Things to Celebrate :)

Hola Familia!

So, two things to celebrate!! One is this 28th, signifying my official one month mark! Holy cow!! sometimes I sit here and groan like, I seriously have 23 more months of THISSSS! But then other times, more often then not now, I´m going Holy Smokes, I've only got 23 months left!! This thing is FLYING!!

The second thing was September 21st, do you remember what happened that day?? It's a big day in Mormon history, go read Joseph Smith History for more information, but that´s the day Moroni visited Joseph Smith!

And I totally missed Johnny Appleseed´s birthday!!! MAN! I´ll have to eat an apple tonight. haha

Ok, where to start...

Mom, YES. FRIEND ELDER BRAULLIO GONZALEZ. He is a teacher here, and one of my favorites at that!! I gave him both you and Dad´s emails and names for facebook, and my information. But friend him and he can send you information about how I´m doing and he is a very nice guy. He actually went to the temple with us today too. But he is a teacher, and yeah. I love the man. Talk to him, he is very fun! We have a superhero handshake and he always gives big hugs whenever he sees any of our companionship. haha

Well, my two companions are now the ZONE LEADERS! Haha yeah! I´m district leader over us 3 elders and 7 hermanas, and they are the zone leaders over all the North Americans! Which as of last night covers about 60 at least I´d say! so it´s pretty great. I walked around today and talked to a lot of the new elders since I love getting to know new people and see how they are doing, and they are all great! A lot of people going to Trujillo, like Gabe Preece!

We got a new member into our district actually, so now there are 8 hermanas! It is Hermana Parker, who was in the older group but she tore or pulled her ACL and bruised her bone playing volleyball, so she has to stay another 2 or 3 weeks... bummer deal for her but she is very fun and we are glad to have her! She is from Louisiana, and you can tell by the accent. haha She is going to the Lima South Mission.

Spanish is coming along! When the new Latinos came in yesterday night our companionship was running around helping them with their bags and we were all speaking Spanish! It is suprising how much you learn and pick up! It is still very far from perfect, but it is coming! It´s like drinking from a fire hydrant, just a little gets in, but we are just learning how to open our mouths a little bit wider and wider every day. haha

Elder Reyes and Paucar left from our room, and we now have 2 new Latinos! I do not know their names yet, or at least how to spell them, so I will figure them out for next time. But one is from Equador and the other is from La Paz, Bolivia. And they are both going to Piura! And they both don't speak a lick of English, so it will be a great work. Elder Reyes and Paucar would always stay up so late!! These two are lights out and asleep by 10:30, it's remarkable, and very nice for us.

Elder Reyes and Elder Paucar were awesome! On the last day we were all friends by then and saying goodbyes, I gave them twinkies, and Elder Paucar had never had one before!!! He took a bite and we were like, How is it? How is it?! And he is laughing and has his mouth full and you hear a muffled ´´Que rico! Delicioso!´´ It was so awesome!

Well, Immigration stuff was this week, but Me and Elder Miller and Hermana Woodbury had papers that apparently weren't properly sent from SLC or something, so we didn´t go this time. But don't worry, this just means that we have to return to Lima 3 times within the next couple months to complete forms to stay. Most elders only have to come once more, like Elder Chapman will, but we come 3 times, I believe. The first time will be after we´ve been out for only like one week actually! But don't take any concern into it, if anything is a problem that we need to take care of, I will let you know.

Last proselyting was different from the first time, this time we were put in companionships then traveled around with ward members and visited less actives that weren't coming to church and focusing on inviting them back. Very important step of missionary work often overlooked. But it wasn´t as effective I thought.. It wasn´t giving a lesson exactly in the essence that we are used to so our vocabulary suffered, and the ward members took the bulk of the discussions from us. My experience was good though. One of the bishopric members and two old hermanas drove me and my Latino companion around to see people. But a lot of the time was spent trying to figure out where people live.. But when we did teach, it was good! Our last house was two sisters who they and their parents were sealed in the temple a couple years ago but have since fallen away... we talked about the spirit they felt and talked about how you can feel that at church and following the gospel, and just talked about church with them, I don´t remember all that much about what was said, but the spirit was there! Just another moment that I've been here when I´ve felt like, yeah, I love being a missionary. I just can´t wait until I fully can speak and understand everything. They say that usually takes one or 2 transfers out here, so we´ll see!

Some new stuff I've heard about Piura!! They have Mangos that are MASSIVE. Imagine a softball, then double the size. And the mangos are still a little bigger. Some even the size of my head!! I´m so pumped for that. And also, when you get farther out into the country, people travel by being taken places in a wagon drawn by Burros!! haha! I´m so excited to see all this stuff! I am very excited!

Oh, and Hermana Carrillo says hi! She is our morning teacher, aka Yomira!

Ok, so here is roughly how our schedule will go:

Breakfast at 7, language study-teach investigator or comp study at 8:45, Language taught by teacher at 9:45, teaching practice (role playing, learning what to leach, etc.) at 11, coaching missionary study (teacher will focus on an aspect of missionary teaching and teach about it, last lesson was about the role of the Holy Ghost) at 12, lunch at 12:30, Additional Study (personal study) at 1:15, language study at 2:15, Personal Study at 3:15, Physical Activity at 4, comp study or teaching investigator at 5:30, dinner at 6:30, 7:15 language (teacher taught) at 7:15, Teach CRE (TRC) at 8:15, Daily Planning at 9, Fruta (where we all go eat fruit as a dessert or pre bedtime snack) at 9:20, Quiet dignity at 10:15, lights out at 10:30! And that is about how it goes every day! but then Sunday has a lot more focus on just the gospel, Tuesday nights are devotionals, Thursdays are P Day, and yeah. It´s always fun here! Our teachers are all so fun!!

Have you watched the Testament recently?! We watched it Tuesday night, so awesome!! If it´s been awhile, try to do it for a FHE or something! Also, I´ve been reading Our Search for Happiness, and I love that book!!

The church is true! I love you all!! Logan, when I read you email it brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart!! I love you so much buddy!! I got another letter heading your way in the mail so hopefully it makes it there sometime soon!!

Talk to you all next week!! Miss you and love you all!!

Con Amor,

Elder Russell

The Latinos who liked to party all night in our room :)

Faith and Humility

With our new Latino room mates.

Hola Familia!

Well, I made it to my 3rd p day! Wow!

This week was actually rather tough... At the beginning of the CCM stay they have you take the attribute quiz like from Preach My gospel on the Computers and you check two attributes you plan to work on at the CCM. I think that is just a physical click to tell God what you want to be tried with! I chose faith and humility, and this week it hit me. There were some amazing talks this week that kinda rocked our boats! On Sunday there was a broadcast from SLC what was to Peru as a Peruvian Stake Conference basically. Elder Bednar was one of the speakers, and since I´ve been in here I´ve grown to love Bednar, he knows his stuff and he tells it straight. But anyway, he had a talk that kinda set a lot of us being on the edge and scared. But then we had a lesson about the Holy Ghost´s role in teaching, and that helped our district really gain some more faith in ourselves. But I have started getting scared about how well I´m doing. I´ve been praying a lot and meditating on how I´m doing. But I´ve grown to learn that if I just put all my heart might mind and strength into serving and I tell my Heavenly Father that hey, I´m all in your hands, make of me what you want, I will be just fine. Today going to the temple was a really great help too, so I´m ready for the next week, and I´m coming up swinging!

I finally bought my soccer jersey today! Peruvian jersey of Guerrero, it´s a little big but hopefully it will shrink a tiny bit in the wash and I can gain some weight, like I´ve already needed to. haha And yes, we do get to go to the temple every P day, it is such a remarkable blessing!

I never have told you about our investigators! We have two teachers that act as investigators, Yomira and Teresa. And let me tell you, they are good actors! I pray for my investigators multiple times every day! But here has been our work. Teresa has been our longest investigator, we actually teach her tonight too. But her mom died when she was young and her Dad remarried but is never home and Teresa has not gotten along with her step mom at all. So  we have taught her a lot, she also has a word of wisdom problem, so we are currently working to get over that hill, and tonight I think is when we will seriously talk about Baptism, since we have asked her before and last time she said she would pray and ask for an answer. Tonight we will probably focus on that and the Book of Mormon, and see how her foundation of that is going. Yomira is more new as an investigator. So far we have taught her about the Restoration, then started the gospel of Jesus Christ with Faith and Repentance, then our next lesson is going to simply focus on the fact that God loves her and Families can be together forever, but I feel like that is what she needs right now, I think she doesn´t believe God can fully forgive her, and so we want to help her understand how unconditionally loving He is. It´s been a great learning process teaching here in the CCM!

Oh, and mom, about packages and letters, scratch what I said last time, As long as it is below the size of a shoe box It should come through just fine, the problem with if its bigger is it gets stuck in customs and thats why they say don't send them. But it also does take about 11 to 15 days sometimes for stuff to get here. I got your third package for me 2 nights ago, and that was SPECTACULAR! Thank you Darcy, for those twinkies you gave me, and thank you mom for sending them, because I´m pretty sure my comps are getting jealous of me. haha, but don´t worry, I´ll share!

It sounds like life is going great back home. I sure miss it a lot sometimes, we actually did the math this week, 14 weeks until we get to skype home! haha but I need to start focusing on the work and not worry. I love this gospel so much and I can´t wait to get into the field and teach it to everyone!

Logan, it sounds like you are doing great! Maddie said you started up a double quartet or something at school?! wowza! That´s awesome man! Keep up the good work on that and the play and high school rodeo, you seriously are a superstar! I love you lots bro and think about you every single day!

This has been quite draining, but I have also felt the spirit very strongly when I´ve been here. My testimony has grown immensly, I am growing closer and closer to Jesus Christ and starting to really understand who He is and what He has done for me. I have so much I want to learn and not enough time!! haha But I am going to start reading the Book of Mormon in English and Spanish too, even though this week I did a big focus on the Bible and read through Matthew and Mark and other various Old Testament scriptures, but now it's gonna be a lot of studying about the keystone of our religion!

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I got asked to be the new District Leader of our group! It doesn´t mean much in the CCM, I get to choose the opening hyms for the disctict and I go to weekly meetings on Sunday with all the disctrict leaders I think. Elder Chapman was the old Disctict Leader, and I think we still all look to him as the head honcho, he is such a great elder.

Yesterday was also the hump day of our CCM stay! Woo hoo!! Has it felt short out there? In here, time is so weird... I feel like I haven't seen you in months, but at the same time weeks are passing by fast and there isn't enough time for everything!

Well, I love you all so so much, I think about you all the time, and emails become such a highlight! Thank you everyone for sending me them!

Dad, thanks for always helping me be strong, you are always a role model in my eyes and this past week I have held onto your example to me and it has helped build me up lots!

Well, my time is about up, I love you all, con todo mi corazón! Stay strong, know that I am doing well and growing closer to my Heavenly Father daily.

You are all AWESOME!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Collin Russell

 My reaction to glorious packages!

My comps and I doing some sweet selfies with our new soccer jerseys!

Be Bold

Pulling off my best Kody Brooks/Tanner Hales face

Hola Familia!!                                                             

It's my 2nd p day, get ready for some great stories!!

Ever since last p day when I walked away from the computer as hundreds of things i forgot to say whizzed back to my head, I now carry around a little notebook with me so I can write down the most important stuff to say! Let´s hope it works. haha But first off, happy happy birthday to aunt Darcy!! I sure love you lots, you are awesome! I hope you had a fantastic day and know I was sure thinking about you! Love you Darcy!

Yeah, so as for mailing, apparently packages just cost a lot from your end and a little here from customs from what I´ve heard, but packages still come for lots of people here. haha After I finished reading last weeks email I went to Administration and they had the first package!! I was the first in the district to recieve something, although my comps say it was cheating since you sent it a month early... psh. They are just jealous. Thank you, I cherish the snacks and the goodies are all treasured! I have sent some written letters out, so lets hope they arrive sometime, but from now on, i think it would take too long for pouch to get here before I leave, so I think the new thing would be global stamps sent to Piura Mission Home if that ever crosses your mind. But I love emails plenty, don't stress at all about mailing!! And as for the blog, I just leaned over to Elder Chapman and said, "My mom reads your blog." And he leans over and says, "My mom reads your blog too." hahaha it was funny! 

Alright, well, Elder Nielson, Watkins, and Rich are now all in Chiclayo! It was sad but exciting when they left on Tuesday at like 3 am, they will all be so great! And to answer the question I didn´t know before, CCM stands for Centro de Capatación Misional de Lima. So basically MTC in Spanish.

As for food, I totally forgot to tell you about my favorite new thing!! It´s a fruit called the granadilla. It kinda looks like an orange from the outside but with a hard outer shell. Then you crack it, and inside is what you eat. it looks like frog eggs, no joke! The first time I saw that i was like, you expect me to.... eat that?? haha It's full of seeds and what you do, is you just suck it up, and swallow it, don´t chew. It was super weird the first two times, but now I love it! It tastes really good, hard to explain, but tasty! You´ll have to look into it! hahaha

Ok, on Saturday, we got to go PROSELYTIZING!! Ahh! It was crazy. We got new companions for the couple hours, and my comp was Elder Lazaro, a Latino. A bunch of the Latinos call him the prophet, and that he´s gonna be the next prophet! He is super awesome, and a fan of The Killers. We sang one of their songs one or twice wile walking. haha but it was crazy! We got sent to a kinda impoverished area, and got to go tracting! but first we met at one of the churches in the area and had a quick meeting in the capilla (chapel) about what we will do. The missionaries were there helping us get situated. All of them were Latino except for one. His name was Elder Kent. And holy guacamole, he looked JUST. LIKE. CHASE. Their own Elder Peterson, right here in Lima! It was so awesome, I kinda freaked out a bit. He has been out 5 months, from Boise Idaho, and he started translating the Spanish to us gringos, but at first he was stuttering and messing up, then says, woah sorry, this is hard, I haven´t spoke English in 5 months. woah!! It was music to my ears talking to him, he said once you get out, only speak Spanish and it will come.

Anyway, proselyting, it was difficult! I couldn´t really say anything other than bear my testimony, and even then I think they really struggled to understand me. I kinda lost all confidence. But we handed out 3 Book of Mormons, tons of info cards, and got 4 potential investigators even with some already set lessons! Woo! But one of the lessons was crazy: So we are sitting in this home. You can tell they are Catholic, they have a bunch of like murals on the wall. And we are talking to this older boy, I´d say 20s early 30s at most. and we are talking to him, and with Spanish, I feel like I can understand most of what people say. So Elder Larazo is teaching him about the Book of Mormon and its relation to the Bible and so on, and we find out that this guy has read the entire Bible and knows a LOT. So I´m barely holding on to know what they are talking about, then I start hearing words like ´´Planeta´´ and ´´extraterrestrial´´ and such, and I come to realize, this guy in his first contact with us new missionaries has asked about the gospel's role with other planets, do we believe in extraterrestials and God's role in their lives and so on, and yowza!! Elder Lazaro did really well! He answered really well to explain that we do believe that God has created other worlds, and said some other stuff I don´t remember, but he kept it simple and did not dive into crazy stuff and I think he handled it very well for being pushed to the edge with this Bible master!

Also with this lesson, Elder Lazaro mentions to the man that I am from the United States and that I´m learning Spanish. He says I´ve been here for like a month (yet it had only been like 1.5 weeks...) and says that with our Spanish it comes quickly and its through all the help from our Heavenly Father. Then this guys says along the lines of ´´no, thats not help from God. It´s adapting to your suroundings, thats nothing special, when you´re placed in a new area you just have to adapt and that's all it is´´ and I just got this super burning feeling in my heart. I knew at that moment that the gift of tongues is very real and has impacted my mission already. I felt invincible from that burning, and I knew I should have said something to that man, but Elder Lazaro was talking and wrapped up the lesson right there kinda quickly and we were out. But I think he felt that spirit. I sure hope so. But from that, I keep thinking to myself, why didn´t I just speak up?! I keep kicking myself for it. But that was a lesson to me, I need to be more bold. That´s something that I was told would be a big important thing on my mission. So I need to act on that. So proselyting was a very strong teaching experience for ME probably more than anyone we talked to, and now I can do better!

Spanish is coming! I think the gift of tongues has helped me to recall all that I´ve learned during my Spanish classes in school. I continue to learn every day and work harder and harder on it. Yesterday we were role playing with elders that have been here 2 weeks longer than us, and they gave me some amazing insight. They told us something they had heard from Gordon B. Hinkley that if you read the whole Book of Mormon in your mission language, you will have the capability to learn and master your language. So I have started that. I think it will be amazing for me.

So the pictures I sent! One was just me at the front side of the CCM, pulling off the Kody Brooks slash Tanner Hales face, and the other one is my whole district! For those of you at Morgan High, I also have something fun! One girl in my district, Hermana Woodbury, reminds me SO MUCH of Maddie Beardall! haha!! and Elder Workinger flew in with us and is in a different district, but he is so much like Jake Freestone!! Just some fun stuff.

Our district is awesome!! we are all learning a lot together! Some of them came in with no Spanish whatsoever, and when they work at it like they are, wow, they have learned so so much, it´s unbelievable! I think I´m doing pretty well in the group, but I say that in all humility I can possibly use, because I need it so much! Humility has been my number one learning task while being here.

I hear Piura is a lot like St George weather! haha I heard that earlier, cool right?!

Well, I got one minute left until it logs me off!! Ahh this writing can be stressful sometimes! So much to write and say, so little time!!

I love you all, keep up the good work!

con amor,

Elder Russell

(a P.S. email) 

I actually technically have 4 minutes left until its 4 pm, when we end letter writing, but my window timer expired early! So I'll just answer a couple questions...

Laundry is going great! I´ve learned how to do it, and so far my laundry is good!

I haven´t gotten a soccer jersey yet, I haven´t exchanged my money until after we got back today... they didn´t have exchange last week, and the week before they closed before I got there!

But yep, P day schedule: when we have the 7:30 session at the temple, we get up at 5:45, eat breakfast at 6:15, then catch a bus around 7. We have to say Templo, and they take us there. Then after the session, we walk to Metro or Tottus. We have gone to Metro both times. It’s like a Peru Walmart. Then after, we go to where they sell the jerseys. Next week I am for sure getting a Peru one! Then across the street from the temple is the temple store owned by a member with LDS Peruvian stuff. It's cool!

When we return, we write emails for an hour, laundry for an hour, write letters, nap, etc.

Alright, now I really gotta go!!

Love you!!

Elder Russell

With the missionaries in my District.

Turn Outward...

With my companions, Elder Miller and Elder Chapman, at the Lima Peru Temple

Hola Familia!

Thank you all for the emails!! I was so excited to read them all, and it actually scared me how many I had recieved! Half of my time on the computer was spent reading them! I truly have the best family in the world.

Happy Birthday Parker, you are an awesome young man, and one of my best friends all these years! Keep up the good work and I wish you the best of days. and Happy Anniversary to my dearest parents!!!! When I read that on the calander, I freaked out! I just barely missed being there for it! But I hope you can still feel my overwhelming love for you two all the way from here in Peru. I love you so so much and I have the world to thank you for! I couldn´t even imagine better parents!

Reading all the letters brought tears to my eyes! My heart is so extremely full. Today for P day we were able to go to the Lima Temple. The temple is super small, and a session only has 25 seats in it, and the screen projects only about to the size of our TV, but it was still amazing to be there. when I was sitting there in the session, out of the blue came the most overwhelmingly powerful feeling in my entire being. It was the purest love I have ever felt, and I knew it was from all of your prayers and thoughts for me. Tears just started flowing and it was ridiculous! Luckily it was able to get control of it, until the celestial room, where it hit me again and I started to cry. Holy Cow, I hope you all know how much I love you!

I haven´t been terribly homesick, and I´ll tell you why. Two things. First off, in testimony meeting an elder came up the the stand and bore his testimony. He knew he needed to be a missionary, even though it was hard to leave. His father and his side of the family is not LDS, and also one of the hardest things was leaving his mom without knowing if he would ever see her again, because his mother has Cancer. I started tearing up (I tear up a lot nowadays it seems!) but I realized that I can do this. I know that I will be able to see you all again in good health, and it will all be ok! We can do this!! And also in Sunday School we talked about why we have certain mission rules. One thing was why can't we call home or go home for the holidays or something? Well, when we become missionaries we try to learn of Christ. By having minimal communication with our family, we are able to relate to the very smallest, slightest degree how Jesus Christ felt when he left the presence of His Father. I know He did so much for me, and I want to become like Him. So, I´ll say it again, We can do this!!

Food! Here, there is rice. EVERY DAY. haha But other than that, it is great! Missionaries gain weight here, and I like to think that I´m already feeling it come on. I could really use it! But sometimes they try to impersonate American foods, but it always has a Peruvian flair. One of my favorite American attempt things was a pizza, but instead of like pasta sauce, it was enchilada sauce, and it was just pretty tasty. But a lot of chicken, rice, beef, but I enjoy it all! For breakfast I usually have coca tea, a Peruvian herbal tea which is apparently quite healthy, and with sugar it can be pretty good! But also, they have cereal here, but its like not at all sugary, but you put it in creamy yogurt, and its sweetness works really well with the bland cereal, and I quite enjoy it!

I have not gotten sick!!! WOO! It's really a miracle, because my room even got quarantined. Is the the right word? Where they don't allow your roommates to even leave the room becuase they don't want the sickness to spread. They told us to wear face masks like you would find at a hospital for sick people, and it was bad. They don´t want anybody to high five or anything so nobody touches each other just to make sure the sickness leaves. But it's dying down and none of us new kids have gotten sick! It's great.

The Spanish is coming! The gift of tongues is strong here! We have learned how to pray and how to testify in Spanish, and we have gone through the usage of Ser and Estar as a class. However, our teacher talks solely in Spanish to us. I have been blessed with 4 years of spanish and I don´t know why else I am so blessed for this, but I feel like I can usually understand 95% of what the teacher says!! But there is still so so much to learn. I got super frustrated right before our first investigator lesson because I couldn´t speak all of my mind due to the language barrier, but other than that, I keep saying to myself. Poco a poco. Paso a Paso. Bit by Bit. Step by Step. I think extra blessings come to missionaries who strive to speak all they can in their mission language. I've felt it! I´ve made a goal to always at least start and finish my prayers in Spanish, and do as much in between as I can.

One thing that was amazing, is the Area 70 was our devotional on Tuesday, who said that Latinos and members who dont know English, should learn. ´´It is the language of the restoration.´´ Wow! I had never realized before, but I am so blessed to know English! I love English! Also, I love David A. Bednar's talk from the Christmas Devotional 2011 at the MTC. AMAZING. Learning OF Christ. Not learning about Christ. OF.

One thing that Christ would do is that He would turn outward when most of us would turn in. For example, when he was being taken to the cross, and remember how the guard´s ear was cut off? Jesus took the time to heal the guard's ear. Yet this whole time, He has suffered Gethsemane and was about to be placed on the cross to die. And yet He is willing to put himself aside and heal someone´s ear! It´s only an ear, I know that in that case I would probably be thinking, whatever about your EAR! I´m about to go die for the WORLD! Look at me, care about what I´m doing for a second! Yet, Jesus took the time to heal the mans ear. I hope we can all start to turn outward this week. Don´t care about yourself as much, and lose yourself in serving others. I hope to do that the best I can as I serve my fellow men.

Well, my time is out! I hope to answer more questions! there are about 150 missionaries in the CCM. Of the Americans, I dare say that half are Sisters!! It's amazing. Of the mission group I came in with, there are probably 20 of us. In my district, there is our companionship of elders, and then 3 companionships of sisters! This CCM holds missionaries serving in Peru, Equador and Bolivia, however as of now it is just Peru and Equador. It is great here!!

Well, I've been typing to the bitter end!! I must leave now! I love you all very much!!! Talk to you next week!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Russell

 With the man who picked us up from the airport :)

 Some of the Elders I traveled to Peru with.