Elder Russ

I Baptized Jesus!

2009-12-07T15:55:00.001-06:00

We Baptized Jesus. I will never forget Jesus. He is just amazing.

Playing in the pila at my house on P-day.

That’s Just My Baby’s Missionary

2009-11-23T17:31:00.001-06:00

This is the convert that named her baby after me. The baby’s name is Evan.

This is us right before we filmed the Christmas movie for the zone. Every zone makes a Christmas movie every year and then the secretaries put it together for the whole mission.

Dog Attack!

2009-11-16T22:16:00.001-06:00

Photos

2009-08-17T20:37:00.001-06:00

The is my companion and bishop eating the beef jerky sent from home.

My pet boa constrictor

Coup d'état

2009-07-13T18:19:00.001-06:00

The guy with the hat is my bishop.

Police after the coup.

4th of July

2009-07-06T18:16:00.000-06:00

This is just some random stuff, we were bored.

La Victoria

2009-06-01T18:05:00.000-06:00

This is my bathroom, there isn’t even a sink.

These are some of the the sisters in my district. They are awesome. Hermana Alverado is from Guatamala and Hermana Zealya is from El Salvador.

This is Elder Castillo my trainer and the AP now. He is going home today actually.

I took this picture from my house. My area is so hot and dusty.

This what a lot of the houses are made out of in Honduras. It is just mud and sticks. Pretty cool.

Bull testicles, I forgot to tell you about how I ate bull balls. They looked just like the testicles from Fear Factor before they were cut up. The only difference between Fear Factor’s bull balls and mine is that I wasn’t like the people in fear factor. I was excited to eat them and they were really good. I like testicles.

Nesters baptism

Finally getting my toe fixed.

Mis Ultimos Dias En Utila

2009-04-20T17:40:00.000-06:00

Dolphins in front of the boat on the way to La Cieba

This is the sunrise when I was traveling from Utila to La Cieba on a cargo boat

The little boat behind the big one is the biggest boat that goes to Utila. The big boat is what goes to Roatan.

Dead dog in Cieba. I realized I don't have any good pictures with dead dogs in Honduras. It stunk really bad that is why I have that face. Like 20 feet away there was another dead one too. I am wearing my suit because this was between sessions of General Conference

So I didn't know what to do for Easter but I wanted to do something. So I remembered that the most important part of Easter for the kids is Easter baskets. So the young women and us got creative and made these Easter baskets for the primary. This is Kenia making Easter baskets for the primary

I have gotten pretty good at cutting coconuts.

Picnic with the Poublanc family. The Poublanc family are half members so we are working with them a lot so the dad invited us to go on a picnic to the other side of the Island. It was really cool we ate fresh coconuts and fish.

Easter baskets made from cereal boxes.

This lady had 2 pet toucans. They were so friendly and so beautiful

My Trip to go contact the Keys. It is only about 10 or 15 mins in a small boat to get to the keys. And on them live 300 people or so. So Webb has a boat and its his job to protect the reefs. So he took us over there. This place is beautiful

I am standing on nothing but Conch shells. I met a guy on the keys that Kills them and sells the meat.

This is Hannah. She is famous here on the island. She is always feeding me weird stuff like cow heart, iguana, cow tongue, cow lungs, cow stomach, and much more. But it is almost always really good. It seems that some how she is related to everyone on the island some how. She has had 3 husbands and has 10 kids.

This is just a family of members, the Monuz family.

This is a Juan de Dios. He was an inactive member and I reactivated him. Good guy.

All three of the men in these pictures are not members but I have been teaching them for a long time. My last Sunday Alex came to church. Alex is the younger guy. One of the other guys finally accepted to be baptized and everyone was happy then I couldn't baptize him because of adultery. But he is still coming to church. So that is good. He just needs a interview by President Cruz.

Some more caves that I found. These are really cool caves. Small but really cool looking on the inside.

Semana Santa

2009-04-06T17:04:00.000-06:00

President Cruz and his wife

Okay the kid that I have my arm around is one of my converts. He wrote me just a little bit back and said he will never forget the day I came to his house and that he is going to leave on his mission this December. He said that he is not going to let anybody or anything get in his way from leaving.

We used to do a lot of service with machetes.

This is the family Murillo. They are all converts of mine except the girl right behind me. They wrote me a letter like 2 weeks ago saying how much they missed me and that they are still going to church.

Pulapanzak, this is a huge waterfall that we got to walk under and go into the cave behind it.

Making brownies with a member and my tie fell into the mix. This guy would get up in sacrament sometimes and call me his son.

Pulapanzak

Que Chivo!

2009-03-30T15:37:00.001-06:00

Photos

2009-03-16T22:12:00.001-06:00

This is my favorite fruit. They are called lechas.

These are bats that eat off of the humming bird thing at night.

Webb

Almost everyone gets around on Dirt Bikes. there are only like 15 cars on the island maybe 20.

This is the new church. We are getting bigger so we need a bigger place. So this next week we should be moving the church to this house.

One of our members is the manager of some resort type houses and we pass by sometimes to talk to him and eat coconuts. This week I have probably eaten like 15 coconuts.

Videos

2009-03-14T21:04:00.002-06:00

El Monte

2009-03-14T20:30:00.001-06:00

This is just one of the dive shops. Read the last line on the list.

This is Osgood the day he left for the temple. We are waiting for the boat with him. He is probably the coolest person I have known so far in my mission.

6 When ever the boat comes in with food and stuff some times they have pigs and they always just throw them off the side of the boat. But it is like a 15 foot drop and then the pig never knows which direction is land so they swim around for like 20 mins.

Baptism of Carolina.

Iguana Hunting.

This is Webb and Egardo. They are two of my investigator that took me iguana hunting this morning. They both went to Church yesterday.

Conch. so many conch.

Even here it is the biggest deal that we have a black president. All the time people ask me what I think of it and I am just like I have no idea.

¡Utila la mejor misión en el mundo!

2009-02-16T17:11:00.001-06:00

This is the biggest boat that comes to Utila. It’s about 1 hour and 15 mins depending on the weather to get to the Island.

This is some guy that was working at the boat dock that had a Leesburg soccer shirt.

Utila Town

My Turtle Shell ring. It is basically one of the Coolest things I have ever made.

This is Webb. He is the guy that is on my back in the Christmas Picture and he is the guy that Brandon talked to on the phone on Christmas.

Freaking Awesome Package that Annalee sent me.

This is something you will see quite often if you come to Honduras Little naked kids playing with machetes. I have seen this at least 12 times. This time we were just lucky that I was able to catch it in a picture.

Cocoloco

2009-01-27T10:05:00.002-06:00

I eat lots of fish here on the Island but I must say that barracuda is my favorite fish.

Primary activity

Baptism of Kenia, Dunia, and Mario. They got baptized last month and are doing really well and starting to bring other family members to church. They are what I call in Spanish cholo or pilas.

This is everything I use to make the turtle shell rings.

This is Kenia. She is progressing great and doing really well with her personal progress stuff.

Twas The Week Before Christmas

2008-12-22T15:11:00.001-06:00

Just a sweet sunset

This is the Church. That little house is where we have sacrament meeting. We had 44 people come like two weeks ago. They couldn't fit inside. That is all we have to work with. It is really different than back home but you can still feel the same spirit. I love the Church.

Bondo Beach

Iron Shores

My pink house. Yep, this is where I live.

8 of Diciembre 2008

2008-12-08T17:02:00.001-06:00

My companion and I in our baptism clothes.

There are lots of bats on the Island and I caught this one. It is still alive. I let it go and it just flew away

This is Yasena. She got baptized last weekend. She is awesome.

We Had To Leave The Island

2008-12-08T16:53:00.001-06:00

Well This week I had a multi-zone. Where my Mission President teaches and tells us what we are doing wrong. But the problem was that the meeting was in the mainland and I was on an island. No boats had left the island in a week or came because the weather was bad. So we called president and we told him we can’t make it to the meeting. He told us you do whatever you have to do to get to this meeting. So we took a small plane. We took a plane to the multi-zone meeting.

This is what it looks like were I am working all the time. but the other 95 percent of the Island is just forest.

Bat infested house.

Church is in a really old small house. We took this after church.

Okay, I am not scared of tarantulas. But when you don’t know they are there and you are climbing a fence and put your hand right on top of one that is freaky. That is what happened with this tarantulas.

I caught my first snake in Honduras. Its small but its a snake and I caught it.

This is just a really trashy part of the Island and this kid is inside of a old refrigerator that he turned into a boat.

Baptizing in the ocean. This is Yeri and Rosibel. They are 13 and 15 years old.

The Island

2008-11-17T16:51:00.003-06:00

Well the island is pretty crazy. Last p-day a member asked me if I wanted to go see the prettiest part of the island. I said sure and my companion had never gone either, so we were like lets do it. Our journey started at 10am. I'm thinking we would have plenty of time to get back before 6pm. We start walking and and he says we are going to catch what we can on the hike and then eat it when we get to the beach. So we are walking through the mangrove swamp in mud and looking for iguanas. We find two iguanas that run and hide inside a tree, so he cuts the tree open with his machete and I pull the iguana out and he cuts its head off. Then we keep moving and he sees a big one up on a branch like 30 feet away, so he pulls a sling shot out of his back pocket and a rock out of his front pocket and shoots the iguana perfectly in the head killing it instantly. It falls to the ground dead. I was just like wow he just killed an iguana with a sling shot. So by the time we got out of the swamp we had killed three Iguanas and we were in the swamp for like 1 hour.

We are covered in mud but we come out on to the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. He then cut down some coconuts and we drank those and ate the coconut meat on the inside. We started walking again but this time along the shore. As we walked we caught different types of crabs for like an hour. When we get to the bay inlet type thing, it is just so beautiful, but we have to cross it, and it is like 300 yards. We didn't swim, don't worry. It was like knee deep the whole way. So as we are walking in the water we found 4 really big conchs. So now we have a bunch of crabs, 3 iguanas, and 4 conchs to eat. We drink some more coconuts then start moving again. An hour later we get to where he wanted. Now we are about to go fishing but we have to catch hermit crabs for bait. So we go into the woods and catch the hermit crabs they sell in the pet store, but really big and blue, red, and purple. In like 10 mins we catch like 30. Then we crushed their shells with a big rock and pulled them out and put them on hooks and catch 11 yellow snapper. 11 fish. So now we have 3 iguana, a lot of crabs, 4 conchs, 11 fish, and some fruit. We made a fire right there on the beach and cooked everything up. It was so good because he brought all the stuff to cook it with. We ate our food on palm leaves and had coconuts to drink. That was my p-day last week. I left a lot of stuff out but it was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done. I told him that my brothers would think this is so cool and he told me if they come out after my mission we will do it again with them. It was so much food I wanted to throw up. I really love the conch meat the best.

This is the mangrove swamp that we were hiking through for like 2 hours looking for iguanas to kill with our sling shots.

In the end we killed three iguanas. This guys name is Juancito or if you translated his name into English it would be little John. He killed that iguana from like 30 feet away and one shot with that sling shot that's around his neck.

This is my companion Elder Davis. We found 4 conchs like this and then ate them later. I love conch, It tastes so good.

Just a cool picture of the conchs before we broke them open.

Elder Davis and me on the Beach

Some of the crabs and hermit crabs we caught to eat and to use for bait when we went fishing.

Juancito cleaning the fish we just caught.

Me trying to help Juancito clean the fish we just caught.

This is our dinner table and fire. That is a pallet that we just found on the beach.

This is me eating some of my fish. Between the three of us we ended up eating 11 fish, 3 conch, some crab, fruit, and coca nuts that we cut out of the trees for drinks. We ate the three iguanas for lunch the next day.

I am on an Island!

2008-11-10T11:40:00.001-06:00

So 4 hours in a bus and 1 1/2 in a boat and I was in my area. My companion and I are everything. We are the branch president, we talk every Sunday, we bless the sacrament, we each teach a different class the second hour, we do all money, we are it. It's a little overwhelming, I not going to lie, to run a branch. I conduct the meeting, lead the hymns, Bless the sacrament, give my talk, and then teach a class. All this is hard enough but then when you change the language its awesome. I can really feel the Lord helping me. We have like 25 active members in the branch. The chapel is a little house on stilts. My house is a 30 sec walk to the beach. My house is also on stilts. There are big rats in my house. It is pretty cool.
I have another dog. His name is black diamond.

The name of the island is Utila (aerial photo, visitor info). It is really really famous for its scuba diving. Its the best place in the world to dive with whale sharks. Everyone is a scuba diver here. The island lives off of its scuba diving. The native language is English. I don't now how to explain the natives because there is no one to compare them to, they are just Utilans. The natives talk like nothing I have ever heard. Its English but the closest thing I can compare it to is Pirates of the Caribbean. I am not joking, lots of them talk like pirates. There's lots of stories of people who have found pirate treasure for real here on the island. I am not joking, like they are legit. We eat fish all the time but like crazy fish. It’s what ever the natives catch that day. And Iguana, we eat iguana. My companion's name is Elder Davis. He is from Utah and we get along really well, and so you're not surprised, he has the reddest hair I have ever seen. We get along really well. So today we are going to go hiking around the Island. This native guy that is like 35 and has been exploring and fishing on the island his whole life is going to take us to some of the cool places today. He says, “We's goin u come bac wit someting bra." Maybe an iguana or snake or something to eat tonight. This guy's job is just to fish. He free dives and catches fish all the time. I am scared of him because he is all muscle. He's a member too so that makes him even cooler. He cooked us a barracuda (the fish). It was the best fish I have ever had. I have so many thing I want to tell you I just can't explain. But yes my companion and I are the branch pres. on an island. We only go on division one time every 6 weeks and we don't have district meetings or anything. We are just on the island all the time.

¡Yo Mate El Gallo!

2008-10-20T17:35:00.002-06:00

Some members wanted to have chicken soup with us. They jokingly said, “Yeah Elder Russ can kill the chicken.” I was like, “I will Kill the Chicken.” They laughed and I said, “Where is it at. I will kill it right now.” So we all went out back. I caught the chicken, killed it, cleaned it, and we had chicken soup.

This is how they come to stake conference in Honduras.

Octubre

2008-10-13T14:13:00.012-06:00

Baptism of Migual. Migual is deaf so it was really interesting teaching him the lessons. He is going to start passing the sacrament this week.

Elder Elizondo colored his teeth black so he could look more like me.

I got hit by the fan in the middle of the night while looking for the light. The fan doesn't have a cage thing around it.

Some of the people in my ward after an activity.

Baptism of Hermana Carla Castellano. She is a accountant for the newspaper company in Honduras.

I really love papaya so I climbed up this wall to get some.

Jesus love me.

Baptism of Carlota. She is the mom of Carla.

Preaching With Power

2008-09-08T10:55:00.005-06:00

We were teaching this old Catholic lady but she wouldn't listen to anything I was saying so I lost it. My companion was like no no but I couldn't take it anymore. I picked up my chair and broke it over her head.

Then she still wanted more so I kicked her in the face.

Then she still wanted more after that so she stood up and wanted to fight me.

Iguanas

Cumpleaños

2008-08-04T13:09:00.006-06:00

Baptism of Olga Membreno

This was my zone before we had changes.

Way up in the mountains on P-day exploring in the jungle. It is so pretty up there.

I was really sick this week again. I had 103 fever. It was like 2 in the morning and I was in my little bathroom sitting on the toilet. It is was so hot. I was sitting there letting the sweat drip from my forehead on to the same place on the floor between my legs over and over again, when this spider thing came running between my legs dodging a droplet of sweat. I caught it and moved it to a safer location where I could take pictures. It is big, like 4 inches across, and very fast.

New Companion, Same Work

2008-07-21T20:06:00.006-06:00

Here is my new companion and some of the people we have been working with.

This is me way up in the mountains. It's p-day we decided to go exploring.

This is some of my investigators before church. We pass by everyone's house to make sure they come. If you look in his hand he is holding up his Book of Mormon.

These are some of my converts and they are wearing the CTR rings that mom sent me.

The two kids with ties on are Cristian and Jaffet. Both have their birthday on the same day. They have come to church everyday since there baptisms and all the activities. They are really pilas about the church. This is how they sing happy birthday in Honduras. Oh and Cristian baptized his mom and sister last weekend.

It's A Jesus Christ Lizard

2008-07-08T08:17:00.003-06:00

Blake didn't get a chance to send any photos this week. However, Bryan did discover what kind of lizard Blake found. It is a basilisk lizard, also known as a Jesus Christ lizard, for its ability to walk on water. It is clear that Blake's obedience and faith have given him lightning fast reflexes to catch one of these things. It is also clear the Blake is being lead to the faithful, even in the animal kingdom.

Strike, Strike, Strike

2008-06-30T11:50:00.003-06:00

It's been hard this week. All the buses and rapiditos have been on strike because the gas is so high and they want more money. So I have been walking a lot.

This is the Familia Cascro. They have been inactive for years and we found them contacting like 4 weeks ago. They are active now and we baptized there 14 year old daughter Jessica.

This is some lizard I caught. i don't know what kind it is.

P.S. Due to circumstances beyond my control I won't be able to see any of the comments from the blog. So if you want to tell me anything quit being lazy and write me a letter. The address is in the right column of the blog. If you are feeling sorry for yourself about all of the trouble of mailing a letter, remember that I don't have air conditioning, and I take a shower by dumping a bucket of cold water on myself.

Catracho

2008-06-23T12:12:00.006-06:00

I say Catracho because this week I felt like a real Honduran. The people from Honduras call themselves Catratros. The lady who washes my clothes couldn't wash our clothes this week because there was no water. So I was wearing the same clothes for 3 1/2 days. And I didn't get to shower for 2 1/2 days. I smelled so bad and was so dirty. It was a very hot week. I never get a break from the heat. At night I come home and I will right in my journal as I'm writing sweat drips onto my journal and smears the letters. I sweat this bad even when I have a big fan on me like all night. At night I hear gun shots. Like once a week I wake up to gun shot in the middle of the night. I thought this would be cool but it's not. It is scary and when I wake up I realize how hot I am.

This is in my area. On P-day the whole zone got together and we walked up to Coca-a-Cola Mountain. There is this huge mountain and on it is this giant Coca-a-Cola sign that you can see from anywhere is San Pedro Sula.

This is Elder Veamatahau and I standing on the C looking out over all of San Pedro Sula

This is my zone at the top of Coca-a-Cola Mountain.

This is my tan line. I have never had tan lines in my life. It's the same on my arms

This is us doing some service. We are digging a hole for someone's bathroom, because right now they just go outside anywhere they can find. Behind me is Elder Veamatahau. He is from Tonga and he wants me to give him Jari's address. He wants to marry her. So ask Jari if I can give him her address. He wants to write her.

These are all the orphan kids we play futbol with. They are really good and play bare foot. We play them once a month. The first time they won. Then the second time we won.

Photos

2008-06-16T16:41:00.005-06:00

This is Yaffet, Cristian, and Yescenia. The big guy is a member. He helps us out all the time. He baptized Yescenia and I baptized the others. Cristian is 17 and already is talking about serving a mission.

These little people are always carrying so much wood up the mountain and I can never understand how they do it. I feel bad for them so I end up carrying the wood while Elder Castillo talks to them.

They always carry it on the heads too. I am always trying to be part of there culture so I wanted to try it on my head.

This is a little orphan kid that wanted me to throw him in the air. Look closely at his face, he is so happy.

It doesn't matter how poor you are most everyone has a bird just like this. And check out the part in my hair.

There are piles of trash like this all over the place. They just randomly bring it together. Then burn it in the road or where ever it is. There are always pigs, cows, dogs, chickens and little kids picking through it. At first I was like there is no way that kid is looking for food he would die if he ate any of that. The kids are looking for any pieces of metal or plastic they can scrap for money.

Honduras Week Of Rain

2008-06-10T09:53:00.002-06:00

This is in the rain forest in my area. We are teaching a family who live like 20 feet from this river and about 30 feet behind the person taking this photo. [repeat]

This is the city San Pedro Sula. I'm in the city like 2 or 3 times a week and there are a lot of things I want to take pictures of but can't because it is dangerous to take your camera out. People will follow you until they have a chance to kill or rob you if they know you have a camera.

We play fútbol every p-day. Last p-day it rained the whole time we played. These are some of the young men from my ward. It was a lot of fun.

Fotos

2008-06-02T14:25:00.002-06:00

This is Jorge y Jazzcel

This is Fanny and this is her front yard. The other Elder is Elder Rubio Nicsdfass.

This is part of my area and people live out here along this river.

This one is for Amy. I don't know why but he reminds me of Brady if Brady was born in Honduras.

This is one of my investigators. He is so crazy and normally doesn't have a shirt on. He reminds me of a mix of a Spanish Tarzan and Rambo.

Brothers In Arms

2008-05-29T08:46:00.003-06:00

Emily's younger brother, Danny, and Blake were in the missionary training center at the same time. They ended up having dorm rooms and classrooms right next to each other. Danny is in Costa Rica, which is very close to where Blake is in Honduras. They say your family is blessed when you are out serving as a missionary. So I guess our family is getting a double dose.

Más Fotos

2008-05-26T19:05:00.003-06:00

A member who owns this restaurant and that sign says they don't serve alcohol.

I don't fit anywhere and have broken three chairs now. This is me on the bus standing up normal. Everyone looks at me all the time.

How come Sister Carroll never told me she had a place in Honduras.

This is the family Pineda. I wrote about them a lot in my email but it got deleted because myldsmail.net is retarded.

Welcome To The Jungle

2008-05-19T19:43:00.006-06:00

Here are some more pictures from Blake. You can click on them to see a bigger version. He's having a good time and enjoying the work he is doing down there. If you leave any comments they will get forwarded on to him automatically, so he will be able to read them.

Welcome To Honduras

2008-05-12T20:48:00.004-06:00

My companion

Trash

Me and some random guy that i bought a coca not drink thing from