February 27, 2012

Goodness. I was probably a third of the way into my email when
everything collapsed on me and the email was lost. So now I have to
start all over again. But I will survive!

So the transfers are in! Are you ready to hear some craziness? I was
really surprised! Elder Neeley is getting transfered and is being
sent to the Lake Nokomis Ward. It is over in South Minneapolis. And
I am staying here in the Twin Cities YSA ward again! Craziness! I
was definitely not expecting it but I am really excited to stay here
longer. My new companion is going to be Elder Truman. He is from St.
George and has been on his mission for 4ish months longer than me. He
is going to be my first companion that has been on a mission for
longer than me other than Elder Farnsworth. Coolness! I am really
excited. So we are going to party it up here and try to have a few
more baptisms. Elder Truman is an awesome missionary and so hopefully
we can see some good success. We'll see what happens! I am really
sad to see Elder Neeley leave though. I have had a blast serving with
him! We have gotten along really well and had a lot of success
together too. It's been fun. But this area is really different than
any other area in the mission and so it is good for him to get the
boot and have some more experience in a different area. He's going to
have a lot of good success on his mission!

Other great news! TX and TS were baptized on Saturday! Hooray!
Elder Neeley baptized TS and I baptized TX. It was really fun. After
I baptized TX, we were walking up the steps into the bathroom and he
was like, "That was awesome!" Ha ha. I thought it was funny. It
really is awesome though! Both TX and TS are students at the U of M.
TS is a girl and TX is a boy. They didn't know each other until the
day of the baptism actually but it was good for them to have another
person being baptized at the same time. There is a really strong
spirit at baptisms. It's amazing. We had two investigators at the
baptism and there is no way you can't feel that special spirit as
these people are participating in this ordinance. The Church is so
true! The next day in church, I confirmed TS and then a member of the
ward confirmed TX. It was really great! It was a good way to finish
off the transfer.

Did I mention a _______ last week? Probably. She is the one that
called the institute when we were in the middle of ward council. She
wanted to change her life back around. Yes I did mention her because
we have a baptismal date with her set for Ashley's wedding day! :)
Anyway, we are facing many adventures with her. She has a lot of
difficult struggles in her life and so we are helping her work through
them. It's interesting learning to deal with all of the challenges
you are faced with. She knows the church is true and wants to be
baptized really bad but has other obstacles that she needs to work
out. Other people have a really hard time coming to know if the
church is true or not. And other people have family struggles.
Something I have learned a lot about in the last few months is that
everyone is going to have problems as they head to baptism. So the
key is to not sit back and pray that no challenges come, but to
instead plan on challenges and then learn to deal with them when they
arise. And this is a similar principle of life! And I really believe
that that is one of the reasons we need the full gospel of Jesus
Christ. It is the only rock in our life that will help us to deal
with all of the problems and challenges that hit us in life. The
gospel is the only thing that can solve everything. It's great!

Yes, it is true. My shoes were either misplaced or stolen. Ha ha!
It was so funny. But it is a bummer though. My other pair of shoes
are in really good shape though and so they will easily be able to
last me for the rest of my mission. No problem. SO don't worry about
getting me another pair. And who knows! Maybe my shoes will
magically show up again! Ha ha!

Last letter I mentioned that we had just taught a guy and he accepted
the invitation to be baptized. He has done a ton of research about
the church and knows a lot. He is actually from India and was raised
Hindu but doesn't follow it at all. So we taught him for the second
time this week and he is SOLID. He is a definite baptism soon to
happen. It may be in either march or april but it will happen soon.
He also came to watch the baptism on saturday and we will be teaching
him again tonight. So excited!

Unfortunately, not everything in missionary work is always happy.
_______ who we had set to be baptized on March 17th is having
difficulties. After the last time we taught her and set her date for
baptism, we didn't hear from her for a week or so because she had a
lot of things going on. Well after that she told us that she doesn't
want to be baptized anymore and she wants to explore other churches
too. Noooooo! We were sad. Because she has totally felt the spirit
in our lessons and as she's read and everything. But something has
happened that we don't know quite what and she backed out. She does
have a lot of pressure from family and from friends and so we are
worried about that. It just makes me really sad. You can't deny the
feeling of the spirit! It's a bummer but we are hoping she will let
us at least meet with her again to talk about it all. We'll see.

I watched the wedding invitation! I just didn't play the music. Is
the music important at all? But it is SO GREAT! Ashley, you are
totally getting married!!! Weird. It's so exciting!
Also, I'm an UNNNNCCCLEEE!!!!! Yes!!! I was so excited when I got
the letter with pictures of little Emilia. Awe man! Make sure she
knows that i am her favorite uncle! Congrats to Brian and Jen!
MJ, good luck in New York! It is the best thing ever! I am so pumped
for you. And congrats to michael for getting to the finals of
sterling scholar. Good luck with your interview!
So many exciting things are happening in the family! Life is just too
good. I am very happy.

I better go. We're going to go bowling! Cool huh? We have several
missionaries here and several peeps from the ward too. It's great!

Love you guys!

-Elder Ruesch

p.s. we're supposed to get a ton of snow tomorrow! WOrd!

February 18. 2011

Hello!

Did I mention to you on monday that I was going to be emailing you today? I thought I did. But if not, surprise!

Today has been an awesome day! We started it off by being at the temple at 7 in the morning for a baptistry session. A bunch of people in the ward were there as well as AA, A*, and TH who all were recently baptized (sorry the initials are so confusing). Moral of the story, three of the people who got baptized recently went to the temple! Talk about awesome! AG and HT didn't make it but that's okay, they will come next month. After the baptisms I had to actually go interview another set of missionaries' investigator who is getting baptized next week. And then after that we came back to the institute and taught a first lesson to a guy we just met. And the lesson went really well. He actually referred himself on mormon.org and he is SOLID. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted! So it has been a morning full of baptism things! I love it!

This week has been crazy. There is something magical happening in this ward and people are just falling into our laps! It is kind of ridiculous how people just keep on showing up out of nowhere. While we were in a meeting before church last week, a girl called and said that she wanted to change her life and wanted to come to church. This girl will be called JF. She pretty much thinks that she is a member. When she was 15ish she went to church with her friend for two years but her parents wouldn't let her get baptized. And then after a while she got caught up in some stuff and stopped coming to church. Well now she is going to the University of Minnesota and wants to get away from all that stuff she was into and chnage her life up. So she called the institute. We ended up meeting with her twice this week and set a goal for her baptism to be on March 17th! Awesome!

But this is not all! Have I ever mentioned SW? She showed up at church several weeks ago. Her Dad is a member and she wanted to figure stuff out about the church for herself. So we've been teaching her for a while and we had a great lesson with her this week and also set a date with her to be baptized on March 17th. So there you go Ashley! That will be my wedding present for you. There isn't much that I can do as a gift. But I will celebrate by having two baptisms! :) Yay for marriage!

The spirit is so amzing. I am so glad that this church is true! Because we get to have the spirit with us when we teach. And there is no way we could work without it. On Monday we had a lesson with our investigator from Uganda. She is really cool but just doesn't have any motivation to read the Book of Mormon. In fact, she stopped meeting with us for about a month but we got back in contact with her again and she came to church last week. She also came to see __________'s baptism which was really good. Anyway, after all of our failed attempts to get her to read more of the Book of Mormon, we were teaching her the Plan of Salvation on Monday and we only got about half way through because she was asking so many questions and we were able to answer all of them. it was amazing and the spirit was super strong. And then she opened up to us about a lot of stuggles that she's had in her life and we told her all about how the Plan of Salvation will help and how everything that is unfair is made up through Christ. We talked about it for a long time and it was really really good for her. Later in the week she texted us and told us that she is reading everyday now, not because she has to but because she wants to. It's amazing how much the spirit helps! :) Ha ha. That was a really cool experience.

I mentioned last week about a girl from China who emailed us out of the blue and then came to church. Yeah so we taught her this week and she is awesome. A* came to the appointment and helped translate words and phrases that she didn't understand. it was really good! I am way excited for her!

So things for next saturday are still going well. TX and TS are both still on their way to be baptized! It's looking like we're going to start our own little Chinese branch here :) ha ha. They are both doing really well and I am excited for their baptism. This ward is SO awesome because everyone is so friendly and they all hang out together and so it is really easy to feel loved in this ward. And they have activities ALL THE TIME ha ha. In fact, yesterday they had spa night and it sounds like it was hilarious. We didn't go of course but apparently they had all this stuff set up at the institute like it was a spa. Kinda random but I hear it was fun. There is cool stuff going on all the time!

Do you remember how several months or so they combined all of the singles wards in the twin cities? i think that that is the reason for all of the success that we have been having. There is just a lot of excitement right now in the ward and a lot of people are just showing up that are really prepared and ready for baptism. I feel so lucky to be apart of this work here in this ward. It is amazing! There are so many things going on. It is really cool to be apart of it. Everyone just has a lot of faith! And now more people are being baptized and more people are becoming active again. It's great! Pretty soon this ward is going to be too big for the institute building.

So I just realized that you all probably think that my email isn't going to come until next saturday. Woops. Sorry I should have explained that one more. But oh well, you can be surprised with an email today! :) My next email wont be until a week from Monday. In fact, by the time I email next I should know if I am being transfered or not. I can't believe how fast time goes! Transfers will be in a week and a half. That's crazy.

I hope that everything goes well for Brian and Jen and the coming of little peanut! I'M SO EXCITED!! Let me know how everything goes. It is super exciting!

Well, I'm excited to see how church goes tomorrow. Getting people to church is always an adventure. I'm sure things will work out good though. Have an awesome day and weekend and week everyone! I'm excited to let you know in week how everything is going. I wish I had time to explain everything that happens each week because so much stuff happens. I just have to give the highlights. It's good though. Oh yeah, we also had Zone Conference this week and that was good.

Welp, till next time!

With Love,

Elder Ruesch

February 13, 2001

Wow! It has been a crazy week. Every time I write these emails I
look back and it blows my mind how fast the last week was but also how
many things happened. This week had an extra dose of crazy compared
to most weeks.

First off, benefits of serving in Minnesota! General Mills head
quarters is here and so many people work there in the church. Over
the course of my mission I've gotten tons of free cereal. But this
week a girl in the ward gave us three boxes of toaster strudel! Talk
about delicious. I was really excited about that and so I thought I
would let you all know.

On to things that are more connected with missionary work. Both of
our investigators are doing pretty well. ________ was set to be
baptized this Saturday but we talked to her and pushed it back a
week. She is progressing really well and living all of the
commandments. We just want to be sure she is really solid in her faith.

Our other investigator that is scheduled for baptism next week is
doing really well too. I've been teaching him for a LONG time and
over the last 3 or so weeks he has progressed so much. It's really
amazing! He made it to church again which is great. These people are
just crazy because they all take like 20 credits or more for school
and they never sleep! It's craziness. But somehow they do it and get
all A's.

Now here is the crazy news. On Saturday, President Clements called us
and told us that a sister in another area was sick and has to go home
and so he is going to move the sisters in this ward out to be with the
companion of the sister who had to go home. So we now have to take
all of the sisters people that they are teaching on top of our own
people. It's insane! President said that it is a temporary thing and
that hopefully when the transfer comes in two weeks he will be able to
move sisters back in to this ward. But for now, we're going to die.
We've been trying really hard to work out our schedules well. It had
been an adventure but it should work out fine I think.

This Saturday is going to be amazing. The ward is doing a temple
baptisms trip and all 5 of the recent converts are going to be going.
So we got permission to go! Yay! It is going to be really neat. So
because we are going to the temple that day, we had to make saturday
our p-day. So expect next weeks email on saturday.

Another cool thing that happened in church. _______ blessed the
sacrament for the first time yesterday! Woot woot! That was really
cool. As expected, he made a mistake the first time and had to say it
twice. I think everyone does that. But it was great! He's just on
fire right now. He is doing so well!

Xazmin tells me all the time about how her conversations that she has
with mom and michael. It's pretty hilarious. She thinks mikey-boy is
the coolest kid. And she is excited that he is excited about the
sciences. She is a freakin genius and is going to save the world
someday. So michael, make sure you stay in close touch with her and
learn lots from her! She knows what she's doing for sure.

The thing I love about this area is we have so much diversity among
the people we teach. We're teaching peeps from India, Uganda, and
China. And we've taught someone from Korea and hopefully will be
teaching a guy from Russia. The University tends to pull in people
from all over the place. It is quite excellent.

One more quick miracle. The Dinkytown missionaries have their own
email that they can use to get in touch with the students. And so we
got a random email from a girl who got our email from a friend and she
just wanted to learn about God. So we emailed her back a lot of
activities we have and stuff and yesterday she showed up at church!
It was cool and we have an appointment this week to meet with her.
Exciting!

And finally, I went on an exchange with the New Brighton missionaries
this week. And they took me over to visit the Cummings!! It was
awesome. They are the coolest family ever. I don't think I've ever
met cuter kids. They were hilarious! Ashley is going to have a dang
awesome new family. I am excited for her. I got a picture with them
and so I can email it to you. Fun fun!

Well, I love you guys so much! Life in Minnesota is super excellent.
It couldn't be better. And now we've got a date with the grocery store.

Love,

Elder Ruesch

February 6, 2011

Another week already! I can't believe how fast the time is going.

We had a great week again! Things are going really well. TH got
baptized! Yay! She asked me to baptize her which was an awesome
experience. It was a wonderful baptism too. She shared her testimony
and said that she's never been happier. And her family all came and
that was a great thing for them to hear. Her Dad is athiest and the
rest of her family isn't religious. There is no way they could not
have felt the spirit in that meeting. It was awesome and an exciting
day! Then on Sunday Elder Neeley got to confirm her. It was his
first confirmation and he did a great job. It was awesome.

Yesterday was also just a really really good day. AA was conferred
the Aaronic Priestood and so he and HT both are Priests. HT got a
calling today. And all five of our last recent converts except HT had
their interviews for their temple recommends. HT will have his
tonight. And so the plan is that everyone is going to do a temple
baptism trip on the 18th. Hopefully, we can go with them because that
would be so cool! But there were a lot of wonderful major steps for
everyone yesterday.

The work that we do with the Chinese students here just keeps
growing! Two members brought their friend to church yesterday and she
is chinese. Hopefully, we can start teaching her. Additionally,
________ is doing pretty good. She is still set to be baptized on the
18th of this month. She doesn't have as strong of a testimony as the
other recent converts did because she has no christian background at
all. She is doing extrememly well by living the committments we give
her though. She is living the Word of Wisdom which is great! We just
need to give the spirit a little bit more time to work in her. We'll
see what happens and hopfully she can be baptized very soon!

Also, there is a student that is from China as well. His name is
___________. He actually was meeting with missionaries last year and
then he went home for the summer and when school started again we
started to teach him. We haven't had the most consistent lessons but
he has made significant progress since I first got here. He also
doesn't have the greatest understanding since he has no christian
background. He went back to china over the christmas break and he had
a few great experiences so that when he came back he said he wanted to
be baptized! Awesome! And so he finally came to church for the first
time on Sunday and we're hoping to have him ready for baptism on Feb
25th. That would be awesome! Chinese people are the coolest people
ever.

It's pretty amazing all of the things that are going on in this ward.
Since all the wards were combined everything has just been growing and
growing. New people show up at church every day. It's bringing in a
lot of less active people and non members too. This kid got up in
testimony meeting yesterday and said, "even though I'm not a member
yet, I can feel the spirit really strong here and I know this is the
place for me." Ha ha! What? Awesome! it turns out he is from Idaho
and was meeting with Elders for a long time. He doesn't even want to
meet with us which is funny. He said he just has to work some things
out and he will be baptized. This ward just pulls people in! It's so
great. I really really really love working with the YSA age group.
It is fun. I don't know what I am going to do when I have to go and
talk to families again. I don't even want to think about it.

On Saturday night, after the baptism we took A* over to see the
temple. We walked around the grounds and then went into the church
close by and had a lesson in there. It was really great. I am so
amazed to see the impact that the Gift of the Holy Ghost has on
people. It is a gradual change but each of the recent converts
literally has a brighter glow. Each one is happier then they were
before and you can just feel the prescence of God around them. It is
amazing. All i have to say is this church is true. And then it is so
interesting to see the strong contrast between these recent converts
and someone who has lost their way along the path. We're visiting
with a less active guy who used to be on meth and do all this other
stuff. He was able to get off all of that but he still smokes and so
we're working on that with him. Smoking is a BEAST! I hate it with
all my guts. But the point is, he can't have the spirit with him as
much. And you can see it. Never ever ever lose the prescence of the
Holy Ghost!!!!

This email was kinda all over the place again. Sorry about that. It's
a good thing i don't have to worry about writting well for at least
another year. Thank goodness!

Well Fam Fam, I love you guys! Things are going great over here. And
this weather is INSANE! It's supposed to be in the 30's all week I
think. It blows my mind. Minnesota is not like this. Everyone
keeps talking about how amazing it is. i guess last winter was just
so bad that Heavenly Father wanted to give minnesota a break. ha ha.
But now that I say that, it's probably going to blizzard tomorrow.
We'll see.

Love you!!

Elder Ruesch