TUMBES!!

Hola familia!

Well, sadly I am no longer in Tambo Grande... I have been transfered to a rather different setting it would appear!

I am now in area Zarumilla 1 of Zona Puyango. That is in TUMBES!! My district is the Peruvian side of the border with Equador. I swear they are sending me to the 4 corners of this mission. haha

My new companion is Elder Corpuna! He is from a town in Cuzco, Peru and has 6 months in the mission! He seems super stellar. We are going to work hard and make miracles happen.

Our District has Elder Rollins who just finished his Training here, who his new companion is from Chile, and wow... I have already forgotten his name even though I just spent a 5 hour bus ride sitting by him! The other companionship is Elder Moses and Elder Ponce! I know Elder Moses a little bit and he is a fun missionary. Us 3 companionships are all serving in the ward Zarumilla, so it would look like the work is really going well here!

I don't know too much about this place yet, but from what I know, it is a ward with about 150 members attending! So quite different from Tambo Grande and Sechura with casa capillas. It will be a new experience so I am excited to learn!

And the internet here is much much faster (I think anywhere outside of Tambo Grande is faster.. haha) so I will get to work next week sending some pictures!

Elder Plata is still in Tambo Grande now with Elder Vargas, From Lima Peru. I heard he loves to work and loves little towns. So he will do good in Tambo Grande. I left him a note on my desk saying that if he doesn't love the people and serve diligently that I will return and hit him hard. Just to add a little more motivation... haha

And I am ALWAYS in the same zone as Elder Miller, my companion in the CCM! He came up here to Puyango the transfer before! haha that's been pretty fun.

I am really going to miss Tambo Grande... My last Sunday we had attendance of 27... So it didn't exactly rise up... We ended up having to spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Piura to help the Zone Leaders with exchanges and set up a baptismal interview which in the end didn't follow through. That was a little frustrating having to leave Tambo Grande serving for a bit, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

But the 1st councilor of the Stake Presidency visited and gave some great messages and are setting up ways to better help Tambo Grande. I will always keep Tambo Grande in my heart. It is a very special place I will never forget. Maybe I didn't have any baptisms there nor did church attendance rise, but I learned a lot and served the best I could. But I feel pretty confident that they will have baptisms and rescued less active members in August through our efforts.

Well, here comes a new chapter!! I have a couple plans and goals: To ALWAYS follow up about their Book of Mormon reading (the key to conversion and retention), and developing the attribute of Charity. I am looking for another goal or two so I will be sure to set that up soon.

Well I love you all!! It was great to hear from seriously everyone about the raspberry shakes!! haha sounds like you are all having a blast. And who knows, maybe someday I too might have to run down to one of those Play productions to find a future wife too ;) hahaha

Keep reading and praying! The church is true! Jesus is the Christ! and God loves us!

con amor y felicidad,

Elder Collin Russell

With Elder Martinez in Tambo Grande

Study the Scriptures Daily

Hello my dearest family!

Well this week was a good one! It was the 5th week of the transfer (So this next week is possibly my last one in Tambo Grande...) and Elder Plata and I had the biggest number of less active member lessons and new investigators we've ever had together. So I felt real good about that one. We did good on getting out there and doing our part. But dad, you did ask if there was anything I needed. Maybe a cattle prod. Because we still got some people who won't come to church. hahah

This week we started the Sacrament Meeting with 26 and in the end we had 34 in the Sacrament Meeting. So, better. But my goal is to break 60. My highest attendance I have counted was 59. When Elder Plata first became my companion I told him I wanted to hit 80 in attendance, so we are going to work really hard this week. I want to hit a good and very high note.

Mom, yes that is the name of that fruit!! Pepino! (see below) And I find it delicious. :) I now have two new pictures of fruits to send you. Hopefully next week since today "la tortuga" as they call it here (the internet) is super slow... But I have newly tried out Maracuya as the fruit (it is really common as a juice so I have drank it before but as the fruit it looks like Granadilla and the taste is SUPER strong! I also ate a fruit my companion said it is really tasty. It is called tuna and is a cactus fruit.  It was pretty tasty. :)

Today I finally did a little more shopping. I have been eyeing these tire sandals. I will be honest, those flip flops we bought are not the best of flip flops. And these tire sandals are said to last a lifetime, all for 6 soles. A little over 2 bucks, you can't complain with that one! haha

I was once again able to give a talk in sacrament meeting! (I seem to get that chance a lot, don't?) And the theme they gave me was the conference talk by Elder Russell M Nelson about showing your faith. One thing my first companion Elder Inocente told me was when you teach by the spirit you just get filled with scripture references and doctrinal points you hadn't even thought about before. And boy did I feel it!! I ended up giving a talk to magnify a couple points from my talk from last week. But the main focus was that we NEED to read the Book of Mormon and pray EVERY DAY to receive faith and testimony. I was reminded of something Elder Grow of the Seventy taught us when he visited us in the Multi Zone Conference. It was along the lines of this: Obedience qualifies us to feel the spirit. The spirit is what testifies of truth and allows us to gain a testimony. Without obedience we cannot recieve a testimony. Without Obedience and without a testimony, WE ARE NOTHING.

So I taught that. Not many people are reading as faithfully as they should. And, this applies to all who read this, We need to Study the Scriptures daily.

I honestly feel like I have become so much more bold here in the mission. Bold and Blunt. Because some people need that to understand. So I am rather pleased with that progress I am making. But don't worry, I am still the kind and loving Collin Russell. :) haha

The T family is coming along bit by little bit. M received her answer!!!!!! WOOO!!! She told us "I went into my room at like 11 o clock last night and I prayed, and I felt something in my heart! I really did!" And I was just FILLED by the spirit!! It was a bummer deal we only had 5 minutes for that lesson before the Noche Misional we teach, but tonight we plan on having a stellar lesson with the family. L also told us he plans to be baptized before the end of July! Which is awesome that he wants to be baptized, but tonight we have to explain to him that he hasn't come to church enough yet and needs to make changes in his life so he can keep the Sabbath Day holy. The plan is to help put a new baptismal goal with him tonight. I am super pumped because hopefully we can commit M to the same day! We'll see :)

So this Noche Misional I just mentioned is something here in Tambo Grande they have always done. For a while it was hanging by a string and nobody would ever show up and it was just not working. But starting 2 weeks ago, Elder Plata and I made the assignment to read 5 assigned BOM chapters and now we do Jeopardy with them, and we are getting some serious attendance!! It competes with Sacrament attendance, and like half of them just wont come to church!! So we are working to use this activity to get them back to church! It sure is fun. :)

This week we found some great new investigators, so we are going to get to work with them! We are really trying to find the golden investigators that we KNOW are here just waiting, we just gotta look hard! We are going to keep working on some of these new ones and keep working on finding! The work keeps rolling here!

Well, all is well here in Tambo Grande!! It looks like I might be transferred this next Monday, so I wanna end with a good note and have everything totally ready that the next missionary can just rock and roll! I dont want to leave. I sure love these people. They are awesome. :)

Well, I love you all!! Thank you all so much for all of your help and prayers and support! I was feeling some serious prayers coming this week, this week I started a little discouraged and weak but when you work hard things work out! And thank you all! I love you all!! Keep reading the Book of Mormon and Praying to receive inspiration! That is how we grow in faith!

Con amor y felicidad,
Elder Collin Russell

Jumping for joy with Elder Martinez

 A pepino...

 and a coconut! :)

YES YOU CAN!

Well hello family!!

Well, this week has been interesting... a real bummer for me was the fact we had NO time to really get down to work. Tuesday morning we traveled to Piura for District leader training until 3 in the afternoon. So we helped the Elders in Piura until 6 when a group of us USA missionaries had to go to Lima again. The good part about that is we now are 100% legal and good to go! haha we now have cards saying we are allowed to be here for longer amounts of time. The only thing is we have to renew them yearly. But at least there is a YEAR without having to worry a thing about that stuff! WHEW! SO that was until Wednesday night. So we spent the night with the zone leaders then in the morning there was District meeting THEN FINALLY we were back in Tambo Grande Thursday afternoon. So I was rather bummed that like half the week was outside of our area...

And it showed. We started Church Sunday with 7 people there. Elder Plata and I. The Branch President and his wife and daughter. Victor, the old pretty much blind man we bring to church every week. And a worker here visiting from Chiclayo. So that pretty much killed me. With last week ending with 59 in attendance super awesome, then this week ending up with 25... man. I had to give a talk because the other person didn't show up, and I gave a talk about the law of sacrifice.

I got rather emotional. I talked about when the rich man came to Jesus and told him what he needed to do to gain Eternal Life. Jesus told him to sell everything and "take up the cross". I explained that that means we give up worldly things and set all else aside to keep the commandments of God. I told them yeah we can say "I can't" "I’m tired" and so on but the truth is YES YOU CAN. That is the promise of 1 Nephi 3:7. I told them I think that is the most well known scripture in the church but do we really apply it? I explained we have 320 members and look at how few of us are in attendance. I don’t know if they understood me, sometimes my words just don’t come out right, but I hope they learned a little more about how the law of sacrifice still applies to us.

So the plans to find a bunch of new investigators and invite everyone to baptism now are going to be a little less. We are going to do some serious visiting to these members this week. This Branch just needs to understand dedication so we just gotta get out there and teach them. Pray for the Tambo Grande branch!

But today has been a fun P Day! We had a big multi zone activity with like 4 zones and we played a soccer tournament as zones! Us missionaries from Zone Alrarrobos made it to the final round then me and Elder Plata had to go since we've got to write home, go shopping, AND still make it back to Tambo Grande in time. But I am sure we won. :)

And then we went to eat at CHILI'S!! Yep! It exists here!! And finally we went there and I let my companion finally try out the most Americanized Burger in Piura. And they were good!! That restaurant was a little bubble of a home feeling. haha and we ordered that side of cinnamon apple and Elder Plata really liked that. haha so we are having fun times.

Well we couldn't really get that much new ground with our investigators this week, L told us that tomorrow he is going to tell us when we plans to get baptized. And so we'll work for that day! We really need to help him realize that keeping the Sabbath day holy means not working. He just hasn't quite gotten that yet, it's a little frustrating!! And FINALLY after 2 weeks of trying we have gotten a hold of H and J again... they have kinda walked off the face of the earth, so Sunday night we finally caught them home! H is working constantly until like 4 am every day, J got sick, turns out they STILL haven't put in their marriage papers... man... so right now in Tambo Grande we are kinda back to square one. They also just don't seem to get church attendance either... we're working on it.

But we just gotta keep working super hard!! It looks like I probably won't have any baptisms here in Tambo Grande, but I can't let that get me down. Now the plan is to prepare baptisms to be set for every weekend of August that the new missionary coming can enjoy his stay. :) And we gotta charge the batteries of this ward. The activities we have are FILLED! But at the most important thing we are starting to fail a little...

I hope all is well back home! It sounds like the festivities just keep rolling by and you are all having a blast!! :)

Mom, today I got the packages!!!! I opened one up to peek in while I was in Chili's, and THANK YOU!!!! I am super excited to read all these histories, listen to the music, eat the snacks, etc!!! You are one stellar mother! :)

Well, the church is true!! I am being humbled and purified and I still got a reeeeaallll long ways to go, but I am just trying always to keep plugging on! Just keep Enduring to the End you guys, Eternal Life is work!! :)

Keep up all the good work! :)

Elder Collin Russell

There's a Chili's in Piura!

A side of cinnamon apples :)

Go and Do

Buenas tardes querida familia,                                     

Thank you all for your letters! I got quite a kick out of them all. Katie receiving a double portion of dinner, the famous fireworks finale (I truly do miss that event), and sure love to hear about how it is all going up there.

This week has been good! Sadly the package hasn’t quite reached me, that had me a little bummed out along with all Tambo Grande who I end up sharing the goodies with. There is one less active who finds a storm of excuses not to go to church but alongside that she always asks when the next shipment of American goods comes in. haha it sure is a fun group of people here. But I did whip up a little microwave cake and put a little match candle in it to celebrate USA's birthday.:) And the music I will surely blast when it comes. :)

Well this week has been going well. Sadly L and F dropped the baptismal date, and the first 2 visits this week were quite depressing to us missionaries. They all said "not right now, later on" when we were checking up about baptism... Except L, he is just awesome. And the first 2 visits we were trying to honestly convince them to accept baptism again, and distractions and drifting lesson topics made it hard. Then Saturday we went with the help of Hermana Katiana, the return missionary daughter of the Branch President. And she is a superstar. With her we finally got it all figured out and set back straight. We need to work on their testimonies. The Camino Torres family has been receiving criticism and doubts from family and friend peer pressure. So we need to work on their testimonies. And F said in the visit "I would get baptized if I receive this confirmation about the truthfulness of the church." And tonight we will be checking up on how praying to find the answer went. They truly are great, keep praying for them that they can receive this answer about the truthfulness about the book of Mormon and the LDS church.

H and J we’ve got to visit more frequently. They work far away and so they aren’t getting back home until like 8 at night and that has recently been making them not come to church.... So we’ve got to save that this week. We are working hard, they have a big desire to be baptized, so we just need to make sure they get to church and can visit a little more frequently.

Aunt Sheri, thank you for that great quote from Elder Holland. I really LOVE that quote. I think I am starting to find a theme I want for my life. It is like the most popular line in the whole Book of Mormon, but I just think it is key to everything. "Go and Do". Here in the mission I was tired after 3 months. 6:30 in the morning waking up, without weekends to sleep in or anything, I have learned you just gotta get up and go. Why? Because God said so. Sometimes I am learning that we want to fall, we are tired, "I should do that... but not right now..." But if we build the thought process of "Go and Do", "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" then yeah, you will still be tired, but you go and keep going and you find that we really do have so much more to give and God gives us the strength to do it.

Well, gotta go! The internet was super slow today... Sorry, just one of the joys that come with living in Tambo Grande!! I sure love it here!

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Love you all!

There Are No Benchwarmer Callings

My dearest family!!

Well things are going great here in Tambo Grande!

We are still working on the T parents for the 12th and they are starting to attend consistently and they are even inviting other family members to come too, like their daughter in law (their son lives in Lima, but she lives about 20-30 minutes outside of Tambo Grande) and so that has been great! Tonight we have a family home evening with them and we are planning on checking up about how they are feeling about baptism and everything along with inviting their 2 daughters to be baptized the same day. Their daughters are super awesome and just as prepared as L and F, they just weren't there when we invited the parents to be baptized. But they are all really growing in enthusiasm to learn and progress, and they have told all their family that they are receiving the lessons! So it is all pretty super there!

H and J are great. They work outside of Tambo Grande and so sometimes they get stuck out there due to the fact that there is very little transport to out where they are. But they are doing well, they need to get back to the habit of attending church though... H is just about finished reading the Book of Mormon so he is on fire. We need to check on their marriage situation though, hopefully all is going well. In our appointment Tuesday I think we will see how all of that is going.

We are working hard! This week we have ran into a good deal of new people, less actives, new investigators, and we are learning that we need to focus on finding the chosen ones. There are some people so ready to change their lives, and that is what our purpose is, allow them to be born again in Christ. If they are just accepting the visits because it is a beautiful message about God, they don't understand the purpose. Faith is a principle of action and we need to change habits and actions of our lives to more fully follow Jesus Christ.

This next week I think we will be teaching a lot of active members too. I think that is how we are going to get church attendance back up, we need to renew their faith and help them understand what it truly means to be a member of this church. There are no benchwarmer callings. I think with this we will find some better results. Sadly church attendance still hasn't gotten up to what I would like. So what do we gotta do? Work harder and work smarter. So here we go! :) President Rowley has been helping me out with pointers on how we can do it.

In this mission, our zone now has 40 with a baptismal date! Like 2 months before, I think there were maybe 5. But we are now working with God given goals and we must complete them with diligence and obedience. Tambo Grande needs baptisms to animate the ward. There hasn't been a baptism since January, but if all works out we will have 6 this new month of July. Pray hard for us! We will do the same. And that is how we can make it come to pass!

Well, I love you all! Keep being awesome! The Book of Mormon is true, the Atonement is real, Jesus is the Christ, and God is our Loving Heavenly Father. Pray daily. Share the gospel in every chance possible. Always seek to hear and follow the Holy Ghost's direction. And I will do my best to do the same. :)

Con amor y felicidad,

Elder Collin Russell