opened my birthday presents. I couldn't resist! Plus I thought there
was a chance I would get transferred and I didn't want to carry around
wrapped packages. But don't worry! I learned from my mistakes and I
have not opened the presents yet that you gave me for christmas. :)
But I did set up the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, which is the best
thing ever by the way! It looks great on my study desk. I also put
the paper christmas tree on the wall. Except the dumb tape isn't very
strong and the tree keeps falling down! But it is okay. I decked it
out with tape this morning. It should be good now.
So it has been an eventful week. It feels like forever ago that I
last emailed you. My new companion is Elder Nick Neeley! He is an
awesome kid. And guess where he is from? Just guess. I bet you can
get it. That's right! Logan! Ha ha ha. I love it. He graduated in
2011 (weird...I'm getting old) so he is a year behind me and he didn't
do any college yet. But he does plan on going to USU. That's three
companions in a row! Awesome! Cleary, Utah State is the superior
school. Either that or the Apostles know that the people that live
in Logan are more used to the cold and so they send them to
Minnesota. Or I'm just a perfect companion for a USU student. One of
those several options. Anyway, moving on. Elder Neeley is a way cool
cat. He's got some big muscles and could totally beat me up.
Fortunately, he is also really humble and teachable and willing to let
me teach him a few things here and there. The best part about Elder
Neeley is he is totally fearless!! It's amazing! When I was out my
first week I was scared out of my mind! I just wanted to hide in a
corner and not have to go knock on peoples doors because I didn't know
what to say. But Elder Neeley is just a machine! A lot of times he
has no idea what to say but he just takes his challenges head on and
if he stumbles a little bit I'll take over. His personality is
actually a lot like Thayne Thompson. He talks very similar and uses a
lot of the same words in his conversation. It's really fun. He and
Thayne will be best buddies when they get home. Elder Neeley went to
Mountain Crest High School. He played football there. Actually, do
you remember a time when Lone Peak played Mountain Crest in Rice-
Eccles Stadium? He played in that game. It's a good thing Lone Peak
won! But it's still a cool connection. So the moral of the story is,
we have been having a lot of fun the last several days. It's looking
like this is going to be a good transfer! I'm excited. Elder Neeley
will have no problem getting used to missionary life. I have been
very lucky with my companions so far! It's great!
So for the missionary work business, things are going great! I don't
know if I accidentally said that we were having a baptism today or
not, but that is not true. However! ____________ and ____________
are both going strong to be baptized this saturday! Word! We are
super excited! ____________ asked Elder Mumford a long time ago if he
would baptize her and it stunk that he got transferred. And so then
she asked me to baptize her. I'm excited about it but I also feel sad
because I wanted Elder Mumford to baptize her really bad. I tried to
convince President to let him come over to the baptism but it was just
too far. So that is sad. But he is already doing really great in his
new area from what I hear. So that's good! The funny thing about the
baptisms this saturday is _________ wanted to have her own service and
so we will be having two separate baptisms on Saturday. It is a
little more work to make that happen but it is definitely worth it.
Ha ha. It is going to be an awesome day! ___________ is really
excited and she is bringing several friends, and so that will be
really great. ____________ is having quite the struggle. The last
week is always the toughest week though and so I hope that both
__________ and _____________ can stay strong.
I hate satan so much. He's such a jerk.
Yesterday we went to a christmas musical program put on the mission.
A member brought a friend and we all rode down together. It was
really fun. The nonmember friend wasn't really interested in the
church but she was really cool and I think she really liked the
program. That was a fun thing to do. I love all the Christmas
celebrations. There will be the same program happening next week too
and Elder Neeley and I have been assigned to work at a table with all
the church supplies and answer any questions that anyone has. I'm
excited for that! There is a cool choir here called the Minnesota
Mormon Chorale. It is an audition only choir that is actually pretty
good. They sang at the fireside too. That was good.
This week is finals week at the U of M and so it might be a pretty
sparse week. With the weather getting colder and with finals, the
students on campus have been a lot less nice to us. It's weird how
things work that way. But I can see why. Everyone is just stressed
out.
So it is looking like I will probably be able to Skype with you on
Christmas. And it should probably be in either the afternoon or
evening. There is a member that volunteered to have us come over and
so we will probably go over there. We're not sure though. I will
definitely know by next week what the plan is. It wont happen in the
morning for sure because we will have church and all that good stuff.
I'll let you know!
It's been a good week! I feel like I'm always really tired. It
doesn't matter if I'm in high school, college, the summer, on a
mission, I'm always tired. It never ends doesn't it? Oh well. I'm
getting used to it ha ha.
Have a wonderful christmas! I think you're dipping chocolates this
week huh? Send me some cool pictures! I expect MJ to lick grandma's
fingers. :) Have fun!
Love you!
Elder Ruesch
