Build Your Testimony

Dear family!

Buenos días! Como están todos de ustedes? Espero que todos están fantástico! :)

Beuno, first things first, I shall talk a little about the trip to Chiclayo to see Elder Nelson!! We spent the night before in the zone leaders quarters, and in the morning all the mission took 3 big buses to Chiclayo. It was about 4 hours I believe. I did see some familiar faces, like all my old friends from the CCM, Elder Darrin Nielson, Elder Kaden Watkins, And Elder Rich my cousin! (and hey, you guys should ask Elder Rich's parents about what happened to his finger, that was a shocker to see!!!) But Elder and Sister Warddell, of the Area Seventy, spoke, then Elder and Sister Nelson. What Elder Nelson and his wife talked about especially blew me away. He talked about when you meet someone, start with your name and where you're from, then they will answer you with their name. Ask about their name, what does it mean? Where does it come from? Ask about their parents, their grandparents. Do they know their names? What about their great grandparents. Most people will not know the names of their great grandparents. But you as a missionary can save THEM! Sister Nelson said that when you are teaching, know and feel that you have all of these people's ancestors sitting there cheering you on! Because the progress of their posterity is the only way for their ancestors to be found to have their work done!

The importance and power of ancestry was so profound!! Ordinances of salvation are an individual matter. But of Exaltation, the highest orders of Priesthood Power and Eternal Life are a family matter. Oh, their teachings were beautiful!! SO amazing!!

Another fun thing was in the beginning of the conference, Every missionary had the opportunity to shake their hands!! When I shook Elder Russell M. Nelson's hand, he looked at me then my nametag and said "Elder Russell, you take good care of my name now, will ya?" haha oh man! Such a wonderful experience.

Yesterday night there was a broadcast for los consejos de Barrios and how to improve the work of Salvation through the work of missionaries and members together. One thing I gotta tell you all, I am SO PUMPED to be a member missionary after the mission. That might sound a little weird coming from a full time missionary, but you guys have such an amazing opportunity over there, PLEASE take advantage of that!!

Yes, last P Day we went to a museum then a zoo here in Sechura!! It was a blast!! The museum was kinda small, but WOW the pottery was some of the most beautiful pottery I've seen! The ancient inhabitants of this desert of Sechura sure could make some good pottery. haha! We went with Marion and Lourdes and Hermano Fasabe. Hermano Fasabe is the branch mission leader, and he is such a great guy! I love working with him, and he takes good care of us missionaries! He is very fun and he was the one who brought us to see the museum and zoo! and Today I think we are actually going to see the Beach! We'll see, I sure hope so, and I will send some pictures next week if we do!

We got a new missionary in the district with Elder Arce. He is fresh out of the CCM, and his name is Elder Walker. And yep, you got it from the name, He is indeed another GRINGO! haha! He is such a character, he is learning Spanish very quickly it is so impressive! And I am learning from HIM! He is so happy and upbeat and always making us other missionaries laugh! I can't wait to get to know him better. He is from Utah, but, well, so is basically every other Gringo! haha Sorry, I will try to get the name of the town for next time. :)

I love you all so so much!! I am growing more and more humble every day. It's a weird thing my testimony is feeling. It is growing and I feel like I'm growing closer to God and am better able to hear and feel the spirit every day. But at the same time I feel more and more that my testimony is small, but that is because I am growing to understand more fully how powerful and massive it can and will become throughout my mission and life. I challenge you all to look at your testimonies at the beginning of this week, and then this week work to build it! The testimony is the most powerful tool we have as members, and as people! And this can be a foundation for every aspect of your life!

I know that God lives. I know with all my heart that He loves us. He loves us more than we could ever imagine. I know that He knows every single one of us personally. I know that Jesus Christ also knows every one of us personally. He is our biggest support in this life. I know that we may know the truth of all things through the power of the Holy Ghost. I know that the Holy Ghost speaks to every single one of us, if we listen.

I love the Godhead. Within these 7 weeks in Sechura, I have felt my testimony of just one article of faith alone grow immensely! It is crazy how much I have learned! And I look forward to every new day because I know I will have the opportunity to learn MORE!

I wish you all an amazing amazing week! Keep up all your good work! Always remember that I love you and God loves you!

Con amor y felicidad,

Elder Russell

Making a little music

With the museum tour guide,

Hermano Fasabe,

and other Branch members

(LOVE these two Elders! :)

 LLAMA!!

Recognize the Feelings of the Spirit

Hola mi familia fantástica!

Well, this will probably catch you off guard, emailing in the MORNING! Sorry about that. We are off to get our hair cut after this so we just thought why not email now so we can have more time to get to soccer this afternoon! This will only be our second time doing that, and it was quite enjoyable last time, even though those Peruvians learn quickly not to pass to the Gringo. ;)

Actually, I never told you about the last time! Afterward, Elder Inocente and I were sitting outside by the street and a bunch of niños ran over! I was wearing my sunglasses (the sun is SO Bright here!) and they started talking to me asking about where I was from, how do you say this in English, and THEN they started pulling out my blonde leg hairs!! That kinda was painful and I was kinda caught off guard, thinking "What in the WORLD are you kids doing?!" hahah but apparently they thought I was Elder Bradley, the Gringo here before me, and they would do that to him. Then I took off my sunglasses, and they were like Ohhhh, turned over to Elder Inocente, and were like, this is a different missionary? haha! So that was an experience, quite a fun time!

I am doing well! My first 6 weeks is up, oh my how crazy that is! Sometimes it just flies by, but other times I feel like I've already been here for 2 years!! Frustration is always there, this language can shut me up often times! But I am learning a lot about prayer. If you pray specifically for something, God will bless you specifically. If you ask specifically, God will answer you specifically. And always Pray with faith. Faith that He hears you and will always answer! Also don't pray by routine, Pray in a manner that anyone listening knows you are having a CONVERSATION with God! But with this, I am learning to truly talk to my Heavenly Father about my thoughts about Spanish and ask for the gift of tongues and strength to endure and be patient and diligent, and then afterward, WORK to recieve the answers, by listening for his reply, and acting in a manner in which you can recieve the blessings and responses.

We had a reunion with all of us new missionaries this past week, and we got together and talked about what we were learning, how we had progressed, and also there were lessons about effective Personal study, companionship study, language study, and so on. I am so grateful for these times! I feel like I never have enough time to study all the things I need to! But it was also so so great to see all my old friends, I saw Hermana Eames who seems to be doing great, she says she is understanding Spanish much better, and she seems very positive about it all! That is so great, and I think she was one of the people with no Spanish background before the mission! And I saw Elder Chapman, and he is really into the work, I can tell! He is still the Elder Chapman with the sense of humor, which is so great! And his Spanish is GREAT!

It is getting quite toasty here!! My collar at the end of the day is always quite dirty. And Hermana Mara says just wait until January and February, she says its like an OVEN! And if this isn't an oven to them already, I just might turn into a puddle before too long. Also, I was informed this week, I am currently living in the second largest desert in the WORLD! yep. And it's a desert all right. It's been quite an experience, it's always fun!! But I am missing snow. All I want is a white Christmas, and when I told Elder Inocente this he said "only in your dreams". So that brought me real hope. :)

Oh! For transfers, Hermano Camocho, the mini misionero will be leaving tomorrow. And Elder Arce, we found out, will be a trainer!! A new nuevo misionero, with less time than ME! I am hoping for a Gringo too. But if it is a Gringo, I hope he knows that we are only speaking in Spanish. It's just how it goes. haha! But that would just be a sweet deal, another gringo to have around!

I learned this week that Satan is real!! We always just need to stay strong! The Holy Ghost is so so important!  We can know EVERY SINGLE THING we need to do in this life through the guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost. This week I challenge you all to try to recognize DAILY the feelings of the spirit! If you are being a good boy/girl, keeping the commandments, and following your covenants, it should be there in every second! So it should be easy to find a time to recognize it's there. :)

I love you all so so much!! Keep choosing the right! I love you!! And your Heavenly Father loves you!! :) Don't you DARE forget those two points right there. :) I hope you have the BEST week ever!! Thank you for all your emails, I LOVED them all! Enjoy that little bit of snow, and if you ever feel too cold, feel free to send some my way! haha!

con amor y felicidad,

Elder Russell

(More pictures from Lourdes -- so grateful for her!) 

Speaking Spanglish

Hello family! Buenas días a todos!

¿Qué tal? It sounds from the letters that all is going pretty well!! Thank you all for the great letters, as always! Such a highlight to the week and the best part of my P Day!

Today as a zone we went to a museum that I sent pictures of a little bit... I am currently forgetting the name... haha sorry! (museo de sitio narihuala) But it was about an Incan tribe that used to live there and we got to walk around the ruins and there is also an older Catholic church there, but it really wasn't too much... But it's always fun to get together with the zone, and the laughs and sight seeing together makes it worth it, eh? :)

On the way back from Piura today, (we also went shopping in Piura today, there is only the market with a couple little stores in Sechura so if we really want to stock up, we go to Tottus, que es un poco como un Walmart, in Piura) and when we were taking a taxi to the bus station, I hop into the taxi passenger side, and I look over to the taxi driver. And he turns over and says "It's probably strange to hear your own native language here, isn't it?" in PERFECT ENGLISH!!! My mind was like going Spanish mode, "...what did he say?..." then it hit me, and I couldn't hide it, my jaw dropped and I was like "woah!!" haha! It was just so out of the azul! Most all of his family lives in LA, and he lived there too for about 10 or 15 years starting when he was 17. But before that his family is from Trujillo, Peru. And then he said "All of my family is Mormon, except for me. haha I'm the bad one." he also said "My grandparents were the first Mormons in Trujillo too!" and I am sitting here thinking, "Who in the world is this man... Am I on candid camera?!" So we talked in Spanglish together, some ingles, and also español. haha! But that was a great conversation! He also likes to deer hunt, so he is one all around stellar man! haha But he is Catholic by birth, like his Mom, but he has studied into the Mormon religion, and he told me he just doesn't want to change. But our conversation was GREAT, a wonderful time getting to know one another, and hey hopefully I was able to put a new interest into his mind... We'll see! His name is Juan. His ancestry is actually Italian, so we talked about Uncle Jason with his mission a little too! :)

Also one thing with this conversation, I discovered I am already getting to a point where words are easier to speak in Spanish! When I explained we spoke in Spanglish, that's because of me! I kept going back to Spanish!! hahaha! He said just keep practicing and español will come. :)

New investigators are coming into the works! We are using the "future investigators" seccion in the area book, and that has brought some doors to open, I believe! Also, something cool happened!...

One day Elder Inocente and I were walking down the street and Hermana Mara was driving by on her moped and she stopped to talk with us a bit. While Elder Inocente and her were talking, I looked over to the house we were by, and there were these two little niños running around, giggling when I would look over, and they would also run to hide, and it was a fun moment. I thought to myself, I would like to knock on that door and talk to those people. Then we left because we had an appointment. Then, a couple days later, on Saturday, Elder Inocente had a visita de trabajo (exchanges) with Elder Arce in the other area of the district, so I was with Hermano Camacho (a mini-missionaro through the Castilla stake, he is only here for 6 weeks, he actually has less time then ME!) and we were searching out new investigators. We were on our way to lunch as the finish, and we walked past that house. I stopped, pondered, and I was like, "Yep. Hermano Camacho, vamos a tocar esta puerta!" Since this point Hermano Camacho was kinda calling the shots, and he was hesitant, but I went over and knocked on the door. A woman answered the door, and wouldn't you know it, she has 2 friends in the church! We taught a little about the restoracion and got to know her a little, and we have an appointment to return on Saturday!! She has a big family, the niños were actually her siblings, and I think we can really have success with her! 

The weather down here has been feeling great! Usually 80s during the day but it can reach 60s or low 70s in the night, and everyone says it has been really cold this year! But I think it feels great. If you want a sauna, you go to Piura. talk about blue blazes.

I am still feeling well! There has been a bit of a cough and sniffles going around with the cold weather, but it hasn't hit us terribly hard! Nothing a cough drop can't fix, and those we have! Everyone here drinks purified water, not from tap, so I have had no problem with the water, and that has been a real blessing! And the food, I have actually found a liking for the oatmeal here.... have I talked about that? The first time I ate it, I compared it to sand paper and wood glue? Now I wake up in the morning and think, man, I would LOVE some avena right now!! I think I've gone crazy. haha but we have also gotten very good at omlettes, huevos rancheros, spaghetti, but nothing too too fancy. yet. ;) haha!

Actually, the Sechura branch has found my blog, believe it or not!! So I have something to say to them!:

¡Buenas días mis amigos y hermanos del Rama Sechura! Se quiero ustedes, y gracias por us amistad a mí. Vamos a compartir el Evangelio juntos a todo a Sechura. Que dulce es este Evangelio de Jesucristo, y estas personas de Sechura necesitan nuestra ayuda para encontrar esta verdad. ¡A trabajar!

And now for all you Americans and others who are reading this! The same applies to you! You members of the ward or branch or stake are to work together with the missionaries! How sweet is this gospel, we must share it with those around us and help in whatever way we can to assist in finding and preserving members of this church. In the next chance you have, I want you to go to your Bishop, Young Men's President, Relief Society President, Stake President, Missionaries of the area, etc. and say "What can I do to help you, Bishop (or whoever it is)." And if you have one of these positions, I want you to say to yourself "Self, what do I need to do today to help this church?" Nothing will taste more sweet or feel more satisfying than consecrating a little of your time or one of your talents to this church and to the building and strengthening of the Lord's kingdom. Consecration is such a powerful word, and it may sound kinda rigorous, it sure does to me! But start with consecrating the 10 seconds to ask the question about what you can do to help. Oh how sweet is this work, ¡A trabajar!

I love you all, I love this gospel, I love the people of Sechura, I love my Heavenly Father and He loves me! Keep up all your good work! I will keep you all in my prayers, and I hope all is well!

Logan, I wish you the VERY best in the musical, break a leg, all right? ;) And to all the rest of you, Thank you all for the letters!! I wish I had the time to talk to you all personally!! Keep up all the greatness!

Con Amor y felicidad!

Elder Russell

 A cart pulled by a burro -- a fairly common sight in the streets here.

 Elder Inocente and me at the Museo de Sitio Narihuala

Pray On Your Knees!

Well, another P Day rolls around!

This week was a different one for sure! It just seemed different, even though every week is pretty much the same. haha

We had a reunion de zona, and that was really good. One thing that the zone leaders said was a quote, I dont remember who by, but it says If you aren't kneeling in prayer with your investigators, you are not a preach my gospel missionary. Man, that hit me! We haven't been doing that, and I haven't thought about that! Most of the floors in which we teach tend to be dirt floors or just incredibly dusty, but now we are really starting to incorporate this! How much more powerful and respectful and humbling and AWESOME is a prayer on your knees?!

Dad, I hope you had an incredible birthday yesterday!! I thought about you a bunch, you are one fantastic dad! I think we are going to visit a birthday party of Diego today, the grandson of our pensionista, so hopefully I can eat a slice of cake to celebrate with you all back home!

For Halloween I was in Los Pinos in Piura on exchanges with a zone leader. That was a great experience, I actually learned a lot especially about talking with everyone. I was with Elder Borer from Guatamala City, and he is a fireball. We had two baptismal interviews he took care of so I also spent time with other missionaries, and that was really nice, I got good advice and talks about the mission from other Gringos, and also I got to see Elder Miller another time!

OH!!!! Big news!! This was a surprise for us at the zone conference. November 20th, we are going to CHICLAYO!! Yep, the other mission! There is a devotional for the missionaries by Russell M. Nelson, and we get to go!! Oh I am SO freaking excited!! This is going to be fantastic! And little extra bonuses, it will probably be in English (haha!) and I should be able to see Elder Darrin Neilson, Elder Curtis Watkins, and other great missionaries I have made friendships with in the CCM!!

A little more about Elder Inocente. He is so so awesome. I love the man with all my heart. He is my missionary dad. That's what they call the trainers on the mission here. haha it's fun! But he is from Guatemala, he has a younger brother who is his pride and joy, he also has a sister close to his same age I believe. His parents are divorced, he lives with his dad. He was baptized when he was 9 years old. He also lived with his abuela before the mission too, in their house they have 3 generations. His plans are to study communication electronics, and he attended schooling for that for a year before, I believe. He has almost 20 months in the mission! He goes back home in March, but he doesn't want to go home. He finds Peru to be his home now. He came onto the mission not knowing too much, but while on the mission he has read every book of scripture, except for 5 books in the Old Testament, and is about to finish Jesus the Christ and he has read much more! He knows the gospel and the scriptures like the back of his hand and I have a hard time keeping up with him!! He has shown me AMAZING and important doctrine to help me better understand what I'm teaching! I love him, he is truly an amazing missionary. Very humble, I test his patience a lot but he carries it well, he is very loving, a jokester, and wants more than anything to do the things God would have him do. You can see how well he follows the spirit as well, I hope to learn more and more from him!

Oh, so I still don't really know what they do for Halloween here, I think mostly just have parties here and there. But then Día de los Muertos is pretty cool, but it's not as big as it is in Mexico from what I've heard, or other places. But here in Sechura, it was kinda like a relay for life at the cemetery and the road outside of it! People spend the night at the cemetery and the day, and they have purchasing shops, tent restaurants, and everybody kinda just gets together! But I didn't see to much since I was in Piura for part of the time and we also had appointments and whatnot. They also had sort of a mini festival set up on the street for those 2 days, bounce castles, fooseball tables, not tons of stuff, but fun stuff! We didn't do anything there, but it looked like a good time! So yeah, there you have it! My perception of Sechura Día de Los Muertos.

Well, I'm gonna go now, this week should be a real good one! I plan to be a fireball!! Diana got confirmed this Sunday. And new investigators, that's gonna be a big thing this week, I think! Oh, and yes! Hermana Mara, the pensionista does have a missionary son! He is serving in Paraguay! So that is a groovy deal!

Ok, well I love you all!! Keep praying ON YOUR KNEES! And daily try to do your best. God loves you. God loves us all, I can feel that every single day, and I hope you can feel his love too!! Because it is there SO STRONG if you ask to feel it. :) I love you all!! Thank you for all the wonderful letters! You are the best!

Con amor y felicidad,
Elder Russell

*Collin didn't send any pictures this week, 

so I'm especially grateful to his Pensionista's daughter, Lourdes, 

who took these pictures and posted them on Facebook for me to see… 

then I "borrowed" them for his blog :)