Hi y'all
its good to hear that all is well on the home front. Mother thank you for the kind words you sent on to Sister Jones she was quite complementary of you. She's great isn't she? I had such a good week this week i wish i had four hours to tell you! so early this week i went on a companionship exchange in Ilford and loved it! i got to see most people i wanted and got tons of good work done. I got to see my old companion Elder (brother) Sam Siddiqui and also i got to see my first son in the gospel ( well that is what he feels like to me) Sanjay. He only had a few minutes to see us on his lunch break which is awesome cause now he is working. It was touching to hear his testimony again and he gave a bracelt from India. its a cultural thing for them to tie a bracelt onto the wirst of a really close friend so i was quite honored. it is a cute red and gold braclet with little flower. Then this weekend was Amazing. One of our district leaders is Elder Machen from El Paso Texas. He was in the MTC with me and if im honest he was the only missionary that i didnt like. Well that all changed after the first day i came here and we had a district leader council. So we had an exchange friday to saturday and i had a great time. He told me all about how he thought i was self righteous in the MTC I was a bit embarassed but then he said that the he saw that i had the most potential the do the most good once out in the field i was humbled by that. Elder Machen has made some major changes on his mission and being around him i was able to learn so many things. I think that is one of my favortie part about being on a mission, learning from other peoples experiences. So then on Saturday we had a Leadership meeting in Watford that we left for at 0600. that was a bit hard cause Elder Machen and i stayed up well past midnight the night before talking. Anyhow the meeting was a special one becaue we had two area 70 there and President L. Witney Clayton of the Presidency of the first quorum of the seventy there. it was qutie amazing. He spoke mostly of seeing the bigger picture and looking at things witht the eye of faith. Then of course all of his wifes remarks were concerning the next life. stuff like marriage and raisieng kids.... blah. however i was quite impresed by her she was using words that i didnt even know exisited. to say the least she was educated. the best part was the Area Presidents wife Sister Kopicika (i think thats how you spell it) she had a thick Bulvarian accent and was talking the whole time about being 'wizitoers' which is vistiors. it was very difficult not to smile because it sounded like she was saying wizards the whole time. anyways it was inspireing. When we got home we visited Joy properly for the first time. all the other times we came by she was to occupied with her 17 german sheppard. So we had a great appointment where we talked about our purpose and the investigating process. and the end we said a prayer. during the prayer she gasped and after she commented I felt someone give me a cuddle there!' well Elder Sheppard was praying so i knew it wasn't him and i know i didnt sneak over and give her a hug. so as we were standing on the doorstep on the way out we identified with her the witness of the spirit and invited her to be baptised. she excepted! So now we havbe that out of the way we just need to teach her everything else that comes with the gospel! Sunday morning we didnt have anyone schedualed to come to church which was a bit sad. especially when Bishop Nicholls asked if had had any investigators coming. my shoulder shrunk and my eyes droped to the floor as i said no. then durning the opening hymn a lady from Angola walked in with her two kids. she was real confident walking right infront of the stand that i thought she was just a member that i had not meet yet. Well we proceeded to have and amazing testimony meeting. The Stake president is in our ward and his father passed away this week so many people bore their testimony about the plan of salvation. the best was when a disabled lady stood at her seat and rather then go to the stand just shouted her testimony from her seat. it was so good. Come to find out later the lady that came in had been living by the church for ten years and had been trying to find her faith in Chirst for the whole time. she went to various different churches but nothing could satisfy her hunger. till over the past two weeks she had this prompting to come to our church. during the week she came by, wrote down the name of the church and found on the internet the meeting times... Her hunger was satisfied she loved church and we are going by later today to teach her and HOPEFULLY Inshala (God Willing) set a baptismal date with her.
yea so things are going well.
love Elder Solomon
ps funny story. every one that i saw in Ilford said the same thing. ' man! are you ok? you look horrible. hove you been sick?' I guess i look like i have lost tons of weight... i kont know i feel fine
