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
