Well it has been another week filled with events. We're working hard and we're seeing miracles! I love miracles.
Today actually isn't our P-Day. President changed our P-Day to be Wednesday after transfers because that day is July 4th. So that will be nice. But we were told to still do our emailing today. Speaking of transfers, the news is out and Elder Last and I are staying! WOO! I'm really pumped. Elder Last and I are having a really fun time. So I am pumped for the next 6 weeks.
Miracle time! We got a call yesterday from our Ward Mission Leader. He told us that the Bishop met with the parents of the girl we are teaching, and Bishop decided to go forward with the baptism! Awesome! So the girl is going to be baptized this Saturday. Yay! Her parents are divorced and her Dad flew here from Washington state and has been here for a few weeks. So he is going to be the one to baptize her. It is going to be difficult though because he actually had one leg amputated. So we're going to have to be in the font with him to help him baptize her. That will be an adventure. But we are excited! I'll make sure to tell you about it next week.
We invited so many people to be baptized this week! It was way awesome. As my mission has progressed I've learned to be a lot more bold. It feels so great to be bold. Instead of just being a little weeny who's scared of offending people. But it just so happened that this week we were teaching a lot of new people that we've just begun teaching in the last week or two and we invited them ALL to be baptized. We had an especially awesome experience yesterday. A couple days we were tracting and we met this Cambodian kid in his early 20's. We set up an appointment to meet yesterday. When we went over we had a AWESOME lesson. It went so good. The spirit was way strong. We pointed out the spirit and he was like, "I feel SO good! I feel happy!" It is amazing how the spirit can touch the hearts of those who are open. He's been totally seeking direction and we showed up on his door. The Lord is awesome!
We ran into an interesting situation with a family. we are teaching The lesson went okay but the mom actually opened up to us and said that she feels like God is calling her to be a Chaplain. Interesting huh? So she was wondering if women in the church are allowed to be Chaplains. Based on our evidence so far, we think it would be possible. But wouldn't that be so cool if she joined the church and was a Chaplain at the Hospital here in Rochester? That would be really neat. We'll wait to see what happens.
There is a lady we are teaching who was taught for a really long time by missionaries a couple years ago. And recently the Elders have started to visit her again. She is super awesome and is so close but for some reason she just can't bring herself to join the church. So recently, we tried super hard to commit her to a baptismal date. And she just couldn't bring herself to commit. But she did commit to read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes a day and to pray at least twice every day and to come to church every week. She came this week (the first time since I've been here) and she has been reading like she promised. It is so awesome to already see the change in her. It really is a testimony to me of the Book of Mormon. Now the secret is to help her realize the changes in herself! We'll see what we can do. She is such an awesome lady and I hope we can make it work!
Crazy story, we went to dinner with a family in the ward who moved in like a week ago. The wife had her parents there helping them get settled and guess who these parents happened to be? They were the mission president and wife of the Montana Mission several years ago. Can you say intimidating? We had dinner and shared a message and afterwards the Dad was like, "Nice work Elders, you passed." Ha ha. Goodness, I knew we were being graded the whole time on how good of missionaries we were. But he gave us a bunch of great advice and resolved faith to work harder. It was awesome but scary. Ha ha.
One more experience, we've been teaching this girl every week who used to be less active. I already have mentioned her before. But we have been going over all of the commandments with her to make sure she has everything down. So this week we went over the Law of Chastity! Ha ha. She was there and so was her active sister and another friend. It wasn't awkward at all or anything but I was just thinking about how funny the situation was. Here were 5 people all around the age of 20 sitting in a room reading a pamphlet together about the Law of Chastity out of their own choice and they were all enjoying the discussion. If someone random walked in on the lesson he would have been so mind boggled. I just think being a missionary is the best! We tell people how it is and don't beat around the bush. I LOVE talking about God's commandments.
Okay, one last funny story! Tuesday morning we had a lesson with someone at 9 in the morning. We went over and the lesson was with a newly wed girl in her twenties. She and her husband live with her parents. but it was only her that was willing to meet with us at this time. SO we went over and she answered the door right as this other lady is walking down the stairs in a towel. She clearly had just gotten out of the shower. So the the Lady freaked at her daughter who answered the door and was like, "Close the Door! Close the door! I'm naked!" Ha ha. And then the door closed. She came out shortly after and we had a decent lesson with her. Funny funny.
I really better go! There is so much to talk about. Thanks for the all pictures and I loved all of the emails I got from everyone. it sounds like MJ had an awesome Heritage tours. I loved their report. HT is the bomb! I'm glad that the Lehi Roundup was awesome. I hope everyone danced TWICE as hard since I was not there. I was definitely there in spirit though. :) Happy Independence day!
Love!
Elder Ruesch
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