Chuno and a change

June 28, 2015

Hola Familia!

Hermana Quezada is gone!!! It was so hard to say good bye to her. We

had a great last week that included many adventures.  Also I have a

new companion named Hermana Manaya.  She is from my group and I am so

excited to work with her! She is a sweetheart from what I can remember

in the CCM and I think it will be a great change!   It’s funny that

mom and Sophie mentioned something about Chuno because for the first

time in Puno our pension gave us a huge plate of chuno and fish.  Like

fish that actually looked like a fish.  Anyways usually she leaves us

to eat alone but this time she stayed and we were forced to eat all of

the chuño.  It was terrible and just made me even more firm in my

decision that I do not like chuño.  But the fish was pretty good.

I have seen Elder Buehner a lot lately and I think he´s doing really well. 

He´s always happy and I think he gets a long with his companion.  We took some

pictures together because his companion wanted picture with Hermana

Quezada. And so you can share the pictures with their family!

I think it would be great to have Elder Grow over for dinner so make

sure you take lots of pictures and ask him really good questions

because I haven´t heard hardly anything about his mission.  He´s a one

liner writer too.

Well this week was a great one.  We had a surprise good bye party for

Hermana Quezada.  The ward really loves her and they were all sad to

see her go. We made smores for the final companionship study and she

refused to pack until 9 on Saturday night.  Hahah. She worked so hard

right up to the end and I just love her so much.  I don´t know when

but I am planning to visit her in Ecudador.

I don´t really have much to say this week. We have had a lot of

success here in Huascar.  We were able to hear President Uchtdorf this

last Monday and it was amazing.  He said one thing that I wanted to

share with you  He said that if he could give advice to any members it

would be this to keep the commandments and trust the Lord.  I just

loved this and thought that it was such good advice.  We really just

need to do what the Lord asks and trust Him.  Everything else will

fall in place.  He also made several references to the lack of air

here in cusco and it was hilarious.   I just love the missionary work

here.  The mission has taught me so much and I am so excited for this

next chapter with Hermana Minaya.  Also hermana Campoverde had a

change and she will be in my zone!!

Love Hermana Russell

Sorry its so short!!!

Hermana Russell and Quezada and Elder Buehner and companion (Emma and Elder Buehner live in the same ward and neighborhood!

The Zone

Hermana Selfie 

Hermana Quezada and Russell

Temple Dedication

HOLA FAMILIA!

This week has been mas o menos… but its a new week and I know things

are going to get better!  I don´t have much to say this week but I

have managed to remember a few things.  First off the trip seemed like

way too much fun.  I especially loved the story of trying to drive

through the tree from soph and I was disappointed that dad and mom

didn´t give me ther side of the story.  Also HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD!

TE AMO MUCHISIMO! Anyhoo I also felt bad for grace and the experience

at six flags, but also happy that you didn´t have too much fun there.

Disneyland all the way, right?   I also just thought of CHUCK A RAMA

CHUCK CHUCK A RAMa and when Grace threw up the Sam´s hot dogs on the

way to the lake.  My childhood was the best. J  I also loved all the

pictures and was a little sad that my sisters are all growing up so

beautifully.  I can just imagine little missionary name tags on each

one of you….hahah JK

Even though this week was hard work wise, it was still fun because I

had hermana Quezada.  It was her birthday Tuesday and so on Monday

while she was at Maccu Pichu, I decorated her room .  It turned out so

cute and I was really glad that I was able to find all the decorations

that I wanted on the streets of downtown puno.  When she arrived we

had family home evening with our two investigators and our ward

mission leader. It was so much fun!  Peruvians know how to celebrate.

And just so you know Ungoogable fact, they all sing the happy birthday

song in English and then in Spanish.   Every time.  And also you

always have to shove cake in their face.  So that happened a lot this

week.  The celebration continued the whole week and I think we ended

up eating like six different cakes.  We also went out for pizza one

night with our pension which was a blast.    This week I completed my

8 month mark which is just crazy, Hermana Quezada is the best and

bought me a shirt for my month mark.   She is literally the sweetest

person ever and I can´t believe I only have one week left with her.

This change passed so fast!!

Oh and I got to see Hermana  Holland this week which was the best!

She is a sister leader so she visits the sister leaders in Puno and I

got to see her.  She is such a fantastic missionary!   We went on

splits with the hermana leaders this week and it was the best.

Hermana Condie and Hermana Mendez are my sister leaders.   They are

the best and It was so fun to be with Hermana Mendez.  She is from

argentina and has the best accent!

Also to celebrate father´s day we got to attend the dedication of the

temple in Trujillo.  Wow, it was an amazing day and the session was

the best.  I am so excited now to do my family history and it would be

the best if you guys could send me pictures of ancestors and dates of

birth and death, things like that.  I have a pamphlet that I would

like to fill out and I need pictures J  Also of aunts and uncles and

whoever.  The dedication was amazing.  President Uchtdorf was there

with Elder Bednar.  Tonight I will attend a broadcast of president

Uchtdorf because He is coming toCusco2!

Well I just know that this gospel is true.   I know that the work of

the Lord is progressing and we have the great privilege to participate

in it.  I am so grateful for the temples.  They are houses of the Lord

and the work that goes on inside is the work of Him.  I know that the

priesthood was once again restored and I am grateful for a father who

honors his priesthood and who taught me at a very young age to love

the temple.  I will never forget his example of driving past they

temple after baseball games sometimes multiple times.  He never said

much but we just drove past it and I knew that he loved it and loved

the Lord.  Thanks dad.  You are the BALM.   I can´t wait for eternity

with my eternal family.  What a blessing we have.  The lord loves us

so much.

I love you guys too,  Have a great week!!

Love Hermana Russell

 "The decision to believe is the most important choice we ever make,

it shapes all our other decisisons

Pension and her family

Pizza in Juliaca

Time flies!

Hola Familia!

I hope everyone is safe and sound and that you had a great vacation!

I hope you are all loving the sun and the summer because I haven´t

felt my toes in 5 days…. Hahah jk but during my studies I can never

feel my toes.

Soo I loved the pictures from the last week!  Keep them coming.  I

love pictures of you guys!  I can´t believe how grown up the twins are

and that they are practically freshman.   Que Miedo!!

Mom asked me last week if we had heating.  Uh no.  no heating. I think

that is what makes it so cold here is because you can never get away

from it.  But the good thing is that the sun is very strong and during

the day we are warm.   At night we heat up water and pour it into

bottles and sleep with bottles by are feet and hands.  I also sleep

with a beany and always think of you dad.  And we have a lot of

blankets. The sun doesn´t enter our room so its pretty cold in the

morning.  I can´t wait for studies to be over so that we can leave and

walk around and warm up.

I only have one Ungoogable fact about Peru which is that they are

obsessed with calendars here. They always have one in every room and

in our house we have calendars from 2008 and so on.   Every Peruvian

knows what day it is but none of them know what time it is.   J

Last week we went to Juliaca.  Its about 45 minutes from Puno.  It’s a

really crowded city but it has a Plaza Vea which is like a mall,

complete with Pizza Hut.  We went with the Hermanas and it was super

fun but I am glad I am not serving there….its not very pretty. But

Hermana Quezada is hilarious and I loved the ride there just talking

to her.  She has lots of hilarious stories and tells them in a

hilarious way.

This week we found a new room!!!  It is so pretty and its in the

perfect location.  On the outside it looks like it belongs on

mainstreet in Disneyland!  So cute!  Anyway its perfect because the

sun comes and warms up the room in the mornings and there is always

water so we don´t have to wake up at 6!  I think we will move at the

end of the month if it is approved. I really don´t want to move again

because it’s a pain but it will be the nicest thing ever!

A funny thing that happned this week… hna Quezada has a hymn book in

English so we sing one verse in English and another verse in Spanish

when we have companionship study.  Well  we were singing in English

and I couldn´t pronounce half the words… especially Jesus.  Hermana

Quezda just looked at me and said…”you`re the only one that can teach

me English and you can`t pronounce half these words”  hahah You could

say that Spanish has completely taken over.  Its way more fun to speak

Spanish J  Even when I am with the gringas we just all speak Spanish.

Its way easier.  Another funny/awkward thing that happened this week,

Our house right now has like four red stairs to get to the door.

Sometimes there will be couples there kissing or hugging or whatever

and sometimes we have to interrupt them and they have to move so that

we can get to our house.  Its hilariously awkward. Anyways one night

this week we returned to our house and there was a couple on the

steps.  They were just talking and this is a really good thing.  When

we got closer to the house it looked like the guy was our investigator

Miguel,  I was praying that it wouldn´t be because ohh so awkward and

no one that isn´t a member shouldn´t know where we live… but as we got

closer we realized that it was Miguel!!  He was with a girl and they

were just talking, thankfully.  We stopped and talked to them and then

we were like, welp we are going to enter our house now and we

awkwardly stepped around them.  Hahah .  We laughed so hard once we

were in the house.  But later we had a lesson with Miguel and he

accepted the book of Mormon and was so excited to read it and also

accepted the baptismal challenge!  We are going to give him a date for

baptism this Friday.   He´s a great investigator but the only problem

is that he only has time Fridays and Sundays.  The progression is slow

but if he will read every day he will be prepared.

ANways this week has been great.  My companion right now is at Maccu

Picchu so I am in a trio once again…but her birthday is tomorrow and

we are going to decorate the room and our mission leader is going to

buy her a cake!

This week I read the first message in PMG.  I really loved these two

quotes and I know that they are true.

“there is no more compelling work than this, nor any which brings

greater satisfaction”

“More happiness awaits you that you have ever experienced as you labor

among His children”

I love being a missionary and even in the freezing cold I am so happy!!!

Love Hermana Russell

Moon in Puno

Popcorn in Puno!

Freezing

Hola Familia!!

How are you all? I am really pumped to hear more about this trip that

you are taking this week so don`t forget to take lots of pictures and

fill me in!

This week has been great!  It has flown by and I can`t believe we are

entering week 4 of this change.  Crazy crazy crazy.  Anyways I will

try to make up for my short letter last week.  Traveling to Puno was a

mini adventure.  First traveling from Abancay and Cusco is the worst.

I got a little car sick for the first time in my life and thought that

if Grace had joined me she would have died…haha love ya Gracie!

Anwyays after arriving in Cusco I spent the day in the Cusco house

just hanging out with other hermanas who were awaiting companions or

had changes.  At night Hermana Coooper arrived and it was the best to

talk to her in Spanish and share stories of our first area.  Then the

next morning we traveled to Puno.  Its an 8 hour drive but the bus was

super nice.  I was the only Hermana and traveled with some elders.

But mostly I just slept.

Puno is great! Its not as green as Abancay, and its more yellow.  We

travel around in the combi´s like we did in Abancay.   Did I mention I

still have massive hills in my area. Yeah my legs are super buff!  Our

pension for lunch happens to live at the top of Huascar so we always

have a great hike each morning.  We can see the lake from our sector

and it is beautiful. Its really blue and I am sure it is freezing just

like Bear Lake.   They also have a mode of transportation which is a

guy riding a bicycle and pulling people in a little cart behind them.

  I have yet to seen any transportation like Kip and Napoleon but I

will be on the lookout.

Like I have said we live with a 87 year old lady and we call her

Abuelita or grandma.  She is so sassy and hilarious.   When we arrive

home for the day she always yells. HERMANAAS and we respond and she

always asks us to do a small favor for her.  Usually buy juice or read

some kind of bill.  Shes absolutely hilarious and so blunt. This week

at 10 at night she asked us to accompany her to a neighbors to

retrieve her blender.  The whole time we walked over there she talked

about this blender and how her friend didn´t return it to her in time.

Well we walked over to the neighborhood and she had forgotten where

she lived.  So after we knocked on a ton of doors, we are so tired and

freezing, we finally find her friend who refuses to give her the

blender and they finally make a deal that she´ll bring it in the

morning at 10.  So we walk back to our house and go to bed.  Well the

next morning , her friend didn´t bring the blender until 11 and while

we were finishing our studies we heard them screaming and yelling

downstairs.  Oh my.  Old people are sasssyyy! Anyways.  The abuelita

is hilarious and always makes our life a little interesting.

Hermana Quezada continues to be the best!!  Seriously I love her.

She is so kind and self less and charitable!  She reminds me of mom

sometimes.  Especially because she has this cackle that she does when

we plan to set up our ward mission leader with a single adult or

something like that. It’s a little witch cackle which is just

hilarious and reminds me of you mom.  Also she noticed that I had a

mosquito bite on my hand that hadn´t healed so she bought gauze and

medical tape to tape me up…. Hah She is hilarious and I love her!!  I

don´t want her  to go!

Ungoogable facts about peru for this week.

1.       Peru raises chickens to fight.  Literally we ran into one

this week who wanted to fight us. So now you know that if you come to

peru you need to be aware of the dogs and chickens J

2.       When leaving a combi the worker likes to say ¨baja baja baja¨

which means like get off or leave.  The translation is a little hard.

When you get on the say ¨sube sube sube¨ and ¨baja¨ when you get off.

Well they say it really fast and kind with a nasaly accent.  I always

kind of laugh because I think they say it to hurry us but when a

really old grandma is getting off she´s not going any faster.

3.       Also people speak a little different here.  They are always

adding pay to the the ends of words like Sipay or yapay. At first it

was hard to understand but now that I am aware of it its easier.

Last p day was the  best.  We literally have the best pdays.  We went

to a giant lookout point with a huge bird and then we roamed around

puno and painted our nails later in the apartment.  Last week our

phone exploded so we have been without a phone for two weeks now.

It’s the worst and I don´t know how we survived! But we had a really

old phone and it really did explode!  Haha   The zone leaders have

been trying to find us a phone but they couldn´t. so last night we

were getting ready to go to bed and they rang the doorbell and la

abuelita started yelling for us.  IT was funny because we didn´t know

they were going to come so we had already changed and we were all

ready or bed. But really fast we through on skirts and shoes over our

pajamas and went down to see what they needed. They decided to give us

their phone because they have two, until we could get ours.  Anywoo.

Heraman Quezada was mortified that we were in our pajamas and she

laughed so hard later.   Haha.  I think we were a little tired.

This week I have been studying the testimonies of Christ in the Book

of Mormon. We have an investigator who is slowly starting to believe

in Christ and I have been looking for ways to help him. As I have read

the testimonies of Christ written by the Prophets I have strengthened

my own testimony. I know that Christ is our savior, that he died and

suffered for us so that we can overcome the physical and spiritual

death, and I know that the book of Mormon was written to help us gain

this testimony of our savior. I am grateful for this testimony and

grateful for the opportunity to share it with others.

Anways.  Love you all so much.  Thank you for your support and your

love.  It helps so much.  I love being a missionary! Be safe this

week!!!

Love Hermana Russell

Lookout point with a really big chicken!

View from sector Huescar

The Sisters!

They got hops

Heyyyyy!

June 1, 2015

I just wrote a really long letter and the computer turned off… sO I

don´t feel like writing anymore. Just know that life is good and one

day I will respond to the questions about how I got to Puno..  Just

know that I am here and I am super happy!

The weather is freezing here and we sleep with lots of blankets and

beanies. I am so grateful for the long garments.  They save my life!!

My pensions are great.  I think they have a little more money because

we have been eating a little more better.  Like KFC one night! Whoo!

But they fry things a lot more so my stomach is not too happy. But

thanks for the Pepto Bismo mom! It’s the greatest!

I sent a package, so be on the look out. It contains some things for

the family.  And also type of food thing called maza mora.  Its like

drinking a sentsy candle, if you ever wanted to know what that tastes

like.  I don´t know if I like it or not but we eat it a lot in the

nights.  So enjoy!

Ungoogable facts about Peru.

1.        People are really blunt here.  When they describe people

they always call them fat and the Hermana that we lived with told me

that another Hermana fell down the stairs because she was fat… haha

its kind of hilarious when you translate it into your head.

2.       People didn`t decorate for Christmas until the day of , but

they are still Christmas decorations out to this day.  It’s like the

opposite of the US.  We start decorating way to earlier and they leave

the decorations up till June.  Oh Peruvians. I love you.

So Last P day was the greatest!  We went to a dock by Lake Titicaca

and took a ton of pictures.  And then we went to a noche de hogar with

a really cool family in the ward.   They are hilarious and we had a

lot of fun.  We played the flour game and I totally lost, sorry don´t

have pictures of flour all over me.

This week was a little different because Hermana Quezada had to go to

Cusco to finish papers to go home.  She was gone for four days because

there was a strike in Puno and no one could leave or travel.  So I was

with other hermanas and we shared sectors.  It was a little stressful

because I don´t know the sector very well but it was the best because

I was with Hermana Love from the CCM.  She is doing great and we had a

lot of fun contacting one night together.  She has great Spanish and

taught me some new words.

Finally my companion came home and we had some great visits.  We have

three really great investigators that are going to get baptized

hopefully this month.  I want Hermana Quezada to leave with these

baptisms!  We are working really hard and we are loving it.

Puno is beautiful and I love it here.   I was a little home sick for

Tamburco, but we have great members in the ward too.  Sorry for the

shortness of the letter but  I just want you guys to know that I love

you and I am so happy here!  It was the best choice I ever made.

We have three great investigators here in Huascar. They are

progressing really well and even though we know they are ready they

are having a hard time recognizing their answers. I know that if they

continue to read and pray that a sure answer will come. Hermana

Quezada is the best and i wish I had a little more time with her. I am

learning so much for her. She is always happy and smiling and is just

a joy to be around.

This week I have been studying Alma 5. I love this chapter because it

is so applicable to every one. Missionaries, menos activos, non

members. I just love the image of the Pastor calling His Sheep. he is

always calling us and we only need to listen and come unto him. I have

been thinking alot about how we help others come unto Christ and how

we personally can come unto him. I think the main thing we need to do

is humble ourselves and be repentant. If we do this He rejoices and he

is so happy with us. All of this made me think of the story of the

prodigal son. I love this story because of the example of his father.

When his father sees his son, He runs to him and he is so happy. I

think we are like the prodigal son. We have all sinned we all commit

errors, but if we repent and return to Him. He will be so thrilled.

Gracias for eveything! Have a great week!

Love Hermana Russell

Harbor at Lake Titicaca

Hermana Quezada and Russell