Easter Email

Hey Everyone-
I hope everyone had a great Easter. Easter was wonderful for me even though I missed family and friends. I have had two weeks to prepare a talk and I had prayed a lot over what I should speak on. I know I was truly inspired. My talk was only five minutes and I was asked to speak on the Atonement! That topic is so beyond me and I am inadequate to even explain it but I did know a little about what the Atonement means to me as a missionary. So I titled my remarks, “The Atonement to a Missionary and the Mission of the Atonement” I shared the story of a young Discouraged missionary who wrote home to his father, His father gave him very simple words, “Forget yourself and go to Work”. The young Missionary (who happened to be the Prophet Gordon B Hinckley) went into his home and covenanted with the Lord that he would try to forget himself. He immediately felt a new light and joy come into him! It was in that exact moment, that precise minute, that the Atonement was able to comfort him and give him hope. The Atonement meant more to him than it had before! Such is the Power of the Atonement and Such is the experience of every missionary! I explained a little more about what the Atonement means to a missionary and then I testified of the Mission of the Atonement and used scriptures to express what Christ went through. So that was my talk this Easter Sunday! We were able to go to two dinners in which both families had brought “Investigators”. It went well and I am so happy to see the members starting to reach out to their friends. One lady is from China and after we showed the “Finding Faith in Christ” DVD, she wanted one and we’re hoping to start teaching her soon! Well it really was a great week. I hope that Easter was a good experience for everyone and you were able to “Come Unto Him.”

Most of the week was Zone Conferences. So we got to travel to all of the various locations with Elder Wilson and inspect all of the cars and show a power point presentation on “Driving Distractions.” We put some funny video clips in the presentation about being “distracted” and then it got serious when we showed them a lot of severe accidents of missionaries. Elder Wilson is always putting his personality in his presentation and bought an antique sword and told everyone it was the sword of Laban! He compared the Sword to the use of a car and how they both can be deadly. We of course got to be feed very well this past week
I love you all so much and thanks for the support and prayers!
Elder Jason Russell