My lovely family and friends,
This has been a crazy week. But first off, before I forget, I dont have any of my camera cords. So if you could send those to me that would be great. :)
Now, where to start. First off, I was so excited and nervous once I got to the MTC, that my eyes felt glued open and my legs were bouncing fast enough to make inprints in the floor, not literally of course.  There are five elders and six Soeurs, who are all going to Lyon, in my district. The Elders are all nice and I love mes Soeurs.   It was great to meet all of them, but one of them was missing, Soeur Luthi, my collegue missionaire. Of course the person I am going to following around 24/7 isn't there. :) But when I went with the others to a welcome workshop, she happened to be sitting on the same row as me, two people down.( Her flight was late) Soeur Luthi is very spiritual and focused and not a silly kind of person. ( which helps keep me on track) I love her lots, even though I don't know her too well yet. We have very different personailities, but we do great together. The other four Soeurs, who are in my district and my room, are Soeur Fortuna, Kupfer, Beunanotte,and Recevuer. Soeur Kupfer is soo sweet and a little wacky (I love that word). Soeur Fortuna always knows the right thing to do and say and is easygoing but focused. ( if that makes any sense). Soeur Recevuer is always smiling and patient. And finally, Soeur Beunanotte is a bundle full of laughs and, Micah you will like this, she is from Sicily. She speaks excellent English, and a good amount of French, and some spanish, and of course, all of Italian. And she wants to become a surgeon in the US. Impressive, right? She made me cry once, I was laughing so hard, since she doesn't know all english words and she has an awesome accent and sense of humor, so everything she says cracks me up. For instance, once, she was talking to her companion, Soeur Recevuer, who mentioned that she was freaking out. Soeur BN didn't know what that meant, so Soeur R had to explain. Then after, S BN would go around saying, it is so freaking cold, and as she told one Elder, you are so freaking slow. We were all in fits. We told her why she shouldn't probably say that as a missionary though and she no longer says it.
The residence is we are in is actually an Elder's residence, the sisters have the entire top floor and the Elders are in the other two. The MTC is trying to slowly convert it into a Sister's residence, but we were the lucky ones chosen to be in it first. The rooms are actually meant for four people, but, because of the HUGE amount of missionaries, we have six in our room. So we already surpassed almost all of my current French knowledge in class even though we only have one teacher. I can now pray and bear my testimony in French. It is a lot of work and I am exhausted, but in a good way. My first lesson in French was on friday. It was extremely stressful, but it turned out ok. Our investigator, Vincent, is a non-member(so we are told), so that makes things even more stressful. It turned out ok, for our first lesson at least. Most of that is due to Seour Luthi's french skills.
General conference was mind blowing, as you probably already know, (it seems like each conference is filled w/ more awesomeness than the next, but that's probably just me, right?) On sunday night, for Devotional, Vocal point came and sang for us, which was awesome and then, after that, we were given a choice iof videos to watch. I ended up watching a talk to missionaries given by Holland, which was awesome. He made everybody laugh at some points, was extremely profound for most of it and yelled at everybody for about 5 minutes. Which was awesome, especially the yelling part. For some reason I really liked the yelling part. So the weekend was full of awesomeness.
Monday was pretty normal, except half of our district was gone. All the French missionaries have to go to the French consulate in San Fran.  I go tommorrow but most of the sisters are gone today, and most of the Elders were gone yesterday. When you go, you get to fly down to SF, go to consulate and go sightseeing, if you want to, and then go home. It takes a whole day. So today it is just me, Soeur BN, and Soeur Fortuna. Soeur Fortuna has been feeling sick since yesterday, and after we went to the temple, she started to feel horrible pain in her abdomen. So, because it might have been appendicitis, we had to go to the emergency room in the Provo hospital. She had to get a bunch of tests and it turned out that she had a cist that popped. So she is fine, but in a lot of pain. Soeur BN and I got to eat in the hospital Cafeteria though. It was her first time trying fry sauce and frozen yogurt. It a big day of firsts for her. She has never seen snow before and, since it snowed today, she got to to see it for the first time. It was also her first time to the emergency room, first time sending a letter, first time in a shuttle, first time in the provo temple, first time trying dried Mango.
So today has been busy going all around Provo with a snow loving Sicilian and a Sister w/ possible appendicidis. :)
I love you all, sorry I didn't write more but most of you probably know I am horrible at typing.
So, I actually had the email address entirely correct except I thought it was yahoo, not gmail. Sorry :) But I'm alive and well!!!! Sometimes I feel like a zombie but that is just because I'm not used to sleeping for less that 9 hours.
San Fransisco was soo amazing. What a great little vacation. I woke up at 4 and went with 8 other missionaries in a shuttle to the airport, in a plane to San Fransico, and in a van driven by a man named Edgar to all over the city. We started at the consulate, which took about 30 mins. then we went to pier 39 (or was it 29?) And saw about a hundred Sea lions lounging on docks, soaking up the sun. I kinda wanted to join them, but then a couple of them would start fighting and I would change my mind. We ate at a sourdough place called Boudin's (you would love it Mommy) which was nummy, and then walked to Giradelhi square for sundaes. On the way there we came across the bush man. He is apparently extremely famous, everyone in SF knows who he is. He has no job, but he justs sit on a chair on the sidewalk holding some leafy branches in front of him and scares people walking past. And some people love it so much they give him money. Apparantly he is not the first, his father and grandfather did it too. Crazy huh? Third Generation bush man. We called Edgar up and he drove us to the golden gate bridge and to that famous windy road ( you know the one from What's Up Doc). And then we flew home.
So in the MTC we are not supposed to compare but we have the best district ever. The sisters are hilarious and filled with love for God. And the Elders are so sweet. A few days ago, they each wrote each Sister a letter saying how much the appreciate us. And they came up with that idea on their own! The other day, in the cafeteria, I about drenched my skirt in Ranch and two of our elders happened to be nearby. One of them started hopping in place asking me if I was OK and the other started sprinting for a wash cloth and then asked me if I wanted some paper towels. Sisters are so spoiled at the MTC, I barely need to open any doors, the Elders are so nice. And I love my sisters to death. We have been teaching Soeur BN some amercian phrases and she now goes talking in valley girl accent and saying, "I'm freakin' merican. " We didn't teach her that last one. Soeur Luthi is very patient w/ me and is has such spiritual strength. Soeur Fortuna is feeling better. And Soeur Kupfer is a hoot. She takes the weirdest pictures of herself to send home to her family and her family sends the weirdest pictures back. All the pictures of them are just of crazy faces. I want to meet her family.
We got our second teacher. His name is Frere Nelson and he is amazing. I love our other teacher too. (her name is Soeur Sandaval) But our new teacher taught us a new term, "french fried". Let me tell you, our entire class feels french fried just about 24/7. I still haven't taken a single nap, I hoping for that later today. But thinking about how much I have learned here compared to how much I learned in high school french, it is mindblowing. Then again, in High school, I wasn't planning on speaking to French people in the near future. But the gift of tongues is there. I guess I imagined that when the gift of tongues was taking place it would feel like a miracle. But, I have found that it takes place over a long period of time and doesn't come all at once, so I don't ussually notice it. Maybe a some point I might find myself saying things I barely knew, but for now, it seems like increased learning capability. But it still feels like so little when you think about what level you want to be at by the time you leave the MTC. But, for now, I am just trying to take everything one day at a time.
On sunday, a speaker came for Relief Society named Mary Edmunds. Please look her up, I want to adopt her. She is inspring, funny and extremely spunky. I bet the entire MTC could hear the audience laughing. She is a self claimed happyfier and I completely agree.  Later that day we went for a temple walk which was lovely. The day was clear and you could see the entire valley. I went on for about 10 minutes how pretty it was and I'm pretty sure I got some weird looks. But it was gorgeous.
I've gotten to see Sam and Sister Kirshishnik ( I'm sure that is spelt incorrectly) and Sister Shrek, who all seemed excited to see me. Today, I got to go to the temple again. So lots of fun going on. I'm glad you finally get to hear from me. I miss everyone, but I am so happy to be here. It's exhausting but missionary work is not a cheap experience. The Spirit is so strong here and everyone is so supportive of each other. 
Thanks for the letters and keep them coming. If you have even the smallest thought of mailing me or going on Dear Elder, please do it. I love hearing from everybody.
Sorry I couldn't send pictures, my camera is currently dead but I plan on borrowing someone else's cord, so expect some later.
Ok I dont know what happened this time but I´m going to send this email to multiple people and write a letter too.
I am alive and well. Even though you didn´t happen to hear from me the last couple of weeks, you are getting an extra long email today. So I got my nap the other week, which was heavenly. I truly woke up with a smile on my face. Yesterday was Frere Nelson´s last day teaching, which was a little sad, he was awesome, but we are getting a new teacher soon. So, since our teachers play our investigators, we figured out that Soeur Sandaval is playing herself. She is a convert and we are just basically going through her own conversion story with her. She never actually told us this, but we kinda figured it out. Cool, huh?
I keep finding out the collest things about the people in our district. S. Recevuer has been on billboards and commercials, S. Kupfer has been on a game show, Elder Taylor's dad is this famous basketball coach, and S. BN opened for a concert for this big Italian group. We have a very musical district. S. BN sings power ballads all the time, all the Elders can do parts, Elder Erikson plays the piano, and S Fortuna apparently plays the violin beautifully. (I have yet to hear it though)
Elder Scott came for Devotional on Sunday, and some missionaries were just hyperventilating ( I don't think thats how its spelt). Usually they have the speaker's name and face posted up on the screens when you walk in, but they didn't show Elder Scott's name until after all the announcements. There was a huge wave of smiles, high fives and excited whispers as soon as his name appeared. It was really exciting.
Zach, I have not found any beavers. Not even stuffed beavers. Do you think they have beavers in France? (I've never thought about that.) If they do, I'll get to meet one there, but for now, I'm sadly beaverless. Thank you for all the letters even though you haven't heard anything from me yet. Please write me whenever you think about me. :)
I think I'm getting sick. Elder Erikson sits next to me in class and I think he gave me a cold. 
Elder Dover and Elder E, who are both in our district, were just made zone leaders, so our district leader just changed from Elder D to Elder Andersen. Its nice because we have so many people in our district who know what's going on zone wise. Not too many things have happened this week, at least compared to the other weeks. Today we ate at the temple cafeteria, which was lovely. And we played sand-volleyball yesterday, for gym. Lets just say there wasn't much of actually hitting the ball, but a lot more running after it. But I think we burned tons of calories just from laughing. I was mostly just flailing my arms around, doing everything that my school gym teachers told me not to do in volleyball. But all the Sisters were really good about it. There are flowers all over the MTC, which I love. Whenever we are outside, I stop every 30 seconds to say, there's a flower, and there's a flower and there are going to be flowers in France! My Soeurs humor me though and look at the flowers with me. The other day we were walking and saw some Sisters smelling a tree. Not sniffing, full on smelling. We were really confused, so naturally we went to go smell the tree ourselves. It smells like cream soda. Really, we found a cream soda tree. I feel like this should broadcasted out to the world, that the MTC has a tree that smells like cream soda. But maybe more trees smell like cream soda, I just haven't been smelling enough trees.
Soeur Luthi got this huge package the yesterday and she was just bouncing off the walls. She thought it was Cafe Rio, she asked in her letters for it, but it wasn't. It was hangers, goldfish, and, this is awesome, a pen carved, by her grandpa, out of wood from Jerusalem. I think that's way cooler than food, no offense to Cafe Rio.
Now, two out of three floors in our building are filled with Sisters. We got a new batch for our building yesterday. I saw Anna-Jane/ Sister Jenkins the other day, she is doing awesome and seems so excited to be here. It feels weird that, even though she got here after me, she will still leave here a lot sooner than I will. It's hard to imagine being here for such a short time, but its also hard to imagine being here for longer than 6 weeks. We have missionaries going to Tahaiti in our Zone and they have been here 10 weeks. They have to learn French and Tahaitian (?) so they are here for longer. A couple of them were leaving this week and this sunday they were just bawling, because they knew the people here so well.
I have a notebook that I save for just spirirtual notes I have and I have already filled up two of them. There are constantly people saying things that turn the world upside down and I find myself writing all time things I hear prophets saying, teachers saying,  other missionaries saying, janitors saying. ( True story, wrote something down a janitor mentioned). Everyone on this campus are constantly saying inspired things and its hard to keep up sometimes. Looking at the amount of people in devotional, I keep wondering why the world hasn't been going around saying " the Mormons are coming!" I look at my district sometimes and just think France will be turned upside down once we arrive. And I'm sure that the field is already filled with a lot of these kinds of missionaries, and many more are still to come. So exciting!!!
love you lots,
The gospel is true,
Love Seour Russell