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.