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

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