Herro!
Here we are with yet another week in the mission. Too fast!
Unfortunately, this last week didn't get much better from the week
before. But we definitely tried. Ha ha. And Elder Truman and I were
prepared to take the heat. It seems like everyone in the ward had a
bad week last week. All the students are stressed with school.
Others that are just working had all sorts of things happen. It
seemed strange that lots of rough things all seemed to happen at the
same time for lots of people. Ha ha. But we actually had a decent
amount of success on the campus this week and hopefully will have
several new people to teach once the semester gets rolling. We'll see!
We also had a meeting with the zone this week and President Clements
interviewed a lot of the missionaries. And then that night, Elder
Truman and I, as well as a few other missionaries, met with the Stake
President and President Clements to report and discuss how the
missionary work is going. It is really neat to get the opportunity to
work closely with such high class men. And it reminds me that being a
Stake President or a Mission President would be the WORST! It's a lot
of responsibility on their shoulders. That is for sure.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before but the singles ward here
covers 4 stakes. And so that is a lot of area and a lot of people and
it turns out that there are over 1,200 Young Single Adults within that
area, and most of them are not active. It is really sad. SOOO to fix
that there is a huge outreach effort that is being organized to pull
in the less active members that are YSA age and get them coming back
to church. We as the missionaries are trying to bring more people in
but also, there are several members who's calling it is to reach out
to these people and go to the family wards in the area and get their
names and invite them to come back to church. Super cool. I like
this church. :)
At this point, almost all of our investigators have disappeared. It
is the strangest thing. AY, who is the one that we pocket texted and
called, he disappeared again. UG! Even the guy from Nigeria who was
scheduled to be baptized at the end of this month has disappeared. It
can be really frustrating when people stop talking to you. They
don't realize what they are missing!!! Oh well. We do what we can.
All of the recent converts are still doing good right now! For the 3
Chinese students who were baptized, the church sends them a letter
(from Salt Lake) and gives them all the information on what they can
and cannot do in China as for sharing the Gospel and it gives them a
way to get in touch with members of the church out there. It is
really cool! The work is moving forward in China and we really have
no idea about it! I thought that was sweet.
Anyway, I don't have too much to report on. Yes, Mom, I will be able
to Skype. So get that computer ready! I don't know what time yet or
anything. Hopefully, we can do it in the evening. I can't believe
that after this Skype sesh, the next time we skype I will only have a
month left of the mission. That is super messed up!
Love you guys!
Elder Ruesch
