Helloooo!!!!!!!!
First off, Happy Happy Father's Day to the best one out there!!!!!! - I was thinking about you all day Dad. Hope the girls did something fun or made you food. You deserve it and much more:)
Sister Russon
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Happy Father's Day & Happy Halfway 6.19.16
Alofa Atu! (6.12.2016)
That means I love you in Samoan - my companions teaching me the lingo:)
I am loving being a missionary more and more each day. It's such a blessing and a privilege.
Sister Matautia and I are doing great in our area. She is a bundle of personality haha. We just have so much fun and laugh all the time. And at the same time, we're working hard and loving the work and finding tons of investigators and doing our best.
Dagami is small town but the people here are full of life. I can't even tell you how many kids there are in this town. I swear they come by the hundreds. Sister Matautia and I are well known by all of them - a Samoan and American in a tiny philippino town...haha all the kids know who we are. We'll walk around a corner and hear, "Sister!!!!" and then have to prepare ourselves from the herd of tiny things that come running at us. They are so dang cute!
Some of my favorite people we've met so far are our boys - Recmar, Aldwin, John Rey, Jay Ar, Aldwin, Jay, and Michael. Most of them are less active recent converts. The others are investigators who dont want to get baptized because they are pretty sure they'll go less active. Haha, this happens, and yet, they all have goals eventually to go on missions. These boys are 16-20 and we love them. They're all best friends. Hopefully we can help them to get it figured out. Pray:)
A miracle happened this week! My companion are walking down this street of this kind of far area - it was my first time visiting this specific part - and we run into Brother Sturgill!!! What?! He was with a group doing community service. Amazing. The crazy part was, he had just been saying before he saw us that they needed to drive around and find me so he could send a picture to you all. And then we walk around the corner haha. It was fun to talk to him and see pictures of the work they've been doing. We talked to them for a bit and then he gave us a ride back home for lunch in his car. Can I just tell you what a blessing it is the few times during my mission I've actually had the priveledge of riding in an actual car!!!!! Enjoy it while you've got it.
Love you all so much!!!! Thank you for being my amazing wonderful family!!!!!! I love you all tons and pray for you all the time. Miracles happen every day. The more sensitive we are to the spirit, the easier it is to see God's hand in our lives.
Sending love always,
Sister Russon
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Last Week in Calbayog
Hello family!!!
Crazy week it has been. This is probably my last week in Calbayog. Most likely my trainee will stay here in Calbayog and I will be transferring. I'm going to miss Calbayog so much. The members here are amazing. These last couple of days have been a lot of good-byes and I'm going to miss them. But, looking forward to the next area as well. I feel like I've been here a long time haha - about 4 1/2 months! That's kinda long!
This last week we had a super fun zone activity where we rented out this big gym and played volleyball and basketball and tossed around water balloons. Stuff like that:) Activities keep us all sane. Nice break from the same daily schedule.
This week we also drove down to Tacloban because my companion needed some medication for this weird disease she has. Guess who is in Tacloban....Sister Erandio and Sister Folau!!!! My buddies that were assigned here a couple months ago. Sister Erandio was actually my last companion. They both are roommates together in Tacloban, so I got to see them both and we all almost cried. All of us have had struggles this last cycle so it was just a whole lotta love and laughs and fun. They are a blessing in my life! I love them to pieces!
Later, I was surprised with someone else who showed up...Sister Garcia! My first companion! She was spending Pday in Tacloban because her area is close by so I got to see her as well. Hahahaha I CANNOT tell you the joy I felt in Tacloban this week seeing those three. There aren't words.
Later, I was surprised with someone else who showed up...Sister Garcia! My first companion! She was spending Pday in Tacloban because her area is close by so I got to see her as well. Hahahaha I CANNOT tell you the joy I felt in Tacloban this week seeing those three. There aren't words.
We went on splits with the STLs and worked with them, so i got to companion up with Sister Folau for the day and work in her area with her. It's always fun working in other areas with other people. Gives you different perspectives and good ideas for your own area.
After we got all of our Tacloban business done, we were surprised by a text from President Maurer asking if he could interview my companion. He ended up interviewing us both, for various problems we've been having. Luckily the aftermath of that interview didn't stick too long and my companion and I have been able to go back to being good with each other. We've got the spirit in our companionship and in our lessons and my life is just a whole lot more nice and lovely. Thank you Heavenly Father.
One of the best things that happened this week was we had a baptism! This is the first baptism I have been present at for one of my own investigators in the mission so far!!!! I cried and cried. It was a good day. Jayson, our baptism, has just been amazing. I feel like I hardly did anything. I was just in the right place at the right time. It was he who was so prepared for the gospel and applied it to his life so efficiently.
This is a little detailed, but here is a little of his story. Jayson was really really gay when we met him. Cross dressing. After we started teaching him, and with the help of the member family he was working for, he just completely changed his life so fast. He later told us the day he met us, he had made an appointment with money he had saved for a plastic surgeon to do some work on him to make him more girly.
Can you believe that was the very day we met him and taught him the Restoration! I'm tellin ya, Heavenly Father has a plan. For all of us.
Can you believe that was the very day we met him and taught him the Restoration! I'm tellin ya, Heavenly Father has a plan. For all of us.
I love you all so much and I love being a missionary. I'm just amazed all the time at how much I'm learning and how proud I am of our investigators and less actives who are coming back and feeling the joy of the gospel in their lives once again. Being a missionary is unreal. It is amazing.
We can do anything in this life if we choose to not do it alone, but depend on our Heavenly Father always and through everything. I've come to a point in my mission where I no longer feel it's just me and my companion teaching the lessons, but that there are three of us. Our Heavenly Father is present through the power of the Holy Ghost. And I know that's true in our daily lives as well. Lean on Him. Reach out to Him. He's always there. We're the ones who distance ourselves from Him. So, choose not to do that:) Two is better than one. Our lives are a lot happier when we choose not to go through it alone.
Love always and always,
Sister Russon
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Conference April 2016
Hello Hello!!!!
Well, we finally had the opportunity to watch conference this week! It was amazing. I surely did miss watching it at home on the couch in pajamas with the family while someone's cooking breakfast, but I've never gotten more out of conference spiritually than I did this one.
We watched it in the chapel with some members and all of the other missionaries in our district. I'm so sad, I forgot all my notes at the apartment! So I'm just going to try to remember the ones I thought were great! President...Eyring? I think is the one who spoke about the lost sheep and how it usually has been a term applied to missionaries and members seeking to share the gospel with the world, but it's also referring to the Savior and how he will always find His lost sheep.
I'm pretty sure Elder Uchtdorf is the one who spoke about how Heavenly Father cannot force us into Heaven. It is crucial that we have trials and temptations because with trials and temptations come choices and with choices come agency. We have to choose Heaven. It's not something we just randomly come upon as we're meandering through our lives. There was a lot of other great talks! I loved this session!
There were some surprising things from conference too. I think you would all be surprised about just how cut off from the world we are here. Elections are going on in the Philippines right now and it is the main focus. No one cares about the world news even on a daily basis, but especially not now. Many of us were shocked when we heard about the bombing in Belgium - I think it was in President Nelson's talk. What a miracle that the four missionaries survived but what a horrible thing to have happened. Yeah, we were all shocked that we hadn't heard of it happening thus far.
Really striving to get our investigators progressing this week. If any of you remember P, the 11 yr old who just loves us who has a really horrible family background, we met her older half sister, C, this week. C is just golden. She's 22, married (unusual that they were married, it's rare in the Philippines) and has a little boy. She's only been taught twice, and the second time, she invited a bunch of people to listen and taught them all how to pray, while P - who is 11! - bore her heartfelt testimony of her experience in coming with us to Glady's baptism.
Then, their uncle stopped by for a quick visit in the middle of the lesson, and shared his whole crazy story about their family and the parents of P and C and what horrible paths so many of them have gone down because of drugs and alcohol. Then he points at P and tells her sternly she better not ever drink or take drugs and that she better do exactly what we ask her to do and stick with us always. Hahaha, even though they have a lot of problems, they're just a great family.
This week, during our lessons, 2 times, a lizard has fallen from the ceiling and landed on my companion's head! Hahahahahahahaa, I laughed my head off. It happened once to Sister Erandio, my last companion, and it scared her to death. Karma is gonna get me, I know it's gonna happen one of these days.
Spiritual thought of the week: Our MTC President in the Manila MTC gave a talk about how this life is like climbing an escalator - One that's going down, while we're trying to go up. It symbolizes temptation and trials. The top is where the Savior is, or the Kingdom of Heaven. Our climb is our dedication to following the gospel. The point is, if we stop, we will always drift away from the Savior. If you're not getting closer to Him,. you're getting farther away. However, you can't just go through the motions either because you'll never get anywhere. You actually have exert effort in getting to the top. I know it's worth it.
To quote from Elder Holland's talk at the end of conference, "The great thing about the gospel is you get credit for trying".
Love you all to pieces! Try to be-the-extra for someone this week! Everyone needs someone like that, even if it's something small.
I'm so grateful for you all and for this gospel in my life! There's a lot of people here who have been through a lot - I'm always amazed at how ignorant I was back in the US - and I often think to myself, "Why did I get so lucky?"
With the blessings we've received comes great responsibility. Remember why you're here. Remember your purpose. You're eternal purpose.
Much love, Sister Russon
Answers to moms questions:
Laundry: Calbayog has a laundry place (bliss) that I use. My companion thinks the whole laundry place is wierd and abnormal and she refuses to use it, so she washes all her clothes every week because that is what she has done her whole life. Hahaha, the cultural differences is so fun sometimes.
Companion: Things are getting better now that my waray waray is much better and her English is slowly improving, so we can communicate better. She is great. It's hard not to love her. Sometimes the language barrier is stressful for me. I have been explaining to her about computers. Before her mission, she had NEVER used one. Only a typewriter!!!! It's fun to talk about the differences.
Food: In allen, it was always rice and chicken or beef or veggies because that's all they had. I'm gonna be sad when I get transferred from Calbayog and dont have my super metro grocery store. Every day for breakfast I eat oatmeal and an apple - fast and easy - , sometimes eggs. Lunch and dinner is always sandwhiches, salad, fruit. I'm being so healthy:) salad every day and fruit every meal. We have dinner appointments occasionally or go out to eat or at zone meetings when I am immersed back into Philippino food, which is good. I like it. There was some wierd stuff in Allen that was out of the norm. But nothing makes me happier than a normal peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Reminds me of home:)
Apartment: It is a complex, each apartment is right next to each other. Ours has two floors - the bedroom and study room upstairs.
Well, we finally had the opportunity to watch conference this week! It was amazing. I surely did miss watching it at home on the couch in pajamas with the family while someone's cooking breakfast, but I've never gotten more out of conference spiritually than I did this one.
We watched it in the chapel with some members and all of the other missionaries in our district. I'm so sad, I forgot all my notes at the apartment! So I'm just going to try to remember the ones I thought were great! President...Eyring? I think is the one who spoke about the lost sheep and how it usually has been a term applied to missionaries and members seeking to share the gospel with the world, but it's also referring to the Savior and how he will always find His lost sheep.
I'm pretty sure Elder Uchtdorf is the one who spoke about how Heavenly Father cannot force us into Heaven. It is crucial that we have trials and temptations because with trials and temptations come choices and with choices come agency. We have to choose Heaven. It's not something we just randomly come upon as we're meandering through our lives. There was a lot of other great talks! I loved this session!
There were some surprising things from conference too. I think you would all be surprised about just how cut off from the world we are here. Elections are going on in the Philippines right now and it is the main focus. No one cares about the world news even on a daily basis, but especially not now. Many of us were shocked when we heard about the bombing in Belgium - I think it was in President Nelson's talk. What a miracle that the four missionaries survived but what a horrible thing to have happened. Yeah, we were all shocked that we hadn't heard of it happening thus far.
Really striving to get our investigators progressing this week. If any of you remember P, the 11 yr old who just loves us who has a really horrible family background, we met her older half sister, C, this week. C is just golden. She's 22, married (unusual that they were married, it's rare in the Philippines) and has a little boy. She's only been taught twice, and the second time, she invited a bunch of people to listen and taught them all how to pray, while P - who is 11! - bore her heartfelt testimony of her experience in coming with us to Glady's baptism.
Then, their uncle stopped by for a quick visit in the middle of the lesson, and shared his whole crazy story about their family and the parents of P and C and what horrible paths so many of them have gone down because of drugs and alcohol. Then he points at P and tells her sternly she better not ever drink or take drugs and that she better do exactly what we ask her to do and stick with us always. Hahaha, even though they have a lot of problems, they're just a great family.
This week, during our lessons, 2 times, a lizard has fallen from the ceiling and landed on my companion's head! Hahahahahahahaa, I laughed my head off. It happened once to Sister Erandio, my last companion, and it scared her to death. Karma is gonna get me, I know it's gonna happen one of these days.
Spiritual thought of the week: Our MTC President in the Manila MTC gave a talk about how this life is like climbing an escalator - One that's going down, while we're trying to go up. It symbolizes temptation and trials. The top is where the Savior is, or the Kingdom of Heaven. Our climb is our dedication to following the gospel. The point is, if we stop, we will always drift away from the Savior. If you're not getting closer to Him,. you're getting farther away. However, you can't just go through the motions either because you'll never get anywhere. You actually have exert effort in getting to the top. I know it's worth it.
To quote from Elder Holland's talk at the end of conference, "The great thing about the gospel is you get credit for trying".
Love you all to pieces! Try to be-the-extra for someone this week! Everyone needs someone like that, even if it's something small.
I'm so grateful for you all and for this gospel in my life! There's a lot of people here who have been through a lot - I'm always amazed at how ignorant I was back in the US - and I often think to myself, "Why did I get so lucky?"
With the blessings we've received comes great responsibility. Remember why you're here. Remember your purpose. You're eternal purpose.
Much love, Sister Russon
Answers to moms questions:
Laundry: Calbayog has a laundry place (bliss) that I use. My companion thinks the whole laundry place is wierd and abnormal and she refuses to use it, so she washes all her clothes every week because that is what she has done her whole life. Hahaha, the cultural differences is so fun sometimes.
Companion: Things are getting better now that my waray waray is much better and her English is slowly improving, so we can communicate better. She is great. It's hard not to love her. Sometimes the language barrier is stressful for me. I have been explaining to her about computers. Before her mission, she had NEVER used one. Only a typewriter!!!! It's fun to talk about the differences.
Food: In allen, it was always rice and chicken or beef or veggies because that's all they had. I'm gonna be sad when I get transferred from Calbayog and dont have my super metro grocery store. Every day for breakfast I eat oatmeal and an apple - fast and easy - , sometimes eggs. Lunch and dinner is always sandwhiches, salad, fruit. I'm being so healthy:) salad every day and fruit every meal. We have dinner appointments occasionally or go out to eat or at zone meetings when I am immersed back into Philippino food, which is good. I like it. There was some wierd stuff in Allen that was out of the norm. But nothing makes me happier than a normal peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Reminds me of home:)
Apartment: It is a complex, each apartment is right next to each other. Ours has two floors - the bedroom and study room upstairs.
Hardest Work Yet!
Hi family!!!!!
Love you all! How are you doing?! You are all the best and I love you so much! xoxo
This week has been crazy! Big surprise, every week in the Philippines is crazy. Sometimes I miss the ignorance I had in my 12 weeks when I didn't know how to be a missionary or understand anything that was going on. Ignorance is bliss, let me tell ya.
This week we had exchanges with the STLs in Catbalogan, so we traveled all the way over there, about an hour and a half drive away. Honestly, one of these days I'm just going to save up enough money to buy the van myself so I can drive it because these drivers are crazy. If I can handle this, I don't think I'll ever get car sick again in my life!!!!!
Exchanges are always good. It's nice to see how other missionaries work, especially ones that have been in the mission longer than you.
One fun thing that happened this week was we had the opportunity to have dinner with President and Sister Maurer! They were just in the area and invited us to dinner with them. We got to eat at their hotel with them and just talk about their families and the mission. It was really fun. Really good experience and opportunity to get to know them better.
One of the best things that happened this week was Sister Angeles and I found 32 new investigators. That is more than triple my record in the mission so far. This means 32 people were taught the Resoration or Plan of salvation for the first time this week. A lot of them were big families and we're excited about continuing to teach them! Woohoo!
Last week we had the opportunity to go to a baptism of an investigator of the zone leaders. Her name was Gladys and the baptism was so spiritual! Her younger brother, who's a convert himself and helped in her conversion process is the one that baptized her. His name is Cian and he is currently preparing for his mission this month! Immediately after he baptized her, the two hugged and just stood there in the font sobbing. Afterwards, when Gladys came back out, she bore her testimony and she just cried the whole time. We all did. She talked about how that is now one of the best experiences of her life because she literally now feels clean. She spoke a lot about how she has made so many mistakes and has a pretty dark past, but her brother Cian never gave up on her and believed in her and helped her get her life back on track and introduced her to the missionaries. What a blessing! It's amazing how the gospel does nothing less than change lives for the better.
I finished Jesus the Christ this week...wow did that take forever. But it was such a wonderful experience! If you have the opportunity to read it, I highly encourage it. It's amazing how much my testimony in the Savior has been strengthened just by learning more about him. One thing I've realized and learned more about this week through different experiences is that I don't think we fully realize just how much the influence and judgements of God work in our lives. And I probably will never have a perfect understanding of that. But there is one thing I know, it's that if we are feeling the consequences of the sins we have committed, it is not our Heavenly Father who is bestowing that upon us always but Satan himself, who is laughing in his victory over you because you yourself chose this. That's a part of how agency works. No matter what we do, our Heavenly Father is always ready to accept us back. The Savior's atonement doesn't come with exceptions. So, returning back is completely up to us.
Our father in Heaven loves us more than any mortal being could because his love is perfect, which means He wants nothing more than for us to draw nearer unto Him and do the things in this life that enable us to stay clean and strong and overcome trials and temptations.
In the words of Joseph Smith Sr, "It seems that folks these days seem to fear god too much, and trust in Him too little".
We already have enough to deal with in this life without the added problems associated with the things we have done wrong and the mistakes we have made. We will always make mistakes of course, but repentance is a gift from a loving savior and is meant to be used. Let us take advantage of it fully, find a clean start, and strive to be the best we can the rest of the way.
Sending heapings - HEAPINGS - of love to you all!!!!!
Have a wonderful week and strive to do a little better, a little more - read the scriptures, be nice, pray, simple simple:)
Love Sister Russon
Love you all! How are you doing?! You are all the best and I love you so much! xoxo
This week has been crazy! Big surprise, every week in the Philippines is crazy. Sometimes I miss the ignorance I had in my 12 weeks when I didn't know how to be a missionary or understand anything that was going on. Ignorance is bliss, let me tell ya.
This week we had exchanges with the STLs in Catbalogan, so we traveled all the way over there, about an hour and a half drive away. Honestly, one of these days I'm just going to save up enough money to buy the van myself so I can drive it because these drivers are crazy. If I can handle this, I don't think I'll ever get car sick again in my life!!!!!
Exchanges are always good. It's nice to see how other missionaries work, especially ones that have been in the mission longer than you.
One fun thing that happened this week was we had the opportunity to have dinner with President and Sister Maurer! They were just in the area and invited us to dinner with them. We got to eat at their hotel with them and just talk about their families and the mission. It was really fun. Really good experience and opportunity to get to know them better.
One of the best things that happened this week was Sister Angeles and I found 32 new investigators. That is more than triple my record in the mission so far. This means 32 people were taught the Resoration or Plan of salvation for the first time this week. A lot of them were big families and we're excited about continuing to teach them! Woohoo!
Last week we had the opportunity to go to a baptism of an investigator of the zone leaders. Her name was Gladys and the baptism was so spiritual! Her younger brother, who's a convert himself and helped in her conversion process is the one that baptized her. His name is Cian and he is currently preparing for his mission this month! Immediately after he baptized her, the two hugged and just stood there in the font sobbing. Afterwards, when Gladys came back out, she bore her testimony and she just cried the whole time. We all did. She talked about how that is now one of the best experiences of her life because she literally now feels clean. She spoke a lot about how she has made so many mistakes and has a pretty dark past, but her brother Cian never gave up on her and believed in her and helped her get her life back on track and introduced her to the missionaries. What a blessing! It's amazing how the gospel does nothing less than change lives for the better.
I finished Jesus the Christ this week...wow did that take forever. But it was such a wonderful experience! If you have the opportunity to read it, I highly encourage it. It's amazing how much my testimony in the Savior has been strengthened just by learning more about him. One thing I've realized and learned more about this week through different experiences is that I don't think we fully realize just how much the influence and judgements of God work in our lives. And I probably will never have a perfect understanding of that. But there is one thing I know, it's that if we are feeling the consequences of the sins we have committed, it is not our Heavenly Father who is bestowing that upon us always but Satan himself, who is laughing in his victory over you because you yourself chose this. That's a part of how agency works. No matter what we do, our Heavenly Father is always ready to accept us back. The Savior's atonement doesn't come with exceptions. So, returning back is completely up to us.
Our father in Heaven loves us more than any mortal being could because his love is perfect, which means He wants nothing more than for us to draw nearer unto Him and do the things in this life that enable us to stay clean and strong and overcome trials and temptations.
In the words of Joseph Smith Sr, "It seems that folks these days seem to fear god too much, and trust in Him too little".
We already have enough to deal with in this life without the added problems associated with the things we have done wrong and the mistakes we have made. We will always make mistakes of course, but repentance is a gift from a loving savior and is meant to be used. Let us take advantage of it fully, find a clean start, and strive to be the best we can the rest of the way.
Sending heapings - HEAPINGS - of love to you all!!!!!
Have a wonderful week and strive to do a little better, a little more - read the scriptures, be nice, pray, simple simple:)
Oh the Places You'll Go
Family!!!! I miss you and love you all!!!
Hope everyone is doing well! This week in the Philippines has been a weird one. I find myself laughing all the time because that's what I do when I'm in shock at whatever is happening and I'm thinking, "I can't believe that just happened...only in the Philippines".
First off, my companion and I got chased by a crazy man! We were leaving this area and the way the neighborhood is set up - there's a lot of walls everywhere with small openings to get through. It's like a maze sometimes. As we're walking to get out, this man steps in front of us and is obviously wired up about something and he's speaking jumbled words. One hand is outstretched for money and the other is holding this wierd contraption made of forks and spoons.
I squeeze past to get around him and glance behind me to see my companion do the same, and then speed up my walking to get away. Hahaha all of a sudden, she's pushing on my back and shouts, "Run! Sister, Run!" This guy was trying to stab her with the fork thing! We ran out and through this basketball court full of men in which we lost him. Crazy, but we had a good laugh afterward.
Other experiences this week include having a drunk man just completely break down in front of us and tell us all of these problems he's having in his life and how he needs help and wants us to teach him.
We also met this girl named P who is 11 and just loves us to death. No one really takes care of her. She lives in this house and her father is there but he's intensively involved in all of these horrible businesses - I'll let your imagination figure that one out. It's easy to see she's been pretty hardened and toughened by her experiences so far in her life, but she loves coming to church and hearing about the gospel.
This week, we worked really really hard, found a lot of new investigators, and then! None of them came to church. Not a single one. There's been a lot of drama in our branch between the members and leaders and it is a huge struggle for the missionaries. If I was an investigator and knew about all the stuff thats been going on, I wouldn't want to be involved either! It's probably a good thing I'm not completely fluent in waray waray yet or I might explode at everyone at the next testimony meeting.
It's one of those things that's like...what do you do? How do you get them to focus on the gospel and trusting God only when there's all these contributing influences from the members that is not for the better. We will just continue on I guess!
It's getting more fun to be a missionary now that I can actually communicate somewhat with people!
Love you all so much! Thank you for being in my life! I love you death!
Love Sister Russon
Hope everyone is doing well! This week in the Philippines has been a weird one. I find myself laughing all the time because that's what I do when I'm in shock at whatever is happening and I'm thinking, "I can't believe that just happened...only in the Philippines".
First off, my companion and I got chased by a crazy man! We were leaving this area and the way the neighborhood is set up - there's a lot of walls everywhere with small openings to get through. It's like a maze sometimes. As we're walking to get out, this man steps in front of us and is obviously wired up about something and he's speaking jumbled words. One hand is outstretched for money and the other is holding this wierd contraption made of forks and spoons.
I squeeze past to get around him and glance behind me to see my companion do the same, and then speed up my walking to get away. Hahaha all of a sudden, she's pushing on my back and shouts, "Run! Sister, Run!" This guy was trying to stab her with the fork thing! We ran out and through this basketball court full of men in which we lost him. Crazy, but we had a good laugh afterward.
Other experiences this week include having a drunk man just completely break down in front of us and tell us all of these problems he's having in his life and how he needs help and wants us to teach him.
We also met this girl named P who is 11 and just loves us to death. No one really takes care of her. She lives in this house and her father is there but he's intensively involved in all of these horrible businesses - I'll let your imagination figure that one out. It's easy to see she's been pretty hardened and toughened by her experiences so far in her life, but she loves coming to church and hearing about the gospel.
This week, we worked really really hard, found a lot of new investigators, and then! None of them came to church. Not a single one. There's been a lot of drama in our branch between the members and leaders and it is a huge struggle for the missionaries. If I was an investigator and knew about all the stuff thats been going on, I wouldn't want to be involved either! It's probably a good thing I'm not completely fluent in waray waray yet or I might explode at everyone at the next testimony meeting.
It's one of those things that's like...what do you do? How do you get them to focus on the gospel and trusting God only when there's all these contributing influences from the members that is not for the better. We will just continue on I guess!
It's getting more fun to be a missionary now that I can actually communicate somewhat with people!
Love you all so much! Thank you for being in my life! I love you death!
Love Sister Russon
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