Sup!
Fall is beginning. The leaves are already starting to change colors
and falling. And most importantly, the weather is flipping awesome.
It has been perfect this whole week. I definitely would have to say
that fall is for sure my favorite season in Minnesota. Closely
followed by the winter, especially during January and
February...maybe. Ha ha.
So basically, yesterday was the worst day of my life. Why you might
ask? I lost my planner! Ug! It's the most awful thing that can
happen to a missionary except for maybe getting hit by a car. Every
transfer we get a nice 6 week planner that is made for missionaries.
It has places to write our day's activities, our goals, our lesson
plans, and most importantly all the people's contact information that
we meet. My brain is my planner and without it I would not survive.
Seriously. I love that thing! I am seriously tempted to be one of
those nerds and keep using it after I get home :) That's how much I
love these planners. And this is the first time on my mission that I
have lost my planner. I'm pretty sure I set it on top of our car and
then forgot about it and we drove away and it was lost. When we went
back to try and find it, it was no where to be found. Fortunately,
Elder Carter has all the info in his planner that I had in mine. And
least we think so. But still, I am depressed that I lost it. So I
got a new one today to finish the rest of the transfer with.
Other than that awful event, life it pretty good! We were really busy
this week. On Monday night we drove up to Minneapolis for interviews
with President and then on Tuesday we had a meeting for most of the
day. We had to give a 3 hour training on Wednesday and Thursday to
the different districts in the zone and for the rest of Thursday we
spent the day in a city called Winona and worked with those Elders for
the day. That was awesome. I had so much fun! Winona is a weird
city because it is really small but it has at least three colleges in
the town. I felt like I was back in Dinkytown! Oh baby it was the
bomb! We spent all day wandering th Winona State University campus
talking to students and tracting near campus too. We had a lot of
success too! We were able to meet a lot of people that were
interested in learning more. Any missionary that gets to work on a
campus should consider themself VERY lucky. Those were the good ol
days. :)
But I love Rochester too!
So we had a lot of fun working in other places this week. Sadly, our
own area kinda suffered because of it. But we made the most of it! I
got frustrated at several times because we had some killer awesome
appointments set up and most of them fell through. I think that that
was partially because this was the first week of school for everyone
and so it was really busy. There seems to be this pattern recently
where we can find people who are interested or curious in learning
what we believe, but they don't want to change. So many people here
are comfortable and not willing to put themselves through a little
discomfort in exploring something new to find something that is
better. It is so sad to me! Every day we stand at someones door
telling them that we have the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have the key to salvation. And everyday, people tell us they don't
want it. It can be saddening but I've learned to not get discouraged
from it. I am just amazed at the patience that Heavenly Father has in
slowly guiding people to his truth and pulling them back to him. I
don't have that patience. I want everyone to accept this NOW! Ha
ha. I wish it could be that way.
This week we also met a 71 year old lady. We taught her on Saturday
and she came to church the next day! It was neat how the spirit
worked on her in the lesson though. When we met she had a bunch of
questions and so we went through all of those and then we had a
closing prayer. After the closing prayer she definitely felt the
spirit and just totally opened up to us about her family life and the
struggles she is going through. We were able to comfort her and teach
her about the Atonement and how she can find strength and peace in
that. But I was just amazed at how a little touch of the Spirit can
really impact people. And she didn't even know it. When she came to
church she hated sacrament meeting because she was "unimpressed" by
the speakers. ha ha. We fortunately were able to convince her to
stay for the next two hours and she loved Relief Society. Whew.
Hopefully, her heart will open up more to the gospel and we can
continue to teach her. If we do i'm sure i'll have some great stories!
Congrats to MJ on being ordained Elders! I thought it was funny that
no one in their email to me said the Melchizedek Priesthood because
they probably didn't want to take the time to find out how to spell
it. ha ha. But seriously, the Priesthood is SUCH a blessing. As a
missionary you give priesthood blessings ALL THE TIME. It is a real
blessing to the people. So consider yourself fortunate! And use it
well.
Things are delicious here in Rochester. Tomorrow we have Zone
Conference. I'll let you know how it went next week. Have a
wonderful week my lovely family!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
