Week Full of Storms!! May 31, 2016

Hello!

So we had a great week. We got a referral from one of our members who is a very well known doctor at a hospital in Quanah, TX and she asked him for a blessing because.  She had a dream that told her to, which was crazy!  She had cancer but after the blessing she went and got checked again and she is clean. The Doctor who checked her was astonished and is going to keep checking on her because it was a very slim chance that that could have happened. #Thepriesthoodisreal!

So they invited her over to meet with us and we shared the first lesson! It was so good and she felt the spirit for sure and she knows that this is the path she has been searching for her whole life. We are so excited!! Please pray for her:) Next lesson we are going to talk about the plan of Salvation and invite her to be baptized!!

We have so many people right now in line for baptism! We just have to figure out when is best for each of them. So much work going on that we are just booked!! We are so dead tired every day! It is the best feeling in the entire world! I love the gospel and i know that it is true!!

Today in District Meeting i was asked to give an instruction about the Role of prayer in conversion. It was awesome. I was super nervous at first because the Zone Leaders were there but it went fine:)

One scripture that always gets me is when Joseph Smith was praying in the garden and Satan was trying to stop him from praying. But he continued to pray and Gods light overcame him:) He must have felt overwhelmed with happiness. JS-His. 1:16

Do Not Allow Satan To Distract you from your Personal Prayers. They are so important for your conversion of the gospel. I would not be here if i didn't first pray and receive an answer that these things are true. That is the only way our investigators become converted to the Gospel is through Prayer. It is so essential to Missionary work and our daily lives.

"The Devil teaches that there is always time for prayer and that we can spend extra time with God after we finish other things that we need to do that day."

Make specific time for your prayers:)! Oh and sister Hobbs gave her testimony in church and i had to give a talk on missionary work:) My favorite topic! We also sang in District Meeting. Crazy week.

Chao and Love you All!

Hermana Russell

They named a college building after me in Amarillo:) Im famous. 

 

ready for our Testimony and Talk in Church!

They have these things called Pickle pops. (Frozen pickle juice) Gross but Texans love it!

It gets a lot hotter than this.....

Best Area! May 23, 2016

There is so much work to do here in Childress, but so little time to do it! It is nuts! We have so much fun though doing it:) Sister Hobbs and I are seeing Miracles right and Left!

We walk. bike. and run everywhere!

Childress is beautiful!

Except the weather lately has been a bit crazy! There were 5 tornados about 20 miles from us. Which was super cool. I kinda want to see one here in Childress. That would be cool.

We had lots of crazy weather last night and we are about to have some more this week. It is a little hard to go to sleep at nights sometimes. Especially when the hail is the size of tennis balls.

My companion is TERRIFIED of storms. Haha so she doesn't sleep at night sometimes but we will just pray and sing hymns until we get to sleep. Our neighbors have storm shelters that we will go in if there is a tornado so we are very safe:)

We have some awesome new investigators. We found this girl when we were knocking on doors and we were an answer to her prayers because she asked God to Help her with the situations she was going through and then we knocked on her door. She loved the Restoration and Plan of Salvation. Especially when we sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer." She said we sounded like Angels and she thought Joseph Smith's vision was amazing. So excited to teach her more! But guess what..... She is moving in 16 days. But she wants the missionaries to baptize her where she lives. She is awesome!!

Sister Hobbs and I are seeing so many miracles. Cant wait to tell you more next week!

Love you!

Hermana Russell

Us being Goofy!

I FOUND THE ONE!!!!!!!! - May 16, 2016

Ok I have my twin as my companion! Sister Hobbs is the absolute best! We are both such hard workers and we strive to be exactly obedient and we love to work out and be active!! We wake up at 5:50 every morning to work out till 7. Oh my goodness we love it and we are just so happy!

The area is amazing! The people are so so so great!! Its a Branch but there are so many people that it could be a ward. They just don't have enough priesthood holders. But It is beautiful here!! We are having so much success and it has only been not even a week. We have like 10 investigators and we have 5 outlining areas like Alpine TX. I love it here!! I am so excited for this transfer. It is already going by way too quickly! Sister Hobbs and I have to at least have 2 transfers together!!

We have some awesome investigators who will have Baptismal dates pretty soon here! And we have found lots of spanish people to teach:) I am teaching Sister H Spanish because she is an English sister. There hasn't been a spanish missionary here for years so I'm so excited to use all my spanish!!

I finally have gotten a hand of the language and i just love, love using it with all of my heart!! 

Hope everything is going well and I'm so excited to keep y'all updated!!

Colossians 3:17 A Thank You can go a long way:) Thank you Heavenly Father for my amazing area and amazing companion! I hope and pray I leave my mission in this area. Kills me to say but i have less than 6 months left.:(

Chao and Love y'all

Sister Russell

 

Sister Hobbs and Hermana Russell on the GO! Watch out! 'cause here we come to save some souls!!

My twin and I

Goin back to Texas 5/9/2016

FELIZ DIA DE LOS MADRES (Yesterday)
Sorry this isn't going to be the longest letter, but we got Transfer Calls and I'm going to Childress, NM! It is a super isolated place on the other side of the mission. I am so excited because I love small towns and I am used to them:) 

My companion will be Sister Hobbs which I am super excited about:)

We talked about something in Young Woman's yesterday that I just loved. We were invited to the YW because they are so quiet and they don't really answer any questions so we were there to kind of help them out. There are only 8 YW and 6 were there. Ya, not like Utah at all where it's hard to get a comment in at times.

But they talked about Personal Revelation and Revelation from the Prophets. I love this quote that connected right with it that I studied in one of my personal studies,

                        "How grateful we should be that revelation, the clear and uncluttered channel  of  truth, is still open. Our Heavenly Father continues to inspire His Prophets. This    inspiration can serve as a sure guide in making life's decisions. It will lead us to truth." -Thomas S. Monson

 Love you all and we are so lucky to have that guidance of our Heavenly Father!

con amor- Hermana Russell

saying goodbye to Lizeth who moved to Chihuahua

Saying goodbye to Ara in Roswell

Last Week of the Transfer 5/2/2016

This transfer has just flown by! It has once been said that time flies when you are having fun! And missionary work is definitely fun:)!

So we didn't get a chance to go to Carlsbad this weekend because we got to go to the Temple instead. But the Elders taught for us which was nice. Lizeth didn't make it to church because she had work? She is doing ok. Just kind of in a rough spot because she is going to be moving back to Chihuahua and doesn't really know when but soon. She doesn't want to get baptized because she doesn't want to move and not have a church by her or anything. We looked it up and the church is 15 minutes away from her and there is even a Temple! She has nothing to worry about but Satan continues to attack her with that. We get to go to Carlsbad this weekend so that will be good to talk to her more about it.

We had to push one of our investigators baptismal date back because she is getting surgery on her foot this week. So we are pushing it back to June 4th. She is so awesome:) She is the sweetest lady and she has studied so many religions her whole life and she says that she has finally found the Truth:) So cool. She is solid and pray that she will be able to not feel any pain on sundays so that she can come to church:)

Our Investigator at NMMI (say it like nimi) is going away for the summer so we are kind of nervous for her because she probably won't get baptized till after the summer break. But she is continuing in the lessons and getting visits from missionaries, attending church, reading the scriptures, and praying! She is doing great:) Just pray that she will be able to with stand the temptations of Satan during the summer.

We are also working with this awesome Less-active who is the only member in his family. He knows these things are true but its hard for him to share it with his family:) He wants us to help him strengthen his testimony and rekindle the spirit that he once felt at baptism. He is awesome:) That is our whole purpose as missionaries is to not only help others come unto Christ but to strengthen the testimonies of the Members:) So Beautiful.

Its been hard being so far away from Carlsbad to keep up with the Caverns area and the spanish Branch down there. The Elders are helping out greatly and there is a New investigator in the Caverns Ward who has a baptismal date and who attended church last week. Prayer works:) I have been praying for our areas like crazy! I know Heavenly Father is helping so much because he sees our hard work and prayers.

Studied my one of my New Favorite Scriptures this morning,
2 Timothy 2:3

We need to have the Ability to endure through the hard things that we go through and be those Soldiers that Christ wants us to be. Its cool because in the Book of Mormon i am at the Point about the Stripling Warriors. Some of the best chapters! That is truly who we need to be at this point in our lives. Especially with what all is going on in the world. Alma 57:27

 We are As the Armies of Heleman

I love you all!

Sister Russell

Off to the temple!

A recent converts first time doing Baptisms! Beautiful Experience:)