read my emails. Holy smokes! That is just mind blowing. But I am so
excited! I can't wait to hear how it goes and look at pictures. I
hope you send me a BILLION pictures :) I'm not surprised that so many
crazy things are going on before the wedding but I'm sure that
everything will just turn out fine. Ah! It's so exciting!
This week has been alright. Things have slowed down quite drastically
compared to the last few months. All of our investigators either got
baptized or disappeared... Ha ha. But I guess that's how the gospel
works. Some accept it and some don't. Agency can be a painful
thing. But Elder Truman and I hit the pavement hard on campus this
week and talked to a lot of students to try and find some new people
to teach. Hopefully, we can get some solid new investigators!
I totally forgot to mention a couple weeks ago about the sisters. So
you remember how the sisters in the area left? Well at the transfer
they came back. Sister Randall was transferred back in and she is
training a new missionary. So we are back to sharing the car and
everything again. But it is good. That is one reason why we aren't
teaching as much anymore too since we don't have to take care of twice
as many people. Ha ha. We can focus more on finding some new people
now. It is an interesting situation because we're really focusing on
making sure that our recent converts stay strong and become
comfortable on their own in the ward while at the same time trying to
have more baptisms. The recent converts take top priority though and
fortunately, all six of the baptisms that have happened in the past
while are still active and going strong. I am very grateful for
that. It is always SUPER sad when a person gets baptized and for some
reason loses their testimony and stops coming. We are determined to
not let that happen though!
Did I not mention that JF is not getting baptized in our ward this
week? She is still set to be baptized but last week we passed her to
the Elders that serve in the family ward that she lives in. There are
several reasons for it and she will do best in that ward. So we're
going to try and get permission to go to her baptism but we really
aren't teaching her for the final stuff on the way to her baptism. I
am really excited for her though. She is coming from a crazy past
life and totally changing her life around and it is amazing to watch.
It's cool to watch how amazing the spirit works.
We had a funny experience with SS this week. He is the guy from India
that is set to be baptized on April 7th. He is so solid that it is
almost humorous. The first time we taught him was about 3 or 4 weeks
ago and he had briefly mentioned to us that he drinks coffee and he
knew he needed to stop. Since it was the first lesson we don't want
to overload our investigators and so we kinda just brushed it to the
side and said he should focus on finding out the BOM is true first and
then we'll talk about it later. Well we taught the Word of Wisdom
this week and when we asked him if he would live it he said he hadn't
had coffee for 3 weeks! Turns out he still just decided to give it up
after the first lesson we had with him. We had no idea about it or
anything. He is really solid and is way pumped to be baptized.
This week is going to provide some difficulty. The U of M is on
Spring break and so everyone is gone. The campus is quite barren.
Hopefully a lot of the Asian students will be around again. Just like
during Christmas break. We'll see. Breaks are difficult for us but
it seems that when we endure them and work hard, we get good
blessings! We're going to have to get creative for this week again!
Life is still going good. We have a few other investigators but none
of them are really progressing at the moment. There are a lot of
people in this world that I just don't understand. People are willing
to meet with them and we can invite them to change over and over
again, but they just wont do it! I've learned that that tends to be
the reason why God lets us go through hard trials. People don't get
humble unless experiences force them to be humble it seems. No wonder
this life here on earth is so important! We need to get the
experiences. We also have another investigator who is also from India
and he is extremely difficult because he considers himself a member of
our church but doesn't want to be baptized. Ha ha. It is so
strange! He is the smartest guy ever and he believes in all
religions. That tends to be the Hindu culture. All we can really do
is get him to keep reading the Book of Mormon and hopefully he will
understand the Doctrine of Christ a little better.
Well, life is going good! It sounds like everyone is still staying
super busy! What a busy year it has been for y'all! MJ, make sure
you don't die. It sounds like you guys are really really busy. Just
remember, never compromise reading your scriptures. That is one major
thing I have learned. You can be as busy as you want. As long as
being busy doesn't interfere with your relationship with God. As I
look back on my senior year, I feel that it happened to me more than
it should have.
GONRATULATIONS TO ASHLEY!!! I'll be praying for you all week! It's so
exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a super wonderful week! Love you all!
-Elder Ruesch
