Last Post?

So this might be the last email I write.  I don't know how things will be next P-day since it will be the Saturday before I am leaving and there will be a bunch of stuff for the departing missionaries so I don't know if I will have time.  It has been very hot—around 45 degrees Celsius (113 F). Today it is only 107 though.  The city of Ribeirão Preto is extremely hot.  That is really the only thing I don't like about Brazil; it’s really hot here.  

So the last thing that I have learned on my mission that I am going to share with you all is also the most important.  That is that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.  Of all the testimonies that I have borne of Him, this I bear last of all, that he lives!  I know it and I love him.  Many people who I know say they love the Savior.  But that is not all he wants of us.  We have to take up our cross and walk with him.  That is a little bit harder than just saying that we love him.  Anyone who thinks that they can be a follower of Christ and won't have to suffer just a little, won't have to do hard things, won't have to be ridiculed and laughed at just every once in awhile, does not know where Christ walked.  How could we possibly follow him when his life was never easy and expect our lives to be easy.  I am not saying that my life, or that our lives will be anything even comparable with what the Savior had to go through, but if we want to be saved we have to know him and we will never know him if we've never gone through anything even anything like what he went through.  I am grateful for my mission.  I am grateful that God let me serve this mission.  I don't know if I would have chosen it to have happened exactly like it did, but I know it is the mission that I needed to serve—that God needed me to serve.  From what I have seen and heard and done, I know Jesus Christ lives, and I know he is my Savior. That is what is most important of everything that I learned on my mission.  

I hope you all have a great life.  I guess I am finishing this blog now.  I love you all.

Elder Russell