It has been a pretty good week. Quite crazy! We actually did end up
having a decent snow storm. We were supposed to get like 16 inches of
snow or something like that. But this winter, minnesota decided to be
slightly tempermental. The temperature warmed up just enough so that
intead of snow, it was freezing rain. It would rain and then when it
hit the ground it turned into ice. Weird. It did end up snowing a
bit though overnight so we ended up with like 4 inches. Since it was
so icy, they postponned the transfer and did it on thursday instead of
wednesday. So I got one more day with Elder Neeley! :) It was fun.
And then on Thursday I got my new companion! Elder Truman is
awesome. He's got a lot of experience behind him and is a great
teacher so it's really nice. This is the first time I didn't have to
worry at all about making sure our lessons are under control the whole
time. Elder Truman can help me out. :) So I think I am really going
to enjoy my time with my new companion, he's really solid and so we
can just get the work done! I'm excited.
Oh man! I loved the pictures of you guys in New York! It looks and
sounds like it was so fun! I am jealous and I can't wait to get my
package of cookies. Elder Truman is really excited for the cookies
too. I told him allll about them. mmmmm. And MJ, i expect a full
report from you on how awesome your New York experience was! It is
due next monday morning. Consider it an assignment!
It's kinda funny. Right now we are kinda at a state where all of our
investigators either got baptized or have stopped meeting with us. So
we're working on building the area up more!
We are still teaching our friend from India named SS. He is solid and
really awesome. This week we set a goal with him to have his baptism
on April 7th. He is really solid and being baptized is one of his
major goals. But he wants to make sure he has a strong testimony of
the Book of Mormon before he takes the dunk. He has never read it
before but he has studied a lot of other things from the church. He's
watched general conference talks and read all sorts of things by and
about Joseph Smith. It's really cool. But now it's down to the final
stretch of reading the thing that holds it all together - the BoM!
The other girl that we were teaching that is scheduled to be baptized
on the 17th is doing really great too. i believe we call her JF.
She's already had her baptismal interviews and passed them and
everything. So she is doing awesome. The news with her though is
that she wont actually be baptized into our ward. She is going to be
baptized into the family ward in her area for several reasons. It's
kinda nice because we've already taught her pretty much everything and
she is ready to be baptized and now we can let the other missionaries
in that ward plan the baptism and stuff. It's a good tag team
effort. I like it. Hopefully, we'll be allowed to go to the
baptism. We should be. I'm really excited for her!
We had another great miracle this week! We got a referral for a guy
who is a student at the U here. He's actually from Idaho and it turns
out his mom is taking the lessons in Idaho. His Dad passed away last
month and so he's been having a kinda rough time. But the Bishop in
the ward where his mom lives called the institute and gave us his
number. We'll call him AY. So we called him and met with him! The
first lesson was a really funny experience. We were teaching the
restoration and were having an awesome lesson. The set up was great
and we had talked about the Apostasy and then we just starting to talk
about Joseph Smith. We read James 1:5 with him and told him that
Joseph Smith decided to pray about his question. And just as we were
about to explain the First Vision, he stops us and says, "Guys, I'm
really sorry but I acutally have to go." I forgot to let you know
that I have a thing I need to get to right now." Ha ha! It was
terrible timing! But we laughed about it and he said he was having a
lot of fun and set up another appointment with us for the next day.
When we met the second time we finished up everything and challenged
him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Everything turned out
just fine, I just thought it was funny how he happened to have to go
at the absolute worst moment of the lesson. He is an awesome kid and
has a lot of real intent to get an answer. So we'll see what happens!
Yesterday was crazy! We had zero of our investigators show up at
church. I was super bummed but it is alright! We've had a lot of
success recently and so we can have a slow moment every once in a
while. I think God doesn't want to overflow us either because he
wants us to make sure that our recent converts stay active! So we're
really focussing on that.
Holy smokes! I can't believe that Ashley gets married so soon.
That's crazy talk! But i am excited. It is going to be fun.
And mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Did you get my card? You were probably
in New york when it arrived. But hopefully not. I hope that you had
a great birthday in the land of New York City. It would be an awesome
place to celebrate. Yay for birthdays!
We've got some good things ahead. i'm already counting down the days
until general conference. It is going to be super awesome!
By the way, have any of you created a profile on Mormon.org? If not,
consider yourself chastised! You should all create one because it is
awesome.
It's gonna be a great week! I am excited to see what adventures we
have ahead. Happy March!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
