March 1, 2015

Mom, Dad, and Family,

Thanks for praying for Jazmine and Athena.  They're doing great.  But we're a little concerned for them.  Keep the prayers coming for them.  They're great and they really are trying.

Sounds like things are going great back home.  Just trust the Elders though.  I know sometimes it's hard when it doesn't seem like they're doing what they're supposed to.  But I guarantee if you wait to prepare people, people will never be prepared.  God will take care of our friends and neighbors if we do our part.  And we can't delay anything because we think someone ought to be more mature.  Please don't wait to have the missionaries teach those we know.  I promise that's not a good idea. ;)

Elder King is from Colorado (my second companion).  He's in my Zone Now.  He's still a District Leader!  That's a long time to be a District.  He had one transfer where he wasn't, but now he is again.  That's crazy.  But he's awesome.  I learned a lot from him.  I don't know if he lives anywhere close to where Corynne and Bryce are moving too.  But he does live in Colorado.

Things are going well.  We went to Rancho again for another meeting (Rancho is forever away.  Okay not really.  But like 45 minutes) and that took forever.  And we have another meeting again this week.  But the meeting last week was good.  The Spirit was so strong and it helped me so much.  So I'm so thankful we got to go.  And that we were kept safe.  Because you never know what might happen when Elder Gooch is driving the truck.  Actually, funny story about that.  We drove to Rancho for the meeting with another set of Elders.  We were on our way back and Elder Houston kept saying that there was another way we could take back.  There really isn't much to look at on the way back from Rancho, so we decided we'd punch it into our GPS and try it out.  Well, it was a lot more beautiful than the normal way.  But we think we ended up going pretty far out of the mission (on accident--and you have to go out of the mission to get to Hesperia anyway) and it took a long time.  But it was so beautiful.  We were up in this mountain and ended up driving through this mountain town (no one knows where it was) and it was so cool.  But yeah, we were lost for a while and probably won't do that again.

But clearly things are going great!  I love being out here.  I learned a lot this week.  One thing I learned is that every time I figure out something I need to do better at and how to get better at it, my prayers gain a clarity that they don't normally have.  Anyway, that's all for this week.  I love you all and hope none of you have to have two ingrown toenails removed in the near future.  Remember to read your scriptures and keep the commandments.  All of them.  Literally all of them.

ILYMTLI,

Elder Russell