I'll be training a new missionary!

Glad you had an awesome week and that you guys are staying busy! President Robinson called Bishop Black and talked about the Ward in Kodiak and Then President called us and we talked to him for a good 30 minutes and he wanted to tell him about Kodiak, and President Pretty much told me that I am training the New Filipino coming in. Well I hope he likes Tracting because that's what we have been doing lately and I hope he likes walking to! Haha Should be fun! That means If I train him, I will be in Kodiak for the rest of my mission! Elder Casia is going home to the Philippines next Wednesday Morning, we will be flying out of Kodiak Next Monday! We found out that this one girl named Brittney who is 15 and has been attending church for 2 years wants to be baptized, but she needs to talk to her parents first! we will see how that goes! But we will be fishing today again! People are starting to take out there boats to go fish, I wish that we could go on the boat with them! haha But this week was pretty good! Well I love you mom! Have a great week!

Wonderful Pictures of Kodiak Island!!!

Pink Salmon! YUMM!

That's why we are not catching anything because the sea lion is there!



Fishing!!!

Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband speaking to us on our mission, on there layover to Asia, they will be in Asia for a couple of weeks!

Tatonka!!!

Me at Surfers Beach!

Elder Casia at Surfers Beach! This is his last week on the mission!

Another bald Eagle!!!

A picture that I am drawing.  The women shelter asked me to draw something for there T-Shirt and if they like it then they will make there T-Shirt out of it! If not oh well!

Happy Valentines day!

To mom...Happy valentines Day! I did receive your wonderful box that you guys sent to me! Thank you and Elder Casia said thank you to! I am almost done with a letter that I am sending to the Family that contains my week, so I wont be sharing anything about last week with yall! sorry, but it will be in a letter. Yeah its raining and raining some more! Thanks for the Pictures! Trevor is pretty cool, Me and him are emailing each other. Haha So you guys are working on the basement I hear? Can you send me a picture? I'm glad Deb is okay! And that Eric is doing good! And Izzy and Chloe! I plan on making this Cheese cake Recipe that this one lady named Sis. Jenson gave to me when I was in Homer. Best cheese cake I have ever tasted! She has only given the recipe to two people, Elder Leotoua and Me.! Should be interesting. Going Fishing today! Hope Everything is going well for you! Love you!

Elder Russell!

To dad...Hmmm whats up? Its raining and we are planning on going fishing today, again.... haha We did not catch anything, but hopefully today! They were not running last week in the rivers, but we hope today. The Ferry Ride was Awesome! I am writing a letter that explains my whole trip to you guys and I will get it off to you this week! I am almost done with it. It was nice to get off the Island for a little bit though! Me and Elder Casia have the whole Island to ourselves! so we can do whatever we want.... Haha just kidding! Man this has really been super weird winter everywhere! haha Its like the Poles of the earth are moving! So Dad our High priest group leader is Named Bob Stanford and I have been talking to him and his son in law lately. Bro. Stanford is a bush pilot and he owns Island air and he is the number one pilot on the Island, He has trained every pilot on the Island, and his Son in Law lives in Logan Utah and he is a Helicopter Instructor there.  And He told me to hit him up when I get home and Brother Stanford and they will help me get my Pilots license. That"s what I want to do, I want to work hard back at home and save up money maybe take out a couple of loans and go to Flight school, Getting my Bush Pilots license and My Helicopter License, First I want to get my Helicopter License.  They said its a lot of work but it is worth, and I can get it done pretty quick if I work hard at it,  Its something that they enjoy and they make pretty good money. And its something that I know I would Enjoy doing. They told me that they have flying classes in College but they said dont do that because they are not really good trainers and you end up spending more money and it is stretched out for a long period of time, They said go to a Flight School, And I plan on Contacting His son in law that is a helicopter instructor and go to his classes and have him train me because he said he will. He said that there is more job options with Helicopters and you are more likely to make more, You are especially going to make more he said if you have your bush pilots license and your Helicopter license. And that's what he has! You might think this is crazy but this is what I desire to do. Email me back as soon as you can if you can today. Love ya!

Elder Russell

My week has been good but, lots of trials!

My week has been good! Lots of trials but its good, I am getting through them and I keep on climbing! Yeah its snowed 2 feet last night but now its raining and its supposed to rain for the rest of this week! I have hardly slept this week! I lay in bed at 10:30 pm and I don't sleep until 1 in the morning! If I don't fall asleep before Elder Casia does then there is like no way I will be sleeping that night. He snores super loud! Even when I fall asleep I wake up to his snoring and I have ear plugs in! I am very tired. I bang on the wall for him to wake up and try to fall asleep but he falls a sleep literally 3 seconds later, I sometimes go and plug his nose so he does not breath and then he wakes up and then falls asleep 3 seconds later. I hope to send your Christmas package soon :) haha So there is this Filipino family the Barco's that have been returning back to activity to the church and they said that they are going down to Utah July 8 or 9 or 10th, of this year and they don't have much money and they plan on staying in Utah for a couple weeks, and I told them that they can stay at Our place for a week or so while they are in Utah, so that they can actually have a nice vacation. They want me to take them to fun things in Utah. I don't really know much about Utah because I have forgot it, the only things I really know now is Alaska haha! So I hope that's okay, They want to stay with us, Just don't want them spending a ton of money on a Hotel and not be able to spend it on fun things to do in Utah. They are still talking about it. They want to see the Salt Lake Temple really bad, and she would like to go through it. But it will be nice if they get a temple recommend to go do Baptisms for the Dead. We will see. On Wednesday at 9:45 pm. we will be ferrying from Kodiak to Homer, we will arrive in homer at 7:30 am Thursday morning. 10 hour ferry! Elder Casia is excited but I'm not, I have been on to many ferries all ready, and its going to be dark so we wont be able to see anything. We will be going on Exchanges in Homer and then drive up Friday morning to zone Conference in Soldotna and then Saturday morning we will be riding up with the Assistants to the President to Anchorage and then we will fly from Anchorage at 1:30 and arrive in Kodiak at 2:45. Busy Busy busy! Oh and our Mission President just received a text from M Russell Ballard and he said that he will be heading to Asia and his lay over is in Anchorage for a couple hours and he would like to have a meeting with the Missionaries and then after the Meeting he will get on the plane with the other 70's and fly to Asia! We will be Skyping in. He will be here on the 18th of this month! Should be fun. Well I Love you guys! Love you Mom!

This week was tough....

This week was tough.... Every Appointment canceling on us, people at work, people not wanting the missionaries to stop by any more, people that want there names taken off the records... Its been tough I hate not having a lot of lessons, especially with Investigators, but we keep on going. I know why this is happening. Before this last week started I Asked Heavenly Father to please give me mountains to climb but mountains that are possible to climb with His help. I said that I need to be more humble, so that I can love the people more. And I wanted to exercise more faith, because it is easy to exercise faith when things are all going good but its not so easy when we are facing trials. Haha praying for that was ether really smart or really stupid. Haha We will see. Sorry this is short. Just nothing much to talk about this week. Going fishing today. Love you guys! Salamat! (Thank you)

Elder Russell

Alaska Anchorage Mission

Kodiak Island

Soldotna Zone

I'm sending pictures for my email this week!

Decided to through a Kodiak snowball at you! Haha

Kodiak Island!

Panoramic of  Kodiak in the snow!

Driving down Pillar Mountain!

Elder Casia being weird! Haha Nerd!

Fort Abercrombe! Old Army bunkers and guns! The hike that we went on!

Miller Point

Eagle!!!

The cliff that I hiked down! Yeahhhhhh that was SCARY! I wont do that again! I didn't  realize how dumb it was until I got to the bottom! SORRY MOM! Haha I wanted to get closer to the Eagles that's why  I hiked down! Haha 

Buoy stuck in between the cliff's! Haha

See the Eagle!

Star Fish!!!

Elder Casia made the chicken and I made the Biscuits! You should be so proud!Haha

Pinewood derby car Kodiak pinewood derby! No rule competition! I carved it with mp pocket knife and I put a ton of thumb tacks and its not finished in the picture but toward the back end I put a Angle Moroni! Believe it or not I  took 4th place out of 32 racers! Haha All the adults had blank surprised faces! Haha It was awesome! I gave my car to the little kid that wanted it! Haha!    ( Snow P-day )

Church was awesome! We had 3 investigators attend church!

Monday- We went on a hike on Near Island! In the middle of the Hike you come up to this cliff and off course the ocean is right below you and while I was walking up to the edge of it to jump off.... Jk. To look over the edge. Right when I got up to the Edge I spooked a Bald Eagle and scared the Crap out of me because it was only 2 feet away from me! While we were looking out at the ocean there were tons of sea otters! It was another Typhoon this day. We got Lost on the Island and it was getting dark, but of course we prayed and felt prompted to follow this stream and of course we found a road and it was right by our truck!

Tuesday- Went and Helped brother Catubig throwaway a fridge and a few other things! I tell you what, if you want to see thousands of Bald Eagles, go to the Manashka Bay Dump! I have seen so many bald eagles here in Kodiak. I mean while you are driving on the road you look to your left and you see 5 and then you look to the right and you see 3 more! haha Everywhere! Brother Catubig (filipino) fed us lunch and he fed us Octopus!!! mmmmmm! 

Wednesday- just saw a ton of people

Thursday- Went and helped out at the animal shelter! We went and tried Carmin Rivera, a lady that we have tracted into and she is super catholic but this was like our 3rd time meeting with her and we have not taught her the Restoration because we were nervous but this time we were just like, no matter what we are teaching it! haha She liked it a lot! We gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read and she said that she would! She is a teacher at the St. Marrys Catholic School. hehe. We also got our Transfer calls.... Me and Elder Casia are staying! This is Elder Casias last Transfer! I hope he works hard to the end!

Friday- tracted, saw people.

Saturday- We tried a less active guy and his name is Anthoney and when we saw him his Girlfriend was there and her name is Emily! She is super Catholic but recently she told us that when she went to mass she was super frustrated because the catholic church has been changing everything and it is so confusing for her! So we shared the Restoration and to her to Bring all the truth that she has and to come and receive more. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said that she will definitely read it! Had two dinners, one with a Dominican family, named the Maldonado's, and the other was with the Catubigs and they fed us Chocolate Rice with Dried Fish...... yumm...... 

Sunday- Went to church! Church was awesome! We had 3 Investigators attend church! And a Less active family! After Church we went and administered the Sacrament to the Moris's and gave sister Moris a blessing! Had dinner with our Ward mission leader and his family the Ariss's. It was brother Ariss's birthday! So we made him a cake and He loved it! We gave his son a blessing!

Well that was my crazy but awesome week! Love you Guys!

Elder Russell

Alaska Anchorage Mission

Kodiak Island

Soldotna Zone