Well Howdy Hey,
This was a delightful week! We had several super great things
happening. For the first two weeks I felt like we were running around
like a chicken with our head cut off, and now it we are starting to
get our feet under us and know what we are doing. It is great. The
first great miracle I want to mention is we had 13 Nepali
Investigators at church yesterday. 13!!!!! That is crazy! Usually
we have had around 7 people come. But things are getting better! If
you include children and members there were almost 20 Nepali people at
church. Hopefully, that growth can continue and we can have a good
sized solid Nepali group of members after not too long. The Nepali
people are funny and they like to come to church in groups. But none
of them can drive so we send cars to their apartment buildings and
everyone just piles in and we all drive to church. Sunday morning is
stressful trying to round people up and make sure we have a ride for
everyone who needs one. It's stressful but awesome!
We also still are teaching this nice little family with 3 kids that
are progressing well. They have only been in America for 2 months or
so. But they have been to church 3 times now. We still have A LOT to
teach them but they are doing well. This week a family in the ward
hosted this family and us missionaries for a dinner and a short little
family home evening. That was hectic but awesome. It was this
family's first time eating "American food." But they seemed to enjoy
the food and they definitely had a fun time. That was an excellent
adventure.
As far as I know, there are about 1000 Nepali people in Minnesota. So
we really don't actually have that many people to work with.
Fortunately, they seem to live in clusters where several families live
in the same apartment building. So if you can find one family, you
just need to go to other apartments in the same building and you will
probably find more. We are constantly asking the families that we
meet with where other Nepali people live and they usually aren't too
helpful. But we where able to get a very generalized area of where
more families were so we decided to go explore that area and see if we
could find anyone. And it was a total miracle! We went to a random
street in that neighborhood and we saw two teenagers on bikes, and we
thought, "Hey, they look Nepali." And they were! We went and talked
to them and got their address and they showed us where several other
families lived. Come to find out, there are like 20 families in this
area that we can start to try working with. It was awesome! That was
a definite miracle.
Every transfer, the district leader is supposed to do an exchange with
each member of his district. So this week, guess who he had come work
with him in his area? Elder Shrestha. So if you do the math, that
meant that I was with the district leader's companion in Nepali land
with neither of us being able to speak Nepali at all... Ha ha. That
was an adventure. I was freaking out a little bit. But it worked
out! There are 6 Young men that are baptized members that speak
pretty good English and so we used several of them for different
appointments to translate for us. It was awesome. They saved us. It
is so humbling when you can't communicate with the person you are
trying to teach! My goodness.
The days are always up and down. Some are great. Some days, every
lesson we had set up falls through (that happened on tuesday). But it
is all part of being a missionary. All in all, Nepali land is the
BEST! I am still having a party.
Cool side note, the Zone Leaders of our zone are in Dinkytown still.
This week they are having Elder Shrestha and I BOTH come to Dinkytown
to spend the day working with them. And guess who is back in that
area as one of our zone leaders? Elder Checketts! Ha ha. He got
transferred back to Dinkytown in August, which is almost the exact
same time he and I were transferred there a year ago. And this week
he and I are going to spend the day together in Dinkytown just like
old times. I am super excited. It will be so fun. And Dinkytown
will be a great learning experience for Elder Shrestha too. Talking
to college students is a whole new kind of missionary work! Ha ha.
We don't quite have a person for baptism yet, but I don't think it is
too far away. Having all of these Nepali at church yesterday really
helped me to catch the vision of what this work can become. This
little group of Nepali people could turn into it's own Branch and even
a ward someday. It is just amazing to think about. We'll keep
working on it little by little.
I hope the Halloween party goes well! Feel free to make a card board
cut out of me so that I can be there. :) I'm sure it will be fun. I
am also glad you got the pictures. I have been awful at sending you
pictures. Make sure they are saved because I don't know how much room
I have left on my camera so I will have to start deleting some off.
Thanks!
Love,
Elder Ruesch.
