Hey ya'll (not minnesotan accent),
Missionary life is always full of so many ups and downs! But the ups always outweigh the downs by a million. We had a good week!
We spent two days this week in La Crosse, Wisconsin. We have to go there decently often. We actually have to go this week again because one of the teams has someone being baptized and we need to interview him. So more long driving! Yay! Ha ha. Fortunately, the drive to La Crosse is beautiful. THere are a lot of corn fields and then it turns into luscious green bluffs next to the Mississippi river. I may have gotten one of the most beautiful missions. It is so awesome! Anyway, for the two days we spent over there we worked in both of the teams areas for a day. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoy going on exchanges with missionaries because I learn a lot and I always leave with a boost of faith. Missionaries are so cool.
Holy smokes! I can't believe I hit my 18 month mark this week. Bleh. I better move on before I barf.
I can't believe how quickly the time flies by. Everyday I get home and we never have accomplished everything we wanted to. There just isn't enough time in a day! Although, if I accomplished everything I wanted to every day the whole state of Minnesota would be members right now. But that is a different story. The main lesson I'm learning: Time is so PRECIOUS.
So as for the update on investigators, our investigator friend is still off coffee! We met with her on Monday night. She was only drinking 1/3 of a cup a day but she just couldn't let it go. It is funny. So when she quit she didn't have many head aches. The real monster now is she chews Nicotene gum. So in our lesson we committed her to cut back a little bit. She agreed easily which was great! Unfortunately, we wont see her for another week or so because she went on a trip. But I have full confidence she will keep her commitment.
The _________ family is doing well. So the way it is working now is we are mainly teaching the teenage boy to help him be prepared for his baptism. But the mom is always in on the lessons. In fact, she helps us teach it half the time. We talked about the Law of Chastity and the Sabbath Day Holy and she was a very active participant in the lessons. It's awesome. Coolest family ever. The main event of this week was we ended up moving the baptism date one more time. All of the friends that introduced the son to the church are going to be out of town on Aug 11th so we had to move it back to Sept 1st. Which should be the official date. Ha ha. The only sad thing about that is one of us may be transferred before then. We will see. The hope is that we can focus on the mom a little more now and see if we can help her to be ready to be baptized on that day too. That would be so neat! The biggest obstacle right now is the mom and her ex husband have joint custody of the son so the father has to give permission for him to be baptized. I hope he does! We're going to be praying for it. Sadly, they didn't come to church this week because the son got a big headache and felt super sick so they didn't make it. It was unfortunate. They were even driving to the church and turned around because he didn't feel good. No bueno. Things are still going well though!
So the girl who was baptized a couple weeks ago is doing awesome still! She went to girls camp this week with all the young women. So cool! So we are happy she is doing well. Hopefully, she can continue to stay strong.
I think I mentioned the African lady last week. She is from Nigeria. We has a lesson with her this week and she is so awesome! We taught her the restoration and she loved it. She even said the closing prayer and in it she asked Heavenly Father, "If this is the reason I came to America, please let me know." That was cool. It was such a sweet sincere prayer. And then on Sunday she came to church and loved it! This woman is so close to the spirit and she has a powerful faith. This is a wonderful example of how the truths of the restored gospel will only build and add to your faith if you are humble. She was the only person who came to church this week which was stinky but at least she came!
Speaking of being humble, I don't know what it was about close minded people but we met way too many hard core "Christians" this week that just wanted to bash. It was an abnormal amount! The thing that is crazy is every one of them pretty much quoted 2 Nephi 29 to us almost word for word. You know, "A Bible, A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." That one. All I got to say is, the Book of Mormon is true! I am just amazed at how these people wont even touch the book. It's like telling a little kid to just try a tomato because they say they don't like them but have never eaten one before. These people are like little kids!
I hope all goes well for Grandma! Keep me updated. I will be praying for her.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
