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