Hello again! It's been another delicious and eventful week. There is
never a dull week as a missionary!
So first of all, I appreciate all of the reports about the fire. That
is a scary thing that it got so close! It's kind of a funny story
about how I heard about the fire. So the girl who talked to you lived
in our ward and was an AWESOME help. She came teaching with us all of
the time and helped out a lot. Well just a couple weeks ago she moved
to Provo to go to work and to experience the unique life of a single
mormon in Provo. It was a sad loss on our part. But she became a
good friend to Elder Last and I. So she heard about the fire and
texted another girl who lives here in Minnesota who then texted us
about it. This is how the text conversation went:
"Elder Ruesch do you live in Alpine?"
"Yes."
"Oh Shellie wanted me to tell you that it's on fire..."
"Whhhaattt!!??? Tell Shellie to go put it out!"
"Okay I'll tell her too."
And then I preceded to give her mom's number to have Shellie call to
make sure everything was okay and our house was still standing. I was
nervous but I didn't feel too worried about it for some reason.
Somehow I knew things would be alright. But I'm glad I had Shellie
call you. I think you would be surprised how many people I heard
about the fire from before today. Every member I talked to that asked
me where I was from would then say, "Wait, isn't that where that fire
is?" And then I would have to tell then that it was but you guys were
safe. Everything in the church revolves around Utah because every
member has connections there. It's kinda freaky.
Anyway, on to more important things. This week was awesome! The
baptism went through and it was fantastic! The girl who got baptized
is just the sweetest person ever. She fits right in to the young
women and they all love her guts so she is going to have a wonderful
time in this ward. She was just beaming after the baptism and after
her confirmation on Sunday. A member of the ward baptized her and
Elder Last confirmed her. It was just fantastic. Things in the life
of that family are just crazy right now. It is so nice for the family
to have one glimmer of a happy moment. This girl is awesome. It's
hard to stay strong when everything is a disaster around you and she
just does it. I've learned a good lesson from her. Yay for
baptisms! They are such happy times.
Transfers went pretty smoothly. After I emailed you last week we went
out and worked for the rest of the day. And then on the 4th we had
the rest of our P-day from 2 until the rest of the night. That was
weird but cool. There were two ward parties that we dropped in on in
the morning/afternoon and we also went and delivered 4th of July
cookies to investigators. That was fun. We are cool. Speaking of
being cool, the weather on the 4th of July was SO HOT!!!!! Holy cow.
I died a little bit. We Minnesotans are really good at being dramatic
about the weather. But it was really hot. Fortunately, things cooled
down by Saturday. But I thought I was dyin. We saw this hilarious
marquee in front of one of the churches the other day and it said:
You think this is hot?
-God
Elder Last and I chuckled. Rochester has a lot of churches. Well,
Minnesota has a lot of churches but Rochester does especially. It is
almost disturbing. It feels like just another capitalist business
arena with everyone competing with each other to get people to their
church. I don't really like it. But at least people are going to
church right? If only they would listen to the fulness of the gospel!
The Cambodian guy I mentioned last week is on fire! We took him to
Family Home Evening with all the YSA's on Monday, we taught him in a
members home on Thursday, he came to watch the baptism on Saturday,
and came to church on Sunday. It was so great! He even went and
bought two new shirts and ties so that he could have them for church.
He was looking pretty shnazzy. It was so great. He is so receptive
to the spirit and he is just soaking all of the teachings up like a
sponge.
Unfortunately, we had our third lesson with the awesome investigator
that we met at the 5K and she told us that she didn't want to meet
anymore. We had a powerful lesson with her and she has totally felt
the spirit but she is facing a lot of family pressure and isn't strong
enough to resist it and is searching a lot of stuff right now and so
she is confusing herself. But I think she has a lot of potential in
the future. Maybe she will give it another shot soon. We'll see.
She has a lot of friends that are members so she still has good
contact with the church. It's just so sad! But that's life.
Interesting story. We tracted into a lady who left the church and
took her name off the records. She is really really bitter and has
faced a lot of hurt. But she let us come back and we visited with her
this week and will be going back next week. I don't know what changed
in her to allow missionaries to come over but I don't think it was a
coincidence that we knocked on her door. I hope she comes back! She
needs the healing of the Atonement so badly.
We have to drive up to the Cities for a meeting tomorrow. So we are
going to drive up today so we can play some Bball with the AP's. That
will be fun! It's a good thing I'm super good at basketball. I just
dominate on the court. In fact, some people go so far as to call me
Jimmer Jr. Ha ha! I actually have gotten better. We play a lot of
BBall as missionaries. Elder Last is a baller and so he shows me the
ropes. Ha ha.
Anyway, life is so good. I LOVE MY MISSION. And I love Elder Last.
We have so much fun together. Almost too much fun! And we are seeing
a lot of miracles at the same time. I am SO grateful for an awesome
companion and for the chance to serve the Lord full time. It is an
amazing opportunity and I'm going to make the most of what I have
left. It scares me to think that my time is running short. We're
going to baptize the world in the time we have left!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
Aka: Jimmer Jr. (But only on P-Day)
