Letter 10/21/2013

Hey everyone

Well this week we spent a ton of time in Arequipa like 3 full days for training and then I had to go to the Doctors because I've had a cough for like 7 months and I'm getting really sick of it. But it was a really fun and a good week. So I sent some pictures to you. The first is when we went down to Arequipa for the doctors. We got there at nighttime and had no where to go so we went to the Elders closest to us and they organized a wedding and baptism for some investigators that they were teaching. It was cool their whole ward came to support them too. My comp and I are behind the cake. Then the other picture is us at a Branch activity "picnic" we had this Saturday. We had tons of games for everyone to play and one was a sack race so there's a picture of me hopping around in a sack. then the last one was this morning. 

Sack race with Chivay Branch

Sooooooo changes were yesterday and me and my comp are splitting up. Sad, BUT my comp is only going to Chivay 2 which is the other group of missionaries in Chivay and I am staying in Chivay 1. We got our comps this morning. To play a prank on them as they came. We had the guy in the picture with me President Cardenas dress up as me to pick up our comps. SO he went to pick them up as Elder Russon while driving a car (which we cant do in this mission) with a cellphone (which we cant have) and as a 35 year old man. It was hilarious. They were freaking out thinking that we could do all this crazy things only in Chivay. They believed it all too. It was fun though. My new comp is Elder Cortes from Mexico.

Also this week was pretty good in Church attendance. We had 25 come in total which is the highest its been since I got here. And we have a few investigators preparing for baptism that should be happening this week or the next after.

Dang super happy for everyone in their games. Sounds like Davey had a dream like day against Golden Valley. And Sams team is still winning all their games. That's awesome. Sounds like there will be lots of Playoff games in our house this year. Davey also told me like all my old team is at COC that's awesome. And Teddy is coaching there too. Glad to hear Grandma and Grandpa made it down okay. Say hi to them for me too. Also say hi to Grandma Nancy I haven't heard from her in a while.

Love Elder Russon

Shoes after 1 year

The other Elder Russon

Letter 10/14/2013

Hey fam

BTW, I´m chillin in Arequipa right now for our Pday with the zone.

This week was cool because we raised the branch attendance up again to 24 this week. We basically just focus on the members in Chivay because they are in a pretty rough spot right now. We do VERY little missionary work and it´s all just reactivating members. Although this Saturday morning, we were walking and some lady walked up to us and asked us if we could teach her family. So we go in and teach them and they were GOLDEN!!!!! They had questions and everything. They asked if they could go to church with us without us even asking them. So yesterday they showed up to church during testimony meeting. In the middle of the meeting the mom, her first time ever at church, walks up to the stand and gives her testimony. She had been praying for help to god lately and that same morning we walked right into her. IT WAS AWESOME! I literally feel like God just handed us the most golden family ever for our work in making sure all the members are taken care of.

Thanks for all the letters they mean a lot. Oh and we did some straight up FARM work this week. I sent pictures of us digging a trench for water, me about to jump on a bull, and me following a heard of angry bulls who actually ended up charging me a little later but I didn´t get pictures of that.

Well I gotta go love you and thanks a ton for the letters CHOU CHOU

Love Elder Russon

Letter 10/7/2013

Hey everyone

Well this week was pretty normal. Like usual nothing too crazy other than the branch is passing through TONS of problems. Conference here was pretty cool. We actually didn´t end up going to Arequipa because OIM which is the organization within the church that handles all the building and expansion and renovation and all that stuff for the church came and brought us some crazy USB that caught internet like a cell phone. But we had about 22 attend every session (not priesthood tho... my gosh what a headache that was) which is super cool. Because the members here really needed to see and hear conference and they ended up being able to. Also we passed out papers and pens to all the members and they ended up taking notes about the conference which also was awesome. 

Oh this week we got to do service in one the farms of the members. It was super cool. First we started up hucking some corn and then we went to their farm to harvest alfalfa. I sent some pictures. What else happend this week. Well we finally finished moving into our new house. It´s super tiny. Imagine my old room as your entire house. It´s our bathrrom, kitchen, living room, bed room, and everything. But it´s cool though. Also we aren´t really in there all that much so it´s no big deal. Oh so for the priesthood session me and my comp showed up and set everything up and we sat there by ourselves for like 30 minutes. Then finally some 9 year old kid and his mom showed up. The other missionaries didn´t even show up. Anyways. Chivay is suffering a bit right now. But it´s all good. I know that as hard as it is right now and as hard as it´ll get all of this will just become A GIANT blessing for us later on. 

Hey you guys gotta get me more updates on the games. Stats everything the works. Well I gotta go. Love you all a ton. CHOU CHOU

Love Elder Russon

Oh and for Dad, I found this leg on the ground the other day. It´s from an Alpaca.

Letter 9/30/2013

HEY EVERYONE

Well thanks everyone for the letters, they rock. And all of the pictures. I sent a picture of me this morning eating a bowl of cereal on top of our roof right before we washed our clothes and another of something cool in the sky and of the view of our new room we just moved into.

Well lately in the Branch up here it has been SUPER ROUGH. Satan himself is probably living in this village. But from our 6 members last week we worked super hard and got it to 14 this week. So hopefully we can just keep going up and up.Well not much cool stuff has happened this week. We moved houses which SUCKED. Our new room is way smaller than before and on the 3rrd story which has its ups and downs. We are planning on putting a table filled with missionary supplies in the village market all this week if we can get permission from the city hall place. Which should be SUPER COOL. Oh and also here in Chivay we don´t get Conference so this week we are planning on taking all the branch (all 8 members lol) to a trip to Arequipa to watch the conference Saturday and Sunday which should be super cool.

Oh and last night I scared the life out of my comp. So idk if you guys remember, I know at least Davey does, that sometimes in the middle of the night I would wake up and just start freaking out and starting doing crazy things and then the next morning I wouldn´t remember anything. Well Yesterday apparently I like freaked out in the middle of the night and started yelling that there was someone in our room and then he like teleported away and I thought this same person was my comp. So I started yelling at my comp asking him "what the heck he was doing" and my favorite "HOW ARE YOU TELEPORTING LIKE THAT?" It was pretty funny when I woke up this morning. The first thing he said was "dude you are sooooooo crazy". And apparently it wasn´t just me yelling either it was like a full on conversation.

Well I gotta go love you all. Thanks A TON for all the letters and pictures that you´ve all sent me. Well I gotta go. CHOU CHOU!!!


Love Elder Russon

Letter 9/2/2013

Hey Everyone

Well I´m doing great. I´ve been kinda sick like every single week since I came to Chivay but it´s not to bad. We have a lot of baptisms set up for this week. Could be 6 if we get a few miracles thrown our way. So I´m super excited about that. But this week I don´t have any stories for you guys. It´s been raining a lot and snowing but I didn´t take any pictures of it. After about 30 minutes the snow all melts away so we haven´t been able to do anything cool with the snow.

So for a Branch activity the branch wrote letters to the Spanish Ward in our building in Santa Clarita. We still don´t have the address or anything so we are going to send it to you guys to give to the Bishop of that Ward. But I NEED his email soon or he is going to end up with some random box of letters he has no Idea what to do with.

Well I love you all. Hope everyone is going good in Santa Clarita. Oh and TELL ME WHO WON THE GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can´t just throw in some sentences about the game and then NOT TELL ME WHO WON! Well I gotta go CHOU!!!

Love Elder Russon

Letter 8/27/2013

***The reason I didn´t write yesterday is because the internet wasn´t working yesterday in our village***

HEY EVERYONE

Ok so first off. The pictures I sent. So there is a picture of me next to a statue. This statue is in the middle of a plaza in the Little Side village like 15 minutes from our village where there is no church. But we visited there last week. The other picture of the kids I will explain. So me and my comp were walking down the street the other day when 2 twins walked up to us (members). I guess they are pretty popular in school because like 1 minute later half the school was surrounding us. So we started handing out pamphlets to them but we ran out. So we were like "Who want´s a pamphlet" And all like 20 of them said yes. So We walked back to our room with a line of like 20 kids following us. And the picture is of me in front of our house giving them pamphlets.

So also Yesterday I FINALLY GOT MY PACKAGE!!!!! Thank you for all the things you all sent. It was awesome. Me and my comp had some nice real hot chocolate last night and I scarfed down those sour candies in like 3 seconds. Thanks for the socks those are exactly what I needed. All my other socks have holes in them. Thanks for sending everything you sent!

So also this week we had a cool experience giving a blessing. So on Friday we were visiting an investigator. He´s been sick for about a week now. Really sick. He´s told us multiple times that he is going to die. I don´t think he will though. But we were going to his house to see him and we were outside waiting for him to answer the door when we hear this really really loud moaning. So we are like OH NO he is dying! So his son finally answers the door and we go in. Then we go in the room with the super loud moaning and it´s not even him. It´s his other son. So we are like "Uh Hey what´s wrong?" Then he painfully explains he drank a bunch of beer last night and then ate rotten pig and the rotten pig is destroying him. So we are like dang that stinks. So we ask him if he wants a blessing. So he nods his head yes and we give the blessing. As I´m finishing the blessing (I blessed him that the sickness would go away) he starts moaning and groaning really loud. And right as I say amen and step back he turns his head to the floor and throws up EVERYTHING. He had been sick since like 3 am the night before and it was like 12 noon and still hadn´t thrown up. But right after the blessing he threw all of it up. Then I asked him if he felt better (he couldn´t talk) and he nodded his head and started to pray silently. It was pretty dang cool. We have taught him before and was pretty not into our message but I hope he´ll be a little more receptive now.

Oh this week it snowed here. Pretty cool. This is the only place in the mission you can get snow.

Oh and congratulations mom on passing the CPAT. That´s awesome. It´s cool to hear some of the big young guys that were doing the test couldn´t pass but you did!

Oh um now that Davey´s games are starting you have to tape them for me!!!! Seriously I want to see them.

Well I gotta go.

Love you all a lot. CHOU!!!

Letter 8/19/2013

Hey everyone,

I love my area it´s very very very cool and these are the legit Peruvians here :). This time of year there are tons and tons of tourists though which makes two white dudes not quite as special but o well. Our Branch meets in a house so we have to baptize in the river that goes through the canyon.

Wow Davey finally got his license I hope I see the car again after him and Mikey drive it.

SO this week was crazy. Very crazy. First this last Monday and Tuesday we were at Arequipa in the mission home for a few days for some training and pday. It was awesome. The mission home has got to be the nicest home in all of Peru. There is CARPET in it!!!! WOW was it nice to walk around on carpet. I sent you a picture of me sitting on the couch in the Living room with carpet. Oh and we ate SOOOO GOOD. I had like 30 French Toast for breakfast with real syrup and jam and fruit sauce. It was delicious. 

We got back to Chivay just in time for the Independence Day of Peru. It was absolutely insane. It was a party that no joke did not stop for 3 straight days. Bands playing every single minute all through the night and day for 3 days without stopping. People drinking beer for 3 days straight I have never seen or talked to or even heard of so many drunk people in my entire life. It was absurd how much alcohol there was here.

So one night of the party we were in our Church House waiting to interview some people (never showed up) when the drunk owner of the other half of the house busts in the room completely wasted and asks us if he can bring some people up. We told him he had to go to church if he wanted them to come in but he kept insisting that he was catholic and couldn´t so we finally said yes. Then about 3 minutes later after he had left and we were in the office I was reading a Liahona and my comp was doing some paperwork when we heard this band coming closer to us. So I look out the window and I see a band of like 30 completely drunk people charging our church dancing and playing their instruments as hard as they could. Me and my comp got freaked out a little so we locked the office door and watched 30 crazy drunk people barge into the church and march up to the top floor where the guy lives. I don´t think the 3 floors put together could hold all these people let alone just the 3rd floor. Then after an hour of losing our hearing from their yelling and singing we left to go back to our room for dinner. To get back we had to cross the plaza of our village and oh my gosh there was like 2,000 people in this little plaza and 3 different concerts going and sooooooo much alcohol. We had to squeeze through all these drunk people at these concerts. It literally took like 20 minutes to cross through them all. It was insane.

Well that is my crazy story for this week. Love you all thanks for the letters. Hope everyone is doing great. CHOU CHOU!!!!

Love Elder Russon

Mission home in Arequipa (They have carpet!)

View from mission office in Arequipa