August 8, 2011

Yo! Before I forget I need to tell you that next week our P-day is
going to be on Wednesday. So don't expect an email on Monday. We
have zone conference on monday and so p-day got switched. I am SO
EXCITED though because on that p-day we are going to be going to the
temple as a zone. Awesome? Yes!!!! I am so pumped. Temple = Win.

This week has been pretty good. We are getting a little more busy.
Things have picked up since last month, thank goodness. Hopefully,
stuff starts to get even more busy. Busy is good. I don't know what
it is about Hindu people from India and Plymouth but there are quite a
few of them living here. It's really cool. Who would of thought that
serving in Minnesota I would learn to love the people from India? But
I do. They are seriously the nicest people in the world. And really
hard workers. I bring this up because there is a member who is moving
out of the ward and she sold her bed frame to this young hindu couple
and so she invited us to come over when they were getting the frame to
meet the couple and help out. It turns out the bed frame was actually
a beastly water bed frame and we spent like two hours taking it apart,
moving it, and setting it up again. But it was an awesome experience
because this hindu couple really appreciated it. We didn't get the
chance to pick them up as investigators but they said they would like
to come to our church sometime. We became pretty good friends with
them and hopefully good stuff happens in the future. Pretty cool.

This sunday was looking so good. I was excited because it looked like
the first sunday that ______ was actually going to make it to church.
Things were working out great and then she never showed. Ug!
Depressing. Apparently, she had some crazy stuff happen at home that
kept her up all night and she just wasn't able to make it today.
Everytime it looks like she is going to move forward and really start
progressing, some blasted event stops her in her tracks. But we wont
give up! She is an awesome lady with a great heart and would make a
fantastic member of the church. We're just going to keep praying for
her that things start to work out more. I do believe that someday she
will be baptized. I just hope that I get to see it!

Every week we have a planned service activity and we go to a food
shelf near by and pack bags of food for the people who can't afford
food. It is an awesome activity and over the past 6 months I have had
the chance to get pretty close with a lot of the volunteers. They are
super nice people. Just the best of the best. Anyway, there is this
one guy who I like a lot and we finally asked him if we could come
over and share our message with him and his family. And he said yes!
I'm excited. So hopefully this week we get that chance because I
really feel good about him and want him to be baptized. He's a great
guy. We'll see what happens!

I really like having the chance to stay in an area for a long time.
It is super cool because you get to see so much happen in people's
lives. It can be sad though too. Minnetonka is the area next door to
us and I was around when they had a person get baptized and the
stuggles to get her to that point and then she is struggling in the
church and I'm seeing her go inactive. It is sad to watch. It is the
worst thing in the world to watch a person who knows the truth and has
felt and seen it in their life and still turn their back. It blows me
away. But when I think about it, we all do that in our own ways. It
gives me a perspective of how Heavenly Father feels. What a crazy life.

Well, I can't wait to find or be found by the people who are ready to
be baptized. Something awesome is going to happen this week. I can
feel it.

Thanks for the pictures of Denver! It looked like a ton of fun. I
would love to do a trip like that. Trains are fun. It's weird what
the mission can do to you though because right now I have a hard time
sitting down for 5 minutes. I have to always be doing something
effective. So to think about a several hour train ride would be kinda
hard. Ha ha. Good thing I still got another 18 months.

Oh yeah, weird news. This transfer cycle is actually only going to be
5 weeks for some reason. It is crazy! They cut my time by a whole
week! I'm gonna die. I think it is becuase the new missionaries are
coming a week early. I don't know. Salt Lake made that decision.
The time flies by at rocket speed. Seriously. I can't handle how
fast time is going by. Each day is like a second long. It really is
freaking me out because I have so much to do! Ah!

Thanks for being the best family in the world!
Love you guys!

Elder Ruesch

August 1, 2011

Hello!! It's been a good week here in the land of Plymouth. Several
good things happened.

First off, transfers are this wednesday. We got our calls this
morning if we were being transfered. Crazy news! President called
and told me that I am going to stay in Plymouth for another transfer
with Elder Gottfredson. He said he had a hard time deciding that
since I've been here in plymouth for so long. But he said that there
is someone we need to baptize here in the next little while.
Awesome! When President says something like that, you know you've got
to get to work because there is something right around the corner.
President Howell essentially said the same thing to Elder Farnsworth
as we were leaving the mission home for my first day. And look what
happened. The ____________'s were baptized a month later. Just
crazy. So I am really excited. We are working hard but the work has
been kinda slow and I am hoping that we can get it moving again. It's
about time Plymouth had another baptism :)

We had a couple cool experiences this week. We were tracting in the
afternoon (a very ineffective time because no one is home) and a girl
came to the door. We talked to her for a while and ended up teaching
quite a bit of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. That was
cool. She said that she feels sorta empty right now when it comes to
religion and she just doesn't know where to go. In fact, the night
before she was reading in her bible trying to find the path for her.
And then we show up on her door the next day. Coincidence? I think
not! So I'm excited. If she starts to progress we'll have to send
her to the singles ward, which stinks. But whatever, we do what we can.

Another cool experience. Tracting again! Yesterday we knocked on
this guys door and he let us in to chat for a while. A super nice
guy. He has a hard time with religion. The way I like to put it is
he sees the Apostacy that has happened in religion and it has turned
him away (but he doesn't realize it's the apostacy). Anyway, we gave
him a BoM too and I really felt the spirit in our visit. He didn't
want to set up a return appointment but he said he would read and if
he becomes interested he would call us. It kinda stinks but he was
very sincere and so my hope is that he really does read. He is in the
Lord's hands now. At least the seed is planted.

The young men of our ward went to the temple to do baptisms for the
dead again. The thing that is funny about the temple here is that
they don't have enough workers to staff the whole baptistry. And so
if you go as a ward you have to bring several endowed males that can
run the show. Well, our poor young mens president had a few adults
cancel on him the night before and so he asked us to help. Going to
the temple is not something we are supposed to do often - our work is
for the living - but we got permission to help out and it was really
fun. We had a good time! And it is fun to develop better
relationships with the youth in the ward. This ward has some
fantastic youth.

Yesterday was fun. To finish off the night we had a BBQ with _______
and his son. He is the Man! I love him to death and I am so grateful
that I have been able to be a part of his conversion. We have become
really close friends. It's awesome! He cooked us some steaks and
corn on the cob. Delicious!

Unfortunately, ______________ dropped us this week. He is still
interested and I could see him progressing in the gospel sometime in
the future but right now he just didn't want to take the time to meet
with us while he is working out his divorce and everything. It will
be finalized pretty soon though, I hope. If only people realized how
important this was. Then they'd have time for us. No matter what,
they would have time. This is salvation we're talking about!

It sounds like you guys had a really fun week camping and then in St.
George. Ridiculous! You guys aren't supposed to have fun while I am
gone. Just sit around and don't do anything till I get home and then
we can party it up and do some fun things. Ha ha. Just kidding. I'm
glad to hear you are using your summer time wisely. Keep up the good
work! And way to go MJ for making it to the top of Timp. Nice work!
Thanks for the pictures mom. I love seeing them. Sorry I haven't
sent you guys pictures in a while. I need to do that...

Well, I am really looking forward to this next transfer. I love the
Plymouth ward and I love the area here. I can't wait to see what
exciting things happen. We're just going to be working our tails off
and we're going to see some miracles. We've got great expectations
for the future!

Love you guys so much!

Elder Ruesch

July 25, 2011

Hi family! Sorry that this is coming so late. This morning we went
on a bike ride with our Catholic friends. It took about 4 hours but
it was awesome! It was on a trail that used to be an abandoned
railroad track and they turned it into a paved bike trail. Super
awesome because that means it's totally flat! Word. We went about 42
miles and had lunch at the best hamburger joint in Minnesota called
Culvers. Good times! Unfortunately I will have to be more brief today.

We've had a pretty good week. Things are moving along. We were
finally able to have another lesson with _______. It's been 4 weeks
since we've had an appointment go through with her and this one
finally did. It was great! We took her on a tour of the Church. She
has never been to our church and so that is something we like to do so
that they are more familiar with the way the church is set up and how
the service goes. We talked with her and she wants to be baptized on
September 23rd still. Far away but closer than we think.

We had a cool opportunity this week. There is a guy in our ward who's
father was the producer of a new Joseph Smith movie. This movie was
not church produced but still super good. Apparently, some of the
bretheren in Salt Lake saw it and said it is the most accurate
depiction of Joseph Smith's story that they have seen. I think it is
called Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates or something like that.
Anyway, there was an activity where the guy in our ward was showing it
and we got to go watch it. It was really interesting! It was more
like a movie with all the drama and love story and everything but I
thought that it was really good. We tried to get some investigators
to come but none of them did and I am kinda glad because it is a movie
that would be good for members with a better knowlege of the church to
watch. Apparently this is the first of three movies. This movie only
covered the time period from when Joseph gets the plates to when the
BoM is printed. Cool stuff. If you ever hear about it and get the
chance to see it, do.

We are moving into a new house again this week. Ha ha. We are just
getting juggled around. It is kinda funny. We were supposed to move
this week but didn't have the chance, so we will this wednesday.

There is a road that I found called Morgan road. Awesome! So I
couldn't resist but to tract that street. It was most excellent. The
people there were SUPER rich and we obviously didn't have much success
but we did have a great conversation with one lady. And I took a
picture next to the street sign.

This has been a fun week because we had a competition in the zone
about who could get the most referrals and potential investigators.
It was interesting to watch but we had a really good time and it
helped push us to find more referrals. Referrals are very sparse in
the Plymouth ward but we are doing everything to find people to teach
in as many different ways as possible. It is hard but fun.

Another cool thing that is happening in the mission is this week the
AP's set a goal for the mission to invite 1000 people to be baptized.
Do you know how crazy that is?! And on top of that our zone set a
goal to have 1/3 of those invites. Crazy!!! Which means that this
week Elder Gottfredson and I need to invite 33 people to be baptized.
Ha ha. Isn't that nuts? I am so excited! It's going to be super
intense. We are going to have to adapt our teaching and the way we
talk to people on the street so that we can invite everyone to be
baptized. It is going to be really hard but I know the Lord will
provide a way.

I had to give a talk in Church on sunday. To be honest, we don't
think that I will survive the next transfer. I could very well be
transfered to a new area next week and so they asked me to speak. My
topic was fasting and it was just 5 minutes but it was a good
opportunity. I love the Plymouth ward! I don't want to leave. But
duty calls I guess. Who knows, maybe I will stay another transfer.
The lord works in Mysterious ways.

Can you believe that as of tomorrow I will officially have been on my
mission for 6 months? It blows be away! Time flies when you are
preaching the good word. 1/4 of my mission gone in a millisecond. I
can't believe it but it is also really exciting too! I feel
accomplished :)

That is cool to hear that you got an email from President and Sister
Clements. What awesome people! I just love their guts. I'm glad I
get to experience two mission presidents. There is room in my heart
for both of them. Ha ha. They really are such a wonderful family.

The beginning of this week was dang hot but by the end of the week it
had cooled down a bit and the last couple days have been beautiful.
Minnesota is the bomb!

It was weird not celebrating pioneer day and so I am glad that you
sent me that package. Thank you very much!! It's got the perfect
stuff in it. I also got a package from Ashley and it was awesome!
She gave me another tie to add variety to my life. Thanks so much
fam! You are the best.

I love and miss you guys! Thanks for all of your love and support.
Sorry my letter is shorter today.

Much love,

Elder Ruesch

July 18, 2011

I was thinking yesterday about the homecoming for President and Sister
Howell I couldn't wait to hear from you guys what it was like. Sounds
like it was fantastic! Ah! I wish I could have been there!!! That
is so awesome that you met President and Sister Howell as well as
their kids who live in Plymouth. They rock. And Elder Farnsworth! I
wasn't expecting you to meet him. He lives in Arizona so I didn't
think he would come up. But now that I think of it, of course he
would. Who would miss it? It was super cool to hear that you met
him. That is too weird that he is home. Crazy kid. Well, what an
awesome experience.

Life is going pretty good. Still slow unfortunately. We've been
having a really hard time getting to meet with our investigator.
Winter is so much easier because no one leaves their house. But the
summer is rough. Every single appointment we had set up with an
investigator this week fell through. Not cool! It got to the point
where it was funny. Even our appointment with _________ on Saturday
night fell through and by the time that happened we just couldn't stop
laughing because it's been kind of ridiculous how much that happened.
Elder Gottfredson and I must smell bad or something. Who knows.

Not too many eventful things have happened though. Just the same ol'
missionary work. These last couple days were CRAZY humid. And
apparently this week it is supposed to get super hot. I might die.
They are talking about 100 degrees. Kill me now. I kind of like
humidity, but not when the temperature is 100 degrees. If you get an
email from me next week you will know that I survived. I'll just make
sure to carry a lot of water.

President Clements interview each of us in the zone on Thursday. That
was fun. He is a super cool guy. I already love him. He and his
wife are the sweetest people in the world. We're going to see lots of
great things happen in the mission!

We have had a few people come back onto the radar. As for
____________, his appointment fell through also but we did get to
talk with him and he said that he is kind of interested in our
religion. That is progress! He almost came to church. And he also
has been sharing the pamphlets and book of mormon we gave him with his
daughter. Apparently she likes it. I'm hoping we'll be able to teach
her too!

Like I said, nothing crazy exciting happened this week. The work is
moving forward and we're trying to find ways to get this area back on
fire. I saw so much success at the beginning of my mission that it is
hard to see things so slow. But I guess this is how regular
missionary work is. We can't always be super blessed right? I guess
so. Sadly. Ha ha.

Well I hope you have a happy birthday Ashley!! Thanks for being born!

It sounds like you guys are having a fun summer. Keep having fun!

We are working really hard and doing our very best. There is someone
that is ready just around the corner. I can feel it! Time to
baptize! We had a miraculous month of June in this mission and we
aren't letting our expectations down. This mission is amazing and I
am so grateful to be serving here. Minnesota is the best place in the
whole world. I never want to leave! If it only had mountains then it
would be perfect :)

Miss you guys! Thanks for being the best.
Much love,
Elder Ruesch

P.S. Oh yeah! One cool thing I forgot to mention last week. There
is a less active couple that Elder Farnsworth and I helped get back
into activity and they are doing great now. The husband got the
Aaronic Priesthood last sunday and he asked me to ordain him. It was
such a wonderful blessing! I was so grateful to be a part of it. A
super neat experience. The church is true.

July 11, 2011

Hi there! It's me again. This has week has been pretty good. Last
week was rough and things have slowed down a lot but this week had a
slight improvement and Plymouth is slowly starting to build again. It
just blows me away how quickly an investigator can show up and
disapear. Weird how that works!

We met President and Sister Clements on Tuesday and they are awesome!
We had a zone meeting called Specialized Training at the mission home
and of course he and his wife did the training. They spent a lot of
time introducing themselves and then did some teaching. What an
amazing couple! Seriously. I am super excited about the places that
this mission can go. President Clements is pretty similar to
President Howell too. He isn't going to make many changes I don't
think. He is just a fresh, new guy with new ideas and this mission is
going to build like crazy. I love them to death already. I'm
excited for this Thursday though because President Clements is going
to interview us that day. So I'll get to meet him one on one. It
will be great! Being a mission president would be the hardest job in
the world.

I'm excited to hear how President and Sister Howell's homecoming is
this sunday. I'm sure the service will be amazing! Let me know
everything about it. One of President Howell's son's and his wife
live in the Plymouth ward and they will be at the homecoming this
sunday too. They said they would look for you guys and say hi for me.

Cool experience on Wednesday! First off, on Tuesday at the training,
President Clements told us to invite someone to be baptized within the
next 36 hours. So we knew that we needed to do it even though we
didn't know who to invite. We thought of a couple people we could
invite and that day never got the chance to invite anyone. When
wednesday came we knew that before we went home we needed to invite
someone to be baptized. This was neat because it was our whole
mindset and purpose for the day to try and fulfill the challenge given
by our mission president. So the day went on and no opportunities
worked out. We finally went and stopped by __________ who we thought
would have the most potential to accept the invitation. But she
didn't answer the door. So we were pretty bummed, not really knowing
what to do since all of our possible opportunities didn't work out.
We decided to just continue with our plans for the day and went to
tract a street we had picked out for the rest of the evening. As we
were tracting a girl in probably her 20's answered. We got talking
and apparently a few months ago some random guy (not missionaries) had
stopped by and given her a restoration pamphlet and told her how great
our church was. It was at a time that she was spiritually searching
and so she decided to try coming to our church. She said she came to
our sacrament meeting just last month and liked it! I never saw her
though! Craziness. Anyway, we ended up teaching her the whole
restoration and guess what else? You got it. Invited her to be
baptized! She was totally placed in our path as someone that we could
invite to baptism and we just had to have a little faith that things
would work out and we would be able to complete the mission
president's challenge. The church is true! Anyway, she said that she
wants to know it's true before she gets baptized (a good idea) but she
would read the BoM and keep checking everything out to see if it is
right. The thing that stinks was she said she would rather just come
to church then have us come by. So we weren't able to get a return
appointment. All in due time, I suppose. She didn't come to church
yesterday because of work but hopefully we see her next week at
church! The moral of the story is, when the mission president/the
lord issues a challenge, you are able to complete it if you try your
hardest.

It hasn't been as hot this week as it was last week, thank goodness.
But still pretty hot. Oh well, we survive.

We met with __________ again this week and had a pretty good lesson
with him about the Holy Ghost. He is a good guy and I hope he will
take the steps to see if this gospel can actually bless his life. I
look forward to meeting with him again this week.

Remember the couple we're teaching? They are so awesome! The wife
believes everything we teach and really wants us to help her husband
to believe. I always feel the spirit really strong in our lessons
with them. The bad news is that she is going on a trip to visit her
family for 5 weeks. Her husband isn't going so we are definitely
going to stop by and visit him every once in a while but we wont be
able to do our weekly visits anymore. Sadness. When she gets back I
hope the missionaries teach them again. After our last appointment
she expressed her gratitude to us for all that we've helped her
with. I thought it was really neat.

Summer has definitely provivded a challege for us. The work is not as
prosperous and fast as it was a few months ago. We're doing
everything we can to find people that are ready to be baptized. I
know they'll come!

Wow, I can't belive the fourth of July was just last week. That feels
like it was forever ago. But it was nice. We got some good relaxing
in and then we went and delivered cookies to investigators and then
went and talked to people who were getting ready for the fireworks.
It was interesting and the cookies were pretty successful. Didn't see
any fireworks though. We were going to bed by then. I didn't mind
too much though. I was tired.

It's been an okay week and this next week is going to be even better!
I'm excited. We are improving each week and the area is slowly
growing. Onward!

Thanks for being awesome. Sounds like you had a pretty good week.
The mission is just flying by. I bet you guys feel the same way about
the summer. Can you believe that in a couple weeks I'll hit my 6
month mark. Weird!!!!! I'm suppossed to be kinda experienced or
something like that. Not so.

Love you guys!
Have a happy week!
Love,
Elder Ruesch

July 4, 2011

It is pretty sweet that our P-day ended up on the 4th of July. So we
get to kinda relax for a bit and enjoy the holiday. Pretty fun.
There are going to be a bunch of people out tonight getting ready to
watch the fireworks and so we're going to have a really good time
tonight going and talking to everyone. It will be interesting. I'm
excited.

THis week has been really rough. Definitely the slowest week of my
mission so far. Everyone is out of town or partying or whatever it is
and it makes it really hard to get in contact and especially get
appointments with anyone. Not cool. SO to be honest I don't really
have too much to update on. Thursday and Friday were SO HOT. It was
crazy. And by SO HOT I mean it was high 90's. Now you might be
thinking to yourself, "Oh Morgan, you're such a fruit cake and a
wimp. High 90's aint nothin." Oh but you are wrong. You are so
wrong. The humidity was anywhere between 60 and 80 percent during the
day and I was literally swimming. In fact, missionaries aren't
allowed to swim so I'm surprised they even let us go outside.
Fortunately, we have a wonderful thing called air conditioning in our
car. Unfortunately, that didn't help much because thursday was one of
those days where all of our appointments fell through except 1. So we
were tracting all day. Hot. By the time we got home on thursday
night I was totally whipped. I haven't been that tired in a long
time. But it felt good to be totally exhausted. It made be feel like
I was diligent. Things cooled down a little but by saturday and so
that was nice. Brian is a genius by giving me those hankerchiefs.
They were so great to use to dry my face. Thanks Brian!

Although this week was super duper slow we did have two cool
experiences that could hopefully go somewhere. On saturday we had all
day available and so we decided to drive to this little city that is
pretty far out in our area that I have actually never been to and just
tract all day. We didn't have any success at all except for one guy
that we talked to. He left his Lutheran church and is now deciding he
wants to find something else. He said he'd be willing to let us come
back sometime and talk with him more. Hopefully some great things
happen with him!

Also, the other cool experience (this on is kinda funny). We knocked
on a door and this tall guy in a swimsuit comes to the door. The
first thing he does is yell a big sigh, "Ohhh nooo!" Ha ha. It was
funny. But we got talking to him and he invited us to his back yard
to see his pool. We stayed and talked to him for at least an hour!
It was awesome! He is from Ukraine and moved to America many years
ago and got married. Has several kids and is now finishing up going
through a dramatic divorce. I could tell that this divorce really
shook him up and now he has a hard time even believing that God
exists. We told him about how the gospel of Jesus Christ can help him
and left him a plan of salvation pamphlet and set up an appointment to
come again this saturday. I'm excited about it. He was reluctant but
he really does need our help, even though he doesn't know it. Divorce
is crazy stuff. It has messed up a lot of people from what I've
seen. Hopefully something happens there too!

Other than that, this week was hot and slow. Minnesota is funny
because on friday it was burning hot all day and then this cloud front
moved in at light speed in the evening and started dumping rain. It
was awesome. There is such crazy weather here. Keeps you on your toes.

I got your package. It was awesome! Elder Gottfredson also got a
package of a ton of cookies so we got a lot of cookies to plow down.
Good thing we sweat a millions pounds off while tracting. Ha ha. I
hope that your 4th festivities are fun. Tell the Goss family hello
when you see them at thanksgiving point tonight :) I hope the
fireworks are fun.

We officially have a new mission president and I get to meet him
tomorrow! I am excited!

Love you guys so much and I love hearing all about what you guys are
doing.

Well I got to head out! Playing some Bball. Word.

Love you!
Elder Ruesch

June 27,2011

Hey hey hey! It's been a long week. Everytime we have transfers the
first week is always really long. It is hard to help the new guy
adjust. But things are going well! My new companion, Elder
Gottfredson, is the bomb! He is a really good guy. He has been out
on his mission as long as Elder Hirschi, so still pretty fresh. I'm
just finishing up his training. He is from West Jordan. Not too far
at all from home. We have fun. It's been nice becasue he is very
willing to work and listen and learn. He's a great missionary. It's
been lots of fun. He's super easy going and so I we get along very
easily and laugh a lot. Thank goodness. I need to have a good laugh
every once in a while.

What an interesting week. It's been crazy. We didn't get the chance
to teach many of our investigators this week. It was hard to get
appointments with them for some reason but we're still working with
them. But we got to do other awesome things that just rocked my
world! Thursday was amazing. We got to go to the temple with the
young men and new members. Awesome! We rode to the temple and back
home with _________ and he knows the twin cities really well so as we
were driving the cities he told us all about the many places we saw.
It was awesome just to hang out with him in the car. He is such a
good guy. And then at the temple______ and _________ were there as
well as another recent convert family and the young men. What a cool
experience! Unfortunately, missionaries aren't even allowed to be in
the baptistry at all so we got to work in confirmation room the whole
time. That was exciting. I loved that. ________ brought the names
for his dad and grandfather. That was super neat. He had a great
experience. I wish I could go to the temple every day. The moral of
the story is the temple is the best place in the entire world. Amen.

I think I told you about the family we tracted into who does the Bible
Bee, didn't I? Anyway, we went and taught them last Monday and the
lesson just was horrible. They had a million questions which is good
but it was an argumentative setting. No bible bashing but the spirit
was definitely not there. I don't know if they'll ever let us back.
I feel horrible about how the lesson went. But I have to not beat
down on myself. It wasn't all my fault. I just hope they at least
read the BOM. That's what it is all about. This was really the only
sad thing this week.

Moving on. We had 4 investigators at church yesterday! Yay! There
is an older woman that we taught once who is super cool. She grew up
Lutheran but has been telling us that she doesn't like her church
anymore. She keeps saying she needs something more. She is totally
ready for our church. So we've given her a BOM and she came to
church! WORD! I can't tell you how stinking hard it is to get
investigators to come to church. Seriously, the hardest thing in the
entire world. But she came and had a good experience. It was ward
conference and so she thought that all the sustainings were weird. We
explained it though and she was fine with it. We'll keep you updated
with her. The other investigators that came to church were kind of
unexpected. A less active girl brought her friend and another less
active lady brought her husband and granddaughter. It's exciting.

There is this less active lady in our ward that we visit every once in
a while. She is hilarious. It's so funny. But she took us to the
hospital yesterday and we gave one of her friends a blessing. That
was a good experience. Her friend is not a member and just got
diagnosed with colon cancer. I think that she had a super good
experience from the blessing. I don't know where it could lead to but
it was neat.

We finished the week off well with the most amazing fireside.
Yesterday was the farewell fireside for President and Sister Howell.
it was SOOOO good! The ________ actually spoke in the fireside and
talked about their conversion story and shared their testimony. It
was so powerful. They also had several musical numbers and then
President and Sister Howell each spoke. Man, you would have had to be
a cardboard cutout to not feel the spirit in this meeting. We also
have a tradition that we sing This is the Christ at the end of Zone
conference and other missionary meetings. So all the missoinaries
went up to the front at the end of the fireside and sang This is the
Christ. Ah! Delicious. It was such a good fireside. It doesn't get
much better than that. If you go to the Howell's homecoming I think
that all the RM's there are going to get up and sing This is the
Christ as well. That will be so good.

I am sure going to miss the Howells. They have had a major impact in
my life and I will dearly miss them. I am super excited to meet the
Clements though. They come on Wednesday. I am super pumped! Oh and
guess what. You know how we have this goal to baptize 60 people in
June? Things are going really well and we are only 1 baptism away
from reaching our goal. We're waiting for a miracle! It is still
June and we are going to reach our goal and so I can't wait to see
what happens. Missions are the bomb. The MMM (Minneapolis Minnesota
Mission) is seriously on fire right now. I can't even tell you how
well our mission is doing. It's a fact, this is the best mission in
the world! President got a call from one of the Quorum of the Twelve
the other day telling him that Salt Lake it watching our mission like
crazy. There is so much faith here and so much is happening that Salt
Lake is watching our every move. I am so grateful to be a part of
this mission. I wouldn't have wanted to go anywhere else. I love it
here. The members are awesome, the missionaries rock, and the work is
dang hard. I love it!

The Lehi round up looks like it was a party. I am sad that I missed
it. I only have to miss one more of them! Sister Ford is here in
Minnesota now. I'm sure I'll see her sometime soon. I am excited to
see her. That will be a fun connection to home. I'm excited.

Thanks for all of your love and support! Love you guys so much!
-Elder Ruesch

June 20, 2011

Woo hoo! This was a really great week. Lots of fun and exciting
things happened. First off, never fear! ________ is now officially a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ! Her baptism went as planned on
saturday and it was a very neat experience. There weren't many people
there at all. Just like 15 or so but it was very spiritual and such a
powerful program. The best thing was that she asked me to baptize
her. So she is the first (living) person I have ever baptized. It
was so neat! Funny story: we thought the font was filled really high
because it looked like it was. And then when I walked into it I
realized that the water level was only just above my knees. Super
low! So it was an advenure trying to dunk her all the way. The first
time I baptized her, her knee came up out of the water. When I pulled
her back up and explained that we needed to do it again she exclaimed,
"Oh no!" She was really afraid of the baptism and so to do it twice
took some courage. But she had a great experience. The second time
was perfect and she was fully immersed. What a cool thing!
Elder Hirschi confirmed her in church yesterday. His first
confirmation! He did a great job and it was super excellent
experience again. I can't tell you many other places where I have
felt as much power as I do when I stand in the circle of Melchezidek
Priesthood holders confirming a member of the church. Ah. So cool.
The church is true. You better believe it.

Speaking of Elder Hirschi. Transfers are this week and believe it or
not, Elder Hirschi is getting transfered! It was very surprising
because we're supposed to stay together at least 3 months. But for
some reason they decided to switch around a lot of the trainees. So
Elder Hirschi is going to St. Paul to be with another trainer where
he'll finish his training and I will be getting a missionary from
Rochester and I'll finish off his training. Kinda cool. His name is
Elder Gottfredson. We've got some really awesome things happening in
Plymouth now though and so Elder Hirschi is really sad to leave. It
was just very unexpected! He will be missed. But he's going to do
really well in St. Paul. He's a good missionary.

We also did an exchange this week and so I went to Uptown for a day.
It rocked. We went tracting up in North Minneapolis where a huge
tornado hit a few weeks ago and the damage was insane! Trees with
HUGE trunks were totally torn out of the ground. Houses had trees
fall on top of them. Sidewalk squares were pulled up. Crazy stuff. I
completely forgot to take pictures. I wish I had. Maybe I'll go back
soon. But probably not. Oh well. It was cool to see, very sad
though of course too. I don't think anyone was killed in the tornado,
so that it really good.

There is a lady who we have taught a few times. We met with her again
and had a fantastic lesson with her. She recently had a friend die
and so we taught her the plan of salvation. It was great and she
commented on how she felt so much better after the lesson was done.
We had been talking about baptism with her in the past and brought it
up again and invited her again to be baptized. She accepted and said
that the first date that popped in her head was September 23...
Really far away, however, Elder Hirschi and I both talked about it
after and decided that it felt good. We were shooting for July but if
the spirit is telling her september then I'm not arguing. And the
more we learn about her the more things we find that she needs to sort
out in her life before she can be baptized. So three months might be
the time we need to help her out. I hope that all goes well. Her
dearest friend is a member of the plymouth ward and is awesome. So
she is helping and so are we and with Baby steps we will get her to
the place that she needs to be.

Guess what! The Young men in our ward are going to the temple to do
baptisms for the dead this week and they invited the newly baptized
members to come along too. So the _______ family , __________, and
another family are all going to go and we got permission to go too!
Word! It is going to be the coolest thing in the whole world to do
baptism with them. _________ is taking the names for his father and
grandfather and is going to be baptized for them. It's awesome.

Things are starting to pick up in Plymouth. We got several new
investigators and have potential to get quite a few more this week
too. We had to drop ________ and sort of drop the _______ family
because they just weren't progressing. We need to have another
baptism soon so that Elder Gottfredson can have one in Plymouth. I
plan to :) I have the faith, now it's time to work.

After __________'s baptism we were tracting and knocked into this
family that were doing their own bible study. Actually the kids
compete in what they call the Bible Bee where they memorize a ton of
bible scriptures and have to recite them in the competition. And that
is what the family was studying for. So they invited us to their
backyard where we sat around the fire and and they showed us what they
do for their study and we shared some principles of our message. They
were super skeptical about our teachings but said that we could come
back to share it all with them. So we're going back today actually.
I'm excited. If they really are true seekers of God's truth then they
will have an awesome experience and will find the truth here. We'll
see what happens! I'm excited.

So it's been a delicious week. I feel like I'm finally learning how
to be an effective missionary. It's taken me a while but I feel more
confident as a missionary. I sure did have to learn fast. Finally
things are moving forward and we were very blessed this transfer to
see TWO baptisms. Amazing! The Plymouth ward is seeing some
wonderful success. It's been really neat. After this next transfer I
will have spent 6 months in the same area. Craziness. That is
uncommon but I love it. This ward is the BOMB.

MJ. It sounds like Engineering state was awesome. That was such a
fun time! And congrats on your scholarships!! Way to go!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD! I hope that is was a happy one. I'm glad to
hear that you got the text from Brother McGuire. He was so nice to do
that for me. Thanks for being the best Dad in the whole wide world!
I love you very much.

I think that is a pretty good update for the week. I'm excited to see
where this area will go. So many neat things can happen in just 6
weeks.

Oh and guess what? Elder Farnsworth goes home this transfer. Isn't
that just weird? I can't believe it. But that happens. He's had an
awesome mission. I'm very grateful for the lessons he taught me.

Well, life is good. I love you guys. Thanks so much for your love and
prayers. You are the best!
Love,
Elder Ruesch.

June 13, 2011

Hi!
It's been a pertty good week. We saw some good things happen. And
the weather has been delicious. It really feels like summer. Tuesday
was crazy. I think it was the record hottest day the Twin cities has
seen in a long time. It was 103 degrees. That's different than the
110 that Utah gets sometimes but when you add in the Humidity it feel
like death on a stick. It was awesome but really hot. The funniest
part was hearing everyone complain about it the next couple days
after. Minnesotans love to talk about their weather and they are very
dramatic about it. It's hilarious. But seriously, I think I could
have an hour long conversation with a Minnesotan if I wanted to. So
funny.

Good news! It looks like __________ is actually going to get
baptized! So awesome. She had her baptisimal interview on friday and
she passed. Funny story about that actually. The district leader
came to our church to do the interview and we went on a miniature
exchange afterwards so the DL's companion and I left while the
interview was going on and went tracting and Elder Hirschi stayed
behind. After the interview, I was still out tracting and so Elder
Hirschi, the District Leader and __________ came up with this wicked
plot to pull a prank on me. They all pretended like she didn't pass
the interview. So I went throughout the whole day thinking her
baptism wasn't going to happen anymore and it wasn't until later that
night that Elder Hirschi told me that it was all a joke. What a
punk! But it was hilarious. They did a good job making it seem
real. I was laughing pretty hard after I found out. And, oh my
goodness, you should have heard her after the prank was all done. She
was laughing her head off when I called her on the phone later that
night. It was hilarious how much enjoyment she got out of it. So I'm
glad I could provide her with a little happiness. Ha ha. Anyway, the
baptism is scheduled for this saturday! I'm pretty pumped. This
baptism is going to be a neat experience.

The baptism is exciting news, but as for most of our other
investigators we don't quite know what to do. Dispite all of our
efforts, the ______ family and _______ all didn't come to church
AGAIN. So we are thinking we're just going to have to drop them for
now. It is time to find new investigators who will actually
progress. Right now just isn't the right time I guess and
missionaries can try again in the future.

Last Monday we were tracting and talked to this Hindu family that said
we could come back. We talked to her about how families can be
together forever and that interested the mom. So we went back and
taught them on saturday and had a pretty good lesson with them. We
gave them a Book of Mormon and they said they'd read it. It was
interesting because both parents grew up in India and then came here
later. But the mom actually went to a catholic school in India.
Because of that she is pretty familiar with the Bible and
Christianity. The dad is not as religious. But they have really good
potential. The biggest problem we find with Hindu people is that they
are so open about religion that they are too open. And so they will
accept and agree with everything that you teach but it is impossible
to get them to realize that they need to do something about it. We
were excited about this family though because they were a little more
willing to learn. We'll see what the future holds.

We have been doing extra amounts of tracting and other finding stuff
this week because we really are trying to find new investigators that
we can start working with. So many of the people we've been working
with will only let us help them to a certain point and then they wont
do anything else. And that is when you have to move on. So hopefully
some people will come out of their hiding places for us to find,
teach, and baptize them! Yay

We also got back into contact with ____________ again. She fell of
the planet for a week or two and finally we got back in contact with
her and hopefully we'll be able to meet with her today. She has a lot
of things to get done before she is ready to get baptized but
hopefully we can help her move along swiftly.

Saturday was kinda cool because we had gotten a referral from a member
of the ward a few days before. She just told us to go over and offer
this couple some service. So we went over on saturday and it was the
perfect timing. The husband was just about to start mowing his lawn
and we ran up and talked to him for a bit. We offered some help and
he was kinda excited and gave us some jobs to do. It was fun to help
out in the yard for a little bit. Unfortunately it didn't turn into a
teaching opportunity yet. Maybe someday. The couple was very cool
and we had a good time. They just aren't religious. So someday when
they realize they need religion then hopefully they'll remember us.

So things are going pretty good. At this point we're sort of erasing
the chalk board and starting over regarding the people we work with.
Hopefully we'll see some miracles! We see them everyday. That is for
sure.

Happy summer! I love hearing from you and reading your emails. I
hope MJ have fun at Engineering State. Tell them to not let all of
the geeks ruin the dance. They can make it fun! They should have a
good time.

Parents: I hope you have a very happy anniversary. 22 years! Talk
about awesome. Thanks for being the best parents ever! And have fun
at Antelope Island. That sounds way fun.

Much love!

-Elder Ruesch

June 7, 2011

Well hey there! Yeah, I forgot to mention last week that our P-day
this week was going to be on Tuesday. I apologize! But don't worry,
I'm still alive. I wont be surprised if this happens many more
times. It's a good thing you guys are already used to it.

Happy birthday Christie!! I hope it was a delicious birthday. The
party looked like lots of fun. I'm sad I missed it.

This week was interesting. I think I mentioned an older lady who has
been investigating the church for like 10 years. Well I think she is
actually going to get baptized. We set a date for her baptism with
her for June 18th. She is now consistently coming to church and we
think she is actually serious about this baptism. Have I already
mentioned the goal our mission set to baptize 60 people in June? I
think so. Anyway, we set that goal as a mission because we wanted to
double our baptisms. And so there has been a huge push to baptise in
June and Elder Hirschi and I really wanted to be a part of this goal
and it just didn't look like we were going to have anyone ready for
baptism in June. But then ____________ decided to take things
seriously and it looks like we really might get to help the mission
out! It's totally an answer to prayer. Awesome! So we can only hope
that things continue to go smoothly and she does get baptized in two
weeks. That would rock!

Cool thing. There is a girl who was in Chamber with me and she told
me that her sister was in the same mission as me before I left and I
totally met her the other day! Random. But it is really fun
sometimes to have a connection to home with someone. It felt great to
just talk to her about Utah. Good times.

Things are improving for our missionary work in general in Plymouth.
I sometimes get pretty frustrated because we are both just brand new
missionaries and although I do have some experience, I'm still
learning how to be the most effective missionary I can. There are a
lot of skills that I need to master and I hold such a high expectation
for myself that it can get me down sometimes. Don't worry though, we
are getting better and better each day and I'm not letting frustration
get to my head. We're working our hardest and doing our best. The
task of training a new missionary after 3 months is a difficult one
and I don't know how smart it is to have a missionary do it. But
things are working out well and I hope that Elder Hirschi is at least
learning something from me!

This week we moved into a new house. We were living with a family and
they had several sons coming to live at home for the summer and so
there wasn't any room for us any more. So we moved to live with
another family in the ward. Their house is HUGE! Ha ha. But really,
it's big. We have the whole basement to ourselves and there is a
sports court in the house and all sorts of luxuries. I'll be honest,
I doubt there are many missionaries in the world living such a sweet
life. But we're only here for seven weeks so I'm going to enjoy it
while it lasts!

We had yet another week of NO ONE coming to church. Execept the lady
we are hoping to baptize. All of these investigators we are teaching
just can't take the step to make it to church. We're really focusing
on finding new investigators now. Investigators that will actually go
somewhere! But hey, even if all we can do is help someone build their
faith then we are still fulfilling our purpose as missionaries a
little bit. But in Minnesota we not only do that, we BAPTIZE! Just
have to find the prepared ones.

I'll be honest, MMM is by far the best mission in the world. Nothing
can compare! We really do amazing things here and President Howell
has just sent this mission off at light speed. There are amazing
things ahead and I can't wait to see what kind of growth there is.
The church is growing here in Minnesota like crazy. I sometimes
forget the work that I am a part of and only see what is happening in
my little sphere in my area. And then I look around at what is going
on across all of Minnesota and am just amazed. It blows me away.
This mission makes fantastic missionaries because it is hard. It is
dang hard. But we still are a baptizing mission. I can't wait to see
how the work progresses with President Clements. It's just awesome!

So as for investigators, _________ has been out of town all week and
we haven't been able to get ahold of her recently. Hopefully she's
okay. The _________ family stopped progressing and unfortunately we
don't know how much longer we're going to keep working with them. If
they can't start moving forward then we might drop them. But that is
what happens. We have faith though and for now we're going to still
try and help them. We've taught a lady a couple times who we tracted
into a long time ago. After many tries we finally got to meet with
her twice and she really likes the BoM and is pretty interested. We
invited her to be baptized in July and she said she would definitely
think and pray about it. She is super good friends with a member and
so I think that the member's example is what sparked her interest.
Members help so much!

____________ is doing fantastic. He got the Aaronic Priesthood on
Sunday and that was super neat. We also went over to his house last
week and visited with him and he was still floating on air. So happy
and at peace. And this was a full week after he'd been baptized. He
is the coolest guy ever. Oh and I need to send some pictures of his
baptism. I will do that! By the way, the _________'s are doing
awesome too. Brother M was called to be the assistant scout master
and sister M was called to be a visiting teaching coordinator person.
Pretty awesome. They rock. The coolest family.

So here we go on another week. I keep on thinking that something else
that was awesome happened this week but I can't remember what it was.
Maybe I will tell you next week. Thanks for the love. Happy
summer!! Speaking of summer, it has suddenly gotten really hot over
here too. 95 degress yesterday plus humidity = death. But we'll
survive. Making sure to drink water.

Much Love!
Elder Ruesch