Monday, March 23, 2015

"Difficulties are opportunities to progress"

hello my dear family!!

Well this week has gone rather well!! We are getting ahold of a few progressing investigators, which is always real awesome. :) We got 2 investigators to church Sunday!! One is the lady which we found last week thanks to a ward member who introduced us. We have had 2 lessons and she has already attended a Relief Society activity and church, and she seems to have liked it! She is a single mother with 3 sons I believe, one is 7 who also attended church, another 17 year old who is always working and we haven't gotten ahold of yet, and another one living in Argentina. She is really great, we really think she could reach baptism so we are gonna try to place a date this week!! Pray for her!

Another awesome guy we got a hold of is M. We contacted him one night while he was sitting in his car. He is like 85 years old. He has 25 kids and 74 grandkids. Yep, that is no typo - 25 kids and 74 grandkids. and a couple great grandkids already as well. hahaha but holy smokes he is AWESOME! He is just so super excited to learn! In the second visit he asks us, "Hey, you are the religion with the Book of Mormon, right?" We said yes, and he tells one of his grandchildren "Go bring that black book in the cardboard box" I am thinking "black?..... they are blue here..." then he brings a Book of Mormon with a name signed inside from 1991!! The Book of Mormon that we use now started printing in 1992, so that was pretty cool. And he is starting to read it. And he made it to church!!! .....with only 15 minutes left in the 3rd hour block... haha but he even got to participate in the class and he said he enjoyed it. What happened is that he was searching and searching for the chapel and then apparently his car broke down so he had to take it to a mechanic and THEN he made it to church. hahaha but he made it!! He's gonna go places. :)

Mom, I learned about "Come, Follow Me" because my companion has a DVD of video segments to use in YM and YW clases. A RM from Mexico got me excited to watch some of the training because he has been helping us figure out how to ask more inspired questions during the lessons. I really do admire the form of teaching. And my companion and I are getting better at asking questions. Now we are starting to work on using the scriptures better.

Favorite "Peruvian thing" this week?
Actually one thing I liked this week was a lot of new phrases or sayings I learned. With different church leaders you hear new phrases. This week in church here are some of the cool new thoughts I got ahold of:

"The church is not a Salad Bar. It isn't "Oh, this commandment I like, I will take and apply that. Oh, that commandment is a hard one, I will just leave that there. We go to church to apply all that we learn"

"Be like the mama eagle, not like the mama pig. When the mama pig is happy, she goes to the mud hole and splashes around. And her baby pigs go and do the same. But when the mama eagle is happy, she tries to soar as high up as she can. And her baby eagles go and do the same."

"Difficulties are opportunities to progress."

just a couple fun ones. We have really good church leaders here.

Any big (or not so big :) events coming up in the mission that you are looking forward to?
Next P Day we are gonna watch MEET THE MORMONS with the Mission President as a Multi-Zone activity!! I know that is nothing new for you all... but for us, that is is a big event. haha

Best part of your week?
Hmmm.... I am really enjoying my Book of Mormon reading! I am blazing through it, I think I started too fast and wasn't marking as much as I could to really study diligently, but now I am finding a good balance. I am already in Jacob. I need to finish before July 1st. But I plan to mark this book then go back and finish how I was studying my other Book of Mormon, marking the 5 missionary lessons. I left off in Alma 32. But I LOVE the Book of Mormon. It is the best. Especially 1 and 2 Nephi. Nephi teaches with such clarity and his teachings are SO COOL.

Well, that's all for now!! Have a great week!!

Elder Russell




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