May 29, 2011

Yaaaay! ________________ is officially the newest member of the
Plymouth ward. He got baptized on Saturday at 4:00. It was such a
neat thing. He was SO excited for it and just loved every moment of
it. It was amazing to see the glow in his face. The church is true!
There were quite a few people there too and a few sets of missionaries
brought their investigators and that was very powerful. It was just
awesome. This made the last week REALLY good.

Other than that the week was really just average and on the verge of
not so great. After doing everything that we possibly could, we still
didn't get any investigators to church (other than _________ of
course). Not cool. It can be so frustrating sometimes. It is
seriously one hour of the week and three hours at the most. Does it
have to be that hard? This gives me a good perspective. I think of
what Heavenly Father feels so often about each of us when we do our
daily stupid things. He's probably like, "Seriously? C'mon. I know
that you know better. Now stop being ridiculous and follow what I
tell you!" Ug. Oh well. We can only do our best and love the
people. Things will work out eventually. I hope.

Unfortunately, all of the investigators we have right now have quite a
few life obstacles to overcome before any of them could get baptized.
I'm so glad that I can be here to help them get past it and everything
but it is hard also because missionaries are only in an area for a
short time. So we're going to make the most of what we can. We are
really trying to focus on finding new investigators too so that we can
see hopefully a few more baptisms in Plymouth in the next few months.
As of right now things aren't looking so good for baptisms. But don't
you worry! The Lord will provide.

___________ is doing well. We might not end up passing her over to
the other missionaries because she is moving this summer and so there
wouldn't be much of a point. Right now we are really trying to help
her out with the Word of Wisdom and finding out that the Book of
Mormon is true so that she can make closer steps to baptism. As of
right now she would like to get baptized but obviously has a lot more
to learn and work on.

The _______ family is slowly, very slowly moving forward. Someday I
hope things start moving faster! If only they would just come to
Church!

The other day we had something cool. We were tracting and got talking
to this lady and ended up teaching her the entire restoration on the
doorstep! That doesn't happen everyday. Unfortunately, she said she
wanted to go and research on her own before she ever would meet with
us. It was a bummer. Oh well. The seed is planted.

Oh yeah! My first crazy food experience! There is a family in our
ward who is from Taiwan. Well actually the wife is from Taiwan and
the husband served his mission there. Anyway, they eat a dish there
called the thousand year old egg. It is like this egg that they have
stored and fermented sort of and it turns black. Ha ha. Of course
it's not actually a thousand years old but it is old. I guess this
family has a tradition that they have all of the missionaries eat it
that come over. The texture was really weird but I thought it tasted
pretty good. They must have gone easy on us and prepared it so it was
tasty for us. But it was the first weird thing I've eaten since I've
been out here! I hope it is the first of many to come.

Drunk people are hilarious. We got caught talking to these two drunk
kids that were roller blading the other day and they were just crazy.
Talk about embarrassing yourself. They really had problems and it was
hilarious. And of course they were roller blading. Because that is
the cool thing to do in Minnesota. Ha ha. Awesome.

Well, no recent tornadoes but there is a severe weather warning
today. Pretty great. Oh yeah, and Happy Memorial Day! I hope that
the Ruesch party was fun even if it was raining. Sounds like Utah is
really having weird weather! Minnesota has been kinda weird too but
not super unusual. Utah is just crazy.

Congrats Michael! That is so awesome that you got that internship! I
am totally jealous. Sounds like you are getting a good start on your
way to finding the cure to cancer. Nice work!
And congrats to Ashley too on getting that article published! Word.
I'm so proud of my genius family. I can't wait to get the Nobel Prize
someday :) Just kidding.

Other than ___________ it hasn't been the most eventful week. But
that is okay. His baptism makes up for a million uneventful weeks.
He is just the coolest guy in the whole world! It was so interesting
to talk to him about his journey to the church. 10 years ago he
actually went through the temple open house of the St. Paul Temple.
He also had missionaries come over to his house a few times and they
helped him clean his house and everything. They never really taught
him but did service. So cool! This was before he ever even met the
Smith's in this ward or anything. The Lord's plan is just so amazing.

I think I will sign off for now. Till next week! Thanks for all of
your love and support!

Much Love,

Elder Ruesch

May 23, 2011

Well hey!

Guess what! There was a tornado by my house! It happened on Saturday
night. I was bummed because we were obviously not home. We were at a
dinner appointment and then we went over to teach _______and he had
been watching the news and told us that a tornado had touched down in
Medina. Which is where we live! Awesome. It must have not been a
vey big tornado or anything though because we haven't seen any
destuction. But that is a good thing. The weather here has been
pretty crazy. There will be dark clouds and dumping rain and then 20
minutes later it will be totally sunny with hardly any clouds in the
sky. Additionally there have been quite a few tornadoes in the twin
cities area. North MInneapolis got dominated yesterday by a tornado.
Pretty scary. I still have yet to see a tornado with my own eyes. It
will happen someday. But don't worry mom, I'm being careful. This is
the season for crazy tornados. The cool thing is that Minnesota is so
prepared for tornadoes so when one does come, no one gets hurt.
Houses get destroyed and everything like that, but people keep
themselves safe.

Anyway, moving on. _______ is doing super well! He came to church
yesterday and he is super excited about his baptism. We are all
looking forward to it. I really think that it is going to happen this
time. We already have the whole program set up and his interview is
done and life is good. It is amazing to see the change that has come
over him. Even in just the past two weeks. I'm glad he didn't get
baptized two weeks ago because he wasn't quite ready. Man, the church
is true.

Things are going well with _________. We invited her to be baptized
on June 18th and she accepted! Pretty cool. We're excited. Today
we're meeting with her again. She is way awesome and I think that she
would love being a member of this church. Unfortunately, she didn't
come to church yesterday. It was disappointing but those things
happen! Other disappointing news. We found out just a few days ago
that she actually lives like 2 blocks outside of the ward boundary.
The boundary is messed up and so we thought we were in our area when
we actually weren't. Not fun. So it looks like we're going to have
to start passing her over to the missionaries in the ward next door
and they can continue with her.

Speaking of people not coming to church, yesterday stunk!
Fortunately, _________ at least came. We also had an older lady
investigator come. But other than that, we got the shaft. We were
expecting at least 5 other people and not one of them showed. I've
been starting to notice a pattern. It seems like the most unhealthy
time of the week is sunday morning. Everyone just happens to get sick
for some reason on sunday morning. It is so odd. They usually are
fine by like 2 or 3 in the afternoon. But at least till then they are
just stuck in bed on the verge of death. Where does this odd sunday
bug come from? Beats me. So yeah, that was disappointing. But hey!
We move on. This week we're going to work even harder.

I can't believe that President Howell only has one more month. It
just blows me away that time has gone that fast. What is the deal?
But I am pretty excited to meet the new president too. It will be
full of mixed feelings.

The ________ family is doing okay. There is no way that they will be
able to get baptized in June. They are progressing, but it is slow.
People have their own timing I guess. I wish that they would at least
come to church. People don't realize how much it can actually help
you in your life. Sometimes, I feel like agency is my worst enemy.
Is that horrible? Of course I love agency but I hate doing everything
you can to help someone make a good decision and watch them turn the
other way. But I guess that is life.

Things are growing though. We are continuing to find new people and
hope that things will turn out good with them. Missionary work is
good. It is hard though. Serving a mission is the best thing I've
ever done but I will be honest, it is also the hardest thing I've ever
done. It is really a challenge and takes a lot of motivation. But
with that it also provides the most joy and self fulfulment I have
ever had. Definitely good stuff. The Church is so genius to send us
young guys out on missions.

Well, Elder Hirschi and I are doing good. We're making it work with
what skills we do have. And somehow things are working out okay. We
couldn't do this without the Lord.

I think that sums up the week pretty good. I'm tired. Something that
I've come to learn is that no matter what you're doing or where you
are in life, you are always tired. It never ends. No wonder when God
talks about Heaven he says you enter into his rest. Sure sounds
heavenly to me.

Love you guys so much!

-Elder Ruesch

May 16, 2011

Whew! What a crazy week! It feels like it has been months since I
talked to you guys but it has only been a week. Geepers. Talk about
intense.

My new companion's name is Elder Hirschi (pronounced like the
chocolate: Hershey). We are going to have a good time together. He
is a good kid. He is from Layton, Utah. The funny thing is that he
is actually older than me and so it feels kinda weird to be training
him. But oh well. It's not like I have much to teach him with all
the massive amounts of experience I have gained. Ha ha. But we are
working hard and, boy, did he sure get thrown right into the work.
This was one of the busiest weekends I've had and so he got the full
experience. Fortunately, he is courageous and willing to jump right
in and so he's had no problem getting involved in the lessons and
everything. It will take time for him to get used to the missionary
life but hey, he's doing really well. I'm excited to work with him
for the next three months. We're going to party AND baptize!

Before I build up too much suspense I will start by letting you know
that the baptism didn't happen. Last weekend he kind of fell off the
boat for a while and we couldn't get ahold of him. However, we
finally caught him at his house on tuesday and got back in contact.
Finally, on Friday Elder Hirschi and I had a really really great
lesson with him. We discussed the concerns that he had and worked
through them and I know he is all set to move forward again. He
really does want to be baptized he just had a few things holding him
up. But now we're good. In fact, yesterday before church he had his
baptisimal interview and he passed with flying colors. So his baptism
is set for May 28th. We're excited and so is he. Speaking of
________ and church. Yesterday I sang in sacrament meeting. It went
okay, thank goodness. It was really great though because _________
accompanied me. It was neat. I really enjoyed it. I sang Be Still
My Soul. ________ is such a great guy and we had a good time.

Well, Elder Farnsworth is gone. He is now in the far distant land of
Winona, Wisconsin. The ward surely misses him but I'm sure he is
going to dominate in Winona. The weird thing is that this is his last
transfer. Weird.... I can't even picture myself in my last
transfer. It's too far away. I have a hard time believing that I'm
in my third transfer. It feels like time has gone by at light speed.

I had three different companions this week. That was kinda fun.
Elder Farnsworth left wednesday morning and I was with another Elder
who is training on wednesday. And then I picked up Elder Hirschi on
Thursday. Pretty eventful.

We met with __________ this week. She is so intelligent and asks so
many questions that we can never get through a whole lesson. But hey,
that's alright. We want her to ask questions. We have such good
discussions with her. Unfortunately, she has some sort of concern
that is keeping her from coming to church. We need to find out what
it is! I know that Church can help her. You know, that is one of the
coolest parts about being on a mission. You meet with so many people
and you have to kinda put a puzzle together from what we learn about
their life and try to find the specific part of the gospel that will
really affect them. It is such a hard thing to do. But the challenge
is fun. I've learned that everyone has some sort of concern about the
church whether it is big or small. The thing you have to do is help
them overcome that concern and then see the blessings that come from
life in this church. Good ol' missions.
The ___________ Family is progressing slowly but still progressing.
_________ came to church yesterday and he loved it. Unfortunately,
his older brother and mom didn't make it this week. But next week we
will try even harder to get them to come too! If we can just get the
whole family reading, praying, and coming to church then I know
they'll be baptized sometime in June. Easier said than done. We do
our best though.

Sunday was the craziest part of the week. We had three unexpected non-
members come to church making a total of five at church. It was
awesome. There is this older, less active lady who we visit every
once in a while and out of nowhere she brought her son's next door
neighbor with her to church! We had a good little chat with him and
hopefully will be able to teach him. That would be excellent! Also,
there is a girl in our ward who went to prom on saturday and she
brought along her prom date to church. He had some questions for us
and so we got to meet with him during the 2nd hour and teach him the
Restoration and gave him a BoM. He even started reading it during 3rd
hour and being an insanely fast reader he got through a ton of pages.
Now let's just hope he sincerely wants to know if it is true. There
is also another lady who we missionaries call an Eternigator, meaning
an investigator who has been investigating forever and probably will
forever. Nevertheless, she came to church today which is awesome and
maybe she is making closer steps to baptism. That would be great for
her. So then on top of those enexpected investigators at church we
had ________ and _______ come. It was great. The hardest part was
trying to make sure that everyone was taken care of and welcomed by
the ward. It was fun. I like busy stress much more than having
nothing happen.

Training a new missionary has been an interesting experience. It
isn't as hard as everyone makes it sound but that might be because I
got a good companion. It sure has pushed me harder though to be a
good missionary. For the first couple days I have to really lead and
control the area. Eventually Elder Hirschi will catch on though. One
of the nice things about this whole training at 3 months thing is that
it isn't too difficult to bring him up to my skill level. Ha ha.
Pretty soon he'll pass me up with all his skills. That will be fun.

Well, life is good. Now begins a new era in the timeline of my
missionary experience. It is exciting and fun. But a little scary
too. There are a lot of exciting things happening here in Plymouth
and the area is really starting to boom. Let's hope it doesn't go
anywhere but up from here!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MJ!!!!!!!! You guys are old foggies now. It's gonna
be fun.

I hope that you all have a wonderful week! I also hope that the
weather is good over there. It is beautiful over here! The trees are
all finally starting to get green. Minnesota is the bomb. I love it.

Love you all!
-Elder Morgan Ruesch

May 9, 2011

Well, it's official. I'm going to be tested very hard for the next
few months. Right after I finished talking to you guys president
called and told me that I will be training in a new missionary here in
Plymouth. Crazy. I might die and explode. But it is going to be
really fun and super intense too. I love Plymouth and there really is
no better ward for a new missionary to start his mission at. Whoever
my companion is, he will be well taken care of by the people in the
Plymouth ward. That brings up an interesting point. I have no idea
who my companion is. On thursday all the trainers will go to the
mission office and we will sit in a room with the new missionaries and
President will tell us then who our companion is. Pretty cool. I'm
excited.

It was so awesome to talk to you all yesterday! It's a good thing we
have technology because it was THE BEST to see all of your faces.
Skype is awesome. And since we chatted for so long I don't really no
what to say in my email. It will probably be shorter today. But
that's alright.

By the way, Elder Farnsworth is being sent over to Wanona, Wisconsin.
President likes to give him really difficult challenges to do. It's
funny. So he'll be sent in there with a missionary that has been out
for 6 weeks and they will white wash the area. To white wash means to
be sent into an area at the same time as your companion. So the two
missionaries that were there get transfered out and two brand new ones
come it. This is incredibly difficult to do because you and your
companion have no idea about anything that is going on in the area.
Tough stuff. But Elder Farnsworth will be fine. He has one transfer
left and so he is going to push really hard and I bet he'll baptize
there before he goes home.

As for the area, things are going pretty good. We are having a
difficult time getting hold of _______ still and if we can't get in
contact with him today then we'll probably have to delay his baptism.
That would be sad so let's hope that doesn't happen. I don't know why
but he just has the hardest time answering his phone. And the funny
thing is we know he isn't avoiding us either. Everyone has a hard
time getting ahold of him. It can provide frustration sometimes. But
things will be okay!

We had no investigators at church yesterday. That was not fun. The
_______ family were supposed to come but they didn't make it.
However, we have still been in good contact with them and they are
still doing pretty well. _____ actually read some of the BoM. That
was surprising. We have two appointments with them this week and
we'll see how they go!

Oh I don't think I told you guys about _______ yesterday. She is
awesome. A few weeks ago we tracted into her and taught her a lesson
right on the spot. Unfortunately, she then went out of town and we
weren't able to meet with her for a while. But this week we did get
the chance to meet with her on Friday and Saturday. It was great.
She is very smart and well studied of the Bible and is very interested
in learning what we believe. We have had some great discussions with
her and she understands everything really well. The coolest thing is
that she wants to keep meeting with us often and so we have an
appointment tonight as well. It is excellent. She smokes A LOT
though and so I think that will be the biggest struggle for her if she
decides to be baptized. She'll be fine though. Anyone can give it up
if they trust the Lord.

Well, things are crazy. I can't believe that I am already done
serving my first three months in the field. It has gone too fast.
But I love it here! I'll be honest, I am really nervous about running
this area by myself for a while. Hopefully I get a prodigy new
missionary and things work out really well. I'm sure whatever happens
it will be awesome. Times are changing! It is weird. But Hey! I
just realized that I will be able to see the Ford's when they come out
here for the summer most likely. That would be so sweet. It is
nearly certain that I will be staying in Plymouth for another 3 months/
2 transfers since that is how long the new training program is. Crazy
stuff!

I hope you had a Happy Mother's day mom!

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. I am going to need all
the help I can get!

Love you!

-Elder Ruesch

May 2, 2011

Well hey! Geepers does time fly by! I can't believe that Mother's
day is already this week. I am really excited to get to talk to you
guys! I'm planning on using Skype. We will probably be able to just
use the computers in the member's home that we live in. But it might
end up that I will have to call you when I'm getting on skype so that
we can make sure to work it all out. We are planning on calling at
about 7 o'clock PM, which is 6 o'clock your time I think. That will
give us a good amount of time to chit chat :) So plan on that and if
the time changes or anything we will get permission to let you know
somehow. I'm so pumped!

This has been a good week. Many great things have happened. We are
still teaching __________. Our lessons are getting better with her.
We met with her twice this week and for both lessons we had a really
good discussion with her. We were able to teach the restoration and
help her understand it all. We even invited her to be baptized. She
didn't give us a very direct answer but I think that when she really
feels that all we share is true (and she already is starting to) she
will decide to be baptized. It is something that will help her a lot
in her crazy life.

Another awesome miracle! So the first week that I was in Plymouth
(about two months ago) we were tracting in an area and we found a
family. The mom has a lot of health problems and was about to have
surgeory and wasn't super interested. But the thing that really
struck me was her 12 year old son. He was so excited we were there
once we explained that we are missionaries. His mom isn't religious
at all but for some reason he has gotten into religion and really
loves learning about Christ. He asked his mom for a Bible for
Christmas and loves to learn everything he can about religion. He is
a super neat kid. Well, since he wanted to learn from us really bad,
his mom was cool to set up an appointment for us to come by another
time. Unfortunately, that appointment fell through. So we kept on
stopping by every once in a while to try and talk to them. A few
weeks later when we stopped by, he answered and was excited to see us
but his mom wasn't home so we couldn't do much. We just gave him a
Book of Mormon and left. Life continued and we decided to stop by
this family one more time. We did but the mom was having some sort of
meeting and told us to come back another time. But as we were walking
back to the car, he comes running out of the house yelling, "Wait!"
It was very surprising. He wanted us to teach him something and his
mom was okay with it so we went on a short ten minute walk and taught
him how to pray. He just soaked it up like a sponge. Man, he is such
a good kid. So that was neat and when we got back to the house his
mom was done with her meeting and we were able to set up a time to
come by on sunday (yesterday) and teach the whole family. When we
came they were all home and we were able to teach them. Yay! We
taught them the Restoration and they seemed to like it and understand
pretty well. The lesson went well and we committed them all to be
baptized! We scheduled their baptism for June 11th. It isn't the
most solid date though. I hope that they get baptized but a lot of
things can change from now and then. Hopefully things go smoothly!
We are going to meet with them another time this week. I'm excited!
It's been really neat so far! I learned my lesson on persistence.
Miracles happen.

___________ is doing really great too. We were able to meet with him
twice this week. His baptism is still set for the 14th which is less
than two weeks away! He has been totally free of coffee for more than
a week now. He says that he feels like he has been freed from bondage
now that he doesn't drink coffee anymore. Isn't that just amazing?
He is incredibly sincere and we are seeing his life totally turn
around. He is trying super hard to prepare himself for his baptism
and so he is making so many changes in his life. It is cool because
he is not only bringing his spiritual life in order, but everything in
his life. It is super awesome. He is taking his baptism very
seriously. Oh man it is so exciting! When we were over at his house
on Friday it was funny because we he had a bunch of boxes of tea out
and we went through it with him and he just immediately threw away all
the tea that is against the Word of Wisdom. He is doing everything to
follow God's will exactly. So neat! The gospel is just the best.
Because of all these changes I can see a new happiness in him. The
gospel works.

Guess what other super awesome thing happened this week? We went to
the temple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes! Ah, best thing of my
life. We went on Tuesday night. I don't know if I've already
explained this but Elder Farnsworth baptized a woman a year ago when
he was here. And so her and her husband went to the temple to get
their endowments and be sealed. And we got to go with them! Coolest
thing ever. Th Church is true. I was really needing a temple visit.
It just makes you feel so much better. There is an amazingly strong
spirit there. I love it. In a year I could potentially do the same
thing and go to the temple with the _____________'s. That would be the
best thing ever.

Well, life is good. The transfer is getting close to finishing.
Crazy how fast time fly's. Pretty soon I'm going to be home! Sorta.
Anyway, I'm excited to see if I stay in Plymouth or not.

That is crazy that there could be lots of flooding. Hopefully when I
talk to you next week you wont be drowning in water. The weather here
has been odd too. It's suppossed to be warmer by now. Good ol'
mother nature. Playing jokes like usual.

I'm SO excited to talk to you next week! Remember, plan on about 7:00
PM Minnesota time.
Love you so much!
-Elder Ruesch