Haha Hello Family!!
What a good Thanksgiving week that I had. We got to play in the Branch Turkey Bowl out here and that was a blast to play football! This year it was different not being with family, but it was spent with the Jolley family and they are now to me, family. They have ALL become my good friends and i am going to miss them.
What better time of year to think about what you are truly thankful for in life than Thanksgiving week. I took a minute to think and write down what i was thankful for and here are some of the things that i came up with.
I'm thankful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I'm thankful for parents that KNEW the church is true.
I'm thankful for my brothers and sisters and all the examples they set.
I'm grateful for my church leaders and friends and the example they have been.
I'm thankful for the role that God plays in my life and for His son Jesus Christ.
The list goes on and on.. But as i was making this list a quote popped into my head that says "the only debt is a debt of gratitude."
To these things listed above, i am truly in debt to forever for. I would be absolutely no where in life without these blessings, and words cannot describe how grateful i am for these things.
With the missionary side of the work, it has been slow because every single one of our investigators was out of town! Ha it was brutal. But we still had some very spiritual experiences which is awesome. Haha i want to tell you about the COOLEST thing that happened!
So the De'vore family invited us to go with them to get their Christmas tree for the year. We went to this HUGE tree farm that had over 2,000 Christmas tree's row by row lined up for everyone to come chop it down and get their tree for the year. There were a ton of people and a ton of families walking around and me and Isabel De'vore who's 7 years old starting playing tag and running through the Christmas tree's. And soon enough kids were asking if they could tag with us. And within 20 minutes or so we had probably 20 kids darting through Christmas tree's playing tag with us! It was SOOO much fun. i'll never forget it. While i was playing my companion kinda just looked at me like i was a idiot. But hey i had a really good time. Ha and the best part was that these kids were running back to their parents and saying "the mormon missionaries are awesome!!" SO FUN!
Haha i'm out of time today.I'm sorry this email isn't very good. Ill write more next week!
Mom if you could send me some Thermals that would be awesome. Its getting to be FREEZING out here. Ha i'm not excited for winter.
Dad thanks for the email and Lexee thanks for the pictures!! Looks like you guys had a great thanksgiving!
Love Elder Russell
Elder Madison Russell
Des Moines Iowa February 2nd 2011-2013
Monday, November 28, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Week 40
Hello Family!
It ceases to amaze me how many awesome experiences a missionary can have in one week. I love it!!
Ha we just got done playing basketball and i jammed one of my fingers and its beginning to look like a sausage! And typing isn't very fun.
Me and Elder Wilson have been working so hard this last week and it payed off!! We had a good amount of our investigators attend church and we set a few dates for people to be baptized! They are finally starting to keep commitments, and its the best! We've been patient.. And the Lord is now blessing us! We have also found 2 more people that have been SOO prepared to receive the gospel. I don't think there is a better feeling in the world when you are guided by the spirit to find those who are ready!
Ha i want to tell you about a CRAZY but awesome experience that we had and that i'll never forget... So we received a referral from church headquarters and it was for a less-active member..We called and set us a lesson and the night of the appointment we went to the address where she lived and it looked like a big apartment building.. We walked in and were looking at the people and all around and we realized that something was not right.. The lady at the front desk was like you must be here for so and so.. Let me go grab her for you! Then she said "if anyone tries to bug you just tell them to go to their rooms." At this point i was like what?? And then i looked to my left and saw a sign that said "Prairie View Mental Hospital." We sat down and soon enough a couple people were trying to take our backpacks and our name-tags and it was a mess. And FINALLY this guy came out of the room and stopped them and made them give our stuff back. It was crazy. We had no idea what to do.
Ha then the Lady brought back the girl we were supposed to meet with and she had Schizophrenia. We began teaching her and all the sudden after 15 minutes or so we had 15 or 20 people who lived in the Hospital listening to us! It was cool. The hospital workers said that that was the most calm those people had ever been. And that they had never sat down for more than 2 minutes at a time let alone for a 30 or45 minute lesson! They invited us to come back each week. So hopefully some good will come from that!
On Thursday.. We had a member of the quorum of the 70 tour our mission! And it was an awesome experience. He taught us all about covenants and about our calling. It was incredible how strong the spirit was. I have never felt it like that before. It made me have a whole new desire to keep the covenants i made when i was baptized and in the temple and so on..
Anyways.. Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a privilege, and i don't think that we will ever understand how truly lucky that we are to to have the fullness of the Gospel. It gives us not only the desire, but the ability to wake up tomorrow, a better person than we were today! It comes down to 2 things for me. The Gospel that we teach is first a gospel of Logic. Meaning that it just makes sense. And second, its a Gospel of Hope like its talked about in the 13th Article of Faith. I love the church and i love how its blessed my life! It means the world to me, and i can't ever see myself without it. Its now more apart of me that i ever could have hoped for! The "sacrifice" of going on a mission isn't so much of a sacrifice anymore. Because the blessings i am receiving and will receive in the future are far better than anything i'd ever have to sacrifice.
I love you family and thank you for all the emails! They mean a lot and i love hearing how the family is doing on both sides! And remember the words of Paul "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
Have a good Thanksgiving week! I'm excited! Haha.. We will be at the Jolleys house Mom! The guy that you met that one time! I'm excited!
Dad thanks for the email! I am going to start to read Psalms and Proverbs more often! They have good stuff!
Mom Thanks for the Card! :) I loved it! Haha!
Grandma and Jake Shaw thanks for the email!!! I loved it! Keep em coming!
Thanks for the Pictures court! :) Behr looks like he's growing! And i'm very excited to see Parks! Haha..
Love Elder Russell!
It ceases to amaze me how many awesome experiences a missionary can have in one week. I love it!!
Ha we just got done playing basketball and i jammed one of my fingers and its beginning to look like a sausage! And typing isn't very fun.
Me and Elder Wilson have been working so hard this last week and it payed off!! We had a good amount of our investigators attend church and we set a few dates for people to be baptized! They are finally starting to keep commitments, and its the best! We've been patient.. And the Lord is now blessing us! We have also found 2 more people that have been SOO prepared to receive the gospel. I don't think there is a better feeling in the world when you are guided by the spirit to find those who are ready!
Ha i want to tell you about a CRAZY but awesome experience that we had and that i'll never forget... So we received a referral from church headquarters and it was for a less-active member..We called and set us a lesson and the night of the appointment we went to the address where she lived and it looked like a big apartment building.. We walked in and were looking at the people and all around and we realized that something was not right.. The lady at the front desk was like you must be here for so and so.. Let me go grab her for you! Then she said "if anyone tries to bug you just tell them to go to their rooms." At this point i was like what?? And then i looked to my left and saw a sign that said "Prairie View Mental Hospital." We sat down and soon enough a couple people were trying to take our backpacks and our name-tags and it was a mess. And FINALLY this guy came out of the room and stopped them and made them give our stuff back. It was crazy. We had no idea what to do.
Ha then the Lady brought back the girl we were supposed to meet with and she had Schizophrenia. We began teaching her and all the sudden after 15 minutes or so we had 15 or 20 people who lived in the Hospital listening to us! It was cool. The hospital workers said that that was the most calm those people had ever been. And that they had never sat down for more than 2 minutes at a time let alone for a 30 or45 minute lesson! They invited us to come back each week. So hopefully some good will come from that!
On Thursday.. We had a member of the quorum of the 70 tour our mission! And it was an awesome experience. He taught us all about covenants and about our calling. It was incredible how strong the spirit was. I have never felt it like that before. It made me have a whole new desire to keep the covenants i made when i was baptized and in the temple and so on..
Anyways.. Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a privilege, and i don't think that we will ever understand how truly lucky that we are to to have the fullness of the Gospel. It gives us not only the desire, but the ability to wake up tomorrow, a better person than we were today! It comes down to 2 things for me. The Gospel that we teach is first a gospel of Logic. Meaning that it just makes sense. And second, its a Gospel of Hope like its talked about in the 13th Article of Faith. I love the church and i love how its blessed my life! It means the world to me, and i can't ever see myself without it. Its now more apart of me that i ever could have hoped for! The "sacrifice" of going on a mission isn't so much of a sacrifice anymore. Because the blessings i am receiving and will receive in the future are far better than anything i'd ever have to sacrifice.
I love you family and thank you for all the emails! They mean a lot and i love hearing how the family is doing on both sides! And remember the words of Paul "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
Have a good Thanksgiving week! I'm excited! Haha.. We will be at the Jolleys house Mom! The guy that you met that one time! I'm excited!
Dad thanks for the email! I am going to start to read Psalms and Proverbs more often! They have good stuff!
Mom Thanks for the Card! :) I loved it! Haha!
Grandma and Jake Shaw thanks for the email!!! I loved it! Keep em coming!
Thanks for the Pictures court! :) Behr looks like he's growing! And i'm very excited to see Parks! Haha..
Love Elder Russell!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Week 39
Hello Family and Friends! Wow.. What a week it has been.. I love sitting here and looking back at the experiences that i want to share with you..! Gives me a minute to just relax and think! Haha.. And i have learned to appreciate those moments more than i ever thought i would!
Anyways.. Some great things have happened and some not so great things have happened, but that's ok because thats life! Just as soon as our investigators start to get really excited about the church.. Someone(usually a family member or friend of theirs) tears it down. And we spend time building there testimony back up and addressing there concerns. But a really cool thing was said by one of our investigators. He said.."you know what.. this is between me and God. And i'm not going to listen to anyone anymore besides him!!" Ha it was very cool to hear and i have a feeling that he will be baptized soon.
We also had another awesome experience with some investigators.. They are 7th Day Adventists and they are VERY engrained in there faith. But they took on the challenge to search out our church and find out if the Book of Mormon was true. 7th day Adventists don't believe that the spirit and the body separate after death. And we were showing them scriptures in the Bible and they were twisting and turning these verses and turning them into things that they weren't. So i finally just said. "we take the Bible for what it is and for what it says. Anyone can change it to make it sound however they want. But when it says something, we believe it, and when it contradicts itself, we have the Book of Mormon to teach us real truth." I felt the spirit so strongly when i said this.. And so did they. We are teaching them again tonight and i'm very excited.
Haha.. So funny story.. Our mission rule towards the music we can listen to has just changed. We can only listen to Mormon Tab Choir now instead of LDS artists. Me and my companion read that at the exact same time in the weekly Presidents email, and we just looked at each other, and he threw his fists in the air and yelled.. "NO!!!!!" Haha people were staring at him and it was SOO funny. I'm excited tho.. It'll be a good rule to follow. So mom, i'll probably be sending some of the CD's that i have home.
I have a cool story that i want to share with you guys.. We often walk into places with large groups of people, and we get some pretty funny looks, or people will point, or it will get quiet.. And that used to drive me CRAZY! People judging me for the way i'm dressed and the nametag that i wear. They don't even know me as a person but yet they are so shut down to me because of who and what i represent. For a while i would avoid big groups of people like that because it bugged me so bad. But on Saturday night, we got approval to go to a high school play that a less-active member would be participating in. We showed up right as the play was starting, and they had not opened the doors. We walked in and it was the usual thing, people were staring, and a few pointed at us, and i felt like a deer in the headlights. Just as i was about to pretend to dig something out of my backpack a scripture popped into my head that has changed my life forever!
" For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;" For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
These scriptures ran through my mind as clear as day and i looked up and smiled, and in my mind i said.. "I am not ashamed." I felt so happy and i learned a valuable lesson.
Thank you for the emails and dad i'm glad that you like the Field of Dreams shirt! And mom thanks for the email too! I'm glad things are going well. And you can send that little Christmas tree here to Fayette if you'd like! We need some decorations! Ha i'm used to decorations being up the night of Halloween! :) Hah i miss that! and yes Peter liked his shirt!
I love you family! your the greatest!
Love Elder Russell
Anyways.. Some great things have happened and some not so great things have happened, but that's ok because thats life! Just as soon as our investigators start to get really excited about the church.. Someone(usually a family member or friend of theirs) tears it down. And we spend time building there testimony back up and addressing there concerns. But a really cool thing was said by one of our investigators. He said.."you know what.. this is between me and God. And i'm not going to listen to anyone anymore besides him!!" Ha it was very cool to hear and i have a feeling that he will be baptized soon.
We also had another awesome experience with some investigators.. They are 7th Day Adventists and they are VERY engrained in there faith. But they took on the challenge to search out our church and find out if the Book of Mormon was true. 7th day Adventists don't believe that the spirit and the body separate after death. And we were showing them scriptures in the Bible and they were twisting and turning these verses and turning them into things that they weren't. So i finally just said. "we take the Bible for what it is and for what it says. Anyone can change it to make it sound however they want. But when it says something, we believe it, and when it contradicts itself, we have the Book of Mormon to teach us real truth." I felt the spirit so strongly when i said this.. And so did they. We are teaching them again tonight and i'm very excited.
Haha.. So funny story.. Our mission rule towards the music we can listen to has just changed. We can only listen to Mormon Tab Choir now instead of LDS artists. Me and my companion read that at the exact same time in the weekly Presidents email, and we just looked at each other, and he threw his fists in the air and yelled.. "NO!!!!!" Haha people were staring at him and it was SOO funny. I'm excited tho.. It'll be a good rule to follow. So mom, i'll probably be sending some of the CD's that i have home.
I have a cool story that i want to share with you guys.. We often walk into places with large groups of people, and we get some pretty funny looks, or people will point, or it will get quiet.. And that used to drive me CRAZY! People judging me for the way i'm dressed and the nametag that i wear. They don't even know me as a person but yet they are so shut down to me because of who and what i represent. For a while i would avoid big groups of people like that because it bugged me so bad. But on Saturday night, we got approval to go to a high school play that a less-active member would be participating in. We showed up right as the play was starting, and they had not opened the doors. We walked in and it was the usual thing, people were staring, and a few pointed at us, and i felt like a deer in the headlights. Just as i was about to pretend to dig something out of my backpack a scripture popped into my head that has changed my life forever!
" For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;" For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
These scriptures ran through my mind as clear as day and i looked up and smiled, and in my mind i said.. "I am not ashamed." I felt so happy and i learned a valuable lesson.
Thank you for the emails and dad i'm glad that you like the Field of Dreams shirt! And mom thanks for the email too! I'm glad things are going well. And you can send that little Christmas tree here to Fayette if you'd like! We need some decorations! Ha i'm used to decorations being up the night of Halloween! :) Hah i miss that! and yes Peter liked his shirt!
I love you family! your the greatest!
Love Elder Russell
Monday, November 7, 2011
Week 38
Hello My Family!
This week has been a good, exciting, disappointing, new, fun, not so fun, and crazy week! But nonetheless its been amazing, because each day out here my love for the Savior grows and i know that God is always the same, and that he loves me. I've also learned that if we get down or disappointed that Satan wins twice! And we dont want that! Haha..
This last Friday, we had a jam packed day planned with new investigators and investigators that we were going to set dates with, and members coming to the lessons and it was going to be good.. But as each lesson came around we got calls telling us something had happened and that they would have to re-schedule! Ha.. It was frustrating to say the least.. But the Lord needed us elsewhere and we met some really good people and have some new potential investigators.. So that was good.
Anyways.. Like i said last week we have so many people that are SO close to finding out for themselves that its true. And i've been fasting and praying so hard to see success in this area before i leave. I;m very excited to see what the Lord has in store for me and Elder Wilson.
We had Stake Conference this weekend in Iowa and we got a new stake president! He had been serving for 11 years as the Stake President and you could see how sad he really was to leave his calling. He gave his last talk and he talked about serving with your whole heart and he was proud to say that he gave his all his 10 years.. He admitted that he wasn't perfect but he worked hard. It made me think about my mission and how its only 2 years.. There was a greater desire to work hard and have no regrets at the end of my mission, and to be able to say that "i gave my all" at the end of my 2 years.
I was also reading in Alma 11, 12, 13, 14 this morning for study.. And i decided that NOTHING that we are asked to do as missionaries is too hard. In these chapters Alma and Amulek are amazing missionaries. Then they are bound with chords and brought before the chief judge. People are falsely accusing them and they are beaten and spit upon for days..! And the people who believed what Alma and Amulek were burned at the stake and murdered.Reading these chapters kind of made me feel very lucky. And i think i will look at my challenges a little differently. Because at least im not being held captive and being beaten. i'm a very lucky person to have this gospel!!
I love you family! I'm out of time.
Dad the Ephesians and the D&C 121, 22, 23 was awesome!! I used that a lot.Thank you!
LOve elder russell
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Week 37
Hello Family!
We got a busy day today so i dont have much time.. Sorry. Its Transfer week and i'll be staying here in Fayette for 1 more transfer. So that means that i'll be leaving here December 15th. Which SUCKS!! haha i'm leaving right before Christmas.. But thats alright.. I'll be ok. But if you are going to send Christmas things make sure you send them to the Mission Office. 8515 Douglas Ave #19 Urbandale IA, 50322 And make sure you send them ONLY through the post office. Because thats the only way they can forward it to me. If not ill get it 6 weeks after Christmas.
Anyways.. We have SOO many people that are so close to knowing for themselves that the Book of Mormon is true.. Its so awesome and this weekend we have some GREAT lessons lined up in members homes and stuff. I'm very excited and i think that we could have a very successful week. The lesson that we had with the family that we've found got postponed.. But we are teaching them Friday! I have been praying harder than i've ever prayed for that lesson to go well. So I'm very excited. I have committed to work harder this last transfer in Fayette than i have ever worked in my entire life. So i'm excited to see the blessings that will come our way.
Dad, we always use a lot of scriptures from Ephesians so that was cool, and also i LOVE to share the story of Joseph Smith when he is in Liberty Jail when he says "oh god where art thou? and where is thy Pavilion that covereth thy hiding place" then the voice of the Lord says " my son peace be unto thy soul, thine adversities and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment, and if thou endure it well God shall exalt thee on high" haha I dont have my scriptures with me so thats probably not exact word for word.. but those have become some of my FAVORITE scriptures of all times! Thank you! Please keep sending stuff. I use them in my District Meetings all the time!
Anyways.. Things are going great. I cant believe Halloween has come and gone already! Its so crazy to think about last Halloween! With my best Budds up at Utah State! Haha. So fun! I LOVE YOU GUYS!! pretty funny!
We were passing out candy to the trick or treaters on Monday night and we attached mormon.org cards and other pass along cards to the candy! It was pretty funny!
Grandma Russell!! Thanks so much for the package! That was so fun. We have had more fun with those Angry Bird stuffed animals than i think you ever imagined! Haha thank you so much :) and Mom i got your package with the utah stuff in it for Peter and i!! Thank you so much! And Peter is not the guy you met. His name is Bryan. He's an awesome guy too! Haha!
I love you all. Thanks for everything. I've gotta go now! Bye till Monday!
Love Elder Russell
We got a busy day today so i dont have much time.. Sorry. Its Transfer week and i'll be staying here in Fayette for 1 more transfer. So that means that i'll be leaving here December 15th. Which SUCKS!! haha i'm leaving right before Christmas.. But thats alright.. I'll be ok. But if you are going to send Christmas things make sure you send them to the Mission Office. 8515 Douglas Ave #19 Urbandale IA, 50322 And make sure you send them ONLY through the post office. Because thats the only way they can forward it to me. If not ill get it 6 weeks after Christmas.
Anyways.. We have SOO many people that are so close to knowing for themselves that the Book of Mormon is true.. Its so awesome and this weekend we have some GREAT lessons lined up in members homes and stuff. I'm very excited and i think that we could have a very successful week. The lesson that we had with the family that we've found got postponed.. But we are teaching them Friday! I have been praying harder than i've ever prayed for that lesson to go well. So I'm very excited. I have committed to work harder this last transfer in Fayette than i have ever worked in my entire life. So i'm excited to see the blessings that will come our way.
Dad, we always use a lot of scriptures from Ephesians so that was cool, and also i LOVE to share the story of Joseph Smith when he is in Liberty Jail when he says "oh god where art thou? and where is thy Pavilion that covereth thy hiding place" then the voice of the Lord says " my son peace be unto thy soul, thine adversities and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment, and if thou endure it well God shall exalt thee on high" haha I dont have my scriptures with me so thats probably not exact word for word.. but those have become some of my FAVORITE scriptures of all times! Thank you! Please keep sending stuff. I use them in my District Meetings all the time!
Anyways.. Things are going great. I cant believe Halloween has come and gone already! Its so crazy to think about last Halloween! With my best Budds up at Utah State! Haha. So fun! I LOVE YOU GUYS!! pretty funny!
We were passing out candy to the trick or treaters on Monday night and we attached mormon.org cards and other pass along cards to the candy! It was pretty funny!
Grandma Russell!! Thanks so much for the package! That was so fun. We have had more fun with those Angry Bird stuffed animals than i think you ever imagined! Haha thank you so much :) and Mom i got your package with the utah stuff in it for Peter and i!! Thank you so much! And Peter is not the guy you met. His name is Bryan. He's an awesome guy too! Haha!
I love you all. Thanks for everything. I've gotta go now! Bye till Monday!
Love Elder Russell
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