Namaste,
Well it has been an interesting week. I guess it has only been a few days since my last email. I am sad to report that at this point, we wont be having a baptism this month. Once the grandmother gave her permission for the family to be baptized there were really two family members that are ready right now for baptism. I think I told you about them lest week. The story is the same still. The 17 year old still is being held back by his parents. They want him to wait for a few years and so there isn't much that we can do about it. However, we talked to him about going to early morning seminary and although he isn't a member he started going to seminary just today. Seminary here is at 6 am. So my early morning seminary in Utah makes me look like a pansie to the people here. And they don't have Friday's off either. But as far as we know he loved seminary today and plans to keep coming. That is a good way to show his commitment to his family! The other guy who is ready to be baptized still wants to wait too. There is just too much opposition in the family and too many things pointing him in a different way that he doesn't feel like now is the right time. Although it is sad to us we have to support him. You can't force anyone. That is for sure. To me right now it seems that the main thing these people need is time. In just a few years I could easily see there being a Nepali branch here in St. Paul. There are so many people that I know will be baptized someday but too many things are holding them back right now. And most of those people are part of this huge family that the grandmother is over. Although it is hard and discouraging to not see any immediate success from our hard work. Deep down I know that our effort was not wasted and these people will recieve the gospel someday.
On another sad note, we totally caught our 20 year old friend that had a baptismal date smoking yesterday. That was really frustrating. I don't know why but he talks to us as if he is strongly committed to Christ and this church but does not act that way. It is sad to see. It kinda seems he just reached out to us because it was a community of people that would love him. We'll keep working with him though and hopefully he can experience a true conversion and be baptized soon.
On Saturday we also held a soccer/volleyball game at the church for all the Nepali boys who wanted to come. This was our second one and it was really fun. These kids are hilarious! It is a really nice way to get the kids into the church and help them have a little fun. It is super fun for me too! I love soccer!
It sounds like things have been very cold recently in Utah! Weird. I also heard you got a lot of snow. Minnesota has been super wimpy recently! Last week we had weather in the 30s and on thursday it totally rained! I was disappointed in Minnesota. On saturday the temp dropped to the single digits and it has been that cold ever since. I don't think it's been below 0 yet though. We'll see what happens. Hopefully Minnesota will show us it's true identity.
Well, I need to peace out. Today was awesome. We went to tour the capitol building and then went to a Nepali restaurant in St. Paul and then toured the impressive St. Paul Cathedral. It was really fun! We had a good time. Hopefully, Sister Baxter will send you some more pictures of that :) She has been a fantastic historian of the last part of my mission. Ha ha.
Love you!
-Elder Ruesch
