good things happened.
First off, transfers are this wednesday. We got our calls this
morning if we were being transfered. Crazy news! President called
and told me that I am going to stay in Plymouth for another transfer
with Elder Gottfredson. He said he had a hard time deciding that
since I've been here in plymouth for so long. But he said that there
is someone we need to baptize here in the next little while.
Awesome! When President says something like that, you know you've got
to get to work because there is something right around the corner.
President Howell essentially said the same thing to Elder Farnsworth
as we were leaving the mission home for my first day. And look what
happened. The ____________'s were baptized a month later. Just
crazy. So I am really excited. We are working hard but the work has
been kinda slow and I am hoping that we can get it moving again. It's
about time Plymouth had another baptism :)
We had a couple cool experiences this week. We were tracting in the
afternoon (a very ineffective time because no one is home) and a girl
came to the door. We talked to her for a while and ended up teaching
quite a bit of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. That was
cool. She said that she feels sorta empty right now when it comes to
religion and she just doesn't know where to go. In fact, the night
before she was reading in her bible trying to find the path for her.
And then we show up on her door the next day. Coincidence? I think
not! So I'm excited. If she starts to progress we'll have to send
her to the singles ward, which stinks. But whatever, we do what we can.
Another cool experience. Tracting again! Yesterday we knocked on
this guys door and he let us in to chat for a while. A super nice
guy. He has a hard time with religion. The way I like to put it is
he sees the Apostacy that has happened in religion and it has turned
him away (but he doesn't realize it's the apostacy). Anyway, we gave
him a BoM too and I really felt the spirit in our visit. He didn't
want to set up a return appointment but he said he would read and if
he becomes interested he would call us. It kinda stinks but he was
very sincere and so my hope is that he really does read. He is in the
Lord's hands now. At least the seed is planted.
The young men of our ward went to the temple to do baptisms for the
dead again. The thing that is funny about the temple here is that
they don't have enough workers to staff the whole baptistry. And so
if you go as a ward you have to bring several endowed males that can
run the show. Well, our poor young mens president had a few adults
cancel on him the night before and so he asked us to help. Going to
the temple is not something we are supposed to do often - our work is
for the living - but we got permission to help out and it was really
fun. We had a good time! And it is fun to develop better
relationships with the youth in the ward. This ward has some
fantastic youth.
Yesterday was fun. To finish off the night we had a BBQ with _______
and his son. He is the Man! I love him to death and I am so grateful
that I have been able to be a part of his conversion. We have become
really close friends. It's awesome! He cooked us some steaks and
corn on the cob. Delicious!
Unfortunately, ______________ dropped us this week. He is still
interested and I could see him progressing in the gospel sometime in
the future but right now he just didn't want to take the time to meet
with us while he is working out his divorce and everything. It will
be finalized pretty soon though, I hope. If only people realized how
important this was. Then they'd have time for us. No matter what,
they would have time. This is salvation we're talking about!
It sounds like you guys had a really fun week camping and then in St.
George. Ridiculous! You guys aren't supposed to have fun while I am
gone. Just sit around and don't do anything till I get home and then
we can party it up and do some fun things. Ha ha. Just kidding. I'm
glad to hear you are using your summer time wisely. Keep up the good
work! And way to go MJ for making it to the top of Timp. Nice work!
Thanks for the pictures mom. I love seeing them. Sorry I haven't
sent you guys pictures in a while. I need to do that...
Well, I am really looking forward to this next transfer. I love the
Plymouth ward and I love the area here. I can't wait to see what
exciting things happen. We're just going to be working our tails off
and we're going to see some miracles. We've got great expectations
for the future!
Love you guys so much!
Elder Ruesch
