Justice and Mercy and the Atonement

This week was a great one. I'll go over a few of the highlights:

Wednesday I was on exchange with one of the other missionaries in the district and we had a pretty good day. I was thinking about how unique some people's names are down here. We met a guy whose name was 'Power' and then talked to another guy whose name was 'Godspower.' then there are just a ton of other cool names. I love it haha.

We bought Hilario some hot coaco to sub in instead of coffee haha. It's working. He's doing pretty good. Still  working towards baptism.

We went to go visit Ben and he wasn't home so I started talking to one of the guys that live with him and his name was Richard. we of course started talking about his religious beliefs and he was into peaganism. We started talking more about it with him and I asked him about his views of God and who He is and the nature of Him. How He is all loving and perfectly fair and just and honest. Then the conversation went on and on about Justice and Mercy and the Atonement and then into the Priesthood and the Apostacy and the took a weird twist into God's light, and how it overcomes darkness and gives knowledge. It was a great lesson. Richard had some pretty crazy stories. He said at one point of his life he was really wanting to know his purpose and so he was living in a tent at the time and he did a weeklong fast and he got an answer that to be happy he had to change the way he was living. It was kind of interesting. But anyway. We met some other pretty interesting people that I wish I had time to talk about but I guess I'll just leave ya hanging cuz I'm outta time.

Love y'all, Have a Great week!

Elder Russell

"Some pics of us at the boxing club and in front of the great and abominable church... (Lakewood) haha"

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

"Elda? das my name!"

Man, we need some members like mom here! Those are the kind of people
we pray for haha. Did she really have refugees over at the house? When
I come home I'm going to have to go to the refugee centers just to
talk to all of them and feel like I'm in Houston again.
Scott and the scouts went to bountiful mountain? Huh, I didn't really
know there were a lot of camping sights up there. that's really cool. Who's driving the gold taurus now by the way (or did you
sell it to get Moroni on his mission?).. (just kidding--from the RM if
you didn't catch on but I think you did). Anyway, sounds like the
missionary work is going great in the area. How often do you meet the
missionaries and how often do they--if they have--come to visit?
School's all started up today huh? Man, the summer went by pretty
fast... that's weird to think.
Mom, That's really good to hear about Chloee's mom. I will add her and
CC to my prayers. I can't believe how much missionary work you're
doing! We need some of that fire with our members. We do have some
good members in the area but it's just really awesome what I hear
you're doing.
So this week has been really good. I'm trying to think back of when
the beginning of the week was and it feels like it was a month ago. We
got to do a lot of service with the members of the ward. One of the
projects was another Eagle project for a young man. It was in an area
called 'Third ward' (or 'Sunnyside') (It's a lot like the 'Sunnyside'
from Toystory 3 haha). It was fun though. We scraped paint off of this
house and then repainted the whole thing. It turned out really good.
With another project we got to help put together packages for homeless
Vets. The packages has tolietries and some kitchen supplies and stuff
so when they go to the homeless Vet center and are given a room they
have something to start out with. (here's a link for some pictures and
stuff: http://blot.chron.com/mormonvoice/2013/08/mormons-aid-community-in-helping-homeless-veterans/
).
On Saturday we got to help a member in our ward with some gardening at
an Elementary school. It was pretty fun. Those pitctures I sent in
that earlier message are from it.
So I don't know if y'all remember Hilario, but we'd been working with
him for quite a while. The other day he texted us and said that he
made the choice that he wanted to be Baptized. He had been thinking
about this for at least a month. It was an amazing miracle.
I'll tell you a couple more highlights before I gotta go. The other
day I was with Elder Lupton (not my normal companion because we did an
exchange, which is when you switch companions for a day). and we were
talking to this lady about the church and Elder Lupton was doing a
really good job and I looked over at him and saw this huge crazy
looking ant on the middle of his collar, right above where the knot of
the tie is, and he was like, "wait, is there something you wanted to
say?" (because he noticed I had something on my mind.) and then the
huge ant crawled into his shirt so I knew it'd be kinda weird if I
described what happened so I just said, "...uh no"... and then when we
stopped talking to the lady I told him a huge ant just crawled down
his shirt and he started patting everywhere and finally we found it.
it was funny in the moment though.
Later while I was with him we were teaching this cool guy we met the
Restoration in his home and at the end of his lesson he was asking us
about our names. (we always get the people like, "whoa, is y'alls
brothas? ya both had the same names Elda?) so I started to explain the
usual answer we give, "No no, we're not, we just go by "Elder" while
we're on our missions. It kind of means, "missionary", (then I said
something I shouldn't have) "It's not a real name of course haha".. ..
then his girlfriend peeked out around the corner and was like, "Elda?
das my name!".. ya, I haven't met anyone else whose name was Elder
even though I've heard every other crazy name you could think of so
... whoopsi daisy. I guess I won't assume things like that anymore.
And then we also got to teach the word of wisdom to our drunk
Investigator and his high roomates.. that's always interesting.
So it was a good week. Thank you so much for the package and the
email. Mom, that granola was AMAZING! that is the best granola I've
ever had. thanks for the letters too. I love hearing from y'all.
Love ya guys, Have a good week!
Elder Russell

miracles just from opening the Book up and reading little portions

Hey mom, good to hear from you. Ya it's cool to be able to get a few emails back and forth while i'm on here from ya:) I'll send the main email in a bit. Thank you SO much for the zucchini bread! I am so excited to get it, i was craving that! seriously!
SOooo, Here's a quick list of some highlights this week.

We got this awesome referral as a text that told us about this guy saying something like, "Ben... Has read the Book of Mormon and is ready to be Baptized" so we head on over to his house and get to know him and he is awesome. Something about him just lets me connect with him (it might be the Erassure poster hanging on his wall, or the fact that he's living like its the 80's) anyway, he's really cool. He hasn't read all of the Book of Mormon yet but he's working on it. He says that every time he reads things just always work out. He's seen miracles just from opening the Book up and reading little portions. 

We got to do a lot of service this week. We helped a kid named Josh with his eagle project. We took out some flower beds at an Elementary school so it would look less 'girly'. (then we put in some new ones). Then we helped put together care packages for homeless veterans in another project. Then we helped one of the ward members with a neighborhood project where we cleaned up this land that the neighborhood shares and uses as a backyard. It was a really cool project. We got to meet a lot of the neighbors and get to know them. We're working with the members a lot more. Our mission President has put a big emphasis on Member-missionary work and service. It's been a good week. Well... I gotta get going I don't have a lot of time. Thanks for the email. And thanks so much for yr'alls packages and letters, I love reading them! I love you guys. Have a good week.

Elder Russell