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.