Missionaryman: fast and testimony meeting / by grace I progress

This week is probably going to be a little short but it was a great week! Zayneb got confirmed on sunday and Tariq got baptized. Next week Brenda is probably going to be baptized. Trish came to church again and this sunday was fast and testimony meeting. I gave her a note at the first of sacrament meeting that explained what fast and testimony meeting was and she leaned over and asked me if she could go up. I told her of course and she bore her testimony! It was really good. She seems to really be progressing. Sunday evening she called us and asked if we could come by and teach her more (usually we're the ones that have to set up the appointments haha). She's so awesome. We went to primary to help Brenda to feel more comfortable. She's 9 years old. Man, primary was so fun! I love that class. First off I was so impressed at the 9-year olds sitting in front of us! They were so smart. They were answering questions better than the guys do in priesthood. (not to discredit the elders but to compliment the kids). Second, its fun being around the kids. While we were singing "the wise man built his house upon the rock" they were all doing the actions and at the part where you have your fist pounding on your other flat hand one kid was just banging it on his head. At another point they were playing this game where you through a bean bag into a muffin tin with papers with song names on them and whichever one you through it into was the song we sang next. When one kid got up it may as well have been payton manning throwing the bean bag in. I think he must have thrown it 60 mph. haha and while he was doing that another kid said, "just miss it so we don't have to sing!" then a kid turned around that was in front of us and showed the teacher a picture of a dragon (the kind that I used to draw in second grade) and said, "could you imagine this destroying your face?"). haha Sorry this probably all proves that I haven't grown in maturity at all but those kids were so funny. We loved it. And Brenda did too I think haha.

Well I love y'all. Farewell. I'll probably not email next week. Maybe but most likely not.

-Elder Russell

I'm really old in the mission. The stress has greyed out my hair.

We eat a lot--hibatchi grill

Elder Seffker writes:
So what happened this week? well lots of things I think my highlight would be when I felt the Spirit this week, http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/collection/come-unto-christ/standards-education-the-glory-of-god-is-intelligence I just watched this video and realized the Lord has blessed me with more intelligence. I can understand it with or with out the words. The Gospel can be similar in your lives. We will all face trails and we can be ready to face things like Nephi. He never did sit down and say, "aw man I cant hunt now and everyone is putting the blame on me." He seems the be the realistic one. When the storm threatened the lives of his family and he got saved at the last minute he thanked the Lord. With the help of the Lord he gained the intelligence to build a boat. there was no boat when they got to the beach. We can learn things if we keep the faith. I am not perfect but my goal is to be better all the time, and by grace I progress. Jesus Christ did the same and now I can too. Jesus Christ is the only way Home. That I learned better in our zone conference, we are now trying to be obedient more as a mission.