February 24, 2014

WORST. DAY. EVER!

MAN! This last week was crazy! And FRIDAY! OH MY GOOOOOOODNESS!!! Never had such a horrible day in my life! We had a crazy thunderstorm so we couldn't get to the church to do our weekly planning :( (with the iPads doing weekly planning can be rather difficult without wifi). Anyway. After that thunderstorm it continued raining pretty much all day so we went out to lunch and I just put my rain jacket on. And get this! My rain jacket somehow RUINED my white shirt! I took it off maybe 45 minutes later and there were these brownish-yellow stains all across my nice white shirt! >:( Something is wrong with that jacket because my companion has the exact same jacket and it's never done that to him. So I changed my shirt and didn't realize it was the jacket until it ruined that shirt as well! GAH! $^%*#^! -_-' so. freaking. frustrating. Anyway, so we went on with our day and LITERALLY every appointment fell through INCLUDING our dinner appointment with a member! That has NEVER happened! Haha seriously?! 

So we try going over to this investigators house that we're super good friends with who is ALWAYS home at night and he was GONE! We biked along the FREEWAY to get to his house!!! And he was GONE! We risked our lives for nothing! Apparently, drunk driving is pretty bad out here... 

But here's where a glimmer of hope came out of the abyssal darkness: we were biking to go see a Part member family after having missed Jimmy (the one that's always there), and this lady got a flat tire so we got to help her! :D Her name is Sabrina and she was this super sassy black lady! haha! She was kinda pissed because she had gotten brand new tires TODAY and there was a hole in the side of the tire so it was quite the gnarly flat. Anyway, her friend showed up who was ANOTHER even sassier black lady! She said she was gonna go into that tire store and bust some heads in! hahaha! But as we were helping them Sabrina went into the gas station we were at and bought us some Gatorades :) and we got to teach them about Mormons! :D They both thought that we lived on compounds or something crazy :P oh man... people have CRAZY perceptions of Mormons out here! One Haitian lady was telling me "I don't even know what a Mormon is!" over and over! haha! 

Throughout the day we got lost a couple times and even had people shout at us saying "(F word) Joseph Smith! He's a fake!" And stuff like that. That was actually the first time I ever had someone shout that to me. It was actually really funny :P

So as we were talking to these two black ladies we told them we lived about 5 miles away and they freaked out! They offered us a ride home because it was about 8:20 at that point and they felt so bad for us. We couldn't accept it sadly but they told us SO MANY TIMES to be safe as we rode home because there were only highways that we could ride along to get home from where we were.

(Mom, you may want to skip this next paragraph)

So OF COURSE after they tell us to be careful I don't follow that advice... Well... actually my bike didn't follow that advice... meh... details details... yeah... so... we were riding along this 2 lane highway that has a speed limit of about 50 mph and it was night time and approximately 5 minutes after we ceased talking with the black ladies... This road had no sidewalk nor parking lane. The white line was LITERALLY the edge of the road and it was about a 6 inch drop into marshy grass. OKAY! So you have a picture now of my imminent doom. SO! I'm riding in the front staying on the white line so I don't get killed by the cars passing by and my tire decides to skip and go off the road. It essentially stops dead in its tracks and I went flying kind of over the handlebars but more to the left into the road! My wrist took a lot of the impact and I ended up rolling a lot a skidding along the asphalt. My bike actually flipped back over me after I went over it and so you can imagine how brutal this looks! That was sheer PAIN! Ugh! I got up as fast as I could so I wouldn't get run over and thankfully there weren't any cars coming at the time! My pen in my pocket got destroyed and my shirt pocket was ripped halfway off. My pants got torn along the left thigh and even one of my favorite ties got torn up a little D: TRAGIC! I stood up and my entire left side just ACHED! I was in so much pain but I gained a testimony of my garments! That's for sure... Nowhere that my garments covered even hurt a little bit. I think I broke my thumb/wrist... I have a lovely black and blue bruise on my left hand and yeah... so uh... 5 broken bones so far? haha oh well :P 

OKAY MOM! You can continue reading :) 

Companion:

So now you all want to know about my companion. He's pretty tall and gained 25 lbs in his last area so he's kinda chunky now :P haha he used to be really skinny before his mission. As far as personality: Christian Lehr. 'nuff said. haha! He acts SO much like Christian Lehr! It's kinda creepy. He's from Spokane Washington!!! And he kinda hates Utah... including the people... so we've had a couple contentions that we have since resolved. Yeah... But besides that we get along really well :) we had a nerf gun war on the first day right when we got to the apartment! He had one nerf gun so when he went to the bathroom I hid in the corner under the bean bag and shot him as he came out and he had NO IDEA where it came from! >:D Hehehe :) then he got the gun and I got the febreze and we battled it out :D I ran up the stairs and stopped around the corner so when his head slowly poked around the corner I shot his hair with febreze and long battle short I pwnd him :) hahaha like that old school gaming reference?

Spiritual Thought:

As we go throughout our lives we will all have these difficult days. I am not sending out this email in an attempt to acquire sympathy nor as a means of complaining or venting about any trial I'm facing. Life gets difficult and we may feel at times that we are receiving an unjust reward. A motto we have in this mission is that "There is no comfort in growth, and no growth in comfort." 

     You cannot grow without experiencing trials. It simply cannot happen. In Malachi 3:3 it reads "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."

     The process of refining silver involves lots of heat. The refiner puts the silver into a furnace and heats it up to extreme temperatures so that the impurities may rise to the surface. They are then scraped off and the process is repeated. The refiner knows that the silver is pure when he can look into the silver and see his reflection in it.

     There is a beautiful spiritual parallel here. God is a refiner, but not for silver; he strives to purify each and every one of us. He loves us all and he does nothing for us save out of love. And we may know that our refinement is complete when others may see His countenance in ours. That is the goal. To become perfected even as Christ and our Father in Heaven have been. Our Heavenly Father has gone through this same refining process and we have the potential to become as He is now. Everything He has done for us is to make that possible. 

     This gospel is beautiful and beautifully simple. I pray that this thought I have shared has enlightened many of you and may help you all to change the way you view the trials you are going through now. As we learn to look up in response to trials - the death of a loved one, serious health problems, persecutions for our standards, or suffering due to our own sins and mistakes - we may overcome them all and truly see the Lord's countenance reflecting in our own.

I love you all and thank you sincerely for all your prayers.

Love,

Elder Aaron Russell

I SAW JON WILLIAMS AT TRANSFERS!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

My clothes after the crash

Just a flesh wound, (said with a heavy British accent)

And my companion has a My Little Pony figurine! hahaha! Too funny! He's not actually a brony :P sorry Lance. But he had a companion that was a MAJOR brony and so he got that figurine from him

February 17, 2014

My Wonderful 8 day week!

So we had our P-Day on Tuesday this week because we have transfers tomorrow. I'm going to be with an Elder J. Johnson. I hear he's a funny guy so I'm looking forward to getting to know him. PRAY FOR ME! Getting along with a new companion can be very difficult at times especially if they like to bend the rules. I'm a strict rule keeper and Elder Erickson and I didn't get along a couple times because he didn't see the point in keeping a couple menial rules.

I got a keyboard for my iPad :) hehe I like it very much! IT LIGHTS UP! OHMAHGAWRSH!!! haha I'm really getting the hang of this new electronic Area Book. It is so difficult because your key indicators ALL come from appointments you scheduled. ARGH! So one day it says you had 2 new investigators for the week and then the next day it says you have 9!

So we found this family named The Meeks. The parents are less active members and they have 6 kids between 8 and 13. THE DAD WANTS THEM ALL BAPTIZED!!! AND the kids all are asking about baptism! We only told them that being baptized is how you become a member of the church and it's done by one of us dunking you underwater. And right after that they're all like "can I be baptized??" GUYS! You don't know how awesome this is! 5 of the kids are progressing and keeping all their commitments and a couple somehow found the movie The Testaments and watched the WHOLE THING! WHAAAT?! Haha! I love that family :) I think I've already talked about them. The dad is "The Corrupter" :P but he's starting to change his ways :)

hmmm..... what to talk about... oof... we lose the car this week... So I need to get my own bike... I don't like biking because it really limits how many people you can go see and when you can schedule appointments. but my thighs are gonna get HUGE!! They're already getting pretty ripped! :D speaking of which............................................. I've gained weight....................................................................................................................................................... *sigh* ............ I now weigh......... wait for it.............. *drumroll* ............... 148 pounds................... I actually fluctuate between 145 and 150 but last night we ate Crab Boil and I weighed 151 after! 

Crab Boil is CRAZY! They gave me half a crab and you just break the shells on their legs and pull out the meat! It's actually pretty tasty. And apparently the crab they put in sushi is "imitation crab". That shattered my entire universe. Real crab tastes much better.

So.. there's this watch that I'm looking at... it's a Citizen and the retail price is $495.00... BUT! I was at the store looking at it and a member comes up to me and is all "Hey! I'm looking at that same watch!" and we started talking about it :) it has SO MANY FUNCTIONS! Coolest thing though is that it's BLUETOOTH! It'll hook up with my iPad and when I get a message or have a calendar alert the watch will vibrate!!! CRAZY!!! AND if the iPad gets 15 or 20 feet away from the watch they both start vibrating violently saying "HEY! You forgot your iPad/watch! Ya buzzo!" haha no pun intended ;) buzzo.. hehe :) 

Anyway :) That's my weekly rant! 

A couple notes:

- I'm staying in the same Apt so you can keep mailing me there!

- MOM! Send me the sheet music for "Go the Distance" (2 copies please) and my Final Fantasy piano book would be much appreciated. I get some free time now and then to play piano.

- Mom again :P please send me my portable bike pump.

- uh... yeah that's pretty much it :P haha

LOVE,

Elder Aaron Russell

PS sorry I don't have a spiritual thought this week :P I forgot my scriptures at home...

WE SAW AN OSCAR MEYER WIENER MOBILE THINGY!!!! THAT WAS CRAZY! I have NEVER seen one of those before!

hahaha! We were watching the District 1 and paused it to answer the phone and that's the face Elder something-or-other was doing XD so I copied it ^.^

MY IPAD!!! :D :D :D !!! haha don't ya just love that picture?? THAT is a model pose! haha :P I manage to do creepy faces a lot..

My wonderful district :) Elder Pyne (we call him Elder Pino) is on the far left holding the flag :) haha he's a goofball and is also our district leader :P the couple is The Van's and they are SO AWESOME!!! SERIOUSLY! Elder Van is SO funny! We were playing PMG Jeopardy the other day and he got SO competitive but it was hilarious cuz he's usually really serious! or so we thought... ;) haha

February 12, 2014

Elder Russell cracks me up. He LOVES his iPad. I finally had to tell him to look at me because all of the pictures I got were of him playing with it. It's cute how excited they are about them.
They can go on face book with it, it's their planner and they put their notes in it. They have their scriptures on it and the whole gospel library. It's pretty neat. All the missionaries are like that right now. None of them put it down because they are so excited. It was funny because he was so excited because he got the keyboard and most missionaries don't have that and he wanted to show us that it lit up so he turned off all the lights and were all sitting there and waiting, and waiting and he couldn't get it to do it. The pressure was on. It was funny. - Shawna Bradley

February 10, 2014

Oh. My. GOODNESS!!! I LOVE THESE IPADS!!! I have about 30 Mormon
messages that I've downloaded so we can just go knock a door and I can
be all "HEY! Can I show you a cool video?" And they're all "wow! That
was awesome! Can I get baptized?!" Haha not really... But could you
IMAGINE?! The possibilities with this new technology are endless! Just
yesterday we were Facetimeing a recent convert IN OHIO!!! We gave her
a lesson and saw SNOW! REAL SNOW!!! It was AWESOME!
Sadly, one of our investigators that came to church and was going to
be baptized this Saturday changed her mind :( and even more depressing
was that our golden investigator Lisa didn't come to church :( she's
quitting smoking and everything so she can be baptized and her husband
is in it with her! AND we got her best friend in on this shindig last
Friday! But none of them came to church even WITH a member picking
them up... Lisa and her friend were babysitting but the husband was a
jerk and wouldn't come :( sad day! But we're not giving up on them!
We're gonna dunk em all! :)
*sigh* one more week and then I'm killing my dad... (My trainer is
going home) we've had good times together and I'm gonna miss him. Man!
This is crazy! We whitewashed on my first transfer, had our district
leader get ET'd (emergency transferred), and even got iPads together!
Now he's dying! AAHHH!!! This is crazy!! I'm actually SUPER stoked to
see who my new trainer is. Although I kinda wished I would be training
this next transfer :) alas, I won't be.

Man... I don't even know what happened this week... Nothing especially
noteworthy... Well... I GUESS the iPads are kinda cool... I suppose...
Haha JK! THEY'RE AAAAAAAAAWWWWEEEESSSSOOOOOOOOOOMMMEEEE!!!!!! I'm KIND
OF super excited about them IN CASE you couldn't tell ;)


WOW!!! So I'm somewhat sporadically writing this email as we go about
the day and I'll send it when we get wifi but we just had the coolest
service opportunity! We were driving down the road and all of the
sudden we're driving past this guy pushing his car ON THE HIGHWAY!!!
He wasn't even in the far right lane! So Elder Rodriguez and I drop
what we're doing and I told Elder Ales to hold my Blizzard (yeah :D we
got DQ Blizzards) and we jumped out and started pushing it as fast as
we could. When we got through the next light we pulled off into a gas
station and it turns out he didn't even know we were pushing! He went
up to his wife who was driving and asked if the car had started
because it got so much easier to push. Then he looked back and saw two
guys in white shirts pushing his car. He was so touched that when he
caught up to us at the gas station he gave us each a hug. We found out
he had ran out of gas and so we gave him a few bucks to gas up right
there. We got his address and told him to check out Mormon.org and
give us a call if he ever needed anything. Though it was pretty
humorous when he said he'd been saved since Easter 2004 :P it's so
frustrating when people say that because they think they don't need to
do anything after that. But it was still great and even if he never
talks to us again I felt great helping him :)


Spiritual Thought:
And that's what my spiritual thought is going to be on :) I actually
read Mosiah 2 today so it's perfect! Every time we help someone else
out it might be because we love them but if we don't love them- even
if we hate them- we should still serve them in whatever way we can
because we love God. And when we serve them we are ONLY serving God.
So next time you don't want to help someone out because they're
selfish or ungrateful or plain rude, remember the Character of Christ;
He turns OUT when the natural man turns IN. When we are having a
horrible day and just want to have some personal time we should
remember how Christ, after having suffered the pains of all of our
sins and afflictions in the Garden, turned OUTWARD and healed the ear
of the soldier after Peter cut it off.
How many of us would say in our hearts "I'm going so much worse than
THEY are. *I* should be getting help and sympathy. Not them!" This
ought not so to be. When we are going through our own Gethsemane we
should strive to find ways in which we can help OTHERS. When we help
others we will find that our pains will be healed. Recall the words of
an old hymn "Stript, wounded, beaten nigh to death I found him by the
highway side. I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, revived his
spirit and supplied wine, oil, refreshment--he was healed. *I* had
myself a wound concealed; but from that hour forgot the smart, and
peace bound up my broken heart."
We can all be healed of any pain we may be concealing. The way to do
this is simple: help others. When we strive to heal others we find
ourselves being healed. As we turn outward, The Lord takes care of
what's inward. I have felt this power in my life and I can bear
testimony of this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.


I love you all! And I hope you all do what you can in your own lives
to serve others and come unto Christ.

Love,

Elder Aaron Russell



Sent from my iPad hehe :)

gotta love that photbm ;) i look like rumplestiltskin

iPADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the keyboard lights up, how cool is that!!

February 3, 2014

SOOOO! We WERE going to have a jam session with that black guy that looks like the Twilight vampire but he cancelled on us :( BUT! We got to do 4 hours of service at this Less Active Part Member family's home and we got 2 new investigators out of it :D There's only two members in that family and then there's 8 or so people eligible for baptism and the dad WANTS them ALL to be baptized!!! But he's really bad with the whole justification thing and I guess the missionaries call him "The Corrupter" because so many missionaries have messed up and either gotten Emergency Transferred or sent home........ The Corrupter doesn't really take missionary work seriously and some missionaries that are just dumb have just used that as an excuse to be lazy. They've gone to his house and played video games and I guess one missionary got a TATTOO!!! IDIOT!!! >:( anyway! My companion and I are gonna convert them all and have like a bajillion baptisms out of it :D

OHMYGOODNESS! We had this investigator that I TOTALLY forgot about come to church! I thought we dropped him but he showed up!!! You don't even KNOW how awesome that is! He's from Haiti and so I thought he wasn't understanding a thing we were saying but HE DID!!! And he's getting baptized on February 15!!! AHH!!! That is SO EXCITING! And we have two investigators, Lisa and Mike, that are married and are getting baptized together on Feb 22! We've given both of them priesthood blessings and they have a testimony of the priesthood power that we have in this church! They are reading the Book of Mormon EVERY DAY! That is AWESOME! And he even offered to wax and detail our car for FREE! but we said no :P because he needs to keep his job and he needs the money.

But super cool story with them. They asked us for a little money to get through the weekend last week and so we went to WinnDixie a couple days later and took it to their house. Apparently he had prayed that morning that something would happen because they were BROKE! They didn't know how they would feed themselves or their cats or their dog and then we showed up! He almost cried when we came to the door with a $25 dollar gift card. GUYS! My comp was prompted by the Spirit to do that. I was saying we should do it later that day because we had a meeting we had to get to in another city and didn't want to be late but he said we should go do it right then and we NEEDED to do it right then! These two gators are so solid it's awesome!

*sigh* superbowl sunday.......... nuff said... That was a horrible day... No one appreciates football as much as these people here do. I don't think there was ANYONE that didn't watch it. Everywhere we went, even the member's homes, had it on. So we called the LaFontaines and he said they don't watch the Superbowl cuz they're mormon but we got there and he was totally lying :P thankfully they paused it so we could share a message with them but we got some great pictures of it ;) haha don't share these pictures with anyone that comes into contact with my mission president! haha just kidding :P 

Spiritual Thought

Reading Hermana Russell's email inspired me to bring up the scripture D&C 88:73 "for the Lord will hasten his work in his time." Brothers and sisters, that time is now. Do not give up the opportunity to participate in this work. Being out here there are a lot of opportunities so I understand not knowing where to start when you live in Utah but there are opportunities. You don't have to share the gospel JUST with nonmembers. You can share it with those who are doubting, who are being tossed about on the waves of life and have lost hold of their anchor in Christ. 

2 Nephi 28:24 reads "wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion!" Many who are reading this are in Zion/Utah/Mormonville and, all too often, are "at ease". I didn't think there were many missionary opportunities when I lived there but the Lord was not giving them to me because I was not ready to act on those opportunities. I pray that none of you will allow yourselves to become at ease because there IS work to be done. A few verses later in verse 30 the Lord says, "for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have."

I hope all of you act on this great opportunity to participate in the work whether that means serving a mission, talking to your nonmember friends about the gospel, or just doing your home/visiting teaching we all have the obligation to engage in this work.

Love,

Elder Aaron Russell

My comp got DESTROYED by a trampoline! We were moving it to rake under it and the pole that supports a side moved into the middle right where he dove onto the trampoline :P observe the damage below :P

OHMYGOSH!!! Chance Wilde's cousin is in my mission and is training my MTC buddy!!! He is SUCH a Wilde!

My lovely all natural earring ;) haha 

That is what the LaFontaines were watching the Superbowl on..... if I was into sports I would be drooling. and my comp totally placed a book of mormon with Chancellor ;D hahaha
(They weren't watching it, they had paused the game so it's ok)

And uh... Mom... and Dad... That's the black $495 Citizen watch that I am absolutely in love with....
Dream on!! Love mom.

My comp and I doing CRAZY AWESOME POOOOSES!!!! LIVE ACTION, TOO!!! 

 Laughing at elder Heder (the one pushing the lawn mower) because he said he wants to mow the lawn like TPC Sawgrass and it’s not working out quite the way he planned.

a spider elder Russell found. Its pretty neat looking.

January 27, 2014

Oh my goodness... I love this mission more and more everyday. It's so awesome. We saw a car driving next to us that had LEGIT bullet holes and we were like "OHMYGOSH HE'S GONNA GET OUT AND SHOOT OUR CAR!!!" haha joking but FOR REALZ!!! Crazy... The ghetto here is... strange... You think you'd be scared but as a missionary you're just like "oh you're shooting at someone? want to hear a message of hope and love all centered on Jesus Christ?" haha well... We aren't in the area that has all the shootings but some of the missionaries I've talked to have had their investigators or investigators neighbors killed! D: so sad!

 

So! Teaira (the black single lady) Is AWESOME! We haven't met with her much this week but she's not losing interest which is great! Lisa is our primary focus right now. She's progressing like none other! She wanted to be baptized before we even extended the invitation! CRAZY! And she's even been Anti'd and STILL wants to be baptized! WHAT?! So cool. That never happens. Usually when an investigator gets pounded with anti mormon philosophy they stop talking to us. But she's just like "my daughter and her husband are being stubborn. They won't accept this message!" And we're all thinking "she's gonna be a great missionary :)" We took her to dinner at the ward mission leaders house and taught her an in depth version of the plan of salvation. She is determined to quit smoking and knows that she can with the Lord's help so she's determined to get baptized on Feb 22 :D so happy for her! We're meeting with her all the time so it's great :)

 

hmmm..... OH! I'm the driver now :P I kinda don't like it cuz it's boring and you don't get to do anything but pay attention to the road :P not like I'd be doing anything else in shotgun but still! I don't like driving :P we're actually in a car share so we only get the car every other week which I kinda like because it allows us to see those people that are far away but it also lets us use bikes which make it SUPER easy to stop and talk to/help people that you pass on the way to appointments.

 

OKAY! I am SO excited for the iPads! They're actual iPads and each person is getting their own personal iPad! AAAHH!!! The leaders in the mission already got theirs so I've gotten to play with theirs :) it'll be so nice and people take you so much more seriously when you pull out an iPad to schedule an appointment rather than a warped paper planner :P

 

I feel like I'm getting fat but in good shape at the same time... they feed us WELL. We don't have a meal every night but when we do have a meal it's a BIG meal and we went to this one family's house right after dinner and they gave us MORE food! NOOO! I'm going to get fat! It was this delicious spaghetti and MAN! so good........... I just want to go into a food coma after we get fed...

 

Sad story :( we went to this house next to a member's home and they said they didn't really want to talk. We found out that this lady's sister had just had her home burn down. They lost EVERYTHING! The house was just a black shell when they found it. So we have spent the last two weeks just getting her family clothes so they have something to actually WEAR. So sad seeing how so many people are having these losses and it's even more sad when they won't accept the help, temporal AND spiritual, that we have to offer them.

 

Spiritual Thought

Well! for the thought this week I want to talk about 2 Nephi 2. There is much wisdom and knowledge to be learned in this chapter which is frequently overlooked.

 

In v. 11 "it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness..." continues in v. 13 that God would cease to be God if there was not this opposition. So we learn that this opposition is NECESSARY.

In reference to the Garden of Eden v. 15 states " it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life;" God HAD to give Adam and Eve a choice: to stay in His presence forever or to be cast out and bring children into the world. They could not do both. They had to be enticed by one or the other as it says in v.16 "Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other."

 

Yes, the fall was necessary because, as it says in v. 23, "they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." It was requisite of them to fall and for the world to fall. If not so, they could not experience the things which God has experienced. God was once as we were and wishes us to become as He IS, however, we cannot do this until we experience what He has experienced. He has had His mortal experience so we must have ours. And in order for all this to take place we must be "free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death."

 

I would exhort every single person reading this to, as they continue throughout their daily lives, to always choose liberty, always choose eternal life; because, although it may be difficult, it will always be worth it. This gospel is meant to help us and there is no aspect of it meant to restrict us or hold us back in any way. So, if you or someone you know is thinking that they are being held back by the will of God know what it says in v. 30 and remember that "whether by the mine own voice or the voice of my servants it is the same". To close this chapter he says "I have none other object save it be the everlasting welfare of your souls."

 

I know without a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing God has commanded us to do that is not to help us and bring us blessings. He wants us to become strong and experience joy, and that is why we must experience misery and be pushed to our very limits. When we think we cannot walk this path or we say that our burden is too great to bear understand that Jesus tells each of us "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you."

 

This is the testimony I leave with each of you in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

 

Until next week,

 

Love,

Elder Aaron Russell

Anyway, the black guy is an investigator. GUESS WHO HIS DOPPLEGANGER IS!!! Yeah. That's right. A flipping black vampire in Twilight. It's CRAZY how much they look alike! But that guy is SO AWESOME! He works at a retirement kinda place. It's a lot like Stonehenge in Orem, UT. It's one of those rehab centers. Anyway, he's an amazing flute player (like... BETTER than Jessy which is cray-cray) and I he's super metro which is funny :) 

the first two are this beautiful angel statue that someone had that I had to take a pic of. SO MANY ANGELS OUT HERE!!! I'm kinda freaking out! Anyone who doesn't understand WHY I'm freaking out should go watch the Doctor Who episode Blink... *shudder*

Me and my Comp.

Eating dinner at the Bradleys