Week 29

What a week!!

Haha.. Its been an awesome week and i don't even kno where to start!!

I guess i'll start with the funny story..

So Iowa used to be world famous for Pheasant hunting.. And its not anymore because farmers have destroyed the land that they live on! So.. There is a guy in our neighborhood,(who reminds me a lot of Steve Erwin/Bear Grylls by the way..) who owns a bunch of land and is trying to get pheasants to come back and populate his land! And there cant be any trees on the land. So he asked if we would help him go chop down tree's with him so we said that we would! The next day we went over and he told us what to do and we went into this field and we were chopped down tree's! We were going along and all of the sudden i saw something black start running towards me!! Haha.. And Steve Grylls saw it too and he was like "TAKE COVER!! ITS A SKUNK!!" so we all three took off back towards the car! It was Hilarious. We were tripping over each other, all so terrified to get sprayed by the skunk, and laughing so hard. Good times.. And then..
We got out of the field and Steve Grylls was like "hold still Elder Russell, dont move" And there was a spider, that was honestly as big as my hand right on my chest!!! I freaked out and then he caught it and took it home! hahha funniest day of my life.

On a spiritual note..
The Lord has blessed us with 2 baptisms this past week!! :) They were the first baptism's here in Fayette in over a year!
Shacari and Tyson Losee were baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! It was an AWESOME baptismal service. I had the opportunity to baptize Tyson! And also to confirm Shacari.. And that was very very special! That family has come such a long way since the first time that we met with them! And they all have such a strong and special spirit now!! For the baptismal service, i had asked Shawnda(T&S's mom) to say the closing prayer. Her prayer was sooo awesome. She kept saying thank you for the angels that you have sent us to get us back on the right path, and to teach us, and to be our new friends in this gospel. Then she said mine, and Elder Girvin's names.. And i realized that the angels that she was talking about, were us! That blew me out of the water, and i just started crying.
I looked back at my mission and specifically the times where i asked myself why i'm out here.. And i promised myself that i would NEVER think that again. Because now its more clear that it has ever been. I am out here to bring people the blessings that God has in store for them! And there is nothing better!

The college here is in full force, and we have some new investigators that are 19 and 20 year olds! Which is pretty cool. I like teaching kids that are my own age. I feel like i can relate to them much easier! One of their names, is Nick Acoba. He is from Hawaii and has had a small past with missionaries in Hawaii. He is an awesome kid and we are going to try and arrange a trip down to Nauvoo with him! That would be SWEET! He knows the Book of Mormon is true and its already helped him in his time away from his family!

Anyways.. I'm lovin being a missionary! Its a blast! And a life changing experience! The gospel is so unbelievably true! And i know it!

Thank you for the emails! Dad, those scriptures in Kings are pretty sweet! And i will definitely use them! Along with the other ones!

LOVE ELDER RUSSELL