Short Post to Let You Know I'm Still Alive

Hello everyone. So this week to come will start something very interesting here in Brazil . . . The World Cup. For any American out there who doesn't know, the World Cup is only the biggest sporting competition in the world (perhaps second only to the Summer Olympics) and this year it is here in Brazil!!! The first game is this Thursday. But for us missionaries it is really just an annoyance because we don't watch TV and when Brazil plays we have to stay at home because everybody goes crazy It is safer to be inside, I guess. People have already stopped working and school gets out this week for the World Cup and doesn't start again till it is over. This place likes Soccer.

This week continued to work as normal even with preparations for the Cup going on. I have now been a missionary for more than six months. That’s a quarter of my mission, people! What’s crazy to me is not that that date came but that my mission continued after that.  It’s interesting how the days just keep coming.  I feel like I just got here still, when really I am a good way into this whole thing.

I don't have a whole lot else to say this week. It was a good one. I hope you all are doing well. I hope everything stays normal for you all unless you wanted it to be different and then I hope it changes.  I love you all.

Elder Russell

P.S.  We had stake conference and it was a broadcast from Salt Lake.  Did you know that Richard G. Scott speaks Portuguese?  From his accent he probably speaks Spanish as well because a couple of times during the talk he spoke the wrong language, but I think everybody understood what he meant just the same.