April 23, 2012

Hello fam fam!
Welcome back to another episode of the life of Elder Ruesch.
This week was pretty terrible! Ha ha. I guess the Lord has to give
us those every once in a while doesn't he? Bleh! But I am happy to
report that Elder Truman and I are still cheerful and optimistic!
There are a few reasons why it ended up being so bad but it was mostly
because all of our appointments kept on falling through. We had like
8 different appointments set up with investigators this week and they
all fell through. Some just didn't show up and others called and
cancelled right before. It was stinky! We ended up with having only
one of our investigator lessons go through this week.

The worst part about lessons falling through is you get really excited
to have a lesson with these investigators because you plan on them
making significant progress and so you make awesome lesson plans and
everything and then they don't show up or cancel and all you have left
to do is go onto the campus and talk to people. Don't get me wrong, I
love talking to the kids on campus, but it is very exhausting if you
do it all day long because all of your lessons didn't work out.

I think part of the reason for the crazyness is the semester is coming
to an end in a few weeks and so everyone is really busy and doesn't
want to take the time to meet with us. Also, this weekend was OUT OF
CONTROL! They had this weird activity called Spring Jam. It kinda
feels like Homecoming but in the spring. To me it seemed like a big
excuse to party hard and get drunk. Ha ha. They had a huge stage out
on campus and there were bands playing all weekend and they had a
dance Saturday night. And when everyone is in their big groups going
to the dance they really don't want to talk to us! So the week was a
struggle.

On the bright side, we went to Taco Bell for lunch today and got some
Dorritos Tacos! Has anyone tried it? The shell of the taco is a
giant Dorrito! It is delicious!

Anyway, the week wasn't just all terrible though. We did have some
great miracles! The coolest miracle of all was on Thursday. We went
with a member of our ward to go visit a less active guy that lives in
a suburb of Minneapolis that is pretty far away. So we drove there
and had a great lesson. While we were headed back to the Institute
building we were on the freeway when the members car broke down! It
was a blue Volks Waggen Bug in case you were wondering. So we pulled
over to the side of the road wondering what to do. Elder Truman and I
stepped out of the car and stood outside while the member called the
insurance and got a tow truck. We were just kinda laughing at the
situation because we were pretty stuck. Well it turns out that the
tow truck was covered by the insurance and he was on his way but the
truck could only fit two passengers and there were three of us. And
then! We got a random call from one of our former investigators. He
was driving on the freeway when he saw us and called to ask if we
needed any help. So he came over and drove us to the Institute
Building and then the member we were with was able to just go with the
tow truck. And then the whole drive to the Institute we got to talk
to this former investigator and talked about where he's at and how
he's doing. It was a miracle! I actually had been hoping for quite a
while that we could get back in contact with this investigator because
he wasn't responding to our calls anymore. It turns out that he isn't
quite ready to meet with us again but it was definitely good to talk
to him and hopefully he'll be ready again to meet soon. It's pretty
funny that God has to break your car down in order to help you fulfill
his work sometimes. He truly does work in mysterious ways. It is
funny.

We also are working with a couple less active people who are trying to
come back into activity. There is one guy in particular who is just
awesome. We have been meeting with him for a couple weeks now. He is
doing awesome and has a really sincere change of heart. And you can
tell that there is a fire back into him. He now has a light about him
and a new commitment to be better and it is great to see. I love
seeing people bring the Gospel into their lives!

If nothing else, the last week's difficult-ness helped Elder Truman
and I grow closer together in our companionship and closer friends as
we had to rely on each other to still have fun and enjoy our
experience on a mission in the middle of a not fun week. It is a
special work that we get to be a part of and I am grateful for that.
We're still working hard and we are going to make this week better
than last week!

Well, the weather is beautiful. I can't wait to go outside. And we
also have a match set up with our Indian investigator in Ping Pong.
It sounds like he is pretty good. We'll see. Got to get my game on!

Have a great week! Love you!

-Elder Ruesch

April 16, 2012

Today we woke up and there were little snowflakes floating around! It
was randomly cold. But it didn't stick. Everything was just really
wet!

Yesterday we went to the President's Fireside, which is a fireside
where recent converts speak about their conversion story and it is
held in the mission home. ________ was asked to speak at it and he
did an awesome job! It was super great! He is doing so well. It has
been awesome to watch him grow since his baptism. He is already
planning on serving a mission and everything. It is exciting! Also,
Dad asked me how the converts are that got baptized while I was in
Plymouth. I actually saw ___________at the fireside and talked to him
about how everything was going. It has pretty much been a year since
he was baptized. He is still doing really well. Which is really
exciting to hear. I know that the __________'s are doing pretty good
too. They are planning on going to the temple pretty soon to be
sealed. I will be able to go with them when they do! I can't wait!

This last week was definitely another adventure. You guys asked me
how AY is doing (the one that we pocket called) and we don't know what
happened but he didn't show up to our appointment this week. It was
so weird! We had set up an appointment and then that morning we
texted him to see if he could still meet and he said yes but then he
didn't show up to the appointment and we can't get ahold of him.
Hopefully, he is okay! We'll see what happens.

We are still teaching H* that I've mentioned every once in a while.
She is the nicest girl ever and she is doing pretty good but she needs
a lot more time before she gets baptized and the problem is that she
is going back to China next month permanently. It is no good! We are
sad about it but hopefully down the road she will be able to find the
gospel again. Maybe when my son goes to China on his mission he will
find her. Ha ha.

We did start meeting with a new person. Her name is TR. She was a
cool story actually because she actually walked up to us on campus and
started talking to us. She has a friend who is Mormon and wanted to
learn more! So cool! So we met with her and invited her to be
baptized and she said Yes! In case you were wondering, we always
invite the person to be baptized in the first lesson that we have with
them. And you might be thinking, "Wow, that is really bold." And you
are right. It is very bold but it quickly establishes our purpose
with people and separates the solid from the unsolid investigators.
It is pretty intense. But it works really well. Anyway, TR is
actually a high school student. There are a few student here at the U
of M that are part of a program where during high school they take all
of their classes at the University and so they get High School and
College Credit at the same time. It's sweet! So she is a junior in
High School and actually lives far away but we hope to be able to
still teach her and hopefully she can be baptized in her home ward.
There are lots of things to teach still but we have high hopes!

It was a pretty normal week here. The weather was nice most of the
time. There was a hard core storm last night with tornado warnings
but nothing bad happened. Tornado season is always really exciting!

We are still working with our Nigerian friend. We have a date set for
baptism with him for May 26th and we hope to see it go through! I'm
absolutely amazed at how hard satan works to stop people from being
baptized. It is so ridiculous. But it is a true test of faith and I
guess some people pass and some people fail unfortunately. I'm glad
to still be staying here. We have more exciting adventures ahead here
in Dinkytown! Have a delightful week!

Love,

Elder Ruesch

April 9, 2012

Transfer calls were this morning and the big news is that Elder Truman
and I will be staying in Dinkytown for another transfer together.
Woot woot! It is going to be real fun. This will be my sixth
transfer in this area. That is crazy! So by the time I finish this
transfer I will have been here for almost 9 months. Pretty crazy.
This doesn't happen too often but I like it. I love this area and so
I am happy to stay!

We had a pretty great week! Easter is always a nice time of year. I
very much enjoyed sharing the Gospel on the day that we celebrate the
Resurrection. Holidays in this ward are so goofy because a lot of
people leave and so we tend to teach less but it's alright. Yesterday
we teamed up with the sisters and made a nice Easter dinner in the
Institute building and A* came as well as our investigator H* who is
also chinese. It was fun. And when I say nice dinner we had a HUGE
bowl of macaroni and cheese, beans, salad, baked potatoes, and
biscuits. Ha ha. We miss judged how much food we would need and
ended up making WAY too much. It was hilarious. But we had nice time
and it was a good to celebrate some how. Afterwards we went onto
campus and talked to people as usual and were able to find several
people who were interested in learning more about the church. Pretty
Great!

We had a great miracle this week. About a month ago we started
teaching a guy named AY. He is from Oregon and is a student here.
His mom actually just recently was baptized into the church and
referred him to us to teach. His dad died a few months ago and so
he's kinda been lost. So we had two great lessons with him over a
month ago and then all of the sudden he disappeared! Weird. So we
were pretty bummed. And then last Monday, Elder Truman accidentally
called him from his pocket and texted him a blank text too. And we
didn't realize it. But then he texted us and asked if we could meet
that night at 7. Woo! God is totally in charge. When we met it
turns out he has just stayed to himself for the last few weeks to read
the Book of Mormon and the Bible and figure out what he really
believes. So he has read over half of the Book of Mormon now. It was
cool. He loves the Book but he isn't quite sure if he believes it is
true. He also grew up catholic and feels a lot of loyalty to that
church. But we had a great meeting with him on Monday and talked a
lot about the role of the Book of Mormon and then we met with him on
Friday and taught the Plan of Salvation and that was really great
too. He is progressing well! He was supposed to come to church
yesterday but he woke up deathly sick and didn't make it. it was
disappointing. But he'll come eventually! It is quite a miracle that
we met with him this week.

We met with our investigator from Nigeria again and invited him to be
baptized on May 26th. He accepted! So we are excited for him! We
have a lot to teach him and we hope that all goes well on the route to
baptism. We'll see!

On Saturday we were able to go to a baptism of a guy that was in the
area that Elder Truman served in before he came to be with me. He
taught this guy for 6 months and now he finally got baptized. He was
super pumped and it was fun to go to the service. There was a really
great spirit there.

Well, this week is exciting! We have several first appointments set
up with potential new investigators of people we've met on campus. I
am excited! We had a terrible day on Thursday where everyone was
rejecting us hard core, but then we got a lot of blessings on Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday and so it made up for the disappointments. :)

It looks like your easter was great! It was fun to see those
pictures. We have the coolest family ever! It wont be too long
before We will be talking on skype again!

Love you!

-Elder Ruesch

April 2, 2012

Hello! It's me again!

Conference was awesome!!!! General Conference time for a missionary is like Christmas. I love it so much! It is sad to think that I only have one more general conference left as a missionary. Gross! But I sure did love the talks. They were all super inspiring and awesome. It was a fantastic weekend.

We had all sorts of ups and downs throughout the week. We started teaching 4 new people this week! It was really great! One of the members of the ward was at school in the computer lab browsing around on lds.org and another student tapped on her shoulder and asked if she was a mormon. She said yes and he told her that he was really interested in that church and wanted to come to it. So she immediately gave him our number and we called him up and met with him. And then he came to the last session of conference on sunday and loved it. It was cool! He is from Nigeria and it turns out that his brother was baptized into the church at some point. And so his brother would always bring home magazines and other church material and tell his brother about how awesome the church was. So now that this guy left Nigeria and came here for school, he has many more opportunities to learn about the church. Word!

Also, we had talked to a guy a few weeks ago on campus and gave him a card and told him to call us if he had any questions. He didn't want to meet with us at the time. But then this week he ended up calling us and said he had a few questions. It turns out that he got an assignment in a religion class to ask people of another religion some questions. So he called us! Score! The conversation ended up going ALL OVER THE PLACE. We somehow taught the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and The Gospel of Jesus Christ all in the same lesson. It was crazy but good and by the end he said, "Well, I need to go catch a bus, but can we do this again?" Absolutely! Ha ha.

I'm amazed at how we get to talk to people from all walks of life. This area has given me so much great insight into the world. Just this week, we met with a Muslim guy from Iran, a Chinese fellow with no faith in God, and the Nigerian guy I was telling you about. Plus we have conversations with all sorts of people on campus. Last week was Islam Awareness week on campus and Elder Truman and I even got free Quarans! Ha ha. We were pretty pumped about that. I have been collecting religious books and so far I have a Quaran, a Bagavad Gita (probably not spelled right), and several versions of the Bible. People like to give us their religious book because we are the ones who are lost apparently. :) It is really cool though.

Oh man! I need to tell you about a man named MG. This is funny. I don't think I've ever mentioned him before. But he is great. So MG is an interesting person. He is probably in his 50's. And what he does all day is he stands on a Chair on campus and reads the Bible and other things as loud as he can for everyone to hear. He does this Monday - Friday from the morning to the evening. He is super funny. Sometimes he'll just stand there while he's reading and hold out a dollar bill and tell people, "Here is a dollar from Jesus." He is hilarious. Back when I was with Elder Checketts, many eons ago, he gave Elder Checketts a big hug and then gave him two dollars and told him to give them to a homeless person, which he did. Super funny! So this week we went over and talked to him and Elder Truman got a picture with him. Sometimes when he's not reading the Bible he will kinda lay back on the side walk and play his guitar. It's hilarious. I can't figure what his motives are or if he is just crazy. He is the type of person where you can't quite tell. And it seems that he isn't getting any profit or anything from doing this all day. But it's great. Over Christmas break, he obviously wasn't around on campus and we missed him. We're good buddies with MG. Ha ha.

One other funny story. We were walking to the institute building yesterday from campus after talking to people for a while. As we were walking back, we saw this student guy from a distance start running. And just joking around I said to Elder Truman, "Run away from the Mormons!" Well it turns out, he really was! Ha ha. He was totally running away from us. And we know this because while he was running he ran into the Sister Missionaries who were on campus also, and they are harder to recognize as Mormon missionaries at first sometimes since they're sisters. So as he was running past them he said to them, "Watch out! There are some mormons over there. Stay away or they will talk to you!" And then the sisters showed him their tags and told him they were missionaries too and he freaked out and ran off. Super funny! I have never had that happen before. When the Sisters told us about it we were all laughing really hard. It was awesome.

So things are moving along. We are teaching one Chinese girl who is doing really well. She is the sweetest person that ever lived and we hope to set a day with her to be baptized soon. SS is also still on the radar. We were able to contact him this week and it turns out he has been having some issues I think with his family and so he hasn't had much time for anything. I've learned that it is impossible for a person to be baptized without some sort of adversity first. Heavenly Father tends to allow that to happen so he can separate the wheat from the tares and make the wheat stronger. It's quite interesting to see the Lord work. SS will be baptized soon but unfortunately, not this weekend.

That stinks to hear that Ashley and Brandon got sick. I ran into Brother Cummings on Saturday at the Priesthood session and talked to him for a while. He was telling me that the wedding was freaking awesome. Which is great! Yay for marriage!

Have an awesome week! I Love you all!

-Elder Ruesch