Hey pops,

Good to hear from ya... That’s cool to hear that mom decided to take a mini vacation. Our week went ok here, we weren’t able to baptize that kid but its ok he will be baptized soon, I just don’t know when.

My foot today is actually really good, this last week was really hard, my foot got worse and I was starting to have pains in my right knee because I walk awkwardly due to the pain in my foot. The doctor here in our branch didn’t help me at all. He told me I just needed to exercise my foot by running or playing soccer. So I decided to go see another member who runs a pharmacy. She said that I probably hurt my foot or touched a nerve and that it was sore/swollen and because we are always walking and never rest it hasn’t been able to heal, so she gave me some medication to speed up the healing and told me that I needed to rest my foot. Today my foot doesn’t have any pain so I am really happy.

As for my journal, honestly I do not write in it. I do write who my converts are, and all of my companion’s addresses, and significant things that happen to me here in the mission. But I don’t write a daily account of the things we do here.

We were able to watch a little bit of general conference here in Cardenas, we all met in a lawyers office and watched it on a computer, it went well, only the computer kept stalling every now and then to buffer and after a while it got annoying.

Things are well here in Cardenas, the weather has been weird. It has been really, really hot, then really windy, now it’s raining and cold. Either way I really, really love Cardenas, so far in my mission it has been my favorite area. I think it’s because it’s beautiful here, the people are nice and the members are all really humble. It’s really funny because the town is so small that people know us by name, they watch us and sometimes the members tell us that friends and co-workers make positive comments about us. I also love Cardenas because I feel like we are really building the church here. The church is so small, and almost all of the active members are so new that when we teach them something it’s a brand new principle to them. We teach them to bless and pass the sacrament, we teach them about temples, we teach them about the organization of the church and lots of other things and we see how their testimony grows. James E. Talmage in his book Jesus the Christ (pub. 1915) made the comment that The gospel of Jesus Christ wont change the world by revolutionary overthrows of already existing governments or through anarchy, but by teaching all people their individual duty and how to fulfill that duty, also by spreading the love of god among the world. When people honestly learn to love their neighbor as they love themselves, hatred, racism, intolerance and all other injustices will cease and governments will conform, making this world a better place. I think what Elder Talmage says is true.

Love you and miss you,

Elder Salazar


PS. I sent out two letters two weeks ago, 1 to Gramma and Grandpa Salazar and the other to Grammy and Grandpa Hicken.


1. Was Pres. Cox able to baptize the young man in Cardenas?
------No, we originally had planned for the young man and his dad to travel from Cardenas to San Luis Potosi (3 hours) to meet Pres. Cox but the kids dads car broke down and they didn’t make it.

2. What has been your most embarrassing moment?
------One I can think of off the top of my head was when I accidentally made fun of our ward mission leader because his girlfriend cheated on him. We were in a meeting with our ward mission leader (a young kid about 18 years old). I asked him how his girlfriend and her mom were doing because her mom is a convert and I hadn’t seen them in a while. When he said bad, they had broken up because of her cheating on him. I started laughing. I had misunderstood and thought that he said HE had cheated on her, when he really said SHE cheated on him. He just looked at me, and I looked up, and all the other missionaries were just looking at me. I felt bad and apologized because I had misunderstood. But boy did I feel crappy, lol.

3. What did you do to celebrate your one year in the mission field?
------Actually nothing really, that night at about 7:30 we went to our meeting house where the Relief Society was having a get together and watching "The Testaments" church movie. We just kinda took it easy, ate and watched the movie. That was my own personal treat.

4. How is the missions goal of 300 baptism's in a month, to get a Temple, going?
------We actually broke a mission record in the month of March and baptized 223 people. Something that has never, ever been achieved in the history of the mission. Elder Bednar promised President Cox that if we baptize 300, he will come to the mission and speak and interview all the missionaries personally.

5. How do they celebrate Easter in Cardenas?
------So far we haven’t seen much, a few parades here and there where the people walk around holding the virgin. This Friday is the live crucifixion of Christ. I will take some pics.