Howdy!!! September 28, 2015

It was a great week! We had one of our investigators come to church who dreaded coming. But he came! After church we had a lesson with him at the Upshaws house and then had dinner after. It was awesome. He is really opening up to us! We taught the Word of Wisdom and He smokes so pray for him to quit! We are giving him a 7 day challenge thing and he says he will try his best. We know that he can do it. He is reading the book of mormon and is really getting into it. He likes all the stories in it but has a hard time with understanding why they do some of the things they do. He is a great guy and would be a great member of the church:) He is coming to General Conference next week. we are all watching it at the church building.

Also we committed one of our investigators to watch the General Woman's Meeting and The next day SHE scheduled an appointment with US. She hasn't done that before. Hope that's a good thing:)

We also found 2 new families that we are teaching! We are actually having a family home evening with them today! We are very excited. They are such a great family. We have been praying for growth in this small branch and it is happening! 2 new families moved into the ward as well! Whoo Hoo! I love this work down here in Alpine and i never want to ever leave alpine. 

The people of Alpine just love us too. We are so lucky to be here. Our members are just awesome. Remember that newly wedded couple that we helped move in? Ya they want to come to church too. We taught them a brief restoration and i think they liked it. We are fellow-shipping them big time. Which is hard in a small branch but our branch does a great job. The missionary work in this branch is amazing. Soooo many things happening!! 

I love ya'll so much and there was something that our Zone Leader shared with us about people getting offended in the church. "People get offended which is silly but don't give them a reason to be offended!" We need to all represent our church even though it can be hard. Just be careful with what you say towards your brothers and Sisters:) We are family I know, but we love one another so show it. Tenga exito esta semana con todos! Les amo muchisimo

Con amor, 

Hermana Russell

Fresh eggs are the best!!

I don't know if you can see the eggs in my jacket. A lady who we do service with at the thrift shop gave us eggs and pickles. We were biking that day plus it was raining. Oh and by the way we are pretty positive she is gonna get baptized someday. She is awesome!

Carnival September 21, 2015

Well Howdy!

Hermana Wimmer and I have seen sooooo many miracles. The cute Lady and her three year old little boy are doing great. I have great feelings about them:) We are so blessed to be in the Alpine area. It is probably the best areas in the Lubbock Texas Mission.

This week we have been working with a less-active to get her temple recommend for the Temple. She is struggling a bit but hey we know she will get there. She wants to fully be ready and worthy so that is a good thing:) There is a Temple trip for the ward coming up in October and we get to go!

We got to go to a Carnival on Saturday and help out. We had an LDS booth jajaja. It was so cute. It was awesome because it was like a raffle. People could fill out a survey and put there name and address and phone number if they want the missionaries to come by. Then we would choose a name at the end and whoever wins receives a huge picture of Jesus Christ. It was so gorgeous i wanted it. We got tons of people!!! people loved it and now they love the missionaries. A lot of people asked where our church was and said they would like to come. All the teenagers loved Sister Wimmer and I for some reason. They would just come over in big groups and chat with us. jajaj It was the cool thing to do  We even gave them a bunch of cards to go hand out and they totally did. It was hilarious. They are all gonna be future missionaries some day. One of them was actually a less-active of our church and she was really open with talking about her family being less-active. I think she missed coming to church.

There was also a christian booth there too but they didn't really converse with us. The elders went over to help them set down their tent and they really appreciated it:) They were very nice. It was kind of funny because their booth was asking for money and we were giving away free things, Even movies jajaja. It was up in the Fort Stockton area so we didn't get any people for our area:/ ya your welcome elders. It was a great experience and we even got to hear some live band music. I don't actually miss it all too much. We had a lot of lessons this week and got some new investigators that we are excited about:)

Share the Gospel with every opportunity possible! Love ya'll and correct those wrong stereotypes people have about Mormons. We had a lot of that this week:) Every time we correct them people come to love us and we have really good relationships with a lot of people here.

Love ya'll and Strengthen your testimony!

We have been having a lot of pretty cloudy days! Which we don't mind at all

Forgot what this Mexican thing is called but it was amazing!

September 14, 2015 4th Week for Sister Wimmer!

Hey Ya'll!

Sister Wimmer and I are just loving the work out here in Alpine. We are teaching this awesome lady and she is such a hard worker. She is young and has 2 jobs, goes to school, and is a 24 hour mother of a 3 year old. Please pray for her. She does everything on her own. Her husband works a lot as well and works far away from them. She wants to know that the things we teach are true she just had a hard time because her husband is a less-active LDS member and he never had a true testimony so he doesn't believe in Prophets. We are definitely working on that with them. She is so cute and so sweet. We can also see the adversary working on her which is so hard. We just love her so much and her son. We want them to always know that there are so many of us here to help her out because we are all brothers and sisters.

Sister Wimmer and I got to attend the Temple this week! Our mission president advises us to go at most, every transfer. We are so lucky to have a Temple of God in our area. We love sharing about the temples to people. A lot of people think they are very cool and beautiful. The family that we got to go with are so awesome! We just love the Curtis's. The members here really take good care of the missionaries. The people here love saying hi to the missionaries now. At first i felt like people really were terrified with us. Maybe our horns were showing..... But now they are a lot better with talking to us. They realize that we are just kids. Hahaha people tell us how young we are all the time and they are amazed that young kids are doing this around the entire world. This truly is the work of the Lord. We are so lucky to have what we have!

I know that this is the true Gospel that we have on the earth today. I know that the different faiths have those bits of truth but they don't have the full truth. Why wouldn't you want to full truth? We are incredibly lucky to be led by a prophet of God. I know that all the Prophets and Apostles that we are led by on the earth today are called of God. I love ya'll and wish ya'll a great week. Visit the Temple as much as possible! There are some in the world who have to travel many days to attend a temple when some of us just drive down the street. Tenga una buena semana!

My Yellow bike and I by a windmill that Sister wimmer just loves haha

September 8, 2015 3rd Transfer in

 I just love Texas! The people here are so amazing. Its gotten to a point where the people are actually saying hi to us. The missionaries. People are beginning to see that we ain't all that bad. I love the people that we are teaching right now. One of them is being a little difficult because he is a 7th day Adventist and so he gets really held up on the fact that we worship on Sundays. He is the cutest old man. He will read all the literature against Mormons but not the BoM so we are working on him with that and helping him realize that you can just study about it. You gotta study IT as well. I think he is getting the message that we are trying to share. I kinda was getting frustrated with him when i thought that we just need to show him our love. We told him that he can only come to know that these things are true for Himself. And by doing that you just have to ask a simple question to God and he will answer you. He says that he prays about it but has never gotten an answer that it isn't true. So soon it will hit him. jajaja So please pray for him. 

We are teaching at a place called High Frontier thatI I might have already talked about but it is so awesome! My companion and I just love teaching the kids there because they have so many questions! At first we were only teaching a couple of kids now it's three and it will continue to grow i just know it! It's amazing that we even have that many because everyone there has some pretty skewed views. Even the teachers that teach there. But we are building great relationships and that is how we got two new kids in the class because they saw our example. I just love it. The kids are so open and are willing to learn more about the true restored Gospel. Well Alpine is doing good here in Texas.

We get to bike a lot and eat a lot as well. All the missionaries in our mission are jealous because we get fed so well here in Alpine. A little too well. Hahaha our members are just so awesome:) I hope everything is going well where ya'll are. 

I love ya'll! Les amo muchisimo!

Con amor, Hermana Russell

 Sister Grahm made the best prickly pear (Tuna) Jam! It comes from the Purple Cactus here. My favorite Jam in the world.

Plus, GF cornbread, Yum! 

It is just gorgeous here. Only in Alpine though.

One of our investigators drew this. Ya i know. she is amazing.

Got to Sleep over at the Monahan sisters trailer for District Conference!

Sister Smith and Wood!

Texas license plate.