I know that it is true

Hey fam! thanks for the emails, letters, packages for my birthday! I loved getting them all. I'll have to send you a picture later because I don't have my camera with me today but I wore the apron while making Pho (a vietnamese soup) and made my comps jealous. This last week has been really good. I'm sure y'all heard about the announcements made through the broadcast. They aren't in act yet. there's an 18-month roll-out, so within that time we will have our church building open all day every day with a set of missionaries in there to be in charge of activities and teaching going on i guess. That's my understanding for it now but I don't know exactly yet. 

A cool miracle that happened this week was that we fasted on tuesday for a young boy that a set of Sister missionaries are teaching in our ward named Barakette. He was having some family difficulties in being baptized and yesterday we found out that his dad is letting him be baptized now. Another Miracle happened on Tuesday. That morning I was thinking really hard about what we would be teaching Hilario and I was praying a lot about it. Finally I just decided on the lesson and also that we would read Alma 34 with him. During the lesson he was able to talk to us about some of his concerns and questions about the Gospel and Prophet and we asked him to think about the questions as he read with us. While we were reading the Spirit bore a very strong witness to all of us of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I noticed while reading that every thing I wanted to teach him about was taught perfectly in Alma 34. After we finished we asked Hilario if he had had answers to his concerns and questions. He said "yes, about the Book of Mormon. I know that it is true. I can feel it. When I don't read it is when I started getting concerns about it but whenever I read it I feel and know that it is true." We've had a lot of other miracles this week but I'm really short on time today so I'll have to tell y'all later. I've been spending a lot of time on the topic of 'charity' lately. It's an amazing topic. It can be taken VERY deep haha. but I've learned that it is the most dominant and defining attribute of God. 

"Let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him" (1 John 4:7-9). "and above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness" (Col. 3:14) Thanks for everything, I gotta get going. Love y'all

Elder Russell