Elder Russo's Mission
"I slept and dream t that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I acted, and behold— Duty was joy."
Mr & Mrs Russo 7-20-2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Thank you !
Thank you everyone so much for writing our son on his Mission, for supporting and encouraging him to accomplish such hard job. RJ has been on a greatest Journey, there he has learned much about life, people, other cultures , the human heart and most of all, he learned how much God loves each one of us.
RJ has been writing so many beautiful letters to us, I am sorry I did not share a lot of them on his blog, he asked me to keep it private.
I say , he is a beautiful soul with so much love inside, I am so proud of him for sharing his love with others and for working so hard to bring some light to others who has been living in such dark places in their hearts. I am proud of him for planting so many seeds of love on his Mission. Someday they will grow and lives will be forever changed just like mine was so many years ago.
I ask you, friends, at this point and time, no letters should be sent to Elder Russo, because he is coming home!!!
We love you all, we are forever thankful for all the prayers and letters and most of all, your LOVE.
Stella Russo
RJ has been writing so many beautiful letters to us, I am sorry I did not share a lot of them on his blog, he asked me to keep it private.
I say , he is a beautiful soul with so much love inside, I am so proud of him for sharing his love with others and for working so hard to bring some light to others who has been living in such dark places in their hearts. I am proud of him for planting so many seeds of love on his Mission. Someday they will grow and lives will be forever changed just like mine was so many years ago.
I ask you, friends, at this point and time, no letters should be sent to Elder Russo, because he is coming home!!!
We love you all, we are forever thankful for all the prayers and letters and most of all, your LOVE.
Stella Russo
Letter from Elder Russo's Mission President
Hello from the Jefferies in Clermont-Ferrand,
Tomorrow
is P-Day here in the land of 1,000+ cheeses and your sons may not be
able to get to a computer to write to you. Transfers were announced
Friday, and they are both heading to Lyon to pick up new companions.
Elder Russo will be teamed with a "two-transfer" missionary (fairly new)
who speaks Spanish on the side. This is sort of exactly what our
Bishop Allanic has been hoping for. He has asked the Mission President
and the Stake President for at least one missionary who can speak
Spanish, to stay with us for two transfers to do a triage operation....
the ward is slowly shrinking in size as nearly all the new baptisees
from the past 3 years are either refugees or students who do not stay
here more than a few months. And... they have largely been young men as
the Elders seem to avoid teaching pretty young ladies.
For this reason, many times there are only young adult males at Soiree
Familliale. Can you imagine all the testosterone at les soirees
familliales (family home evening for the young adults at the church)
where all the young men play a mass ping-pong game around an improvised
table? I'll post some recent videos for you to look at on my Facebook
site. If you want to see them, just "friend" me: Jane Jefferies
(missionary application photo of my companion & me - for ID if there
are more of the same name).
It
looks like Elder Russo will "die" here in Clermont-Ferrand. That's the
strange language of the Elders. When they come to their mission they
are "born." and their first companion, their trainer, is called their
"Father." As they near the end of their mission they say an Elder is
"growing old," and when they ship out for home.... sigh.... it's akin to
"dying." So, Elder Russo, the athletic & competitive, will be here
for the next six weeks with his new young companion, and then he will
return to that mortal family who gave him life.
As
for Elder Smith, who reminds me of a combination of Joseph Smith (his
stature) and Brigham Young (his wisdom), is saying good-by to us today
here in this Massif Central region, a cold, and sometimes snowy land, to
head to Lyon on the train tomorrow morning with Elder Russo at 8:30
am. There our two stalwart Elders will meet their new companions, and
Elder Russo will return around 5:30 pm while Elder Smith will get his
new trainee and depart for the south... the home of one of our Young
Adults, and also the home of our Eveque Allanic. If you don't hear from
him tomorrow, Smith Family, write back to me and I'll tell you where he
has gone. We will miss him a lot. One good thing about his going, is
that he has resisted buying a thick wool coat and has shivered a bit
through the coldest days of winter... but now, spring is coming and he
is heading south. He will be fine!
It's
the Bishop we worry about now. He is a young man, just 37 years old
with all the responsibility of first a branch and now this ward with its
list of nearly 300 members... most of which have moved away or died. We
have only 97 known active people, and most of them are well over the
median age for life. We just learned that Bishop Allanic has a
fibrillating heart. The first treatments, after a few years of
medication, were yesterday in a clinic. The procedure did not resolve
the problem. The medics threaded a catheter up a vein from his leg to
his heart and he was given some kind of electrical treatment three
times to attempt to reset the control region of his heart. And it had
no effect! I wonder if the stress of managing the ward and his business
is making the problem critical? He's an osteopathic physician who
works alone and manages everything... and the landlord of his building
has other plans for Bishop Allanic's doctor's office and treatment room
as he plans NOT to renew the doctor's lease in September.
We
are trying to take some of the pressure off. Our task is to locate the
missing members and ship off their records either to the genealogy
vaults or to the ward of their new residence. When we are finished, our
young Bishop will have a better chance to properly manage home teaching
and visiting teaching as he ministers to the needs of his actual ward
members. As it is, the ward grows continually smaller. Baptisms among
the student population just get our hopes up until the semester is over
and the students depart.
THAT's
why the Bishop needs a Spanish-speaking missionary for just two
transfers. He's been begging for one for many months, now, and he's had
a bit of a time getting some of the Elders to understand the plan.
Because the stalwart ward members are all aging rapidly, and because we
have very few families and only 7 children off-and-on in the primary,
and because the three young families with children are all moving away
this year, the ward is very close to returning to Branch Status. The
Bishop's inspiration involved taking advantage of the most recent wave
of immigrants from Spain which happened due to a poisonous political
atmosphere in Spain several years ago. Since these people are still
humble people, as they do not qualify for the national social security
doles, they turn to God for guidance... like the people that Alma and
Ammon worked with in the Book of Mormon times. AND their children are
rapidly approaching young adulthood... the time when they will choose to
either become one with the national culture or to embrace their
parents' religious values.
"Upon
such a full sea are we now afloat" and if we can take advantage of it
by having the missionaries seeking out these Spanish/French-speaking
families now, we may both save them and save the Wardby buffing up the
number of actual resident families. As the Bishop says, "In these times
of change, we must change how we work." He would also like to see the
location of missionary apartments change every five years to give
different neighborhoods better exposure to our Elders and , hopefully,
Sisters. As the official Clermont-Ferrand lobbyist to President Roney, I
am looking forward to the 70 new missionaries that are destined for the
France Lyon mission when the 18-year old Elders and 19-year-old Sister
Missionaries arrive! He has said he would give us another team of
missionaries.
I will wish you well as I turn back to my missionary projects.... but first some photos! Check the attachments
The Elders are posing with Sister Patricia Hughes, and Englishwoman who
lives out in the country... she makes "teddy bears" out of amazing
fabrics. The Elders left so quickly after the services today that I was
not able to properly immortalize them with my camera. Elder Jefferies
and I may see them off in the morning. If so, I'll try for better
photos for you then.
Regards,
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Something sweet for Elder Russo's momma 11/20/12
Dear Mother,
Happy Birthday!!!!
Ive decided that because i am too far away, and that im broke, and
that the best presents are the ones from the heart so i just want to say
thank you.
thank you for everything that
you have done for me in my life, thank you for your nice and kind love
that you have shown towards me my whole life, constantly loveing me when
i mess up, always protecting me from the evils of the world, and from
chores from dad :). Thank you for teaching me how to be a son of God,
thank you for teaching me how to walk in the light, even though i have
made mistakes in my life you were there of course with dad but you were
there and you helped me get over my problems and forget about them and
become a better person, thanks to you and the things you have taught me i
have been prepared very well for my journey in life until this moment, i
was reading my Patriarchal blessing telling me that Heavenly father
sent me to you and dad for a reason, and boy how grateful i am to the
Opportunity i have to be your son!! Mom you have and will have an
everlasting effect on me for the rest of my life, im proud to be called a
momma's boy, because like the 2000 stripling warriors, they were taught
by there righteous mothers and they were protected because of their
mothers, I love you mom and you are the best Mother in the world, the
most knd, the most loving, the most understanding, the most funny, the
strongest, and Im counting my blessing and mom you are deffinatly the
best one :)
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD ONE!!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Couple of little updates with Elder Russo's Mission 10/23/12
Here a couple of little notes from Elder Russo..sorry I am a little late with updating his blog....Elder Russo has been moving a lot this past couple months...he just moved again this last weekend to Vitrolles, France....small town south of France, not much there......silly boy has almost given away all of his clothing to someone in need.I guess he toked after his mom in this department.
Hey Mom!!!
I don't know why I'm not in the
latest one, i think we were supposed to send pictures but i never knew
where to send them, and yeah i moved again!! I'm kinda sad that i left Montpelier so quickly, its an awesome city and now im in this small
city again, or better yet HUGE with small transport! but i will have
fun here, we have a really nice apartment, no food though lol I'm
waiting for money to go back into my mission account so we have to duke
it our for a few days....
Im doing overall, noting really new happening, we met a lot of
people and engaged someone to baptism the last week i was there, so for
the moment i have nothing to update about here, Vitrolles, but hopefully
soon i will have something!!
Ha ha poor Gabi, how did she overdose on cup cakes lol?? that doesn't make any sense, but poor thing, i hope it was too bad for her, or
you lol, and how was that movie, i see the posters and stuff everywhere
here in France.
And tell Gabi i say hi too!! i miss her!and thank you for all the
picture lol i enjoyed them, i will have to send you pictures, but sadly
i forgot to bring the camera card with me!! ha ha well i love you,
emails are short today cause we got work to do but i love you so much
and ill talk to you next week!!!
Hey mom!!
Yes i
had another great week, mostly because of general conference! I loved watching it, its so inspiring and helpful for me! and yeah i heard about
the 18 and 19 year old rules, i think its great, lets hope they are
mature and ready to go on a mission, because the missionaries here,
mostly the sisters, are very very immature, they talked the whole
conference and i was not happy, i had to ask them to be quite many
times, the older in the mission i get and in life, the more i realize
that as said in the bible, there is a time for all things, and man was
it not the time to talk!lol but still the spirit was strong and i highly appreciated it! i woke up at 6 this morning to go to the church to be
able to watch the Sunday afternoon conference, because we didn't get to
watch it Sunday because it started at ten o clock, i think my favorite
talk was Jeffry R Holland, on Sunday morning session, it was amazing!! i
hope you all stayed awake lol!! i can just picture you all passed out
during conference!!i wont lie i was very very sleepy when i was watching
the priesthood part, mainly because it was in french, and the
translation is very boring, no excitement in there voices, kinda sad
that not everyone speaks English!
I do have one favor!! So i
bought a suite jacket today for 50% percent off and i need to get the
Pants to match, they are only 30 euros!! can you put money in my
account before this wed so i can go buy them, they are on reserve for
me! i thought i had enough but i went ice skating and then i finally received my garments in the mail so i have no0 money, and i just checked
it no mom and im sorry but I'm in the red too, i forgot that when i get
money out it charges me fees :/ well its up to you if you want to do
it,i really need a new suit, i gave one away to a member in Albi who's
pants were so ripped up and he was the one who worked for his family and
was going to leave on mission so i gave it to him as a present, and my
other suit has a huge rip in the butt lol (when i was cooking pizza ha
ha) so I'm in need of a suit :) thank you mom for helping me and i hope
you aren't mad at me!!
Well that's about it for me this week, it was really
good, and really rough at the same time, a lot of trials this week, we
have been harassed a lot lately and its taking a tole on me and elder
call, hopefully we will be able to overcome this or avoid it!!
Well mom i love you so much, i cant wait till i get
back and get all your neck kisses, surprisingly i miss them a little,
ive never realized the importance of family so much till my mission, and
on Sunday they talked about it too, you and dad did a great job for me
and i am forever grateful for the environment that my heavenly Father
put me in, he knew that you would do everything that is needed to teach
me!and you did!! i love yo u so much and i hope you have a great week!!
Love Elder Randy Russo ha ha!
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