Howdy hey!
It's Preparation Day again! There is always too much to update you
guys on that I don't know where to start.
That's so funny that Ashley remembers Mrs Baxter. I will have to tell
her about that. The Baxter's are basically our parents out here.
They feed us, drive us places, come teach with us, and help with
anything we need. It is so great! Most missionaries don't get such
great help so we are really lucky! They are the bomb.
Mom asked about where we live. We live in the northern part of St
Paul. If you were to look on a map we are close to the boarder of a
city called Roseville. It's a descently run down area. Ha ha. It is
right next to the apartements where a lot of the Nepali Refugees live
so it is really convenient since we are on bikes. I love living among
all these people. We meet people from all sorts of backgrounds and
cultures. It is so cool. I'm telling you, I am just living the dream!
We email in a library in a city called White Bear Lake. The other
Elders in our district give us a ride. Our ward here is super
unique. I think I mentioned the Karen people before. They are
refugees from Burma and Thailand that found themselves without a
country. There is a large population of them here in St Paul and a
missionary a few years ago taught himself to speak their language.
It's a crazy story. Now we have permanent Karen speaking Elders that
are assigned to learn the language when they get out here. And they
are in our ward. There is also an English teaching set of Elders
too. So all together we have 4 sets of missionaries in this one
ward. The English Elders, Karen Elders, Nepali Elders and the senior
couple helping the Nepali people. Awesome. So a lot of stuff is
happening in this ward. It's one of the few wards that has sacrament
meeting in 3 different languages. Ha ha. Elder Shrestha translates
into Nepali and Elder Wolz translates into Karen. It is really fun to
be around missionaries so much! They keep me sane amidst all of the
stress and pressure. Ha ha.
This week the mission also had a super cool event. Gladys Knight
organized a choir called the Saints Unified Voices Choir and they have
been going aroung the country doing firesides where they perform
gospel music and then Gladys bears her testimony. We were fortunate
enough to have them come to Minneapolis this week. A ton of work was
put into this fireside and the rumor is that everywhere Gladys does
this fireside there are like a 100 baptisms in the mission that come
from it. So everyone invited their friends and we brought an
investigator even though he didn't speak much English. And is was a
great success. I haven't heard much about what is going on in the
rest of the mission from it but I know there were a ton of referrals.
It was a cool fireside. I even shook Gladys Knight's hand! That's
right, I'm awesome.
I can now count to ten in Nepali and say all of the days of the week.
Plus I know a bunch of other random words and phrases. Ha ha. It is
kinda hard to learn the language when you aren't given time to study
it. But I am learning a little bit at a time. It is fun.
There are some good things going on. We started teaching the parents
of a young man who was the first Nepali person to be baptized in
Minnesota. They are an amazing family and I hope we can see some
success with them. The problem is they are part of the family that
the grandma/matriarch of the family doesn't want them to be baptized.
So it may be a long time before they are baptized but that doesn't
mean they can't live all the commandments and participate as a fully
active member of the ward until then.
I'm learning that this process is going to take a lot more patience
than I anticipated. Ha ha. There are a lot of family challenges for
everyone. And most of these people come from a backround of zero
christianity and so there is a lot to teach them. However, I have
learned a really important principle over the last few weeks. These
people may have a different background but the most effective way to
teach them is the same way you teach an American who is already
Christian. It's helping me to see that everyone is still a Child of
God and we are need the same thing to achieve Eternal Life and the
spirit is the only one who converts. It's so cool.
Elder Shrestha is doing well. He sure has to learn a lot fast because
he does more than half of the teaching. Much more is expected of him
than a normal new missionary. But he is still alive and doing well!
Ha ha. So we are happy.
I know we are going to have a baptism soon! I just don't know who it
is yet. Ha ha. People are progressing but aren't quite ready yet.
It is such a cool opportunity to serve these people.
This is an amazing work!
I need to skidoodle.
Love,
Elder Ruesch
