Week 8

Hello Family and my dear friends!

This week has been such an amazing week with Christmas and everyday things as a missionary. It has been really entertaining in reading your emails about what happened on Christmas with the family. I was trying to laugh quietly, since I am sitting in a library. I love you all and I am so happy that you all had a fantabulous christmas!:)

Christmas is a very fun and special time for missionaries. It is a special time where we can teach of Jesus Christ's birth. The new video that came out in November called "He is the Gift", has been an amazing touch to the christmas season. The video really gets to me every time that I watch it with an investigator, less active and members. Every time I watch it, I feel so much peace, and it gets stronger every time. After we watch it, it sets up a perfect opportunity to testify with the strong spirit that is in the room. The church was truly inspired when they were creating that video, no speaking but the music is AMAZING!! I love that video!:)

Sister Ferrari and I have started our third week together after transfers. After getting to know each other better, we have had to work together to put our ideas of missionary work together. It has been super fun to have two trainers! Not very many missionaries have the opportunity to have two trainers. At first it was hard but now I know that Heavenly Father is teaching me to trust in Him and in my self! I love my companion and we are working really hard to get the area under control. She is AWESOME!!! And she is from Argentina... dustin... her accent is so beautiful. She is teaching me spanish, so that I can talk to the people who can only speak spanish when we knock on their doors. Yay for spanish!:) Patience is good.

This week we finally got into the groove and started to pick up on our work. God provided a way for us to reach our goals and to find the TRULY ELECT people to teach. One of the people that we found this week was a lady named Neka. She is Haitian and I love her SO much! We have been helping her to stop drinking and to turn her life around and to help her to continue to have those desires to change. We told her on Friday that we would text her to ask how the party was that she went to since there was drinking there. We texted her the next day, and she said that she decided to stay home so that she could stay away from the temptation. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the words of my dad, life is good. It truly is, when you have someone who is truly ready to change their life and who are trying their best to take the steps to do so, it really makes us excited to see their happiness coming in their face!:) I love Neka!

The highlight of my week was to be able to skype my family. That was a super exciting time for me to see you all. It was fun to see mom as she was trying to talk to me when she couldn't hear me at the beginning, righting on paper and putting it on the screen....:) I love my mom. It was nice to see everyone SUPER happy on Christmas day, gathered together. Family was the best idea ever! I love you all MUCHO much!:)

Hope you all have a fantabulous week!:)

Sister Salmond

Crazy Week!

Hi Family and Friends!!

Well, this week has been probably one of the most craziest week of my mission so far. To start, I got a new companion this week at transfers. Sister Hunter and I knew it was coming. So the story is, is that when we had transfer calls last monday night, we were told that we were going to stay together this next transfer, but it didn't feel right to both of us. But, we went through P day thinking that we were going to spend another transfer together, then everything changed that night. After we were done planning that night the phone started to ring, and I looked on the phone and it said "assistant 1". When we both saw the name our hearts dropped. I answered the phone and it was Elder Passy, our AP, he asked for Sister Hunter, I gave the phone to her and he told her that God changed his mind and that she was transferring.... ya sad... So at transfer meeting she ended up going STL (sister training leader) and I get the opportunity to take over our area and be the one that knows things about the area. And I got a new trainer. Her name is Sister Ferrari. She is from Argentina! She is so much fun and she is teaching me spanish so I can talk to some of the people in our area! I really enjoy her!

So that was the event of the week! Anyway, I am so glad that the family is doing SO well! I'm glad that Jack is doing well. Make sure you tease him all the time, EVERYDAY! It's good for him!:) I was really glad to know what was happening with him, it was hard at first but, the work comes first. The call from Sister Richardson was great, Thank you!:) I am grateful for the opportunity to serve here in Florida, because I am doing better things here than I would be doing at home.:) What blessings have you all seen during the last two and a half months? I know I have seen many miracles as I have put God first.

One of the miracles that I have been privileged to see this week is when Sister Ferrari were together our first day. When all seemed lost in that day, we went harvesting, (knocking). We knocked on this Haitian man's house. We asked him if we could pray with him. His face was astonished. Apparently, He has been super sick the last few days and he was ready to give up, and his friend was with him on the phone just before and told him just to pray. Right after they closed their phone call we knocked on the door. His name is Fransua. He is super awesome!! I love him so much. He said he wants to know more and we are going to be working with him this week like crazy. 

Sister Ferrari and I are going to do awesome this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:0)

I am so grateful to be able to work here in Florida to bring others unto Christ!! It has truly been a blessing in my life!:)

I love you all so much!! I'm sorry that this is a short letter, but I wanted to save stuff for the call on Christmas. So I am going to be calling at 1:00 pm Florida time. This is on skype. We only get 40 minutes but it will be super nice to see all of you!! We are calling at a recent convert's home. I will see you guys on Thursday!!!:)

LOVE,

Sister Salmond

Sister Ferrari and me!:) Yes I have to drive now... Florida drivers are CRAZY!!

Sorry for the late Post! Week 6!

Sorry for the late post. I was gone this week! Enjoy!! - Abby

Hello Family and Friends!!

I love you all so dearly and I love hearing from you all!! It always makes me happy to read your emails and to hear your voice and personality in the email, especially yours Daddy.:) This week has been a good week, Sister Hunter and I have seen blessings coming from every direction this week.

Pretty much every single day last week we had a special thing going every single morning except for saturday. Sister Hunter and I were so sad that we didn't have a "full" day of work. When we only had Four hours of working at night, we tried so hard to find the people that we needed to teach and to meet with our investigators. A miracle that we saw this week happened while we were harvesting. I love harvesting SO much, because the spirit that comes through the prayer softens the hearts of many. But we knocked on a door of a preacher who was Haitian. He was not interested in what we had to say, but he did let us pray with him. After the prayer, He told us that he felt peace and that he wanted us to go and see his friend just down the street. We thanked him and went to go and find this lady that he wanted us to go and pray with. When we went to the house address that he gave us we saw a Haitian family trying to put their christmas lights up. So, Sister Hunter and I offered help and the lady put us right to work. Her kids were the cutest kids ever! The attempted to help, but we got all of the lights done!!:) Afterwards, we went into her house and said a prayer with her and her kids. The spirit was SO strong in that room, we then invited her to be baptized with her kids on the 28th of this month. She smiled and accepted!! YAY!! So we are helping her and her family to prepare for this important time in their life. I love Mama Sinclair and her kids Robuk, Claudia and Wensly. They are all so special to me, I have come to love this Family A LOT!!!:) I now have a strong testimony of referrals and how much they help us to find the people that we need to teach!!:)

Another Family that we are teaching is a part member family. Edwige is a sweet heart! He is ten years old and has not been baptized yet and we are helping him to prepare to be baptized. His mom hasn't been baptized either and we are trying to work with her. Sister Hunter and I have experienced one of the times when you are teaching someone and you know that you were sent here just for them, you promised them in the pre-earth life that you would come and help them to come back to the gospel and to God. Our goal is to get that family sealed in the temple. The three children want that really bad, but we are still working with the mom. We pray everyday that her heart will be softened. It WILL happen!!:)

I cannot express how much I really love this mission. I have learned so much in this mission. The advice that I would give every single one of my friends that are going on missions (Lexi, I know I already put this in your letter...:) ) is this:

 Be excited to represent the Lord, be excited to meet people. There are people in your mission that need your personality and your spirit. Follow the spirit like crazy... like ALL THE TIME!! The spirit is the pinpoint to your success. Always pray and trust in the God, He will take care of you and your companion. There is always a reason to everything... when you see someone outside their house, God put you in their path for a reason, so GO TALK TO THEM!!! Be willing to do everything that you need to do to be EXACTLY obedient. EXACT obedience will bring you to the blessings that will bless you and your companion. Always be happy.  People need your smile and the happy person you are to come to their door to share the restored gospel to them. And last but not least, fall into bed tired EVERY night! Being spiritually exhausted is the bestest feeling EVER. When you are spiritually exhausted that means that you did your job, spreading the gospel with the spirit of God. The investigators can feel your spirit, they can tell there is something different about you, they want to know why you are so happy! Let them know what the reason is.

I LOVE missionary work!! It has truly been a blessing in my life. I know that I am supposed to be out here in Florida serving all of these people that need the gospel and the happiness that comes from the gospel in their lives.

Have a blessed and fabulous week!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!:)

Love,

Sister Salmond

Transfer calls!!;)

  

Mama Sinclair's children! I love them to bits! ;)

 

Mama Sinclair's Kidz again!:)

Four Christmas trees! Thanks mom!!!

Transfer Calls were last night.... It was intense. But I am staying with Sister Hunter which is great!!:)

Week 5!

Hello Family and Friends!!!!

This week has been AMAZING!! Sister Hunter and I had lots of success this week. So we began the week with not really very high numbers on standards. We went to district training with none of us in our district having very good numbers for Monday and Tuesday. Then Elder Hayward (our district leader) and Elder Mendenhall (our zone leader) was SO inspired!

Elder Mendenhall talked to us during our zone companion study with him and Elder Burgoyne. He taught us about taking our mission a day at a time. He showed us how our mission life is just like the earth life in the Plan of Salvation. We just need to focus on our life here in the mission field and try our very best to become more like Jesus Christ and to help others to come unto Christ and to be like Christ. I LOVE that. All of the sisters in our house got to be in the same comp. study and we all needed it. It twas wonderful!!!:) Elder Hayward is our district leader. He is amazing and does an amazing job at helping us to be better as a district. We all worked super hard this week, that we got our investigators at sacrament meeting!! Sister Hunter and I got 4 investigators at sacrament meeting and then two more were late and missed the sacrament. But, we were so humbled about how much we got done this week because we went a day at a time and worked our very hardest each day this week, that we hit standards for numbers. Heavenly Father blessed us with finding the people that needed the gospel this week, so that we could be taught about the Holy Ghost and how much he plays a role in our area.

Sister Hunter and I have found so many people this week that we have 8 new investigators. YAY!!:) Which 2 of them are a family. We found them knocking doors in the ghetto. They are a Kreol family.... but the son knows english.... but the mom, um.... not so much. So Sister Hunter and I asked President if we could learn Kreol, but he said no.... but he will probably put elders in our area after transfers next week. Which is fine, but that means that our part of the area won't have a ghetto.... NO!!!! *sniffles/ pouty face*. But it is ok. I will get over it....:) They came to church and loved it! Wudnerson, (the son), says that if he gets the answer that the church is true and that the Book of Mormon is true he will get baptized on Sunday!! YAY!!:) Alicienne, (the mom), says she wants more time, which is good.:) 

Well Jack, I am sad to say that Darius, the football player, is now dropped. We haven't been able to see  him for two weeks....so we decided to drop him for now and maybe come back later. Hopefully he will come to church and he will want to return and try again to keep on shooting for his goal of being baptized on December 31. He said he played for the palmpanos...... or something like that... sorry I couldn't be of more help Jack.

I have to tell you about one of our Less Actives. His name is James Nappier. He is a veteran and has done absolutely everything! I don't know how he still alive after all of the near death experiences he has had. He has had the back of his calf blown off and been electricuted a lot along with other things. He has lots of animals... chickens, horses, cats, dogs.... so he gets visited by a raccoon a lot. Whenever he kills a raccoon he puts it in the lot next to his house. And that means vultures come and hover.... it is Gross!! But, I love him and he is just so amazing!!:) Picture of vultures will be put in another email....

Then Sister Hunter and I helped to paint the outside of Sister Raines house. It was fun and we got paint all over our selves. We battled with wasps and spiders..... it was the most scariest thing ever. They have huge wasps!!! picture in other email...

I am so grateful that Dad's show went so well!! I miss LDV!! It was such a blessing to be in there right before my mission. I'm so grateful Dad that Allison got the opportunity to participate in the program! She is such a sweetheart and I love her so much!! What she told mom was, "me and Charlet are like this." as she crosses her fingers. It is true. We are super close, we have become good friends from when I went over to her house. And she plays the flute SUPER well!! Whenever I listened to her play, it made me wish that I could play the flute too! But, sadly I wouldn't be as good as her... but that's ok, I will stick to the violin. (FYI for those of you who don't know who Allison is, She is Jonathan's little sister.) 

I have noticed this week how much the Lord has blessed me and Sister Hunter as we go and find people. I love this work. It is a blessing and it is so much fun. I think that when I get home in May of 2016, I will be SO shocked about how many white people there are and no black people.... NO!! I love black people, they are AMAZING and so much fun!:) I love you all!! I hope that everything is going well with Jack. I'm glad he got another part in a play!!! He will do so well! I will keep on praying for him. I love you all so much! Have a fabulous week!!!:)

Love,

Sister Salmond

Companions: Sister Hunter and Sister Salmond

Sushi for Sister Hunter's Birthday

Thanksgiving!

Hello Family and Friends!!!!

I am so grateful for you all and the support that I get from you! It always makes me smile and giggle when I read your letters.:) I am so glad that every one had a wonderful Thanksgiving cause I had a good one myself. As of last Tuesday Sister Hunter and I didn't have a dinner appointment for Thanksgiving, which made me and her sad, but we decided that if we didn't have a dinner appointment that our Thanksgiving dinner would be PB&J sandwiches!!! YAY!!! Surprisingly I really like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I was totally OK with doing that. But as we were talking about what we were going to do for thanksgiving, the phone started to ring. We answered the phone and it was a lady named Sister Martin. She asked us if we had a appointment for Thanksgiving, and we answered that we didn't. She was so shocked and disappointed that we didn't have one, (since she is in charge of the meal calendars). She ended up inviting us to her house and we had a wonderful thanksgiving lunch. I am so grateful that we are being taken care of by our ward.

This week has been a good week. It has also been a little slow, because of the holidays everyone was either gone or really busy. But, we still got many miracles this week. Sister Hunter's and my Thanksgiving miracle was meeting a woman named Rose. It has been super hard to get the chance to talk to her, but we finally got to see her and talk with her. We talked to her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. Sister Hunter and I were starving when we went to see Rose and she ended up giving us a Sweet Potato pie. IT WAS SOOOO GOOD!! I really appreciate her and her kindness. She has been telling us all week that she was going to come to church, but she ended up not coming. But, that is ok because we will get her to come this week.

We have also been seeing a recent convert. Her name is Francis Raine. She is an older woman and is a hoarder. She keeps EVERYTHING. And she has been having a lot of back problems and all these other problems with her body that she doesn't have the energy to do anything. So therefore her dishes have been piling up. We offered to help and ended up washing dishes and steaming part of her kitchen because it was so messy. Sister Hunter and I made a goal that we are going to go over to her house and help her a couple times a month. We also have a goal to get everything in boxes so that she will be able to move in March. It was super fun to help her!!:)

I love you all and hope that y'all are doing well!! Have a fabulous week!!

Love ya!

Sister Salmond

She's still alive!

November 24, 2014

Hello Family and Friends!!

I always love p-day. I love the fact that I get to hear from you! All of the funny stories, and what is going on at home. I also loved getting that letter from you mom, and the cards. I think the most funniest story was the one about the chicken coop almost burning up. I kinda was giggling during that whole story. "Poor" chickens I really feel "bad" for their desire to go and break the light... tehe.:)

This week has been so much better than last week. Sister Hunter says that the first week in the mission field is the worst because of how hard it is to adjust to mission life. I totally agree with her on that. Last week was so much more smooth than last week. Sister Hunter and I made some goals this week during our weekly planning that we would pay more attention to the spirit than we had, and to visit the part member families in our ward. And let me tell ya, striving to hit those goals had made this last week more meaningful. All the way from finding the people that have been prepared for the gospel to people that needed to have a prayer with us. Doing those things have blessed us and them.

The way that we find our investigators is through a harvest blessing. A Harvest blessing is a certain prayer that we say with people when we go and knock on their door. We then ask them what we can say in this prayer for their family and for themselves. When the person is willing to feel the spirit and is not mean to us, then they feel the spirit that we bring into the home. When we pray we have to follow the spirit during the prayer to say the things that we need to say for that person. The process of finding the individual also includes the spirit majorly. Before we go and harvest we look at a map and decide which place He wants us to go, then we pray about it and this last week we have gone to a wonderful street every night. I never thought I would be prayed to a house but you know what, it has happened a few times this week.

For Example, on Saturday night Sister Hunter and I were wondering who to go see for our last appointment that night before we had to go home. We were looking through a less active/ part member list  and none of the names stuck out to either of us, so I had the feeling that I needed to look through the old investigators that were previously dropped. I was flipping through the names when I got to a paper that said "Jody" on it and I looked at it and the spirit told me to go and see her. The problem was that she was a little ways away from us, but the spirit was so strong that Sister Hunter and I went to go and visit Jody. It turns out that Jody had been praying about us all week and wondering why the Elders dropped her. When we knocked on the door her face was in shock that there was sisters instead of elders on her doorstep because she had also been wondering why the sisters couldn't go to her house. And that was because that was the Elders half of the ward. But, since they took out the old Elders and Sisters and put Sister Hunter and I in to have the huge area to ourselves, we were able to go and see Jody. Jody is really excited to be baptized. She wants to start coming to church again. She is a wonderful lady.

At church this week we didn't have any investigators until after the sacrament. Which was sad because The investigators need to be present for the sacrament for it to count, but we will try again next week. One of our investigators, Darius, (oh Jack he is a semi-pro football player) came to church after sacrament meeting. He is SO amazing, he loves to research things and to learn things, so he loved church because of all the things he learned and that he was able to get more materials that he could read and learn more. He actually wants to bring his girlfriend to church. He decided to get baptized on the 31st of December. But, I think that he will want to get baptized earlier for how fast he is learning. He and his girlfriend are thinking about getting married this next month! Which means that they can get baptized together!! YAY!!!

I'm grateful for the opportunity that I have had to come out and serve my Heavenly Father. I have learned so much about the spirit and how it works and how I can better follow it. I have met so many different types of people from the houses to the ghetto. I have seen humble people who live in the ghetto want to start anew and change their lifestyle because they are not happy. I love Jesus Christ and I love this Gospel and this work. I love you all MUCHO MUCH!! And I hope that everything is going just peachy for you all!

Love,

Sister Salmond

1st Post!

Hello Family and Friends!

Coming to Florida was so fun, long and exciting! But before I get into that I have to tell you about my MTC experience in the last week that I was there. The last week was extremely sad because our district knew that we would be splitting up, which was super hard for us especially since we had become so close. I saw Megan Brown and Daysha Maughn! It was so fun to be able to see them again. Sadly they are waiting for another 6 - 12 weeks to get to the field.  

Last Monday we had to depart to Florida at 3:30 in the morning! Gross!! But I got up and got on the bus to the airport. Then the missionary group that I traveled with had a sweet man that was super nice to us. Sister King and I decided to go and get breakfast before we got on our flight. We walked over to the breakfast place picking out our breakfast when the man came up to us and asked us if he could buy us breakfast. This made me want to cry because someone was buying us food. We decided to let him. It so happened that he was going to Florida too and he helped us the whole way making sure we got to the right place. That was my miracle at the airport. 

When we got to Florida, President Richardson and our APs were waiting for us. We then went to the mission home and ate food and had a lesson on the mission. We then went to a area and gave out Books of Mormon! Sister Anderson and I placed 4 of them. It was a good experience.

The next day was transfer meeting. I have never been to a more rowdy meeting in my whole life. But it was fun anyway. I then was set up with my trainer Sister Hunter and assigned to the Royal Palm Beach area. It was exciting and she is a wonderful trainer. Over the last week we have found seven new investigators. Darius is elect. Heavenly Father prepared him to be taught by us. We are predicting that he is going to be baptized along with another young man named Junichi on the end of this month. We are pretty excited about these investigators. More info to come in the future on the investigators.

I have really enjoyed being a missionary it has been hard but it has been a good experience. I love you all and hope everything at home is going well! The other emails I will be sending today has all the pictures on them.

Love

Sister Salmond

Charlet's dorm at the MTC

 Charlet!!

Name Tag

Charlet with Megan Brown

Mission home

 Mission map

 Mission office

MTC Comp

 MTC Group

 MTC Group

Her bed. ;)

She's on her way!!

Hey Peeps!
I thought that since Charlet has been out for a while and people have been asking how she has been that I should start this blog for her letters to keep them in one place for her and also to keep everyone up to date on the girl that we all love. Stay tuned!