Letter 5/27/2013

OHHHH MY GOSH!!!!! Man I would die for all that food and goodies (Gift box was returned home after 4 months in Peru's mail system). Well the good news is that I have my passport and everything now. Sooo if you do want to send me something I can pick it up now.

Pictures of my zone a few weeks ago, one of me with the baptism we had this saturday!!!!, and one of me playing on a swingset this morning.

Well first something cool that I think you should all know is that all the people in Peru think I am 30 years old. Everytime we meet someone they always ask us how old we are. And instead of telling them we ask them to guess. So this week we had some people tell me they thought I was 25 and 28 and one person said 30. No one ever says lower than like 24. But every time I tell them I´m only 19 they all freak out. They always think I´m lying. But yeah I just thought that was pretty awesome that I´m only 19 and the people here all think I´m like mid 20´s or 30.

So this baptism we had this week was crazy. His name is Diego. He is 9 years old and OH MY GOSH it was hard to baptize him. We literally had like a 5 hour baptismal service. So first when we were getting ready the baptism the bishop left town so we had to wait for him to come back so we didn´t start getting everything ready until 2 when the baptism should have started. So finally we got the keys and everything and we had the font filling up and heating and everything. Then we found out the keys to the baptismal clothes weren´t in the church. Some lady from our ward had it. So we were running all over our are looking for her and never found her. So we gave Diego some really really small shorts and he was like 12 sizes to big for these pants so he was like "NO WAY, get me new pants". So we ran over to our house to grab my comps pants and we run back and Diego tried them on. Now these pants were like 12 sizes to big for him. At this point it´s like 330 and Diego is not happy at all. He refused to leave the bathroom. So finally after talking with him for a long time we got him to change pants with me. So we switched pants and finally he was like yeah okay these are okay. So finally he left the bathroom. But now he was all afraid to be in front of the people so he refused to enter the baptism room. So we had EVERY single person at the baptism leave so he could enter the room without them watching him. Then they ALL came back after he was in the room. So finally we started the service and then we got to the actual water part. So I get in the water and we had forgotten to turn off the heater this whole time so the water was basically scolding hot. It literally hurt to get in. So I got in and I was like OHHH feels great. So he dips in his toe and he´s like " NO WAY!" I don´t want to get baptized lets go home. So his aunt who he lives with was like get in the water. So I had to grab him and carry him into the water. And he was yelling and screaming and the entire audience could hear him yelling at me through the curtains that the water was killing him. So finally after like 20 minutes of getting used to the water he was ready. So I baptized him and everything went good after that. But yeah it was a pretty tough day up to then. Diego is really awesome though this kid is like a genius. He understood chapters in the Book of Mormon better than I understood them. Yeah that´s my story for this week. It was really funny and really hard.

Well I gotta go. Thanks for trying to send me the package. Sorry it got sent back. Well I love you guys a lot thanks for all the letters and support and packages. Well I gotta go. LATER!"!!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 5/13/2013

It was soooooooo good to talk to you all yesterday. Made me a little sad, but it was good to see you and talk with you all. Can´t believe it´s already over!!! I got your pics of the Farewell and the Coke run and Davey. HOLY CRAP Davey is freaking HUGE!!!! I do like the hair though it looks cool. Can´t wait to see you all again in another 6 months.

But this week was the first week with my new companion. Not gonna lie it´s a little tough. He doesn´t talk very much so I do almost all of the talking. But he´s a really relaxed guy and he reminds me a little of Davey so it´s not all bad. We worked pretty hard this week and worked a TON with the members and when yesterday came around not a single investigator showed up to church. It was pretty sad especially since we went to like 30 houses to pick up the investigators and a lot of the members said they were going to bring people and no one showed. But it´s alright I love my ward to death and they make my day worth it when I get to talk and help one of them out.

Yesterday we had a really cool experience with some members. So at church a member asked if we could pass by his house at night and give his dad a blessing. So after we finished talking with our families we left to his house. So we got there and him and like 30 of his family members where there. All of them but 2 were non members. So we walk in and explain a little what we are going to do. So we go into the room of the dad and the entire family enters and circles the bed. So we give the blessing to the dad and then the son who asked us to come asked if we could sing some hymns around the bed. So we sang a few hymns and the spirit was SOOOO strong. Then we left to the family room and the family asked us how they could find peace in this hard time in their life. So I read John 14:26-27 and explained about the Holy Ghost and peace we can receive from the companionship of him. As I was explaining it I started to tear up a little and while talking about it like 5 other family members started to cry. Then after talking about the Holy Ghost we asked if we could do anything more to help them out. One of the brothers asked us if we could give his baby a blessing and then a few seconds later one of the sisters asked us if we could give her a blessing because she has cancer. So we gave 2 more blessing and the entire family was locked in on us the entire time we were their. It was amazing. Then they asked me If I could say a prayer before we left for the the family. So we all kneeled down and I offered the prayer. It was such an amazing experience. I felt the spirit really strong and I felt so happy just being in the house with that family. Definitely not going to forget that experience.

Well other than that we´ve had some really good lessons and some really good investigators but none of them went to church so they aren´t as perfect as I thought. Well I LOVED talking to you all yesterday. Made me soooo happy to see everyone. Love you all a ton. Hope everything is going good for you. Well I gotta go. Love you all talk to you next week.

Love Elder Russon

Letter 5/6/2013

Hey everyone

So this week not much happened. I got ANOTHER new companion. Pretty dang sad about that because I loved my old companion. But my new companion seems alright so far so hopefully everything will go good. His name is Elder Marin he´s got 8 months in the mission. He´s also from Chile. I´m still in my same area.

Oh that story about Dad´s rescue training dummy was hilarious. I laughed pretty hard while reading that. Oh yeah and my suit I didn´t throw away. The pants got stained by my sweat, permanently. The pants have this rustic type look right around the knees. I didn´t trash anything, but I just can´t repair the pants and It´s going to be next to impossible to find pants that match correctly my suit. Thanks for the money. I´m going to go buy all the things I need soon.

I definitely love the people alot. The members are great so much fun to be with. The culture is pretty new and crazy, but right now I live in an area pretty similar to america. Oh and about my passport and everything. So I still have no idea what is up with all that and have no legal ID in Peru.

Well nothing really happened this week. Other than changes and a new companion everything was pretty much the same. I wish I had more to tell you guys. The new house looks awesome! Well I love you all. I´ll talk to you guys next week. Don´t worry I´ll try to find something awesome to write you next week. 

Love you all. Later!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 4/29/2013

So.... this week.

So this week has been really interesting. Fist we started this week by reactivating an ex bishop who hasn´t gone to church in like 12 years which was awesome for me because the Leaders of our ward told us it was literally impossible to get him to come to Church because they tried like a thousand times. But yeah we went anyways to his house last Monday and the lesson was about an hour long. For about 45 minutes it was us and him basically almost yelling at each other and us whipping out scriptures like crazy. So yeah I was sitting there thinking that this was a horrible idea and that we shouldn´t have gone to this house when out of no where it gets quiet for like 15 seconds and then he tells us "Maybe you guys do make sense... I think Christ would want me to go to Church and take the sacrament to remember him." I was just like WOOOOOOAAAAAHHHH. Because he was literally apostatizing the church like 5 minutes before. So yeah we felt super accomplished for helping him out because I was def starting to lose hope there for a second but then out of no where it hit him what he needed to do. Then at the end he bore to us his testimony about the power of our calling and the importance of reading the scriptures. Also we are going to try and get him called as our mission leader because the one we have right now we only see on Sundays.

So also this week we´ve encountered like 15 people who literally came up to me and told me they wanted to baptized .... but ALL but one live in other areas. So it was cool because I was an instrument in the Lords hand to help them come to Christ but also sad because I only got to really teach them once and after other missionaries will do it. But something cool this week was when me and my comp were sitting in the park. So we were contacting some people when my comp challenged some kids to tennis so we walked over to this park and I sat down and watched my comp play tennis with some kids. But as I was sitting there watching him this 20 year old kid came up to me. He walked straight up to me and asked me in perfect english if he could learn more about our church the "Mormons" because he wanted to become a member. So I gave him a sweet lesson and got him set up with a baptismal date and everything. It was awesome!!!! But then I ended the lesson and I asked him when we could visit him and he gave me his direction and OF COURSE he lives in the other area next to us. But it was a really cool experience. So yeah not much has happened in our area other than super awesome people that want to get baptized but live in every single place but our area.

Well thanks for the letters and support I´ll try and write all of you back, but no promises this letter might have to be it. Love you all. Talk to everyone next week. CHAO!!!!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 4/22/2013

Hey everyone.

So this week has kinda stunk. Our investigators NO PASAN NADA!!!! Well that´s like my favorite phrase ever in Spanish. You can´t really translate it to English though it basically means they don´t do anything.

So I got a lot to talk about. First off I forgot to tell you this but about 2 months ago the office lost my Passport and my Visa and my Peruvian ID so that is why I couldn't pick my packages up. But anyways this also basically means I am an illegal immigrant. So for the last 2 months and until they get me a new passport I´m an illegal immigrant in Peru. Pretty exciting right. I think I´m going to go into hiding soon the police are hot on my tail.

So yeah what else, oh yeah. Well I really really need some money. Like everything I have is falling apart. So mom if there is any way you could send me money to my card that would be awesome. So right now I only have 1 suit and it´s the smaller of my two suits and it barely fits. My other suit got destroyed by my sweat and tears. Also I only have 1 pair of church shoes right now and they are slowly dying. There is holes in the bottom of them and they are getting bigger every day. Also my only running shoes are very destroyed. My shoelaces are out of commission and the front of the shoes have holes in them. Yeah what else. Yeah so I would love some money because I really really need it. Also everything here basically costs the same. Shoes cost like $90 in dollars in USA and they cost like $90 in soles in Peru. But $1 of dollars is like $2.50 of soles so yeah send me some money so I can make bank off the exchange.

Oh yeah so I had an awesome experience with some Peruvian food this week. So we came in for Lunch one day this week and the pension was cooking up our lunch and we were just sitting there talking while we waited. Then she finished our food and plopped down two bowels of soup on the table. So I´m like... sweet just another good old day with some soup. But then I look at the soup, and you would never guess what she put in my bowl of soup. Sitting right smack dab in the middle of my soup is a pair of chicken feet... Straight up some chicken feet. They were not fake I promise. They were real legit chicken feet just chillin in my soup. So yeah I ate it and everything and oh man that was hard. Hopefully my pension saw the pain in my face as i ate those things and hopefully she wont make me eat that any more. My pension is freaking awesome though. She is hilarious probably the funniest lady I´ve ever met. Don´t worry I wasn´t offensive to here at all either.

Well I love you guys. Thanks so much for the letters. I´ll keep you updated on my citizenship status in this country. Hopefully they don´t deport me anytime soon. Well I don´t have any more time and I can´t think of anything to say... soooo Hasta Luego. Les amo muchisimo!!!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 4/15/2013

Hey everyone

So I haven´t really read any letters yet, but I´ll read them all after my hour of email. So we had a huge announcement the other week in the mission. So for the last year and a half or so our entire mission hasn´t had the opportunity to play soccer. And we are in South America. Soccer is crazy huge important here and every mission in South America could play soccer except us. But the other week we finalllyyyyyyy got permission to play soccer so the entire mission is like going crazy. So last week our President decided to have a tournament between all the zones in Arequipa. It was awesome!!! So on Monday last week our zones took like 3 taxis over to this soccer field and we were all super pumped. It´s pretty far and the traffic is absolutely insane in Peru it´s like The Fast and Furious movie all day long here. So we jumped in 3 taxis and zoomed off to the field like 30 minutes away. So We are sitting in the car when the other Elders from our zone pull up next to us in a taxi and are like egging us on to race them to the field. So we are like We Will DESTROY YOU. So we are like pumping up our taxi driver giving him inspirational messages. And the light turns green and off we went and as the light turns green the song "Play that funky music white boy" goes on. So yeah it was awesome. We raced Fast and Furious style through the streets of Peru while the song "Play that Funky Music White Boy" was playing in the taxi. Then we did work in soccer. We beat every zone that we played against the first 6 games. Then we got tired and lost every game we played after. Definitely is a day I will not forget.

So the pictures I´m sending you guys are some baptisms we had this week. We had 3. Unfortunately none of them counted as Missionary Baptisms because the kids were all 8 years old and had a member of their family that is a member. The two little kids in white in the pictures are Louis and Fabricio. Their families are inactive and we are helping reactivate them and I baptized one of them. It was a really good week. Our numbers mission wise are pretty horrible for that last week. But we helped 2 souls come to the waters of baptism and helped 2 families come back to Christ. So it was a good week. So I don´t have much else to say I´ll read the letters in a few minutes though. Well I love you guys. Thanks so much for all the letters and support they meant the world.

Love Elder Russon

Letter 4/8/2013

So this week was General Conference. It was sweet. Oh and we had a baptism also sweet. Hope you guys watched General Conference I learned a ton of really cool stuff from it. So for GC this week I got to watch in English which was awesome. So me and 2 other gringos sat in a room together just chillin while we watched GC in english. It was really fun. 10 hours hanging out with two other people who spoke english while listening to the prophet and apostles in english while watching tv. Definitely the first time I have ever watched a full session let alone all 5 of them hahaha. It was just a really awesome 2 days. But something cool happened between conference sessions while we were waiting for hours in the Chapel. So we had an investigator who attended the conference. So in between he was getting interviewed by our leader. So I was sitting there with his cousin who accompanied him to the conference he is 16 years old and not a member. So I was talking to him just making regular conversation about his school and home and what he wants to be when he grows up. Then I slowly started to run out of things to talk about with him, so I was thinking to myself and I was sitting there with him so I just decided what the heck I´m going to teach him the Doctrine of Chris and commit him to baptism. So I started giving him the lesson and everything and it was going great. So I finished the lesson ( more of a conversation) and I explained to him what his cousin was going to receive in a few hours and I explained what he felt while he was watching conference and everything. So I asked him if he wanted to follow in Christ´s footsteps to be baptized and if he believed the things I taught him were true and boom he was like " Yeah I want to get baptized." When I was explaining the Holy Ghost and the Gift of the Holy Ghost he actually said "COOL" like in the lesson. Ahhh it was just awesome. Unfortunately he doesn´t live in my area and he is moving a little farther away to our Zone Leaders area. But I brought one of our Zone Leaders over and got them signed up to visit him and get permission from his mom and everything. So needless to say I was a little proud of myself since I did all of that by myself while my companion was across the room talking with some other missionaries. But I definitely didn´t have much to do with it all. The conference and what he felt there had everything to do with it and the example of his cousin too. So later in the day (yesterday) we baptized his cousin and confirmed him in the Church. I don´t have any pictures of the kid I taught but the boy we baptized Joni is in the pictures I´m sending.

Well I love you all. Thank you so much for all the support and everything. Keep writing me thanks!!!!