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

I really respect Leo because he used to be a drug lord

 After seeing some of the members here and hearing their conversion stories I have no doubt that anyone can change their lives and live the Gospel. That's really exciting to hear about Tara too. 

So this week has been really good. I will mention a few highlights but try to make them short because we are pretty short on time. So on Saturday we had a huge soccer game at a park with a bunch of members and their non-member friends as well as a guy we're teaching (and he's from Nicaragua so he can play pretty well). The game was way intense. Probably 70% of the people were foreigners (either refugees from Africa or people from somewhere in south or central america) that really knew how to play soccer and then there were some missionaries and a few white guys that were also way good. It was so much fun. Then when we were about an hour in it started to rain really hard. (so hard you couldn't see 75 ft in front of you). The field got all muddy and we still played. It was a blast. Later that night we helped set up and usher for an African wedding. It was pretty fun. The people were pretty energetic. The prayers were said a little different.. haha but it was fun. Then on Sunday we met with a pretty cool guy. His name is Leo, he's straight outta Jamaica and has huge long dread-locks. When he opened the door yesterday he was in the middle of putting them in his hair. He was twisting it together and then putting in this wax stuff with it and then clipping it. He's the biggest Bob Marley fan I've ever met. He looks like him and his whole walls are covered with posters of him. I really respect Leo because he used to be a drug lord and be very addicted to them. He decided though--at one point of his life--that he was done with it. That drugs and all of the other things he had gotten into had messed his life up. So he prayed to God and then he quit everything (drinking, smoking, drugs) cold turkey. He later had heart problems and had to have some intense surgeries and now has to carry big batteries that power a pump inside his stomach that regulates his blood. He has had a lot of trials but has an amazing testimony of God and a good knowledge base of Christian beliefs. He really loves to talk.. a lot. So during our lesson I just had to interrupt him every so often by asking him a question that would direct what he was saying towards the lesson we were trying to teach him. Then we'd try to add in a few things to what he said. He's way smart. Well, I gotta get going but thanks so much for the email again and for the cookie's and letters y'all sent! they were delicious! ..and the cookies were also good! Tell grandma and grandpa thanks for the beenie too! If I get heat-stroke from wearing it you can blame it on them.

Love y'all

Elder Russell 

most faithful people I've met

Thanks for the email Mom. Man, these pictures are making my pretty jealous. Good old 9th street! I'm glad no one messed up on the rock climbing knots haha. I found a piece of rope the other day and tied a few knots in it and I was glad I could still remember them. That's sad to hear that Mark left. He sounds like he was way awesome. I wish I would have been able to meet him. That's so cool how close y'all got. Jared and Nate are at high-altitude camp? You'll have to let me know how that goes. That's a way fun camp. I can't believe they have 55 of them going! I went on a run the other day and I've been scared that I lost my speed but I felt like I was cruising! (Probably just because I was running past all the Texan runners (no one knows how to run here)) Next transfer (which starts not this week but the next) me and my comp are planning on doing a cut-transfer and try to get in better shape. My goal is to be able to do a one-armed pull-up with my right and left arms, and to run more. Anyway...

We had an amazing week this past week. We've been blessed so much. Thanks for all of the prayers. We met so many new people to teach and it's pretty exciting. We met this awesome family the other day. We were going to visit this investigator we have that's from Congo but he wasn't there but his brother answered (who was like 13 years old) and we asked him if he had any friends that we could teach. He led us to his neighbor's house and they let us in. This family was from Zambia (south africa) they speak Swahili, Kinyarowanda, Nyanga, and a bit of English haha. The kids are awesome. We are going to start teaching their family and teaching their dad English. The kids came to church with us. The other day we brought them some cookies from a member that we had eatin dinner with and they weren't home so we gave them to some kids playing soccer and we played with them a little bit and they were way good. I told them they had to teach me some moves and they did haha. We talked to them about the Young Mens program at church and they said they'd come. We should have 4 come on Wednesday. We've also been teaching this awesome couple that also came to church. The wife is going through stim-cell transplant and it's pretty rough but they are some of the most faithful people I've met. They want to get baptized but we're trying to work it out because the treatment makes it pretty complicated. 

Anyway, the areas going really good. My district is doing way good too! At our meeting last week we were able to talk a lot about specific things that we could do to better our areas. I am pretty excited with the progress we've seen. THanks for all the prayers and packages/letters. Mom, I did get the cookies and they didn't taste like soap very much but kinda did. I still loved them of course. I don't know what it is... Maybe just the way they transport the boxes. Maybe try double or triple bagging them? Either way, thanks so much. I love you guys and hope you have a great week. 

Elder Russell

PS I love how you are emphasizing the goal setting Mom, that is such a good idea. Goals produce better results than we would think we could get. Thanks for the email.

I learned the Hebrew alphabet

Ya that guy with parkinsons is a really great example. He invites us to a place called 'Fiesta' (it's a grocery store with a ton of different foods from different cultures, I've never seen any white people in there besides us haha). But while we're there he always points out his friends and people he wants us to talk to. The other day he had us there for lunch and when we were talking he said, "look over behind you to that man and say 'Hola' to him" so we started talking and he ended up being a Christian-Jew and we 'discussed' a lot of different Gospel principles together.

So, on Saturday we had our ward cultural night (it's an activity we started planning about 2 months ago). We had people bring different foods from all over and they invited their neighbors and friends. It was way cool. We got to eat food from Liberia, Eritrea, Argentina, England, Tonga, Brazil, and a lot of other places. A popular food they eat in a lot of African countries is Kisuda. You take some of this flat-bread stuff (i forgot what it's called) and wrap it around some meat. It's really good. We also tried this weird drink from Brazil that pretty much tastes like hot water with grass in it...

Anyway. Random cool thing this week. I learned the Hebrew alphabet. One of the people we teach speaks it and told me I should learn it so I figured if we ask him to read, come to church, and pray, I could do something he wanted me to haha. There's also this member in our ward that is Mormon but he's kind of Jewish in a weird way too... So I was talking to him yesterday about Hebrew stuff in Genesis and I found out he's related to us! He's a discendant from the Belnaps. so that was pretty cool. But It's been a good week. Oh and Thank you for the package! I loved it, those swedish fish were great!

Hope y'all have a great week. Thanks for all ya do. I love ya.

Elder Russell

ask me about mormonism

Hey Fam, Did ya get my box full of junk that I sent with the Rees'? (Sorry it didn't have anything very exciting in it, I just really wanted to keep all those letters y'all sent me but was running out of room for them. I love reading those.) Sounds like a fun night at temple square, haha that's one of those stories that kind of makes me stressed out reading it, haha you have such a good attitude mom, I love you. I'm glad you still had fun. I think I might be able to empathize with you a little bit, a lot of times we spend good time planning our 'perfect day' but then everyone falls through on their appointments and different things come up haha, but in the end it works out. Grandma and Grandpa are home! That's so crazy! I can't imagine how good it was for them to see everyone and for everyone to see them! And to top it off with McDonalds! That sounds like an amazing night;) So Chloee pretty much goes with you everywhere it seems like! Man, I love that! that's way cool. Good to hear that Mark is doing really good still. That's also way exciting about the Wilburg's! I really like that family, I don't know if you remember but I home-taught them for a while. That really is just awesome! 

Well, this last week was pretty good! We've got to spend a little more time with the members. One family in particular I've really grown to love. They're an older couple (probably 70 or 80) but man, they are on fire with missionary work. The husbands name is Frank. He and she are both converts. He has a really interesting life story. I wish I could tell you it but because of time I don't think I can. Anyway, to describe him a little, he wears a 'ask me about mormonism' pin on his shirt everywhere he goes and gives pass-along cards to everyone! He has Parkinson's disease so it's really hard for him to talk and walk but he's always out and about. The main thing I love about him is his love for others. He took one member of the ward who converted and was kind of struggling in life and he made him his best friend. He takes him out to eat all of the time and involves him in his missionary work and now he's a solid great member of the ward who very well could have fallen away. Pres. Gordon B. Hinckly said that every member needs 3 things. The nourishment of the good word of God, A calling, and fellowship. 

On sunday when we were in Priesthood meeting we were introducing the visitors to the ward as usual and a few men stood up and said something probably like, "I'm from Utah, I got married, now I'm here." but one guy said, "I'm going through some hard times and probably with be here a while." I thought he was just a member visiting or something but we later talked to him and found out he had come down here to Houston from SLC with his brand new baby and wife and he sold everything to get down here and then they had some troubles and got divorced and now he's homeless and barely hanging in there. So he GPS'd a church and randomly found ours. We planned to start teaching him and the best part is a member in our ward was fellowshipping him since he arrived at church at went with him from each meeting. I thought they had known each other before with how well they got along. But it was just an awesome miracle. We are meeting with him this week, I'll let ya know how it goes. We also have an awesome activty for our ward this week. It's a cultural night where everyone that has any relation with a certain country brings a food dish from that country and there will be cultural activities and stuff. It'll be awesome since there are so many diversities here. I hope I get to eat something weird. Well, have a good week. I'll see y'all later! Love ya!

Elder Russell