Letter 6/24/2013

Well I sent some pictures of this week. One is of me and my zone last Monday the other is me my comp and my zls at our baptism of Donald and his niece and the last is the baptism of Camila. Only one of the baptism actually counted as a missionary baptism the one of Donald ( he´s right next to me in the picture he´s 20) . But we did our part to help all of them get baptized.

Well first I´m going to talk about the 2 girls. They are both only 8 years old and their families are members but we reactivated one of the families with Donald and also we taught all the lessons to the other little girl. So I felt pretty good about helping them come to baptism.

But the real story is about Donald. He has been meeting with missionaries for 3 years now and he said about 18 different missionaries have passed by. But until my comp and I came he never accepted the message. So the day of the baptism his niece was getting baptized with him at 630. So they all showed up at the church at 630 except Donald. We were calling him freaking out running all over town looking for him. But didn´t make any progress so at 730 the family just started the baptism of the niece without him. So we were there kinda sad and everything watching the baptism. The baptism ended and everything and the were getting changed when out of no where Donald called and said he was coming. So we ran over to our room called our Zls and told them to return (cause the left when Donald didn´t show) so we ran back and Zls returned and we all got back just in time for his baptism. It was awesome.

But the part even better was his testimony after his baptism. He gave like a 15 minute talk and he called me out by name and said he knew that I was a messenger sent from God and told everyone until I came he would have never have accepted the gospel. I was pretty dang grateful and happy for that and a little prideful.... It was awesome though it made me feel so good because literally like an hour ago I was soo sad and I never wanted to talk to Donald again for all the pain he put me through these past few weeks. But then he came and my sadness all left and everything was all good.

Oh also one night this week an alarm went off in one of the houses next to us at like 2 in the morning and the son of our pension (he´s an rm) freaked out and ran down to see if I was okay because he was afraid the robbers were going to kidnap the white kid living in the house. It was pretty funny because at the same time when the alarm rang I freaked out and ran upstairs to see if our family was okay and we ran into each other.

Gotta go, love you all!

Elder Russon

Letter 6/17/2013

HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD!!!!! AND.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVEY!!!!

Well I didn´t get changed. Not a SINGLE person in our zone got changed. I´m soooooo happy right now. I love this zone soooo much and I was sooo afraid that we were all going to leave. We have a baptism this week on Friday. His name is Donald. I swear this kid is more converted to his baptismal promise than I am. I´m sooo shocked that he is getting baptized though. He has had about 14 different missionaries that have visited him and taught him throughout his life and finally when me and my comp came along he started to accept the gospel. I feel super happy that I was able to be the missionary that helped him follow Christ but at the same time I know I really didn´t do anything.

Hopefully we can find some people that are super ready for the gospel.

Well the pictures I sent you guys is my zone as of a week ago and my gringo friends. Oh and the taller white girl is actually from mexico but lives in the mormon colony there!!!! Crazy right?

Well Hope that Dad had a great fathers day and hope that Davey will have a great bday. Love you alll CHOU!!! Well I gotta go. LATER!!!!!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 6/10/2013

HEY Everyone!!!

Well let´s seeee. This Sunday is changes soooo I might be changing areas. I really hope I don´t leave this area. This area is really hard and the work is pretty slow here but I love this area sooo much and my companion is awesome. But the next time I write I might be in a totally new place which would be sad but it happens. I´ve had a new companion every change so I want to be with my companion for more time.

So this week we had a tornado in Arequipa don´t know if you heard. It wasn´t very strong but I think a few people have died from it. Also there is this stadium near our house and the entire ceiling collapsed. Pretty crazy!

Also I´ve learned that I am now allergic to cats. I don´t know what happened I never had any problems with our cat Grounder or any other animals. But the other day I was playing with some cats and my eyes went all crazy itchy and started watering. Also my head started itching like crazy and my nose got all runny.  I don´t know why this has happened. Maybe I´m just allergic to the cats in Peru. I don´t know. But I´m still all good with dogs.

Well the pictures I sent you... one is of me chilling with this wolf dog that one of the members has. The other two are me with our cell phone. Pretty cool the cell phone right? I totally walk down the street with that in my hands like it´s no big deal.

Glad everything is going good with everyone. I´m still in my area with warm water right now. Hopefully I don´t leave to an area with cold water that would stink...

Well I don´t have anything else for you all today. Love you all. Thanks for all the emails and letters. They mean a lot to me. Well I gotta go. Love you all a lot. LATER!!!!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 6/3/2013

I got all your pictures from Sam, Mikey and Davey. Thanks for sending them they mean a lot.

Ohhhh a heat exposure in Towsley that an interesting call. I can imagine you running up the mountain with a oxygen bag.Wait what in the world does "turkey saved his life" mean... (Nancy's auto correct put turkey but was supposed to be gurney) Is turkey a person or did you give him turkey and he lived...haha. That is a really cool story though. But how did Turkey save his life. Lol. So which way did you guys go up Towsley the close way or the far way? 

I got all the photos from Mikey and Sam in NY and Davey with his cut. AHHHH man that picture of MIkey and Sam in front of my favorite show "How I met Your Mother" made me want to watch that show really badly.

Well this week not much happened. First off this area we are in is one of the hardest in the mission. The goal for our ward when I came here was 4 baptisms for an entire year. Which is, I´m pretty sure, the lowest in the mission. This area is really really hard. Everyone here is very very Catholic and NO ONE wants to listen to a thing we say. We are working a lot with the members so we can find some success but our numbers are really bad because of that. Oh and my comp is District Leader. So yesterday when we turned in our numbers we only had 2 people who accepted a baptismal date which is really bad in our mission. So our leaders like destroyed my poor companion over the phone. So I felt pretty bad. But other than the investigators not doing anything that´s about all we got for this week.

Tell Davey I got his email but I don´t have time to respond right now. But I´ll respond if I can and if not next week. But don´t worry I will be reading it today. 

Well thanks for everything. Love you all. Loved the pictures. Hope everyone is having fun out of school. Well gotta go. Love you all bye!!

Love Elder Russon