Pulling off my best Kody Brooks/Tanner Hales face
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.
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