August 31, 2015 First Week Of Training (Someone)!

Hola! Howdy!

Training is so much fun! I Love my little trainee so much. She is such an awesome teacher and Missionary! Her name is Hermana Wimmer and she is from New Jersey! And no, she doesn't have an accent. She hates when people ask why she doesn't. Most people actually don't have an accent from New Jersey. She is so awesome. We totally just compliment one another and I know I am meant to train her. She and I are the Missionaries of the Alpine/Marfa/Marathon/Fort Davis areas! I LOVE our areas and I never want to leave.

Did I tell ya the story about the Methodist Preacher? Well one day we were on exchanges and Sister Smith and I were heading home when we saw a guy out mowing his lawn. We stopped and got all his information and he wanted us to come back to do some service in his worm farm. Yes, Worm farm. We came back another day and helped him out with the worm farm. It was so cool! And their yard is amazing! They try to grow all their food out in the Garden and The wife has her own house for her sewing/knitting stuff. He is the Pastor of a few of the Methodist churches in the area. After we helped him they invited us to have lunch. Sister Nicholson and I were a little worried what she was cooking but then guess what. She is Gluten intolerant! What are the odds? She made the best meal ever and she gave us a bunch of recipe's. They are the sweetest couple ever. We have a really great relationship with them.

I love the people of other faiths. They are really great people they just need that full truth in their lives. We share things to help them to feel the spirit that what we share is true. This Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Truth. I am so grateful to have grown up with it in my family:) We met a couple of people this week and got to share the Plan of Salvation with one. He loved it and it made a lot of sense to him. Pray for him so that we can share more with him and the Spirit will be there to testify that it is true. I know that if he will continue to have a sincere heart in knowing, he will get it:) One of our investigators is also coming to District Conference this week with us and we are very excited. Pray that he will have a great experience:)! I love ya'll so much and remember that We are representatives of Jesus Christ. Be that example to others and they will notice. Yo se que esta es la verdad. Y Thomas s Monson es un profeta en la tierra hoy! Tenemos muchos suerte! Les amo muchisimos!

Chao and Love you ALL,

Hermana Russell

When I left Hermana Nicholson :(

My cute trainee! 

found a tarantula outside our apartment. yay.

Got new carpet in our apartment.

August 24, 2015 Transfers!

Alright ya'll. Well, God definitely has something in store for me because I am now a trainer. Pres. Heap called me and asked if I would accept this calling and I was absolutely speechless. I said yes very slowly with open eyes. I was freaked out of my mind. I paced the apartment a billion times while yelling. Then I said a prayer and got really excited:) This is going to be a really great opportunity and I am interested to see what the Lord has in store for me. I am so excited for my little trainee:) even though I was one a few months ago..... There are 200 missionaries in our mission and we just got in 27 new missionaries! wow! Please keep me in your prayers that I will be a great example to my new missionary:) My trainer is headed off to Portal-is, NM! She is very excited just to be a regular missionary ahahaha I was the second person she trained. I'll tell ya'll how it goes so far next week! We will be staying in Alpine which is very exciting:) There is so much work to do!!

Stay safe and  remember to reach out to those who need this gospel. The Gospel is so perfect that it is meant for everyone and adheres to everyone differently:) Love ya'll!

--

Chao and Love you ALL,

Hermana Russell

Our Gluten free/Dairy free meal that someone made us. SSSSooooooo goooodddd

Our primary class that we taught every week:)

August 17, 2015 2nd to last Monday before transfers!

Howdy Ya'll! 

I just love Alpine. It is so beautiful and i hope i get to stay in this area. Transfers are coming up this Saturday.

My companion and I went on a Hike this morning. Well to me it was actually more like walking up a Hill but it was still beautiful:) We talked to a few Jehovah Witnesses this morning and they were very respectful and nice. I talked about temples with one of them and he thought they were cool. We talked a lot about the similarities of our beliefs and it was cool:) They were a lot older then we were and they said they respected that at such a young age we were sharing the Gospel. At first they tried to show off all their Skills with memorizing their Bible verses and such but could tell we weren't really amused. We were very respectful and said, "ya that is very interesting and cool" We got to share things about missionary work that they liked. It felt good because we set that example for our faith and they set their example for theirs. It really changed my views on them because they past Jehovah witnesses that i have met were not the nicest people. Lets just say i wasn't feeling the spirit when they talked with us. We just had a recent convert who was a Jehovah's witness and she talks a lot about how you can really tell a difference. The Spirit is real:) I sometimes pray for Jehovah witness's safety because people talk really bad about them which makes me feel bad. There really are some good people.

Our mission President advised us to do more service which has been amazing! I love service and they people here love it as well. It soften peoples hearts towards us and we have been having much more success with talking to people. They realize that we are really that scary. They also compare us to Jehovahs witnesses when they first see us so they will sometimes just go inside. Or some will say, "are you Jehovahs witnesses?!" angrily, and we will say no and then they are all the sudden nice. Ha sorry i am talking so much about Jehovah's witnesses. We are around a lot of different religions so it is super cool to learn about them.

It builds me testimony stronger when you realize all those truths that were built upon. I am so grateful for the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints. This is the True church of God. There was a cool story that someone talked about at church Yesturday, Its about the Temple that they built on the east side of Berlin during that war. It was a great story and I exhort you to look into it:)

Love ya'll and The Church Is True! Have a great Week!

Hiking/walking up a hill

Exchanges!  Sister Smith

Huge bugs

August 10, 2015 Rodeo!

It was a great opportunity this weekend we went to a Rodeo with a few of our Members. We sat down and someone was saving a seat in front of us. One of our less-actives sat RIGHT in front of us. We were a little worried about going to the rodeo we didn't know what to expect and then that happened:) So awesome! We also saw a bunch of our investigators and many people around town.  Maybe now people won't be so afraid to talk to us.  We also saw some members who live in New Mexico. It was cool too because we saw a legit rodeo. I got to do 2 of my favorite things at the same time. Watch a rodeo and share the Gospel. It was awesome.

Ya'll have a great week!

Went to Precidio by the border. Texas - Mexico

This old lady let us break into her garage because she couldn't find her keys. It was awesome.

Hermana Russell's First Zone Conference!

Pictures from President Heap's Blog of Zone Conference

August 3, 2015 God Bless!

Alright so with adding to that story,(from last week) There are so many catholic families here. It is insane, and I can't tell you how many times that we hear, "oh ya I was going to convert mormon put my family would disown me." We always say, "alright well who gave you your family? who is more important? God helps with your family if you truly show your faith in him." Its really hard to convert Catholics. But we are trying to get a meeting with Hilary sometime soon so please pray for us:) We have an activity at our church coming up so i hope she will get to come to that. We would like to meet with her parents so that we can help them have a good image of Mormons. 

So on Wednesday we had the best Brisket ever!! Them Texans really now how to cook their meat. Our members are so awesome and we eat really well. The person who made the Brisket cooked it over 18 hours over the fire. It was so good. He is a non-member and his wife is a recent convert and he doesn't really like missionaries. So it really showed that he was actually kind of excited to have us over:) I hope he will warm up to the idea of missionaries. The dinner went really well so who knows! 

We have met many who have some stereotypes of the church and then they meet us and they are all confused because all those stereotypes aren't true. Its actually hilarious. I love this work with all my heart:) The other day we were at 2 apartment complexes and we prayed to know which doors we should try because we didn't have a whole lot of time. My companion is really awesome with following the spirit and the first door that she chose, we met this awesome guy. We actually met him before at a food bank because we volunteered and he volunteered there as well. He plays football at SUL Ross (The university that is seriously up the street from us). Also, a members friend knows him and told us about him. It was super cool because he just moved in and he said that no one knows he lives there. We told him we found him through prayer and he thought that was really cool and that their was a purpose to that. We can't wait to teach him again :) 

Just so many miracles everyday. Everyone always asks us if we are students at SUL Ross too. hahah its kinda funny. Oh! One more story for ya'll. So we were out riding our bikes and these people who live down the street from us just arrived and were moving everything in their house. We stopped and helped out for an hour and they were soooooo grateful:) We are going back next week to help her organize. They are newly married and they are so fun and adorable. They have been married 3 months. We are so excited about them as well! She called us her first friends here in Alpine and she wants to go bike riding with us. hahahah

Ya'll have made a covenant at Baptism to Stand As a Witness of God. Please share The Gospel to those who have not received it yet. It will bring you so much happiness and it can actually build a friendship between you and that person that you share it with. God promises to help you know what to say and do when you share it with that person. Just build that trust in him. 

I Love Ya'll so Much. Have a great Day! God Bless

Chao and Love you ALL,

Hermana Russell

We get a lot of fresh fruit from random people on the street. It's awesome!