October 24, 2011

I can't believe that it is already p-day again. The time just flew by
like crazy! It blows me away.
So here's the big news on transfers...I'm staying! Word. To be
honest, I thought I was going to be gone and Elder Checketts would
stay but not so. Elder Checketts is being sent far away to a city
called Winona, which if you remember is the same place that Elder
Farnsworth was sent after he was with me in Plymouth. Winona is way
south and it's right on the Mississippi river. He is going to love it
down there. It's beautiful. I have had a really fun time with Elder
Checketts and I am sad to see him go. But change is good. We have
had a great transfer together. My next companions name is Elder
Mumford. He has been out on his mission for about 5 months (the same
amount of time as Elder Checketts). From what I hear he is super
awesome and hilarious. I also hear that he likes to sing and likes
musicals. That will be a first for my companions. Ha ha. I'm
excited. I will meet him on Monday.

I also got some other crazy news this morning. There is another
singles ward that is in Minneapolis and they are the Uptown ward.
Normally, there is a set of missionaries there but they are
temporarily being taken out and so we have to take all of their
investigators for a little while. We basically have to now cover all
of the YSA's in all of Minneapolis and St Paul. It's crazy! So we
are going to be busy. Fortunately, we will share these investigators
with the sisters here and so we can tag team. That will make things
better. I'm excited though.

This week was Homecoming week at the U of M and it was CRAZY! Holy
smokes. They had activities all throughout the week but the biggest
thing was they had a parade on Friday night. There were a ton of
people. It was nuts. And there were just as many old people there as
there were students and the sad thing to me was it was the old people
that were the really drunk ones. Some students were bad but ALL the
adults were crazy. It was embarrassing and sad but also really
hilarious. They also had the homecoming game on Saturday.
Unfortunately, the Minnesota team is absolutely terrible. They played
Nebraska and got crushed by at least 30 points. But that isn't
unusual for the Gophers (Gopher is the mascott by the way. It rocks!)

We had a Mormon Movie Night on Sunday night at 7 and so all throughout
the week we passed out and put up flyers trying to get anyone to
come. We showed the movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.
The movie night turned out to be okay. A random guy showed up who saw
the flyers. He's an older guy and he said he's always been drawn to
Mormonism. He actually investigated the church about 40 years ago and
almost joined but didn't do it because he says he doens't have enough
faith. He LOVED the movie and he was crying by the end. But for some
reason he just doesn't want to meet with missionaries or anything. He
just needs more time. Other than that, a member brought her friend to
the movie and that didn't really go anywhere yet and then a bunch of
members came. So the turn out for nonmembers wasn't what we were
hoping for, but it was all worth it because that one older guy came.
He needs the gospel so bad!

Handing out flyers for the movie night was a crazy crazy hilarious
adventure. Since there were so many people out the night of the
parade and the day of the game, we went out on the street and handed
flyers to everyone. We always skipped over the adults and just handed
them to the students because we can't teach them :) It was crazy
though. There is a street that leads to the stadium called Frat Row
because that his where all the fraternity and sorority houses are and
so there were a ton of parties going on there before the game. On the
way to and from the staduim, Elder Checketts and I handed out flyers
to all the people along there while they were partying and it was an
experience I will never forget. Slightly frightening but also really
funny. I don't know why people like to party so much. It's just
embarrassing for them. When you become someone else's entertainment
because you act so stupid, you know something is wrong. There were
even parents with their litte tiny kids walking around at the
parties. I guess they were just enjoying the "good ol days" or
something. Wonder what their kids are going to turn out like. This
world is a sick place! No wonder we need the gospel so bad.

Speaking of the Gospel, ________is doing super well! He came to
family home evening last monday and had some questions about the whole
becoming god's spheal. So we talked about it and he was totally cool
with it. I guess he had some friends try to anti him. But he
withstood! Ha ha. We also met with him on Friday and taught the word
of wisdom. He said to us, "i already know this stuff." He has
apparently been doing a lot of research online and is really getting
into the church. He is even all the way to Jacob in the Book of
Mormon. It's funny to watch these investigators and think about the
process that I went through to gain my own testimony. I can see the
hunger for knowlege that _______ has inside of him and it is totally a
sign of his answer that this is true but he is telling us he hasn't
gotten an answer yet. It is just something that he hasn't quite
recognized but the answer is totally there. Man, I LOVE how the
spirit works. Heavenly Father is a genius.

We met with ________ this week and he came to church too. It was
good. He is just way lost in a bad group of friends and stuck in too
much junk. But I think that that is secrectly the reason why he is
meeting with us. This church can really help him and if he works hard
to find the answer, he will get out of a lot of messes. He's such a
cool kid.

This week was hard because we have a lot of new invesitgators and
stuff but a ton of our appointments fell through and all of our new
investigators fell off the planet and we can't get ahold of them.
It's so dumb! I hate when that happens. But I guess all we can do is
invite and then the people have to take the action.

Well, I'm super duper jealous that you guys got to go to lake powell!
I loved the pictures that you sent. I guess when I get home we're
just going to have to go on a million trips to all the places that I
missed out on while I've been gone :) And I'll be honest, that is
really funny that Jonny kicked the window out it the trailer. Must
have had a bad dream I guess. Ha ha.

The fall time weather here is fantastic and it's starting to get
chilly. Winter's coming! I will be spending halloween and
thanksgiving here is Dinkytown. That will be fun. I'm excited. I
think that is all for the week. Have a delicious day and I'm excited
to update you next week after all of the changes.

Love,
Elder Ruesch

October 17, 2011

Yes it is true, things did not go totally according to plan this
week. The baptism is postponed till November. _________ is really
anxious because he wants to be baptized as soon as possible. But it's
okay. This is the right thing to do and I think it will really help
his parent's progression in accepting the gospel themselves. So it is
worth a couple week's wait. The only thing that stinks is that
transfers are next week and so there is a good chance one of us could
be gone by the time he gets baptized. But I don't mind I guess, as
long as he gets baptized. I don't have to be there. So that was the
adventure of the week. A little disappointing but it will work out
better in the long run. _________ is SO solid though. This might
have been an event that has strengthened his faith big time because he
has had to learn to stand up for the Church and he knows without a
doubt that this church is true. He's awesome. I bet he'll be getting
ready for a misson in about a year. That would be exciting!

________ is doing awesome. We met with him and had a great lesson on
some of the commandments and then he came to a young single adult
activity and church on sunday! It was great! We changed his
baptisimal date to november 12th because we have stake conference on
the 5th and I think there is a good chance it could happen. He's
doing really well!

We also picked up several cool new investigators. We're excited!
Elder Checketts talked to a girl on campus last week and we met with
her again and she brought her friend too. And then they both came to
church! It was nuts! Then we also taught a couple of guys. Both of
them are super solid. It's amazing how people just come out of
nowhere! It's exciting. The Lord is really blessing us.

Yesterday some people in the ward had us over for dinner and guess
what we had? Gyoza! We even wrapped it ourselves and everything.
The girl who put it together was japanese. It was really fun. It
reminded me of New Years Eve. Good times. And then they also fried
some cheesecake and gave us that for dessert. It was amazing.

Elder Cook came on Friday and it was AWESOME! He first wanted to
greet all of us so we all lined up and shook his hand. The funny
thing was that when he got up to speak he said that he loves shaking
our hands and when he looks into our eyes it's like a spiritual
interview. Ah! The apostle looked into my soul! I hope he found
good things. Anyway, he talked about how there is nothing better we
could be doing with our life right now than serving a mission. Even
if it doesn't seem like it, it is true. He gave us his Apostolic
promise of that. Also, he sure looks a lot older in real life instead
of on TV :) Ha ha but i know they wear makeup for conference. The
thing that made it a really sweet meeting was the connection that
Elder and Sister cook had with President and Sister Clements. Sister
Clements grew up in their ward and idolized sister Cook. And then
when the Clements' got married, President Clements worked with Elder
Cook in the same law firm. Elder Cook was their stake president and
served over them a lot. Elder and Sister Cook were basically role
models for the Clements pretty much all their life. I feel like that
is just foreshadowing the future of President and Sister Clements. I
could easily see President Clements as a member of the 12 and at least
a General Authority. But anyway, the meeting was fantastic and I just
exploded with too much spiritualness. It was great! And Sister Cook
is super super awesome too. She had us all sing and it was really
cool. The church is true.

Elder Checketts found a spider in his bed this week and screamed
higher that a nine year old girl. It was the funniest moment of my
entire life. And then the next day he got into bed and thought he
felt something on his leg and screamed even LOUDER but there was
nothing even there. I died. It was so funny! I'm surprised my vocal
cords are still in tact.

One other cool adventure we had this week was we got to dedicate an
apartment! That was a first. A girl in the ward was living there
alone and felt unsafe from evil influences and so she called us to
come dedicate the home. That was cool.

Did I tell you how the sister from Nauvoo was coming here? I think I
did. Well she's here and so we have 5 missionaries in the ward. It's
kinda intense.

Things are going well! I'm sorry my letters are always so jumbled. I
feel like I'm always rushed! Goodness.
I got a letter with some chocolate in it from Tres Hatch this week.
That was super nice. Tell her Thanks you so much for me!
I hear that it is supposed to snow here on wednesday. I'm excited!
It's gonna be awesome.
Can't wait to get the halloween package!
Love you so much!
-Elder Ruesch

October 10, 2011

Yet another week flies by at a crazy speed. There are so many things
that happened this week I don't even know where to start!
First off, quite the roller coaster this week. After General
Conference one of our investigators was just floating on air. He
really felt the spirit and was doing great. And then on Monday night
he ran into an Anti Mormon website... It just threw him through a
crazy loop. We met with him on Tuesday and when he came he was just
unbelievably upset. He felt like he had been betrayed and that this
whole process was just pretend. Over the course of the lesson we
talked through it with him. Fortunately, we had a really great joint-
teacher (the person who comes with us for the lesson and is a member
of the ward) who our investigator really respects, so she helped a
lot. He just asked question after question but by the end of the
lesson his mood was better and the spirit was really strong. Elder
Checketts was amazing and everything he said was 100% guided by the
spirit. It was fantastic! And that spirit that was there helped a
lot. We saw him again on Friday and he was doing a lot better. He
still had a million questions but we talked with him about his past
experiences when he's read the BoM and helped him realize that he
totally knows this church is true. By the end of the lesson we
committed him to be baptized! Usually, we challenge them to be
baptized on a certain day but this time we said we want him to pick
it. So closed by praying about it and then we didn't see him till
church. After Church we talked to him and decided to have his baptism
this Saturday, the 15th! Word! His girlfriend and her family are
going to come. It's super duper exciting! This kid is so awesome and
he is so ready. I think he may very well go on a mission in a year.
That would be super cool! If that happened he would go on a mission
before I even got home from mine. Exciting!

So that was super great! But that isn't all! We met with another
investigator this week and had a great lesson with him. We invited
him to be baptized on October 29th and he agreed! We have a lot of
work to do with him though. The thing that really stinks is that he
didn't come to church this week. He's an awesome kid though. He is
the one that President Clements first talked to and so President was
super excited when we told him he agreed to be baptized.

One more! We have another awesome investigator. We had a great
lesson with him this week too and committed him to be baptized on
November 5th! Come to find out that that is the week of stake
conference here so we will have to push it back a week. But it is
still exciting! All our investigators are progressing really well and
I hope that everything works out! Unfortunately, nothing ever works
out according to plans but hopefully it all turns out for the better.

We also have a another investigator who is super cool. He still needs
to understand a lot so we have much work to do. But he said that he
is going to make us some real deal chinese food. I'm pumped!

Guess who is coming to our mission to speak this Friday? Elder
Quentin L. Cook! They didn't tell us he was coming until last week
but once we got the news I was super excited. I'll let you know how
it goes. Maybe I'll get to shake his hand.

Are there any Famous Dave's in Utah? A guy in the ward took us there
this week and it was delicious. You should go sometime.
So it sounds like the U of M has a really good engineering program. I
might just have to transfer here when I get home... Ha ha. Maybe not,
it's really expensive. I could see myself coming here for graduate
school though. That would be a party. I think it would be really fun
to be a normal member of the Dinkytown ward. There actually is a kid
here who served in this mission a few years back. Pretty cool. He's
going to dental school here. I think that would be super cool to live
in Minnesota. It's a glorious place.
The weather was fantastic this week. Surprisingly warm. Which is
really good. The longer we can keep the weather warm, the less time
it is going to be freezing. Winter is going to be a great adventure.

I loved the picture of MJ all creeped out for Shakespeare. It was
glorious! I saw the picture and had NO idea what it was for. You too
looked LEGIT! It sounds like the competition was really fun. Way to
be so awesome! I'm sorry to hear that the school didn't do too well
on the actual prizes. But that doesn't matter. Judges are stupid
anyway.

So basically, life is really good. Oh yeah, other kinda cool news.
We work a lot with the sisters in this ward and there is another
sister missionary that is going to come to our mission for a few
transfers. She is coming from the Nauvoo mission. It's interesting.
I guess they do this to give the sisters a chance to do some actual
proselyting instead of just working on the site their whole mission.
She is going to be serving with the sisters in this ward. So that
will be pretty cool. She'll get to experience the best mission in the
world!
Anyway, thanks for all of the pictures and emails from you guys! I
love hearing from you! Tell MJ they are stupid because they never
write me. And I hope Brandon wins the drumming contest. That would
be cool.

Love you so much!
Elder Ruesch

October 3, 2011

Hey hey hey! It's been another great week in the good ol' Dinkytown. Conference was the bomb.com. I loved it so much! It was broadcast right in the institute building so we got to watch it there. ___________came to the Sunday morning session and it was super duper great! He got blasted by the spirit. All I gotta say is you can definitely put your money on the Prophet. Also, Elder Callister's talk about the Book of Mormon was so bold and so perfect for him to hear. Gosh, I love this church. He still wants more time to be absolutely positive on his answer though. We are doing all we can to help him realize it. He is really close. I'm glad he's taking this so seriously though and not just getting dunked at the first good feeling he had. This is an important choice and you need to make sure it's right.

We also had two other investigators come to conference! We have an investigator that President Clements actually talked to and referred to us. He is an awesome kid and has hardly no concept of religion and who Jesus Christ is an so forth. We've been teaching him since we got here and he is progressing really well. He's awesome. The other investigator was incredibly impressed by conference and I know that the spirit totally hit him.

We have another really great investigator that unfortunately didn't make it to conference but he is reading in the Book of Mormon. We taught him the Plan of Salvation last week and it went pretty well. I think he really liked it. We invited him to be baptized and he said he never has been baptized and was wondering what it consisted of and so forth. The part that stunk was we were way low on time and he had to run to class. We'll talk about it next time when the spirit is strong again. Hopefully we can get him to commit to a date.

We've also found a few new investigators and we talked to a super solid kid on the street yesterday. He has awesome potential. I think that October is going to be a very prosperous month. The Lord has blessed us a ton. It's so nice to be busy with the work. Things are going really well.

The weather has warmed up a little bit. It is 80 degrees today. I like the 60 degree weather better. But i'm not complaining because the days have been beautiful. I guess I should count my blessings before it is -20 degrees. I'm still loving everything. The work is still the same. I don't have much new stuff to report. Just that conference was amazing. I really enjoyed it a lot. It is so nice to hear the words of the prophet every 6 months. It has become my favorite weekend of the year. So good!

I also went on another exchange this week. I went to the family ward that covers downtown Minneapolis again. That was fun. It is amazing how different every area is. We went to the ghetto in North Minne and talked to all the people up there. It's always an adventure. Everyone there always says yes you can come back because they are the type of people that don't know how to say no. And then they just avoid us when we do come back. It's annoying. Good times in the ghetto. It's pretty fun. I just hope I don't serve there. Ha ha. But now that I say that I probably will serve there. Who knows. I guess then that way I would get all ends of the spectrum. Serve in the land of the wealthy in Plymouth and then in the ghetto of Minneapolis. The funny thing though is that Minneapolis is such a clean, nice city that the ghetto really isn't that ghetto. It's just kinda ghetto. Anyway, moving on.

Well I hope that you guys all had a fantastic conference weekend! Best of luck to MJ this week at the Shakespeare competition! That is super exciting! And Michael, don't get TOO worked up about your scene. Work hard and it will all come together. When it comes to drama, everything doesn't finally click until the last day. Ha ha. You're going to dominate. I'm excited to hear how it goes!

Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Ruesch