good Samaritan / have a "blessed day"

I like the quote that is a good Christmas quote, are you guys doing the "He is the Gift" thing? it seems really cool that the Church would try to tell everyone about the whole meaning of Christmas. I really love that video even though if I wasn´t a member it would seem a little interesting. You guys can watch it on your ipads as you drive around in your spaceships, I think it will be a little bit before we get ipads here. I know they are going to do some kind of change soon in the mission starting January, I have no idea what it could be.

     This week was another good week, I really feel like I am learning how to follow the Spirit better and I still have a lot to learn. 

This week was good, but regularly good, like every week. One thing I remember is we help a hobo guy yesterday, we were just walking and walked past a guy just laying on the sidewalk and I think we said hi but then my companion said we could get his reference and teach him later, many times these kind of people want to change, as we were talking to him we noticed his arm was bleeding and a little part of his foot seems to be missing, so my companion asked him if he needed help obviously he did, he had the look of that in his eyes- they were red, so we offered to call the police and stuff but we ended up getting him some water and brought him some food from our house. that was all yesterday and we saw him today on a park bench a couple benches away than the one yesterday so I guess he is making progress, the sad thing is the police and some of the people that walked by already know him as a drug addict of some sort and he drinks too so they don´t bother to much to help him. that is what is sad is if you want to help him like a good Samaritan you have to help heal his head not just his body., I thought that was cool that we could at least help him a little bit, we gave him our number so he could call us if he finds a phone i guess he doesn't really have a house either, i dont think he cares that much but he probably does want to change and he can if he has faith in Christ, we were talking with two other people like that after we gave a blessing to a sick guy the day before I think. we were just walking along and they called us over to share some of God´s word. They had faith to change, we invited them to church and they never came so we just need to follow up. We got to share some scriptures with them and explain that it is possible through Jesus Christ. one thing cool about that is they happened to be on the very edge of our area, I was really hoping they were in our area and I figured that out after the lesson. and this lady has a daughter that wants to be baptized that is 9, we will see how that goes. It is good to here what is happening up there. it is hard to imagine snow, I was thinking about that today as I grabbed something out of the freezer.
love ya, Elder Seffker

This week we had our ward Christmas party. It went really well. I love our ward. The members are awesome. I feel like I know the ward well now. Sometimes it's hard to get that feeling after being transferred. The members are so helpful though. 

We had a challenge given by our stake president a while ago to finish the Book of Mormon by Christmas and when I got transferred here in this area I had to make some goals so that would be able to happen. I love reading and learning in the little spare time we get as missionaries--I have a binder full of cool ensign articles by Hugh Nibley and a bunch of other good talks and excepts from manuals and I always read out of it. The other night I had a little time and I wanted to read an interesting article or something before we had to get ready for bed but I felt that I should read the Book of Mormon instead even though I had read the portion I needed to read for the day to hit my goal to finish by Christmas. I decided to read and read Ether 4. I felt after reading that there is such an amazing power in the Book of Mormon. Articles, talks, and manuals are great! but nothing can produce the effect that the Book of Mormon has when the Spirit is there. I love that Book. Ether 4 is an amazing chapter too! I hadn't realized that before. 

this week we've been working a lot with less-active members. I've felt over and over again that that's where we need to focus at this time in this ward. We've been trying to work with all the families that aren't coming but are close--many of which have family members who aren't members. We're helping a non-member husband of a lady in our ward with some Christmas decorations this Friday. He's really against the Church but he's a great guy and really nice. 

Well i'm outta time but ya'll have a "blessed day" (as Texans say).

love, Elder Russell

God has everything all worked out / learn to enjoy facing your challenges and trust in God

This week I'm emailing on Tuesday because we went to the temple this morning. I loved it. It's always great. We have had some great days this past week. I love being a missionary. I love everything about it. I was thinking about it the other day and the missionary schedule is so awesome! being able to study so much and have time to keep things organized and set and track goals. It might sound odd but I wish I could continue to have this kind of schedule ( i think I'll definitely keep a lot of parts of it). Anyway, on to the update for the week: We have this couple we've been teaching. They're a young newly wed couple and the girl is pregnant and they're having a rough time right now it seems. Their apartment when you walk in is completely empty. We wanted to help them out and the other day we were riding our bikes down the road and stopped to talk to a guy who was in his driveway. He started, "I don't need Jehovah's Witnesses." we told him we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints and he said, "I don't need help from Mormons." We started talking to him more and found out he had rented out the house he was in front of and the tenants left some of their furniture in it and he said things were going really rough in life for him right now and nothing was working out. He said the problem was that he didn't know how he would get rid of the furniture. He wanted to throw it away. We told him we could help him out. We called up President Monson and he helped us out and drove a truck over on saturday to load up the furniture. (by the way, President Monson is our Elder's quorum president). We gave the furniture to Maria (the girl whose apartment was empty). It's awesome how God has everything all worked out. We had a great lesson the other night with a guy named Mike. We have this awesome member (Brother Allison) who came with us. He is such a good missionary! He fellowships investigators really well too. Mike accepted to be baptized and I think he will get baptized. He has good intent. He's a great guy. On Sunday we had dinner at the Allison's house and invited an investigator named Abla and a less-active named Nathan. It was great. After dinner we watched the Christmas Devotional on tv. That was a great Devotional. 

Well, I hope y'all have a good week! Don't forget to read, pray, and be your best.

 I love y'all,

Elder Russell

Today is kind of an interesting day, lots of people go to this place to adore the virgin Mary, i think they think she appeared in that city

Yeah the language is coming along good, my new companion is from columbia, for some reason when I translate what he is saying in my head, sometimes it sounds like he is British, he is pretty cool. I am still in the same area as I was with my last companion. it seems like it was a while ago when I changed companions it really was like 5 days ago. I am learning probably at a faster rate now than I ever had at home, at least in weeks of time, the Lord has really blessed me. I am not just learning Spanish, as you have said living the gospel seems to sharpen all of your abilities. one thing I liked about my last companion is he seemed to visit people because he loved them not so he could write another tally mark, I remember visiting a few people with him that we just visited because they were old or crazy or something, not so we could get higher numbers. I thought I would be more scared or stressed if I ended up getting left here with someone new because I would have to remember things about the area and people. but the time came and I felt more ready, it is interesting how that happens because sometimes a while back I would have the same feeling unless me having the responsibility wouldn´t fall through, I remember before the change I just felt calm kind of cool because I was talking about grace in my prayer the night before, that really is a blessing to feel calm like that. To live a happy and peaceful life here on earth your not going to be able to just avoid every problem you are going to have to learn to enjoy facing your challenges and trust in God. I feel that over this past while I have become just a little bit more brave or faithful, better at not believing in the lie of fear and all that. One thing I like about my companion now is that he likes to obey an important rule in missionary work, a rule that some missionaries who are known to obey the rules seem to skip out on sometimes, the rule to enjoy the rules. the rules are the blessings but we cant enjoy them if we dont look around, if we dont try to have a good atitude it is like we didnt do anything, I think there is a scripture about that somewhere. 

Love you

Elder Seffker

The weather today is really good, it sort of looks like it is about to rain and has some wind. My companion speaks english as good as me  and is from Orem, Ut.  another cool thing that has happened this week is that I have started to think some words in Spanish naturally, and my english is changing very slightly

  yeah our culture is actually pretty different it is funny because my comp talks fluent spanish too, his family is from mexico so he has sort of two cultures it seems like.

This week was a good one we did this thing they called ´´casa abierta´´ it is just our chapel´s official name i guess but anyway it was pretty cool, we got to give people somewhat of a tour through the church and then ask them for some references. We didnt have too many people come but I still thought it was fun, this week we did that and mostly the regular stuff, finding people. After the casa abierta thing this lady dropped a cane on the members needing to do more missionary work, me and my companion thought it was alright though it is true, if every one were like mom the church´s attendance would explode but the thing I guess i am saying is just take the little opportunities to do missionary work and you will find it is not so hard or even scary.  Love ya Elder Seffker

We finally got a picture of Elder Seffker and the missionary in front of him has his arm in his face.. Oh well, the rest of him looks good! Ha Ha 

A frog from Paraguay!!

This week was great. We had a good thanksgiving. We started it out by playing some football at a park with some guys from the ward. We were going to play soccer and I was way excited too--especially because our friend richard from nigeria (who played professional soccer div. 1 in Nigeria) was going to play with us.. but no one brought a soccer ball. But it was still fun. It's pretty embarrassing but I was a little bit sore from it the last few days. Anyway, then we ate with the slack's. They're an awesome family. It was fun to be over there. Sister slack is amazing at the organ. She plays it really well in church. She's really good. She even knows the Mormon tabernacle organists and stuff. 

We had a good lesson with a guy named Diego this week. He had some good questions when we met with them and I feel like they were efficiently answered (sometimes I don't feel like that happens haha). I love the scriptures. We also met with this guy named Jesse. He's really old. We met with him the first time and went over to meet with him yesterday and he was out racking leaves. He's 87 so it was surprising to see what he had done. He was over by his neighbors yard doing it. He's a really good guy. We helped him out. Later we had a lesson with him. He's kind of interesting. He says he gets letters from aliens and he mostly reads from the Urantia instead of the Bible and hasn't opened up the Book of Mormon yet (the Urantia is a book that I guess would best be classified as psuedopigrypha--kind of an interesting sounding book). But he's a good guy. Pray for him. Well sorry I gotta go. Love y'all. Check out christmas.mormon.org. It's a new thing the church is doing. 

love, elder russell

uh.. maybe a little / feel the Spirit again

So now my companion is Elder Sika! He's from Tonga. He's awesome. We had a good week. it's been kinda rainy but luckily it got a bit warmer. It was back in the 70's and the 80's. On thursday we had dinner with this awesome family named the Trevino's. They made a ton of really good spaghetti. They loaded up our plates and I didn't think I would be able to eat half of it when I first saw it. But I endured a finished it off and was soooo full! My companion ate as much as me and they said, "elder Sika, do you want more?" He was even full but said, "uh.. maybe a little." they gave him a lot more. so anyway, when we left we were sooo full! and then we went to our next appointment who was this awesome guy named Basil and it was at his girlfriends house who is a member. I had forgotten but they said they were going to feed us as well. So by the end of the night we were really really full. well, great update huh? haha we also did other stuff besides eat but I don't have time.. whoops.. sorry

love, Elder Russell

This week has been another good week, we had some good lessons, I think I learned a lot. We ended up teaching a less active member in a really cool lesson, his name is Carlos. he still has not gone to church even though it seems like every time we go he says he will, I think really he is just scared of going back to some of the members but all in all has a desire to come back and feel the Spirit again in his life. anyway we ended up taking a member with us he is a really cool guy, he was baptised when he was ten or so and went inactive after about 7 months, later he got a girl friend and eventually one time they pretty much asked each other why they weren't living the Gospel so they became active years later but now they seem to be strong in the church, any way we took this guy to visit carlos and it turns out they actually knew it each other, they might work together and they happened to be active at the same time, both when they were about ten or so i think, im pretty sure carlos is in the same situation he just hasnt yet decided to come back. they both could relate really good and we had a good lesson, this week was just a really good week as always so far my spanish is getting better and the things I am learning I wouldn't have imagined myself knowing now just a week or two before. the Lord really blesses us with things as we are able to receive it. also this week i almost stepped on a stick bug, they are really cool bugs, that was i think the first time i have seen one ever in real life, it looks simply like a stick, a little twig, i am glad my companion told me before i stepped on it.
they dont have healthy cereal here at a cheaper price it, another interesting thing is they dont have peanut butter here, if they do it is really expensive. i have never seen a tortilla shell here either. yet they do have something here i really like, mangos, they have a ton of them except they are a bit different here, they are more like celery, they have some cool fruits, they other day I ate this watermelon,cantelope,pumpkin looking things juice it is pretty good, they have another fruit that a lot of people like i am not sure how to spell it but it looks like a tiny watermelon and it grows on trees.
  we go to the mission home pretty much for changes only, when we get mail it is typically from the president and his assistants bringing the mail to our area every month, i actually got a package recently with some cool Christmas things so I only used the things that were already unwrapped, but I checked the side and it sounds like there is some pretty cool stuff in there, i liked the pen!! 
Thanks so much!  
Love ya all.
Elder Seffker

It's the best way by far! / gift of faith

This week turned out really good! It has been a huge pay-off of the work and efforts we've been putting in. God's blessed us a lot this week. We had two people come to church. One is from Jordan, he's cool. The other's name is Demitrick. He's awesome. We have the best member that fellowshipped him. His name is Brother Allison. He is actually the one who we live with. Him and his wife build our apartment (a room above their garage) for the purpose of being more involved with the missionaries. They're an awesome couple. Anyway, brother Allison was with us when we taught Demitrick and he was great to have at the lesson! He was able to relate to him so well and share a lot of good things with him about eternal families and the blessings he and his wife have had from the gospel. It was really touching hearing him talk about those things. He's such a good guy. He then invited Demitrick to church and gave him a ride. after church on Sunday we ate lunch with the Allisons and Demitrick came then we taught him. It was a really spiritual lesson. We had another really good experience with another member. Brother Alexander came with us to teach a guy named Kelly. It was amazing how close he could relate to the person we were teaching. Members have to be involved in missionary work! It's the best way by far! I love working with the members too. We have awesome members.

Well, we got transfer calls this morning and my companion Elder Chamberlain is getting transferred. I will find out who my next companion will be on Wednesday at transfer meeting. I'll let y'all know who it is next week.

Love y'all!

Elder Russell

p.s. It's getting cold now! it was 49 degrees the other day and with the humidity it feels pretty cold. Luckily this week it's supposed to go back up to 70's.

My week was really good, We had a division on Thursday so I stayed in our area as we switched companions for a day, I really learned a lot, I think it was a good lesson of  confidence for me. We all have a huge capability to serve and I think most times we are just too satisfied where we are at and not happy enough where we are at too. Well anyway on the division I wasn´t sure I could navigate around the area that well but actually I just tried to have a good attitude and do my best and it turned out that I didn't really get lost ever. Also I ended up seeing another blessing when we found a house that we have been looking for for a while. She is a new investigator where we just forgot where she lived. That tends to happen in a place without addresses. I found the house because we happened to pass by her on the division while she was walking past her house. Her house is sort of hidden behind two trees. A day or two later we went by to see if she was at her house and she wasn't so we went to the next house, and tried there, usually that doesn't happen but my companion said these people were looking at him in a different way so that is why he tried it. We ended up finding two more investigators. One of them seems to be really interested in the Gospel. She said it was sort of like a sign to her that we came because recently she has been thinking about some of the bad things going on in her church. She also seemed fairly excited to pray to know if the church is true. It is always great when you meet people with a gift of faith. Also this week I gained a greater testimony of fasting, and that we have the commandments to help us. That is how we should feel when we keep them. The best way to keep them is with love for Heavenly Father. We can always learn more by keeping them until we know everything. I don't have too much time but that is something I was able to share with a less active member on the division that I think might really help him D & C 93. 28 is a scripture that talks a bit about that and the scripture I shared with him was in alma 32. We need to keep the commandments to progress. It is that simple!!
Love ya Elder Seffker 

Saviors love for him / learning things still but in a greater quantity

 I ended up giving a talk on Sunday it went pretty well. It was about five minutes short of 15 min. but I felt like it was okay for only having a couple hours to prepare. Back at home it would have taken me more than that. The topic I felt like doing was interesting. Keeping the Sabbath Day holy is what I felt like doing.  I think the first commandment I remember learning was this. I was really little but I remember it pretty well. I was waiting around on a Sunday thinking about the new mario kart game we got for the n64 the day before. I remember that it looked really fun so I asked Mom if I could play it even though it was Sunday. She told me to say a prayer.  That is the part that I remember well.  I said, "can I play this game today?" I got the answer no so I asked again. Again, "no" so I just said yes in my head and persuaded myself I got the answer yes. After that all I really remember was blurry... because I got in a fight with someone else that wanted to play probably. That experience seems kind of dumb but to me it actually taught me a lot about keeping the Sabbath Day and of course about praying with real intent.

     An interesting experience...we were going to Estanizlou´s house. He is a recent convert. He said he had a surprise for us which is not surprising at all around here. He said to come over to his house. We get there and he has a little bag hanging up. He tries to dump out what looks like a dead frog. It was alive barely. It was a special kind of frog that looks cool. It inflates as its defense and it is poisonous.  When at his house  we get a call, it is one of the sister missionaries crying and it sounds like she got robbed or something. She is talking to my companion here on the phone but I can hear. Some preacher guy went to these two elderly people´s house and has been there since yesterday. Now remember these people are like  85 so I´m pretty sure maybe 90 and this Chinese preacher is staying at their house. He won´t leave even though they told him to so me and my companion leave the frog thing and go there. The sister missionaries were doing the arrangements for them to get married soon and this week we were going to go to the interview.  We start walking toward the house and meet up with the Hermanas. One of them is crying and the other looks the same way. Of course we have seen some over reactions in the past so this doesn´t exactly say the preacher is violent or anything like they explained it to be. Then a gold car pulls up and this Chinese preacher guy and his caddy boy or assistant start telling us a bunch of annoying things that barely make any sense. We pretty much watch him and then my companion says a few things and eventually he gets back in his car and drives away. Our branch president shows up on his motto. He was going to the interview too. Now before this happened I could feel the Spirit tell me things are all good. At this time the Spirit prompted me that now we would go to the more important part. We showed up at their house, sung a nice hymn and talked a little bit. It was a completely different feeling than before. You can´t really feel any love during contention. In the gospel we preach all about that. Christs love is the sort of light that shines out things of darkness. Serving is the way we teach that I would say. Anyway, they will get baptized later. They still have to get ready with some things. Hopefully they choose to do that.

     

    Also I had a cool experience a couple days earlier. It was really a simple one. The gospel is simple. Truth by itself I believe is simple but the lies are what directs us away from the truth. That is why we need to live on the pure truth and the important truth. Anyway though, we were in a visit with a really cool member, her name is Agueda. I´m not sure how to spell her name. She recently has started to activate and I think she has a strong testimony but we were talking with her and some one passing on the street said something interesting like, ´´I need to eat the devils leaves´´ something weird and probably slightly innocent due to some mental problems. This guy asked if he could come in, apparently Agueda had known who it was because she let him come and visit with us. We ended up listening to him quote some scriptures or something that sounds similar. It was hard to tell but eventually we went to the scripture in the Bible where it talks about the lost sheep and how the Savior loves everyone. I remember thinking about the life of the man who was visiting with us. He probably doesn't have a lot of friends and doesn't understand what is going on well. He walks the street with his walking stick and in his head probably does well at his job. Maybe he has a family that helps take care of him maybe not so much. I think I felt just a little bit of the Saviors love for him, I know that He loves all his sheep and I am glad that He came and talked to us. Life as President Monson says is ´´perfect for none´´ so basically the thing we should be focusing on is what can we do that the Savior would,  rather than what we see missing in other people. Well I love you guys see ya later 
Elder Seffker

This week I'm just gonna give a brief update. It was a fast week.

One of the highlights was that we went to the temple as a mission. We had to divide our mission into 4 groups and go 4 different days. We went on Friday. It was really good. I love the temple. I have been reading a lot of scriptures about the temple that have helped me learn a lot. I've also been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately. This stake that I got transferred into was committed by the stake President to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and so it pushes me a lot to read more than usual. I love that book. I am surprised that it seems I'm learned more now as I read through it than I learned last time and the times before that I've read it. Not only am I learning things still but in a greater quantity each time. Last night we had a ward mission fireside put on by our ward mission leader at a member's house. A member taught about biblical evidence of the book of Mormon. It was really good. We had a couple non-members there and some less-actives and others. I love the members in this ward. They are so great.

Well, I love y'all and hope you have a good week!

love, Elder Russell

perfect timing / Spirit is the teacher

This past week has been great. It went way too fast. It's getting a lot cooler now down here. One morning it was 50 degrees! But then during the day it gets back up to the 70's. Man, that's too chilly!

So this last week we got to do some good service. One project we helped sister Shong (a member from my first ward on the mission) at a prairie behind a school. It was so good to see her! Her and her husband were some of the most amazing members in that ward. It was really great to be there again. I don't know if I mentioned that my area is next door to my area that I started out in the mission in. Another project we helped out with was at a girlscout program thing. We were at a station teaching the girls how to do lashing. Elder Chamberlain and I had to brush up a bit on how to do it before. I can't believe how many knots I forgot haha. I guess I didn't know a ton before but... It was really good though except we didn't get any girlscout cookies.

We also had a really good lesson with a guy named Adrian. We had an awesome member there with us. Adrian really wants to change his life around but he seems to be wanting to talk about it more than do it.

The other night we had a really cool experience. We had previously gone through some really old records of people missionaries had seen in this area. We pulled out a few names that we felt we should try. One of those names was a lady who we tried lastnight. We stopped by and she welcomed us in. She said she didn't know why the missionaries stopped coming but it had been about a year. She was going through a really hard time in life and it was perfect timing for us to come by.

On Saturday we ate dinner at brother Ajayi's house. He fed us Fufu. (I don't know exactly how to spell it. It's a food they eat in Nigeria). It was really good. It's a type of potatoe thing mashed up into a substance with a similar texture to bread dough. You put meat and sauce over it. The meat included some other intestines and stuff but it was way good. It was pretty spice which made it even better. Brother Ajayi is awesome.

We also had a ward trunk or treat on Wednesday. That was good. It's great to be around everyone in the ward.

Well. I love y'all! Have a good week.

Elder Russell

So  Mom yeah the missionary work is going really good, I would say you are right, you can not teach people unless you love them, because really the Spirit is the teacher and if you dont try to really help them then it is not going to go as well, yeah Daniel is doing really good i think, i fasted that he would be able to come to church and he came it was really cool, him me and my companion and another recent convert named estanizlou fasted for that last week too. this week estanizlou got to pass the sacrament for the first time. ha i hope that retainer makes it someday  love you Elder Seffker