Wasted Anticipation

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So it was really good to talk to you all this week end, i loved hearing each of your voices and being able to recognized everyones right off (except Hilary its been about a year more then everyone else that ive talked to her) it was also a very plesent surprise to speak with nana, paco, grandma solomon and kassidee. each of you said something that i needed to hear at this time. i honestly havent been able to stop thinking about our wonderful conversations. In fact im still trying to recover from the lack of sleep. i finally crawled into bed around 12:30 but because my mind was so occupied i could not fall asleep for another couple of hours.

Moves calls came yesterday and it turns out that i will be a junior companion for the first 13 months of my mission. Ill be serving with Elder Smith who just got released from being a zone leader. He is English so hopefully i will pick up a bit of his accent :) i killed off my trainer, i killed off elder jacob and im going to kill off elder smith also. and to be honest i probably will be killing off me next companion after that! i am a bit put off about being junior companion again, i got my self all syked up and ready for a young one. so it turns out that all this anticipation was wasted. i guess there are still some changes that i have to make and some lessons that i havent quite learned yet bofore then. we my time is super short today cause we are teaching chinese students all day instead of taking a pday so i have to go.

love you all

Elder solomon

Parcel

ok i got your letter telling me that you will be sending a package in may. food really isnt that necessary but rrecipes would be nice. also i have some special request that have been on my mind lately that would make my life if they were included

teeth whitening stripes.

that foot medicine for my flesh eating bacteria (its back with a vengence)

Reese :)

New foot inserts (i have walked through my other ones but if you cant get them i can manage for a while i just put another sole over them)

no golf balls ( i have enough)

AA batteries (there are almost $5 for one here!)

there was something else i know it........

your refried beans, salsa, tortilla,(im just dying for Mexican food) and bread dough recipe

take care love you alot!

ps dad because of your email last week i went a bought a souviner mug for the royal wedding

Royal Shmoyal

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hey

thanks for the email it was really nice that i didnt have to spend to much time reading it!. so i had a trunky dream last night i think it was inspired but Elder Jacob talking about how he only has single digit days left until he is no longer a missionary.... anyhow the area is doing Great, the only way that the royal wedding was a bother was that it was the subject of our testimony meeting. that was not good because we only had one american and three chinese investigators there, the chinese all for the first time. they fell asleep with the rest of us. Elder Jacob concerning the wedding quoted part of moronis epistles to the kingmen and bout proffessing royalty i thought it wa funny. i had some pretty amazing experiences this week that really have strengthened my testimony that this work is in the Lords hands. So at zone conference Elder Causse was talking about how rather then praying to know which street to tract or where to go to street contact he said to pray for a vision of who you need to find then pray for direction in where to find them. So the other night i did just that, then in the morning i was meditating during excercise time and i asked those questions Who do you want me to find today? then and image came to my mind of a couple the girl was indian and the man was african english, i felt that she was super intrested and he wasnt that bothered. as i had them in my head i asked where will they be? and i immediatly knew that they would be at one end of the uxbridge town center. so that day i spent the whole time stopping and talking to chinese students and i tried to stay by the street i knew that they would be at. then later in the day right after i got rejected but someone this lady with her boyfriend came up to me and asked me what i was doing. she was from india an her boyfriend was english african, She was super intrested and he was not so bothered. at the time i had completly forgoten that i had 'seen' them earlier that day but afterwards it all clicked! i was so elated, man the gospel is so true. then for a youth conference we went on splits and i spent the whole day with a one of the super nervous priest. we taught a lesson which went horrible (trinity bash) then we had three hours to tract since another appointment had cancelled. prior to this weekend the stake and missionaries had fasted and prayed that there would be miracles on this day and let me tell you what there was! so after the first 1:30 we had already had two step in appointments which never happen! then when we had thirty minutes left i sat the priest down and said 'i know that the Lord has one more person that He wants us to contact today so we are going to pray for His direction'. i had him say the pray and he asked for it even though he was way nervous and unsure that he would recognize then answer. so after the prayer i asked if he wanted to look at the map or just go. he said just go so we did. as we were walking down the street a question poped into my mind and i asked him what his favorite number was he said either 5 or 16. so quickly we went form street to street knocking number 5 and 16... nothing fifteen minutes to go. we got to a big street at the number 150, i had an idea we went to 165 and knocked... nothing so then i went to 156... nothing. i looked at him and said which way he said right we went right. At 153 we got another step-in with a woman who was from india and grew up in a strong shik family. she recently had begun watching the god channel and got a bible. she said that whenever she learns about christ she feels really happy! so we had a great lesson about the restoration and will be going back to see her soon. I know that Faith proceeds the miracle and I know that miracles come.

Also I had a nice tender mercy a couple of days ago. i was walking in the high street and this built large bald man in a strong american accent came and stuck his hand out to me and asked me where i was from. elder jacob said utah and he said his son had served in salt lake. i said arizona he said what part, queen creek, he was from mesa, went to moutain view, i asked if he know any haynes, yes and solomons too. which ones? Warren? THATS MY DAD! man i was so happy here was someone probably the only other person in the UK who knew my dad! and how cool he is anyhow his name is Casey was mates with Micheal Mills? who is a cousin of Jackie Mills? ring a bell? he has moved here for work but ran away before i could pick up my jaw and set up an appointment. we picked up 8 new investigators this week (6 of them are Chinese:) and set two more baptismal dates, June and Barret Tapper from South African (English South African) Barret has never been baptised and wants to go into the Army. they are the first member referall that i have been able to set a date with. pretty exciting! moves calls should be next week so expect my email on tuesday. president pulled elder jacob aside earlier this week and said this week i might get and new companion early from the provo mtc but that changed so we both are pretty positive that i will be training next transfer. im super nervous for that i havent even been senior companion yet and i am still uncomfortable when i teach. But i know that the Lord qualifies those that He calls. Your Prayers will be Much appriciated these coming weeks.

Keep stong love you all

Elder Solomon

if all goes well on mothers day i will call at 9pm English time

ps special thanks to the Hoopes Family for the Easter basket! your all awesome i have a half finished letter in my bag that im hoping to finish some time today for you.

Time Flies

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it was so good to get you's emails. i really enjoyed hearing about your different trips. honestly i am so jealous of your trip to the river. i really enjoyed those exploring oppurtunities. before i forget mom i think i will just be calling you for mothers day. hopefully everyone that wants to talk to me is round when i call. i dont know my schedual yet for the day so i cant tell you yet when ill have time to call. i cant believe it is time for prom already! incredible. Fancy Lamb huh? good choice you can always beat one of the Lamb girls to excite the evening and make every penny worth it. Brigg im not going to tell you off about missing school. im just going to repeat that i really regret not taking it as seriously as i should have. so for p-day today we went into central london and cooked an 'american' fajita lunch for this guy named kai that elder jacob taught when he was ap. kai is of course from china and is 23 finishing his masters degree and hoping to go to the states to get his phd next year. i think that he and the other chinese students prove that you dont have to be smart to get a phd, just dilligent. if there is one thing that im really glad to have learned on my mission it has been how to study. after a lunch of american food we had rootbeer floats (they did not like those at all) we played ping pong... chinese are SO flippin good at that game. honestly i stopped counting how many times i lost without even scoring a point. i had a great study this morning. i ran out of things to do before it was time to study so i just started studying earlyer. i had a few questions about priesthood responsibilty and a few things about my patriarcal blessing so i decided to read alma13 i read through it once. took side notes on it the second time and then color code marked it the third time i read it. now i did not find anything new that i never knew before but i understood some principles a lot more then i have before. for some reason in this mission you meet missionaries all the time that have crazy connections with general authorities like elder hinckley and elder hales then elder scruggs who has eaten with most of the quromn of the twelve and so on, i get to hear stories about these men all the time. so as i was reading alma 13, which talks about the priesthood i was thinking of these great men and about what they do differently in there lives. i love comparing and contrasting. one thing that really stood out to me was when alma was talking about those who had been called to the holy calling he said 'they choosing to repent and work righteousness rather then parish' i dont know but it really struck me that repentence is a choice that we make that it is upon our shoulders to DO it. this is really hard to explain what i learned. but it was cool.

anyhow we had a great week this week. wednesday was zone conference with Elder Causse from the Area Presidency( he spoke in GC a couple of years ago) they whole time my pen was flying across my paper like mad. he didnt teach anything absolutly profound just went over a few simple things that we over look in Preach My Gospel.

it was a bit different this year(easter) not waking up to a basket full of chocolate and a few ties. instead we left the flat early to go to PEC. PEC is always an interesting experience, the ward feels that they should conrol who and when we baptise because most of the recent converts are not doing so well. (one of them haveing not been confirmed and another having not been to church since her confirmation) so we had to pull some teeth to get a baptism date approved for may. but there is this really old couple who are stake missionaries that always come. he is proper english and is a bit predjudice against immigrates. every time he would open his mouth he would talk about how we should be teaching people who are more stable and grounded here namely english people who have lived in the same house for 20 years. it was funny cause our bishop just kept rolling his eyes then say asomething about the gospel being for everyone of Gods children. but for easter we went tracting which was really good cause i set a record for step-ins in three hours we got two one of which became a new investigator. really excited about that!

the church is ture by the way. let me tell you about the Book of Mormon. i love the scripture in Jacob chapter 2 where he says 'that word of God which healeth the wounded soul.i completly believe it. at the end of long days when i am upset or tired or had to many things running through my mind at once i sit down and just open it while my companion is changing and ever if i just read about how the work of death did commence on both sides, and thousands falling by the sword it still calms me down and i feel the peace of God again. you know why that is? because it is the Word of God which healeth the wounded soul. try it i promise it will work.

well ta for now!

Elder Solomon

Forgotten

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so you'll have to bear with me this week, already this morning i forgot my keys, map, and brain at the flat so if anything doesn't make sense just ignore it. So i got all the travel stuff sorted this morning. never got the travel card back so i had to apply for a new one. the good news is you can save 15 % on your car insurance by switching to Geiko. speaking of cars it is really going to be weird to come home and not see the suburban in the car park. but opportunity cost always hurts and i guess eating is more important anyhow. gas prices here are ridiculous its like £1.50 per liter which comes out to be $8 per gallon. but then again situations are a bit different and cars here normally 100 mile to the gallon and everyone can walk to where they need to go.

we had probably the best week i had had in Hayes, well kinda, we had no baptisms but we had alot of success. we began teaching 6 different new people this week as a result of all our time street contacting last week. On Saturday we taught Ashleigh for the first time and guess what, she is from America! she came to to get baptised but she thought she came to study. turns out that she got excepted into a better school in Missouri which she will go back to in October. she has attended our churches several times in the past with friends and always enjoyed it there. now she is interested in learning about how we can strengthen her faith in Christ and is completely open to everything we teach. well so far we have only taught the restoration but she loved it! so she came to church the nest day and because she was friendly, confident and outgoing the ward loved her! we actually left church before she did because we couldn't get her away from the relief society sisters. it was so refreshing! also we started teaching this Nepalese guy named Ang. He lives in the same home as our recent convert Neng so i get there names mixed up occasionally. he is buddest and has a strong desire to learn about Jesus Christ. Elder Holland in a training given to new mission presidents gave a list of ways we can identify that the Spirit is helping us teach and one of those is that the investigators will ask soul searching questions. Ang totally typlifies that! i love his wonderful questions. he is a really cool guy. is home town is at the base of mt Everest and he has been to the base camp like 36 times or so. get this he and his older brother are guides the the hikers that come through. his brother has been to the top of everest 5 times now. any how he is solid. i wont even begin to tell you about our new Chinese investigators! man they are so cool. so right now we are teaching allen johnny and chao (Allen and johnny of course are not there Chinese names) it is so good to teach people as sincere as them. i fear I'm beginning to catch the same obsession that elder Jacob has for teaching them. although it is not yet to his point where he was signed up to learn Chinese we he goes back to BYU. Johnny became Christian in China after the JW's knocked on his door. since he came here he realized that the JW were not the religion he should be part of but is really happy meeting with us. i think he is going to love the plan of salvation. he made a great (what i hope to be) prophecy. he said, 'my fathers generation was the one to bring business success and money to China and my generation will be the one to bring religious freedom.' in all honesty i can totally see it happening. look at how many missions around the world are baptising the Chinese students who are then going home and preparing the way. remember my last Sunday in America when we went to the farewell in California of the guy that was going to Scotland to speak Chinese? its such a happy thought.

i need a huge favor. someone please give Jared Call a huge hug for me. that guy is awesome and although i never had contact with him while he was on his mission he has had a great influence on me over the past two years he as been out.

don't forget the sun screen

Love

Elder Solomon

Upside Down

Dear Family,

You really are the greatest ever, have i ever told you that? i really think that you are. Seriously though i couldn't be more happy being in any other family in the world. i was looking at some pictures today and i just thought to my self, dang you have a good family. and it is all because of the totally awesome parents i have. Take mom for instance, i think the only time she thinks of herself is when she is... never mind she never thinks of her self. and Dad holy cow look at how hard he works to bring home some bread and then he gets home and grabs some tools and puts them into a wheelbarrow and goes to work, sometimes he comes in when the sun goes down and other times he just grabs some flood lights. Did i mention my older brother? basically he is a stud drudging his way through life standing strong with a hope in a brighter future and a trust in god which is unfailing. (I'm sure his equally if not better wife helps with that) then my cute little brothers. they are just so cuddly and nice i just want to pinch their little cheeks and squeeze them. man I'm lucky.... i need some money. don't kill me dad but the other day i lost my travel card and the mission will not reimbursed me for it. i feel asleep on the bus and woke up just in time for our stop and ran off the bus. it was only when i was trying to get on the other bus that i realized i had left the card on the first bus. im thinking about changing my name badge to Elder Idiot. Seriously i think i have set a record i have lost a travel cad and left the keys at the flat three times once i even left them in the flippin door. anyways it will be about £90-£100, i think that soon with all my forgetfulness im going to become the million pound missionary. i can just see dad shaking his head in shame right now by the way day i laughed at your email toady when you said the da-- rabbits cause here it is more then ok to say damn i dont know how many times i have heard i it in church which reminds me of when i was ordain to the office of elder when i sarcastically asked dad if he remembered my full name and he replied 'Yea its Brighton Damnit Drew Solomon' haha so funny!! i love you dad

Hayes is going really well right now... kinda. We dropped almost all of the investigators that we being taught previous to mine and Elder Jacobs arrival so we spent the whole week walking around town center looking for people to teach. it was really fun but by the end of the week i was gettting really tired of it. thank fully it has begun to pay off cause we are teachin more now. this week we had Khouljaneng TouThang come to church and finnaly get confirmed. Ziggy we only have seen once in two flippin weeks. that one time brought good news cause his girlfriend moved out. but he did not come to church this week so we have to wait another week to confirm him. We had the oppurtunity to teach a Chinese student the other day and i am totally converted to Elder Jacobs love for them! Allen was so humble and polite i was speechlessly impressed so willing to learn and so sincere. and he LISTENED such a wonderful attribute for a student to have. Being the Lords investigator right now that is one that i need to work on a bit more. We had our president interviews this week and it was awesome. so because the whole mission is going to be turned upside down we ended up having a good talk about what he expects us to focus on as we train the new missionaries and learn how to be leaders. it was really good to talk with him and learn what he think we need to focus more on as missionaries. i thought it was interesting that he didnt say obedience or dilligence or baptisms or finding hours it was learn to recognize the spirit. ah what a great thing! he also talked about deepening our pool of knowledge so that we can draw from a deeper well as we teach. then effectiveness. Brigg here is an important note. It is all about the numbers. the more time you spend finding the more new investigators you have, the more investigators you have the more people you have at church. the more people at church the more people with a date the more people with a baptismal date the more people that get baptised. the more people baptised is the more people that are on the right path to salbation!

ok so it looks like i owe ya'll (or yous as they say here) some chocolate. Sheldon i did pick up on that SUBTLE hint that you are jealous of kassidee's chocolate but to that all i have to say is ask her how much she has written me :) so next week ill try to put a package together and send it on down for easter

i have found that my experience on a mission has been a bit different then others. people say that you stop getting post 6 months out then start getting it again when you have 6 months to go.. that hasnt been that case with me, after 3 months it virtually stopped but after a six month break im getting it all again. which i am thrilled about!! i just hope it continues. (thanks mikalieX2, kassidee and sister thompson)

keep strong and stay away from Nepalese curry (trust me)

Elder Solomon

Your future is as bright as your faith

First dad i want to tell you how impressed i am that you were able to chase down a teenage girl IN HER TERRITORY!! Spot-on good chap, I felt really proud to be your son. Its not an easy thing to do dodgeing in and out of computer stand, gobsmacked onlookers and over priced food stands. I want you to know you're alright in my book. i still tell all my friends and companions 'my dad is better then your dad!'

ok so how great was general conference?! i totally loved it, esspecially Elder Bednars talk, the whole thing was an answer to a ton of different questions i didnt know that i had. so had some dissappointing news this week. ziggy recently baptized not yet confirmed is now living with his girlfriend.... yea awkward. but other then that we have had a great week

Elder Jacob is freakin awesome! its like he just got done being and AP. one of the funniest things is that he is completly obsessed with chinese people!! our chapel in hyde park where the mission affice is is right next to the Imperial College where all the rich chinnese people send their kids to get a higher education so the aps spend all of there time teaching them. it is really good, because of the chinnese government they are all completly innocent and their minds have not been tainted by the world and false religious ideas. supposebly they are all receptive to the spirit and keep all of there commitments, also they ask great questions such as 'why do i always have this warm feeling when i meet you guys here?' totally cool!! i laughed the other day when elder Jacob was on the phone with one and they discibed the Holy Spirit as 'warm jelly'. Bless there hearts.

I learned so much from elder Siddiqui. mostly patience and temperance. I really have learned how to have a cool head in stressful times and do things one bit at a time. instead of getting stressed out about things that are out of my control, identify the best solution and take the necessary steps to achieve it. I have found that i have enjoyed my time much more since then. I love the proverbs i invite everyone to read and study them. i hope to be the 'wise and prudent' person it often describes. i feel that Grandpa Solomon was the best example of that. i miss him.

dad good job with the funeral. i knew that it would work out for you. i just hope now that some snot nosed missionary from Idaho will knock on those peoples down and they will remember the feeling of peace they had at the funeral and they will have a desire to learn more.

the gospel is like a Chinese buffet, it is delicious and it doesnt matter how many helpings you get you can always get more.

how about that little bit of wisdom?

Brigg i was delighted to recieve your email i really miss going on hikes so enjoy your next one extra for me. dad told me about the chicken that gave you bad gas and i laughed so hard. so this past week was a tight one on expenses and i had nothing to eat in the mornings but toast and baked beans.... poor companions. hey eat preach my gospel read the doctines and principle in the lesson over and over and over and over again. then study the scriputres in them then read them again.if they are stuck in your mind you will have no problem teaching them in the stressful first weeks out. Dude i need a huge favor k? Newt Wilson i think he still goes to mp get an address from him so i can write him He is coming to my mission and im so excited about it! if he doesnt come get it from bro ashby he should know it... i hope, if not there is always facebook:) if you do this i will send you some english chocolate k ? deal love you bro!!

Elder Solomon