this week was going to be on Tuesday. I apologize! But don't worry,
I'm still alive. I wont be surprised if this happens many more
times. It's a good thing you guys are already used to it.
Happy birthday Christie!! I hope it was a delicious birthday. The
party looked like lots of fun. I'm sad I missed it.
This week was interesting. I think I mentioned an older lady who has
been investigating the church for like 10 years. Well I think she is
actually going to get baptized. We set a date for her baptism with
her for June 18th. She is now consistently coming to church and we
think she is actually serious about this baptism. Have I already
mentioned the goal our mission set to baptize 60 people in June? I
think so. Anyway, we set that goal as a mission because we wanted to
double our baptisms. And so there has been a huge push to baptise in
June and Elder Hirschi and I really wanted to be a part of this goal
and it just didn't look like we were going to have anyone ready for
baptism in June. But then ____________ decided to take things
seriously and it looks like we really might get to help the mission
out! It's totally an answer to prayer. Awesome! So we can only hope
that things continue to go smoothly and she does get baptized in two
weeks. That would rock!
Cool thing. There is a girl who was in Chamber with me and she told
me that her sister was in the same mission as me before I left and I
totally met her the other day! Random. But it is really fun
sometimes to have a connection to home with someone. It felt great to
just talk to her about Utah. Good times.
Things are improving for our missionary work in general in Plymouth.
I sometimes get pretty frustrated because we are both just brand new
missionaries and although I do have some experience, I'm still
learning how to be the most effective missionary I can. There are a
lot of skills that I need to master and I hold such a high expectation
for myself that it can get me down sometimes. Don't worry though, we
are getting better and better each day and I'm not letting frustration
get to my head. We're working our hardest and doing our best. The
task of training a new missionary after 3 months is a difficult one
and I don't know how smart it is to have a missionary do it. But
things are working out well and I hope that Elder Hirschi is at least
learning something from me!
This week we moved into a new house. We were living with a family and
they had several sons coming to live at home for the summer and so
there wasn't any room for us any more. So we moved to live with
another family in the ward. Their house is HUGE! Ha ha. But really,
it's big. We have the whole basement to ourselves and there is a
sports court in the house and all sorts of luxuries. I'll be honest,
I doubt there are many missionaries in the world living such a sweet
life. But we're only here for seven weeks so I'm going to enjoy it
while it lasts!
We had yet another week of NO ONE coming to church. Execept the lady
we are hoping to baptize. All of these investigators we are teaching
just can't take the step to make it to church. We're really focusing
on finding new investigators now. Investigators that will actually go
somewhere! But hey, even if all we can do is help someone build their
faith then we are still fulfilling our purpose as missionaries a
little bit. But in Minnesota we not only do that, we BAPTIZE! Just
have to find the prepared ones.
I'll be honest, MMM is by far the best mission in the world. Nothing
can compare! We really do amazing things here and President Howell
has just sent this mission off at light speed. There are amazing
things ahead and I can't wait to see what kind of growth there is.
The church is growing here in Minnesota like crazy. I sometimes
forget the work that I am a part of and only see what is happening in
my little sphere in my area. And then I look around at what is going
on across all of Minnesota and am just amazed. It blows me away.
This mission makes fantastic missionaries because it is hard. It is
dang hard. But we still are a baptizing mission. I can't wait to see
how the work progresses with President Clements. It's just awesome!
So as for investigators, _________ has been out of town all week and
we haven't been able to get ahold of her recently. Hopefully she's
okay. The _________ family stopped progressing and unfortunately we
don't know how much longer we're going to keep working with them. If
they can't start moving forward then we might drop them. But that is
what happens. We have faith though and for now we're going to still
try and help them. We've taught a lady a couple times who we tracted
into a long time ago. After many tries we finally got to meet with
her twice and she really likes the BoM and is pretty interested. We
invited her to be baptized in July and she said she would definitely
think and pray about it. She is super good friends with a member and
so I think that the member's example is what sparked her interest.
Members help so much!
____________ is doing fantastic. He got the Aaronic Priesthood on
Sunday and that was super neat. We also went over to his house last
week and visited with him and he was still floating on air. So happy
and at peace. And this was a full week after he'd been baptized. He
is the coolest guy ever. Oh and I need to send some pictures of his
baptism. I will do that! By the way, the _________'s are doing
awesome too. Brother M was called to be the assistant scout master
and sister M was called to be a visiting teaching coordinator person.
Pretty awesome. They rock. The coolest family.
So here we go on another week. I keep on thinking that something else
that was awesome happened this week but I can't remember what it was.
Maybe I will tell you next week. Thanks for the love. Happy
summer!! Speaking of summer, it has suddenly gotten really hot over
here too. 95 degress yesterday plus humidity = death. But we'll
survive. Making sure to drink water.
Much Love!
Elder Ruesch
