonderful people this week that have seemed to come out of the woodwork. They just seem to appear and say they want to come to church and my companion and I just seem to look at each other like, "Can you believe it?" I know it is Heavenly Father that is blessing us to come across such wonderful people. I am still having so much fun and I love meeting people in the streets. The Elders gave us a reference and they said that they were passing by this lady`s house and helped her move her refrigerator...later they got talking and she made a comment like, "You are from the LDS church (SUD in Spanish)? I have always wanted to go inside." and I can tell you that she did go inside yesterday! She came to church with her daughter and she is so great. We are also teaching this youngster who is 15 years old who wants to be baptized next month. His name is P. And we were teaching him in the home of the Fuertes family. They are this amazing family and we are at their house every single day. It has become our second home. Anyway, we were teaching "P" in their house and as we began teaching, Hermano Fuertes started to share with us the importance of missionary work. He then said, "When you signed your call you made a promise to fulfill your mission to the best you could and come here to find the people that you had met in the heavens before you came to earth." And then he turned to "P" and said, "You promised "P" in heaven that you would come find him." And as he said that the look on "P's" face changed completely. The spirit really hit home to me that this is a sacred work. We are here to find the lost and bring them back...all of us are part of this work. That night was so special and the spirit penetrated the room as we talked about the kind of person that "P" wants to become in his future and what he needs to do to accomplish his goals. He comes from a humble home and I think so many of the people with backgrounds such as his don`t believe their future contains anything more than what they have had their whole lives. But that night we discussed the person he can be...despite his family situation, despite his economic situation and despite his past. The Lord only sees who we can become in the future. That night was so special to me and I will never forget it.

Also, yesterday, P P was baptized! He was baptized right before church at 2 pm with his dad there watching him. His dad is not a member of the church, but the look on his face said it all. He seemed to be taking it all in. P P is 17 years old and is super solid. He put on his white shirt and tie for the first time before his baptism and seemed excited and a little nervous, but totally looked the part. Then as he went down in the water and came out, he had the hugest smile on his face. R Fuertes baptized him and he said that after the baptism they hugged and he said how happy he looked. He shared his testimony after about how happy he felt as well. He told one of the hermanos that he wants to serve a mission...so that´s the next plan for us! In Sunday school the teacher asked him about how he knew that the church was true and he said that it was because he prayed and he felt this warm and calm feeling come over him and in that moment he knew it was true. His dad sat so intent on everything that was being said and seemed hungry for answers. It was a beautiful day and I felt so happy to be a part of it all.
The only sad thing this week was that 3 sisters had plans to be baptized for the next week and now things are up in the air because of family situations. Please pray for them. They have been progressing so well, but really need to gain a personal testimony.
I sure love you all. The church is true and I couldn't`t be happier.
Always,
Hermana Salmon

Hermana Mairena and I...this is an old photo, but I loved it because I am eating a hotdog...my favorite thing ever.

The Fuertes family...we are ALWAYS at their house. They are members and such a great family. We have grown quite attached to them because we see them on a daily basis.

This is at the baptism this weekend. This is P P and he is 17 years old. He is so great and says that he wants to prepare for a mission. It was a wonderful day.

October 17, 2011: One Year!

Family,
Holy Moly! It has been such a great week! Were do I even begin? I feel like I haven`t been doing a good job lately of describing what`s going on here, so I am going to attempt to do so now. So our sector is a bunch of houses without directions and there are motorcycles driving in and out with trailers to haul people around. The streets are dirt roads but they are paving them so everyone is quite excited about it around here. Everyone is always playing out in the streets and everyone is always yelling out to us here to say hello. We have been working wtih the members everyday and having so much fun doing so. I can`t even describe how happy I am. I am having so much fun that I can`t wait to get up in the morning to carry out our plans for the day.I have seen how the Lord has blessed us so much this week. The thing is that we came in and started opening up the sector...which means that we started with our area book and were given names of people to look for, but without directions because there aren`t any! So these past two weeks we have been getting to know all the members, and in the meantime, we have been finding wonderful people to teach. I told you that everyone is always out playing in the streets...well we had 7 young men/ young women come to church yesterday with baptism dates because they all talk to each other and get each other excited about the church. It was so fun to see them all in church yesterday and they all said they really liked it a lot. But I was most impressed wtih the members. When the youngsters arrived, the members got up out of their seats and rushed to sit by them and help them feel right at home. I was so happy. Then in sacrament there was a wonderful talk about the light of Christ and how its that feeling we have inside that tells us that something is good. He spoke out to the investigators especially and said, you need to go with that feeling that you have...that what the missionaries are saying is true. I felt the Spirit whisper to me again that I am in the right place. I am having the time of my life and we are finding people everywhere we go that want to hear our message...and much of it is due to the good examples of the members and the missionaries that came before us. I love you all.
-Hermana Salmon

Hermana Mairena and I in the terminal saying goodbye!


Outside the temple with our new companions


Our first baptism in our new sector...I love these guys.

October 10, 2011: Los Esteros

Family,

This is quick and short but was a great week. I am now in Los Esteros in Guayaquil and I am loving it. The members have completely encompassed us with love and help and are always so willing to accompany us. We had two baptisms this week...thanks to the Elders who left us in good hands. The streets here are half dirt and half cement and there are no street names, so for those of you who know me well...I am trying to keep from getting lost! I am getting a nice tan and enjoying learning to get to know the new faces. It is so much fun. Ha, but we are having fun and my companion is great. Her name is Hermana Nino so everyone loves to make fun of us for our names. Life is so great and couldn't be better!

I have been praying a lot for Grandma Salmon and I am glad she is doing well. I know this week and next week will be the 2 year mark since Grandpa died. If you would please tell her that they are always in my thoughts and I think of them so often. Awhile ago, I told one of the Elders in the office with me that Grandpa used to say all the time "MMM boy" and "For hecks sake" and he thought it was so funny. Now he says them all the time to me and it makes me laugh and I think of Grandpa. The best part is that the Elder is Latino so when he says it its super funny. Grandpa was such an influential person in my life that I love very much. I am grateful for temples and eternal families.

-Hermana Salmon

October 3, 2011: Adios!

Family,

I have so much to say and so little time to do so. We just got our email time cut down so I will be printing off your letters to read and respond as soon as I can! But keep writing me. I love your letters. Wow, this week has been crazy! Conference was awesome and we enjoyed it thoroughly. I was so excited to invite people and to tell them that we have a living prophet today. It was so wonderful for me. We were a little sad yesterday because we have been working with a family with the twins and they said yesterday that they don`t want to be baptized. It made us so sad and crushed because we want them to be able to feel alleviated from their sins and to become an eternal family. I have hopes that they will change their mind.

Yesterday my companion Hermana Moran from Columbia came back to visit the mission and I got to see and chat with her about everything. It was so fun to see her and made me realize that I need to enjoy every minute of this time in my life because we never will get it back.

Then last night....da da da....I got the call for changes and this morning I left the office and my time as the nurse. I felt such a surge of emotions last night because I had been with Hermana Mairena for 7 months and I loved my calling as the nurse. It made me so happy, but it was time for me to move on. There is another nurse coming tomorrow and everyone is making changes. I feel at peace and very excited to devote all my time to finding and teaching. I love it so much. I feel Heavenly Father answered so many of my prayers during my time serving as the nurse and I learned how much I loved being one. I am staying here in Guayaquil and will receive my companion tomorrow! She is new and from Columbia. I am very excited and nervous. I just have to say that I have honestly learned how much that the Lord answers our prayers and how close we can be to him as we search for him. I love you all and sorry I didn`t get to write you all personally.

Dad- Thanks for your letter and I am very excited to read about your experiences from your mission

Jake-Your experience last week about fasting helped me so much. Thank you and I´m excited to read the new stories

Mom-Its okay to say you miss me...cause I miss you too. Thanks for all the news. I will keep praying! And thanks for the talks

Always,

Kate

September 26, 2011: Favorite Experience of the Week!

Family,

I just wanted to share one of my favorite experiences of the week. Well Hermana Mairena and I are back down to just us two again and we are arriving at the end of our 5th change together...can you believe it! Well we were contacting in the street and we met this sweet lady whom we shall call "Mary". Mary sells food outside of her home and she has a little right-sided paralysis from a stroke. She is about 60 years old or so and has 2 twin girls who are 8 years old and super cute. The girls were abandoned by their mom and so Mary took them in to take care of them. The two of them go out in the streets to sell the food for their mom because of her bad health. I couldn't help but think of Jack selling food in the street by himself. The Dad, John, also has the same problems as his wife from a stroke that he had as well. They are a sweet family with very humble living stances. We brought them to church on Sunday and I was absolutely overwhelmed and touched by the love of the members. Mary can´t walk very well, so some of the Hermanos took her by the hand to help her walk. One of the others gave them a ride home from church. They were all so anxious to help. My companion heard some sisters talking and said that she was worried that they were talking about the appearance of the family, but instead the girls came up to Hermana Mairena and asked how they could help the family. There was a great outpouring of love and I was so blown away by their kindness. Everyone wants to help in the missionary work here and in their homes they are praying for our success and for the investigators by name. This is a group effort. We can´t do it alone. Everyone is needed to bring the whole family back together again to live with our Heavenly Father. The church is true. In Preach My Gospel is says that we show our love and appreciation for the Lord and his Atonement by bringing souls unto him. I love you all and have an excellent week!

-Hermana Salmon

September 19, 2011: The Sun is Back!

Family,

Oh man, the sun is back in action. For a short, oh so short, period of time the weather was pleasant, but the sun has come back with a vengeance! But I can`t complain. I have heard that the weather is a little bit more than scalding in Arizona this time of year. But we doin good.

This week has been very busy! We have been in a trio for the last week with Hermana Cochran and will be until the next change in 2 weeks. Her companion went home for health reasons and there aren`t any other hermanas to be her companion. We are happy because it is a lot of fun to have her around, but the only hard thing is that we are between the office, her sector and our sector. Can you say crazy!! But the fun thing is that we are getting to know all the investigators in her sector and we are going to have some wonderful baptisms this week if everything goes according to plan. We are busy as bees, but happy as clams. The sad thing was we spent a lot of time teaching and finding this week as we are starting our new program and no one came to church yesterday from our sector Colon. We were a little sad, but know we need to change our focus and listen closer to the Spirit for guidance. I need to be better in that area anyways. One experience that was very special was that we were in the sector of Hermana Cochran and we knocked on a door and a woman was very hesitant to let us pass. We accepted that she wasn`t going to let us in and we turned to walk away when she hesitated and then said, "No its okay, you can come in." We enjoyed our time with her as we talked about the Gospel and the way it can improve the quality of our lives. At the end of the lesson, she offered the prayer and said that she was so grateful to Heavenly Father that out of all the doors we could have knocked, we knocked on her door. She felt the Lord was very aware of her. I loved that so much and was touched that the Lord is so keenly aware of each one of us and our needs. I come to realize that more and more every day. Another fun thing was that we had Stake Conference yesterday and got to see everyone from our new ward and old ward. I love this place. They are amazing people with giant testimonies of the Savior. The people here are so quick to see the hand of the Lord in their lives. I love that about them.

Oh, a little info about photos. I have only been sending photos of me and other missionaries because we aren`t allowed to post on the internet photos of the investigators or tell their names. So I have been more vague lately, but I was thinking I would send the photos through the email to mom and then later when I come home we can do something with them, just so you can be see the people with whom I am spending all my time. Love you lots!

Hermana Salmon

September 12, 2011: New House!!

Me and Sister Mairena

Family,

This week has been a ride! We got to have a zone conference with President Montalti and it was sure wonderful. I love the conferences because I get to see all my friends in the mission and hear how things are going. I love hearing of their successes. The conferences are always kinda funny for me and Hermana Mairena because we get malled after each one by Elders who are sick and who didn`t want to call us. Also, in that reunion our zone leader told us that we were getting changed to a different ward and were moving to a new house. I felt many mixed emotions about it all really. I was excited for something new, but also so sad because we had been in Las Peñas for 6 1/2 months and the people in our ward are like our family. Wednesday we went with the assistants (Elder Duarte and Elder Fletcher) to tour our new house and new area. We are in the same ward as them now. The house is really cute and very nice. We are now living with just us two now and at times we feel lonely but at times its good. That night we went back to our sector to say good-bye to as many as we could of those we were teaching and of converts. We were very sad when we had to say goodbye to the Herrera Family. I love them so much. As we were walking down the hill from their house, I had this quiet feeling come that everything was going to be okay and that they were going to be taken care of. Of course they will be! Heavenly Father led us to them or them to us and so of course he will continue to look after all those we love so much in our sector. We are not needed really, we are just given the chance to be apart of such wonderful life-changing experiences and it`s hard to move on afterwards because we come to love each other so much because of how much we have grown together. The good thing is that Elder Carnese and Elder Quispe will still be in the sector and are going to continue teaching the investigators. We see them every day in the office so it will be fun to hear how everything is going in Las Peñas.
On Thursday we moved in with the help of many. It is a new house for the mission so we arrived without much. We still only have about 2 cups, plates, forks, spoons and so on, but we are happy. It was fun to move in and set everything up. We were joking around about how we felt like newlyweds until it came time to assemble the fans for our house and we realized we had no idea what we were doing. That is when my companion said, "I love you and all, but we for sure need husbands in this marriage, or at least for now,the help of a man!" We made some fun videos that I will try to send to you so you can see us real-life style. That day our neighbor came over, the landlord, and invited us to dine with them that night. They are the most elegant women I have seen here in Ecuador and their house is so pretty. We spend the afternoon there getting to know her and her mother. They are always looking after us.
Another thing about our sector is that we are opening it, which means that there is no program of people to teach. We have to start up and create a program. So we set out and just started talking to everyone we saw. We are having a lot of fun and the members are so great. They are all excited to help us. A few of the families came from our old ward because it got divided and so it was fun to see them yesterday at church. Yes, we are still in the same stake because we can`t move far away from the office. We are excited. Yesterday we had lunch with one of the families and I can tell I am really going to like it here.
Also, last night we got to have another conference and this time it was with Elder Ucera of the Presidency of the Seventy. Wow, it was such a marvelous experience and I don`t even have words to describe how I felt. I think that every one of us arrived with a prayer in our hearts to receive answers and every one of us left edified and answered. One thing I wanted to share was about his testimony. He bore testimony so firmly of the Savior that I could feel what he was feeling, or at least a portion of it. He spoke with such power and authority and talked of the scriptures with such awe. He said that he saw the face of the adulteress in the New Testament when Christ arose to find no one left standing to cast the first stone. He said that he felt himself watching from a nearby corner as he read that account in the scriptures. He said that he has seen the Savior so many times in his mind as he studies and digs deep into the scriptures. I loved that so much and I left with a greater resolve to study and feast upon the scriptures to better know my Savior as he does. He spoke with such a light in his eyes and each of us felt completely edified. The comments that were shared by several missionaries during the meeting is how we felt that we all needed to repent and change. The wonderful thing is that the Lord says, "Knock and ye shall receive, ask and it shall be given unto you." I love that. I want to want to be able to bear testimony as he did so that those I teach can feel my love of the Savior in my words, see it in my eyes, and know it through my actions and so that they will then have desires to follow Him. Its so true. I feel so happy. I know its true. I am so happy to be a missionary and carry His name on my chest. I know He lives. Love you all!
Always,
Hermana Salmon