prophets

Love in Hebrew is Ahava and simply means 'to give'. Me and another missionary were thinking today about how when you exercise diligently your appetite and desires that would make you unhealthy seem to fade away. Like after working out we didn't want sweets or fatty foods. You want healthy food. It's kind of the same with godly things. When you put in the diligence in labors of God's ways (or the way of love), the unrighteous and prideful desires/feelings will fade away and your desire will change to the God's desire. It all starts with doing His will.
Man, I just got that package y'all sent. First off, thanks. second, I cannot believe how different Jacob looks. He looks like Johnny! 

That's cool with the truck. That'll be really nice for pulling the trailer for the hay rides at como springs. (right dad?) Also with the Merriman's. I might need a pink bike to ride when I get home to get back in shape haha. Speaking of getting in shape. Guess what we did for our district meeting this morning? Boxing Club!! ha, ya we have this member in our ward that invited us to come because it was free the first time. They led us all in this crazy workout. It kicked my butt! Boxing is an intense sport! 

So this week went really good. It was very busy and pretty stressful but good. 

Some of the people we're working with:

Ben: he's still really struggling with the Word of Wisdom. He's really awesome and has some good intent. But I think he just needs a little more understanding. When we met with him last time he was like, "Elder's, I think I'm really starting to understand this Word of Wisdom thing (as he was smoking and drinking tea) haha we're still working with him on that.

Hilario: Getting ready for Baptism! He's way awesome. He comes up with some very good questions. Here's a little something for y'all to do, I'll ask you one of his questions and answer it how you would in the next email/letter you send, "So, with all of the people that lived before Jesus, the Atonement hadn't happened yet, so how did they repent and stuff?" 

It's way fun to talk with him.

Louis: When we met with him last he was like, "guys, I'm sorry you're going to be mad probably, but I'm gonna need another one of those books... I have a good friend that was deported to Afghanistan so I gave it to him and told him 'man read this book, it's true and it if you have questions maybe I can answer them or if I can't i know who can'. (this is someone that we had only taught one lesson!) during our first lesson with him after we talked about prophets he was like, "I was thinking about prophets today because there happened to be a documentary thing on tv about prophets so they were on my mind". then after the lesson he talked about how he and his wife were kind of in a rough spot because she needed a job really bad so he asked us to pray that she'd get one. The next day we saw him and he told us how she got called for some interview and now has several asking for other interviews. Sometimes those kind of miracles don't seem as big when it's not you personally but for louis this was a huge miracle. God really does care about us. 

Last one is Martin:

Martin is a chef at this way fancy restaurant. He was praying one day that his family would be able to come closer together and to God and later that day we showed up. A lot of cool miracles like this have been happening.

Anyway, I'm runnin a little short on time. But thanks for all of the letters and emails and stuff. I love y'all. Hope you have a great week!!

Love, Elder Russell