Hola!
I feel like every missionary always starts their emails home by saying
how fast the week went by. So to not be cliche I am just going to
move on. The weather was more heavenly than anything in the whole
world this week. It would storm at night. And then in the day
everything was nice and cool and the sky was perfectly blue. It was
70's for a lot of the week! Happiness.
I loved hearing about Christie! It sounds like she is doing some
crazy cool stuff! Elder Last knows that she is on the campain and so
anytime someone asks me about my family, he tells them that I have a
famous sister. Ha ha. It's pretty awesome. Sounds like she is
having some neat opportunities.
Our week was delightful as usual. We are experiencing a strange
phenomenon here in Rochester. We cover the 2nd and 4th wards in
Rochester and typically, the 4th ward has had hardly any success with
missionary work. Really good missionaries have been sent to that ward
and would leave with pretty much nothing happening. It was just kinda
dead for a while. And the 2nd ward typically would baptize quite a
bit and have a lot of work going on. Well right now the opposite is
occuring! We had 4 investigators come to Sacrament meeting in the 4th
ward and we had ZERO show up in 2nd ward. It is really strange. The
cool thing is that it has nothing to do with Elder Last and I. We are
working in 4th ward just as hard as other missionaries have. But the
Ward Mission Leader in 4th ward is just amazing. he is working so
hard to get the ward more involved in Missionary work and we are
having a lot of miracles because of it! So the lesson to be learned
here: Faith brings miracles. I have been learning that a lot over
the past several months. It seems that when I am just going through
the motions and I kinda forget how important this work is, we don't
have a lot happen. But when I have a lot of FAITH and confidence that
God is preparing the people here to receive his gospel, miracles flow
in like crazy. It is amazing! Faith is such a bigger deal than just
a belief in something. It is passionate, confident, and it takes a
lot of sacrifice. If there is anything I have learned as a
missionary, it is that I can do anything if I have the faith. So neat!
The 4 people at church were the ___________ family, our awesome
Nigerian friend, and a new person we met this week! The ____________
family is doing really well. They are SO COOL! Some of my most
favorite people in this whole world. They are facing some major
challenges so please pray for this family!
Our Nigerian friend is the coolest lady ever. She has INCREDIBLE
faith. And she is humble. So the message of the Restoration rings
true to her! We shared that this week and invited her to be
baptized. Unfortunately, she goes back to visit Nigeria at the end of
this month so she may have to be baptized there or wait till she gets
back. We'll see. She came to church in her traditional tribal
clothes and it was super duper cool! I don't even know how to explain
what it looked like but you can just know that it was awesome.
We have some new people that we are working with too! I only ever
tell you about the significant investigators that are actually
progressing. Underneath them, we cycle through investigators like it
is no ones business. Ha ha. It is kinda sad to be honest. We talk
to a lot of people everyday. And out of about 20 people that say we
can come back, we will only teach like 4 of them at the most. And out
of those 4, probably 1 of them we will actually teach more than once
or twice and they may come to church. You really just have to talk to
every single person you see because you never know who is ready for
the gospel and the more people you talk to the more chances you have
to actually have investigators! Oh and on average we probably only
have like 2 people a day tell us that we can come back to teach them.
Craziness! So it is a lot of work to find the elect.
The guy who came to church that we met this week, we talked to him
outside of his apartment building. He is a really cool guy that has
an interest in religions but has never found one that satisfied him.
When we shared the restoration with him it went really well and he
understood it super well! It was awesome!
One more lesson I learned, this guy in the 1st ward came to our
district meeting last week and shared a really cool presentation about
making covenants. He said that we shouldn't set goals, we should make
covenants. Basically, you promise you will do something for the Lord
and in return you ask for something else. So Elder Last and I took
this idea to heart and we made a promise to God that we were going to
do everything in our power to find a certain number of people that
would say we could come back to teach them if he would give us a new
family to teach in the 2nd ward. So it was a struggle but we did it!
Two nights in a row we were working our tails off to find one more
person who would allow us to teach them. And both nights, the very
last door we knocked on, the person told us to come back. Why is it
always the last door? I guess God tests us sometimes. But then God
kept his promise too! We had an awesome lesson with a guy last night
in the 2nd ward! We met him weeks ago but our appointments never
worked out with him. But this one finally did. We didn't teach his
whole family yet but we will soon! We shared the Restoration and the
spirit was really strong. He doesn't even believe in God but he is
searching for something. We just came at the most perfect time. Oh
my goodness! God keeps his promises.
Well, I hope that you all enjoy the rest of your summer. It is coming
to a close quickly! I can't believe it! Next week I will know what
is happening for transfers. I have been here in Rochester for almost
3 months now. Can you believe that? Messed up!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
