December 5, 2011

The fam fam! Hi! So far we have not gotten a call about transfers.
So the hope is that Elder Mumford and I are both staying!! That would
be awesome! It is going to be an exciting adventure! We'll see if we
end up getting a call.
I can't believe that it has already been 6 weeks again. The transfers
just fly by at ninja speed.

Oh wait, I spoke too soon. We just got a call from president. The
transfer is official. I am staying here in Dinkytown! Unfortunately,
Elder Mumford is being shipped out to serve in a new area called
Buffalo. And my new companion is going to be a fresh newby missionary
straight from the MTC again. Oh boy! I'm pretty nervous. The new
missionaries wont get here for a few days, and so just like last time
I don't know the name of my next companion. I'll let you know his
name and everything that goes with that next week! Suspense!

So this last week has been a good one. Not too much has changed.
__________ is doing just great and is ready to be interviewed for her
baptism and everything is going to be good! She said that she has a
few friends that she would like to invite to the baptism. So we have
made some invitations and hopefully they will come and feel the spirit
and get baptized too! Word! ___________ is still shooting for his
baptism on the 17th ____________ wants to be baptized before the
Christmas break. We'll see!

We found a couple new people to work with this week. One had a ton
of questions and has some great potential. It's exciting! Our other
investigator is awesome! She came to church again this week for the
second time. We met with her on saturday and taught her about baptism
and the priesthood authority. She then brought up a question about
why God lets good people suffer and we had a really great discussion
on it. I think that she felt the spirit and enjoyed the lesson. I
can tell that she feels something special here and that is why she
keeps meeting with us. She is such a cool person! Really really funny.

We have a lot of investigators that we are working with, but most of
them are in the beginning stages and moving along kind of slow. So I
told you about our most solid progressing investigators.

We got a good amount of snow this week! I think it was 6 inches or
snow. It looks like the snow is finally here and is here to stay. It
was pretty unusual for minnesota to not get snow for so long. It
wasn't till the beginning of december that we got some decent snow
fall. Craziness! That probably means it's going to stay around until
like june. but whatever, I don't mind. I like snow.

We've got a lot of work to keep doing here in Dinkytown. I'm excited
for the future transfer. I am a little nervous though because the
next couple weeks are crazy for students preparing for finals and then
everyone goes home for christmas break. It is going to be a pain to
try and meet with investigators and when they go home we'll have no
one to teach. That will be a pain. But we'll make the most of it!

Holy Smokes!!!!! Ashley's engaged! Gross. Just kidding. That is
awesome! Congratulations! Now all you have to do is make it a long
engagement of about a year and 2 months and I'll be home in time to
see the wedding! Yay!
Also, the madrigal dinner sounded like it was way fun. I'm sad I had
to miss it. Did you get any pictures? I would love to see some pics
of that! That would be a funny show to see. I'm hoping jonny the
imposter didn't win in the end.

I got my birthday package!!!! And I also got the christmas tree
tube. It is awesome! I didn't put it up yet because I didn't know if
I was going to be transfered or not. But now that I know that I am
staying I will put the tree on the wall today. And also, there was
nothing in the birthday box that said I couldn't open my presents and
so I actually opened them the night that I got the package.... he he.
I was too excited! So basically I already celebrated my birthday :)
I promise I will make the cake on my actual birthday though. If you
really want me to open presents on my birthday you are more that
welcome to send me more packages :) Just kidding. But I loved the
tie and the sweat pants and everything!! Thanks so much you guys! Oh
and when I got my christmas package I promise I will follow the
instructions and not open the presents until christmas day. Thanks so
much!

I better head out! Love you guys and I look forward to telling you
all about the new companion next week. Thanks!

Love

Elder Ruesch

December 1, 2011

I love Christmas time! There are lights up all over the city and we
got our second snow of the season last night. I am so surprised at
how warm it has been though. The snow that came was only an inch and
the other snow storm we had was almost two weeks ago and it was only
like 2 inches. Between those storms, the weather was warm.
Thanksgiving day was 50 degrees! But it looks like the weather is
finally going to permanently cool down. I'm excited to get some more
snow!

Sorry I forgot to tell you about Thanksgiving. Someone did have us
over for dinner. It was really nice actually. A member in the ward
goes to the small college Macalester in St Paul. I think I mentioned
it recently. Well he had a big group of friends over and invited us
too. It was awesome because everyone there were nonmembers and so we
got the chance to have some really great conversations with his
friends. I was even able to give a girl a Book of Mormon. So that
was cool! It was a really chill environment and it was really
relaxing. Thanksgiving was great! So don't worry, I got my full
helping of turkey. I even sang the Gobble Gobble Gobble fat turkey
song. The sister missionaries weren't big fans of the song. He he.

It was SOOO nice to go to the temple again today. I absolutely loved
it! It was refreshing. The temple is the best!
This last week has been really good! We're still working and moving
along with the same people. __________ is doing great and is still
planning on being baptized Dec 17th! The game plan is the same for
_____________ too! I would say that the biggest challenge I've faced
while working with YSA's is the family resistance. That is the main
challenge that these people have to face. So far, all our serious
investigators have all had to overcome family issues.

I love working with these people my age. I'm starting to realize what
a critical time it is in someone's life, when they are a YSA. These
investigators that are progressing so well have super strong
testimonies and it's going to set the stage for their whole life. I
love it. It makes me once again notice how genius the Lord is in
sending us crazy 19 year old's on missions. It's unbelieveable the
stuff I'm learning and the foundation I'm building for my future
life. The Church is totally true!

We have this hilarious new investigator. She has been christian for
just under a year. It's pretty amazing. But she is so cool and we've
now taught her twice and she came to church last sunday. So far we've
had some pretty spiritual lesons with her and we're hoping to see her
progress. We invited her to be baptized in January and her answer was
very wishy washy. She could make it though if we keep working hard
with her. She is seriously one of the funniest people I've ever met!

I don't know if I ever mentioned this but there are a lot of students
from the U of M that are from China. A ton. It's really cool.
Sometimes it blows me away to talk to someone and try to explain who
God is. A lot of these Chinese people haven't even heard of that
idea, and especially haven't heard of Jesus Christ. It's interesting
to try to teach people like that. It's also hard when you don't speak
chinese...

Last week we were talking to people by campus and we had a really
funny experience. I started talking to this guy who was in his 40s.
He was short but looked like a pretty rough guy. Well we continued
talking and he asked if we could all sit down and talk for a bit. So
we did and he proceeded to tell us all about his life. He first told
us that he's had a rough life and he went out walking today to try and
find a church! And that's when we talked to him. So he said he
wanted to come to our church. And then he started telling us about
his life. This guy had tons of crazy stories that seemed a little bit
on the extreme side. And who knows, maybe he was telling the truth
and if so, that is an insane life. But we have never seen him since
and he said he would come to church. It was so funny talking to him
because story after story kept coming out. But we gave him a Book of
Mormon and so hopefully by some miracle he'll read it and decided to
really come to church! How cool would that be? Word :)

Thanksgiving break was really slow for us because everyone went home
for Thanksgiving. The campus was dead. But we still made the most of
it and had some great times. Transfers are next week and so on monday
I'll know if I'm being transfered or not. I have a feeling I will be
but I don't want to go! We'll see what happens!

Love you so much!
Elder Ruesch

Thanksgiving Day

Hello there! I hope that you are all having an amazing thanksgiving! I love this holiday. It is so good to look back and remember how many things we really should be grateful for. Our Mission president challenged us in our prayers today to only express gratitude and not ask for anything. So far it has actually been very rewarding. I overlook so many blessings that I have and it's giving me a chance to refocus on what I should be grateful for.

This last week and a half has been intense! I was starting to get really tired by tuesday and wednesday this week because we hadn't had a P-Day. It's amazing to me how much I really need my P Day to rest. Missionary work is hard work!

I LOVE the ward that I serve in. The single adults here are SO GOOD at fellowshipping our investigators and making them feel loved and welcome. Maybe it's because a lot of them aren't too far home from their missions and they know how much it means to a nonmember when they have a friend at church other than the missionaries. Our investigator _________ is doing amazing. Some of the members call her and invite her to all the activities without us even knowing. It was so cool! She asked Elder Mumford to Baptize her and it was so exciting. He is pumped!! Her baptisimal date is set for December 17th and it's really solid. We're hoping all goes well! And it should.

Two mondays ago we met with ____________ and set some goals for things he wants to do before he gets baptized to find out it is true and we challenged him to pray to know if he should be baptized and what day it should happen on. We met later in the week and taught him Lehi's dream and it was really good. He also came to church. And then yesterday it was amazing! We met with him and he just seemed a lot happier. After talking for a while and getting into the lesson for a bit, he told us that he believes the Book of Mormon is true. He's been praying about when to be baptized and he thinks around Christmas time would be good for him! So we talked about December 17th also and he's going to check his schedule and let us know. It was another miracle! We're really excited for him. He also is very integrated into the ward. It's great!

We actually haven't met with ________________ for a few weeks, but we've talked to him on the phone several times. We're just going to pray really hard that we see a miracle with him! His testimony is crazy strong.

Cool Miracle!!!! Last week, we got a random call from a girl saying that she is less active and wants to come back to church and she wants us to visit her. That does not happen every day! So last week we met with her and had a great lesson about the atonement. And then this week we invited her to bring a friend with her to the lesson and she totally did! So we got her friend as a new investigator. So cool! Miracles!

Oh Yeah! Do you remember my buddy ______________? We just got a new investigator that is EXACTLY him. He looks, talks, and acts like him. It freaks me out because it seems like I'm just teaching my friend who is acting to be a nonmember. It's weird. Actually, it is kind of a miracle that we found him in the first place. We were out talking to people on campus and he was walking towards me. I was about to walk right past him and talk to the person behind him but he kept looking at me funny and so I quickly jumped over and started talking to him. I still can't explain how it happened. I know that the Spirit was pushing me to talk to him instead. We had a great conversation and then finally met up on Monday. It was a great lesson and we're meeting him again next week. I hope he gets baptized. Either way I really need to introduce him to ____________ someday. They are long lost twins.

We really have been so blessed here. We have some amazing things going on. This is the best ward! I love it.
I hope that I can stay here next transfer too but I feel like I'm probably going to be transfered. It's crazy. Oh and there is a chance that we might go to the temple next week for fun. If we do, then our P-Day will not be on monday. So expect am email on wednesday or thursday next week if you don't get one on monday.

I loved the pictures of beauty and the beast! It sounds like it was a hit! I can't wait to see the play on DVD eventually. The pictures looked killer diller awesome! I hope that you guys have an awesome thanksgiving and I love you so much! I'm thankful for you!
The church is totally true and it wont be too long before I get to skype with you again. I'm so pumped!

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

November 14, 2011

Before I forget, I want to mention that our P-day next week is being
changed to Thanksgiving day (Thursday). So don't expect an email next
monday. You'll have to wait even longer in suspense!

It's been another crazy week! They get crazier every week. I love
it. We are getting more and more people to teach and it is really
exciting!

This week we got a referral from a member who walked up to us and
said, "My friend wants to take the lessons." Jump for joy! Her
friend has felt lost for some time and he randomly emailed her and
said he wants to meet with the missionaries. So we called him us and
met with him this week. He's a really great guy and the lesson we
taught was definitely not according to plan. The spirit was really
strong though. It was amazing! We invited him to be baptized on
December 10th and he agreed! Unfortunately, he didn't show up at
church. Getting someone to church for the first time is the hardest
thing in the world. Satan works way to hard to make it not happen!
But we'll be seeing him tonight at FHE.

____________ is still doing pretty well. Unfortunately, he just isn't
quite ready to be baptized this saturday. It's a bummer because all
of our baptisms keep getting postponed! He needs a little more time
to sort out his testimony and we also have potential family problems
with him. He told us that he hasn't told his parents yet and he seems
a little afraid to. That tends to be a common concern among the young
single adults. But we work hard and try to make it happen. If the
church really is true it will all work out eventually.

We met with _________ this week again. He is just so solid. We had
our own testimony meeting with him and he bore a powerful testimony.
His new plan is to try and talk with his family more at thanksgiving
and if they wont support him, hopefully he'll just take a leap of faith.

The girl who was taught on skype is doing super amazing! We taught
the Plan of Salvation to her and she liked it. Her Baptism is set for
December 17th. December might be an incredible month for the
dinkytown ward! Well actually, as of next week it will officially be
the Twin Cities YSA ward! But anyway, we have a lot of really great
investigators that could all get baptized very very soon if things
work out. We're hoping to see some amazing stuff happen.

I also forgot to mention, there are a lot of other colleges in St.
Paul that we cover too. A lot of little ones. One is a catholic
university in St. Paul. We also have a couple of members at a private
school called Macalester. Elder Mumford and I are super duper excited
about Macalester. There are about 2,000 Students there and so it is
really small but it has a lot of potential. Our two active members
there are really great at sharing the gospel and living their faith.
The funny thing is that Macalester has actually been rated the #6
least religious college in the U.S. Crazy huh? And so because of
that, there is a club called the interfaith house for all the kids
that are religious. It's cool. And last sunday the interfaith house
had us and the sisters over for dinner and they asked us questions and
we taught the whole restoration. It was cool! And then afterwards we
got talking to one of the girls and got her email and then met with
her again last week! It was most excellent! She has good potential.
Hopefully we see some miracles with her! The other miracle we had
was while we were over at Macalester on another evening, we ran into
an inactive member that is a student there too! We got her phone
number and got her to come to church yesterday. It was awesome! So
we're going to teach her the missionary lessons and hopefully she'll
become a fully active member of the church again. Exciting!

I love love love working in the singles ward. It is so fun and cool
to work with the kids that are your own age. We have a party everyday!

___________is doing good too. We taught him the restoration this week
and it seemed to click pretty well. Unfortunately, he works every
sunday so he can't come to church. It stinks. But we're going to try
to work through that.

Good luck MJ on your play! I'm super excited for you! Opening
night! Word. That is going to be so fun. Don't lose too much sleep!

Have fun this next week and a half and I look forward to telling you
about life on Thanksgiving. It's going to be super great! Thanks for
all your love and support!

Love,

Elder Ruesch

November 7, 2011

Hey hey hey!

So this week has been awesome. We had a lot of great miracles!

Halloween was pretty fun. We had a lesson that went really well. That left us only like a half an hour before we had to be in our apartment because we had to go in early at 8. It was nice to get to relax and go to bed earlier, especially since this week was exhausting. For some reason we kept on having busy stuff happen and we had to cut some of our meals really short or just skip them all together and live off snacks. It's been adventurous!

I definitely realized even more the power of prayer this week. Elder Mumford and I were studying prayer during companion study. One of my favorite passages is the Bible Dictionary section on prayer which basically says that prayer just grants us the blessings that God is already willing to grant but are made conditional on us asking for them. And so Elder Mumford and I decided to take that promise extra seriously and we prayed that we could get a solid new investigator this week. And the Lord SUPER blessed us this week!

We prayed to get a new investigator. And this week we got a call from President Clements and he gave us a referral! it was great! The first thing he said as we started talking gospel is, "I just want to know the purpose of life." BOOM we whipped out the Plan of Salvation in a Millisecond and blew his mind. It was fantastic! The lesson actually went really well and you could tell he liked it a lot. And we have another appointment with him next week! We're excited!

Next miracle! We got a call from some other Elders in St. Paul who gave us a referral. She has family members that are Mormon in California. Her cousin told her to go to mormon.org and chat with the missionaries. And so that's what she did! She kept asking questions and stuff and eventually the Elders in Provo started teaching her lessons over Skype!! How crazy cool is that? By the time she got hooked up with us she already knew the Book of Mormon is true and wants to get baptized. What? Yes, true story! So all the hard work is done and they just passed her to us to get her going to a church, get used to the ward, and to baptize her. It's craziness and super sweet. So we met with her on Saturday and she is awesome. She came to church yesterday and then came to the CES Fireside last night too. She is so golden. The plan as of now is to have her baptism at the end of December because that is when her family that lives in Cali could come to watch. It would be so cool. Hopefully i'll be around by then. No one knows!

So those were two major miracles. _____________ is also doing really good. I forgot to tell you that we had to push his baptism back a week because his parents are going out of town.

____________ is doing okay. We've kinda layed back and stopped pushing the baptism and have put it more in his hands. Still teach him every week and he always comes to church and all the activities and stuff. He is just kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. He loves his family SO much and that's a great thing. But he's affraid to disappoint them and wants their support before he moves on. He is such a respectable guy. I have learned many great lessons from him. I really think he'll be going on a mission someday. He would be killer diller missionary.

Holy smokes. Cool story! It was crazy! So we started talking to a girl on campus. We had a good conversation going and we taught pretty much the whole restoration as we walked with her. We ended up talking for about 15 minutes and walked her all the way to her house. She was grateful for the conversation but wasn't interested in learning more, which stunk for us because it was a good conversation. And then she told us that she lives with 9 other Christian girls and asked us if we would come in and let her and her roomates pray over us. Oh man... we went in the house and met everyone and then us and 10 girls stand in a circle and have a prayer. And you got to remember that most people don't pray like us. They pray to Jesus and and anyone can join in and say anything in the pray and if someone says something you really like you say, "yes Lord!" or "thank you Jesus!" Elder Mumford is used to prayers like that being from texas but I had no idea what was going on! And it doesn't help that all these girls were beautiful! Oh man it was an experience. Maybe one of them will read the Book of Mormon we left and convert the rest of them. 10 baptisms! And since they are all very pretty the singles ward may gain 10 members at first but would lose 20 in the end because all the fellas here would start dating like crazy! It would result in many souls saved :) Ha ha. Just kidding.

The final news of the week is that the stakes here in the Twin Cities got together and reorganized the Singles ward. They combined the Dinkytown, Uptown, and St. Croix singles wards all into one and made it the Twin Cities YSA ward. So we now officially cover a HUGE area. It is all of Minneapolis and St. Paul and their suburbs and goes over into Wisconsin even. We have a lot of work to do, but we're gonna see some miracles!

Well, I love you guys. I better get headed out. It was sad to hear that the suburban is gone. but those things happen. Things change so much in two years! i'm gonna get back and everything is going to be super different! Weird...

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

October 31, 2011

Take the derivative of x^2 and multiply it by the hypotenuse of a 45
degree triangle and then add 1.34543 and finish by taking the
integral. Woo! It looks like that halloween party was so fun. I am
sad I had to miss it! I didn't even think about it until today when I
got your pictures. Everyone looks so nerdy! I would have just gone
as my unique little self. Ha ha.

Thanks for the package! I forgot to mention that last week. It is
soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo awesome! It was perfect. I haven't
had cheeto's my whole mission I think. I scarfed them down in 2
seconds. I forgot how good they really were. He he. Plus I always
love getting those mini cereal boxes and the email updates for my
friends. Thanks mom! And the best part of all was the coconut
cranola bars!!! Woo! By the way, where is Trevis serving on his
mission? I can't remember.

So this was a crazy cool week. I picked up my new home boy Elder
Cameron Mumford. He is CRAZY! It's hilarious. I really don't know
where his energy comes from. It will be 6:30 in the morning and I'm
trying to not die because I'm tired and he'll just burst out into song
of something random like Into the Woods or "Hide yo kids, hide yo
wife!" He is a thespian 100%. The epitome of thespian. It is
absolutely hilarious! He is from Dallas, Texas. He also went to Utah
State! In fact, he's pretty obsessed with Utah State. I love it. I
think he has at least 3 aggie shirts here with him and a pair of aggie
sweat pants. It's so funny. I thought I was obsessed with USU. I
guess not... Oh! We also have another cool connection. He was in my
friend Taylor Dolbin's ward back at USU. Taylor was his elder's
quorum president actually. I looked at old pictures of Elder Mumford
with long hair before the mission and he looks just vaguely familiar.
We had to have seen each other at one point! Super cool connection to
think about. He also knows a lot of the people that were in Out of
the Blue. Do you remember that group? It is the showchoir I was in
at USU. He wasn't in it but he knew a lot of my friends in it.
There's just connections all over the place! And now we are doing the
best thing ever serving as servants of the Lord together! Word. This
is going to be another fun transfer.

I think it is funny that I have had more companions that went to USU
than went to BYU. Elder Farnsworth is the only companion I had that
went to BYU but Elder Checketts and Mumford both went to USU.
Awesome. Way to represent!

We have had some hilarious experiences in the last 5 days. First off,
Elder Mumford totally BIFFED IT on his bike as he was pulling around
the corner. I have no idea how it happened but the back tire went out
from under him and fortunately he was going pretty slow. After he
fell, since he is an actor, he obviously has to put on a show and he
just naturally flapped his arms out and played dead on the street for
five seconds. It was obviously fake and I'll be honest I was laughing
really hard and this girl who was walking past came running over and
asked Elder Mumford if he was okay. By then he was embarrassed and
said yes and then biked off really fast. Oh man it was glorious.

The other funny story... Our apartment door has two locks. A dead
bolt and then a lock on the handle. Aparently, we don't have a key
for the handle lock and Elder Mumford accidentally locked it on our
way out. And so we came home for lunch after church and couldn't get
in the door. We called our apartment mananger but she didn't want to
answer since it was not office ours and the main office was closed.
Then we called the on call emergency people and they said they'd have
a locksmith guy call us to help us out. Did he call us? No. So how
were we going to get into the apartment? Well, we devised several
plans. We knew that the balcony door was unlocked and so we tried to
call someone in the ward that had a ladder but no one was answering or
getting back to us! The final options were to be spiderman and scale
the wall or get onto the roof and climb down to the balcony. Both
options were awesome. Scaling the wall was impossible and so we found
a hatch in the ceiling and I pushed Elder Mumford onto the roof. He
then pulled me up and we went over to the balconey. Unfortunately, it
was impossible to jump down from the roof. We would have had to swing
from the roof onto the balcony and it wasn't worth risking death. So
basically we were homeless for the whole day... Later that night we
Finally got in touch with a member who has a ladder and we got in. It
was great! But man it was the funnest adventure ever! So good!

So all my letters sound like all we do is have fun and don't actually
do missionary work. I guess I just like telling the highlights. But
I promise we are working hard! We are still working with ________.
His family still isn't supportive, and he really wants their support
in this. He is so solid though. He is just a rock and will be
baptized the second it is right. He's so awesome.

_______________ is doing great too! We'll be meeting with him
tonight. He has been to church three times in a row. He comes to
family home evening and all sorts of other activities. He is still
set for baptism on November 12th. We're excited!

We dropped our friend _____________. He was no longer progressing and
there was no point meeting with him anymore. It was fun while it
lasted though!

We got a new investigator we're teaching from the Uptown ward. He is
really knowlegable in the bible. He is really cool and has a lot of
potential. I think we'll see good stuff with him.

There is a guy that we taught just last week and he is super cool.
His personality reminds me a lot of myself except he's SUPER smart.
And we were walking around campus talking to people and we ran into
him and he invited us to dinner with him! It was cool. He is such a
smart kid and he has A LOT of concerns. It was cool though because
while we were eating with him one of his friends came over and sat
with us and then more friends came. It ended up that I continued the
talk with him and Elder Mumford and all the other kids about the
restoration. It was crazy cool! And now we have potential to keep
teaching a few of them. It was a miracle!

I really need to go. But I'm glad that I could make a longer email.
We are going to have an awesome transfer here in Dinkytown. I am
really excited. Halloween is going to be fun. All the missionaries
have to be in early tonight. Ha ha. It will be fun... It's a good
thing we don't really tract here in dinkytown. All we do is talk to
kids on campus.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Ruesch

October 24, 2011

I can't believe that it is already p-day again. The time just flew by
like crazy! It blows me away.
So here's the big news on transfers...I'm staying! Word. To be
honest, I thought I was going to be gone and Elder Checketts would
stay but not so. Elder Checketts is being sent far away to a city
called Winona, which if you remember is the same place that Elder
Farnsworth was sent after he was with me in Plymouth. Winona is way
south and it's right on the Mississippi river. He is going to love it
down there. It's beautiful. I have had a really fun time with Elder
Checketts and I am sad to see him go. But change is good. We have
had a great transfer together. My next companions name is Elder
Mumford. He has been out on his mission for about 5 months (the same
amount of time as Elder Checketts). From what I hear he is super
awesome and hilarious. I also hear that he likes to sing and likes
musicals. That will be a first for my companions. Ha ha. I'm
excited. I will meet him on Monday.

I also got some other crazy news this morning. There is another
singles ward that is in Minneapolis and they are the Uptown ward.
Normally, there is a set of missionaries there but they are
temporarily being taken out and so we have to take all of their
investigators for a little while. We basically have to now cover all
of the YSA's in all of Minneapolis and St Paul. It's crazy! So we
are going to be busy. Fortunately, we will share these investigators
with the sisters here and so we can tag team. That will make things
better. I'm excited though.

This week was Homecoming week at the U of M and it was CRAZY! Holy
smokes. They had activities all throughout the week but the biggest
thing was they had a parade on Friday night. There were a ton of
people. It was nuts. And there were just as many old people there as
there were students and the sad thing to me was it was the old people
that were the really drunk ones. Some students were bad but ALL the
adults were crazy. It was embarrassing and sad but also really
hilarious. They also had the homecoming game on Saturday.
Unfortunately, the Minnesota team is absolutely terrible. They played
Nebraska and got crushed by at least 30 points. But that isn't
unusual for the Gophers (Gopher is the mascott by the way. It rocks!)

We had a Mormon Movie Night on Sunday night at 7 and so all throughout
the week we passed out and put up flyers trying to get anyone to
come. We showed the movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.
The movie night turned out to be okay. A random guy showed up who saw
the flyers. He's an older guy and he said he's always been drawn to
Mormonism. He actually investigated the church about 40 years ago and
almost joined but didn't do it because he says he doens't have enough
faith. He LOVED the movie and he was crying by the end. But for some
reason he just doesn't want to meet with missionaries or anything. He
just needs more time. Other than that, a member brought her friend to
the movie and that didn't really go anywhere yet and then a bunch of
members came. So the turn out for nonmembers wasn't what we were
hoping for, but it was all worth it because that one older guy came.
He needs the gospel so bad!

Handing out flyers for the movie night was a crazy crazy hilarious
adventure. Since there were so many people out the night of the
parade and the day of the game, we went out on the street and handed
flyers to everyone. We always skipped over the adults and just handed
them to the students because we can't teach them :) It was crazy
though. There is a street that leads to the stadium called Frat Row
because that his where all the fraternity and sorority houses are and
so there were a ton of parties going on there before the game. On the
way to and from the staduim, Elder Checketts and I handed out flyers
to all the people along there while they were partying and it was an
experience I will never forget. Slightly frightening but also really
funny. I don't know why people like to party so much. It's just
embarrassing for them. When you become someone else's entertainment
because you act so stupid, you know something is wrong. There were
even parents with their litte tiny kids walking around at the
parties. I guess they were just enjoying the "good ol days" or
something. Wonder what their kids are going to turn out like. This
world is a sick place! No wonder we need the gospel so bad.

Speaking of the Gospel, ________is doing super well! He came to
family home evening last monday and had some questions about the whole
becoming god's spheal. So we talked about it and he was totally cool
with it. I guess he had some friends try to anti him. But he
withstood! Ha ha. We also met with him on Friday and taught the word
of wisdom. He said to us, "i already know this stuff." He has
apparently been doing a lot of research online and is really getting
into the church. He is even all the way to Jacob in the Book of
Mormon. It's funny to watch these investigators and think about the
process that I went through to gain my own testimony. I can see the
hunger for knowlege that _______ has inside of him and it is totally a
sign of his answer that this is true but he is telling us he hasn't
gotten an answer yet. It is just something that he hasn't quite
recognized but the answer is totally there. Man, I LOVE how the
spirit works. Heavenly Father is a genius.

We met with ________ this week and he came to church too. It was
good. He is just way lost in a bad group of friends and stuck in too
much junk. But I think that that is secrectly the reason why he is
meeting with us. This church can really help him and if he works hard
to find the answer, he will get out of a lot of messes. He's such a
cool kid.

This week was hard because we have a lot of new invesitgators and
stuff but a ton of our appointments fell through and all of our new
investigators fell off the planet and we can't get ahold of them.
It's so dumb! I hate when that happens. But I guess all we can do is
invite and then the people have to take the action.

Well, I'm super duper jealous that you guys got to go to lake powell!
I loved the pictures that you sent. I guess when I get home we're
just going to have to go on a million trips to all the places that I
missed out on while I've been gone :) And I'll be honest, that is
really funny that Jonny kicked the window out it the trailer. Must
have had a bad dream I guess. Ha ha.

The fall time weather here is fantastic and it's starting to get
chilly. Winter's coming! I will be spending halloween and
thanksgiving here is Dinkytown. That will be fun. I'm excited. I
think that is all for the week. Have a delicious day and I'm excited
to update you next week after all of the changes.

Love,
Elder Ruesch

October 17, 2011

Yes it is true, things did not go totally according to plan this
week. The baptism is postponed till November. _________ is really
anxious because he wants to be baptized as soon as possible. But it's
okay. This is the right thing to do and I think it will really help
his parent's progression in accepting the gospel themselves. So it is
worth a couple week's wait. The only thing that stinks is that
transfers are next week and so there is a good chance one of us could
be gone by the time he gets baptized. But I don't mind I guess, as
long as he gets baptized. I don't have to be there. So that was the
adventure of the week. A little disappointing but it will work out
better in the long run. _________ is SO solid though. This might
have been an event that has strengthened his faith big time because he
has had to learn to stand up for the Church and he knows without a
doubt that this church is true. He's awesome. I bet he'll be getting
ready for a misson in about a year. That would be exciting!

________ is doing awesome. We met with him and had a great lesson on
some of the commandments and then he came to a young single adult
activity and church on sunday! It was great! We changed his
baptisimal date to november 12th because we have stake conference on
the 5th and I think there is a good chance it could happen. He's
doing really well!

We also picked up several cool new investigators. We're excited!
Elder Checketts talked to a girl on campus last week and we met with
her again and she brought her friend too. And then they both came to
church! It was nuts! Then we also taught a couple of guys. Both of
them are super solid. It's amazing how people just come out of
nowhere! It's exciting. The Lord is really blessing us.

Yesterday some people in the ward had us over for dinner and guess
what we had? Gyoza! We even wrapped it ourselves and everything.
The girl who put it together was japanese. It was really fun. It
reminded me of New Years Eve. Good times. And then they also fried
some cheesecake and gave us that for dessert. It was amazing.

Elder Cook came on Friday and it was AWESOME! He first wanted to
greet all of us so we all lined up and shook his hand. The funny
thing was that when he got up to speak he said that he loves shaking
our hands and when he looks into our eyes it's like a spiritual
interview. Ah! The apostle looked into my soul! I hope he found
good things. Anyway, he talked about how there is nothing better we
could be doing with our life right now than serving a mission. Even
if it doesn't seem like it, it is true. He gave us his Apostolic
promise of that. Also, he sure looks a lot older in real life instead
of on TV :) Ha ha but i know they wear makeup for conference. The
thing that made it a really sweet meeting was the connection that
Elder and Sister cook had with President and Sister Clements. Sister
Clements grew up in their ward and idolized sister Cook. And then
when the Clements' got married, President Clements worked with Elder
Cook in the same law firm. Elder Cook was their stake president and
served over them a lot. Elder and Sister Cook were basically role
models for the Clements pretty much all their life. I feel like that
is just foreshadowing the future of President and Sister Clements. I
could easily see President Clements as a member of the 12 and at least
a General Authority. But anyway, the meeting was fantastic and I just
exploded with too much spiritualness. It was great! And Sister Cook
is super super awesome too. She had us all sing and it was really
cool. The church is true.

Elder Checketts found a spider in his bed this week and screamed
higher that a nine year old girl. It was the funniest moment of my
entire life. And then the next day he got into bed and thought he
felt something on his leg and screamed even LOUDER but there was
nothing even there. I died. It was so funny! I'm surprised my vocal
cords are still in tact.

One other cool adventure we had this week was we got to dedicate an
apartment! That was a first. A girl in the ward was living there
alone and felt unsafe from evil influences and so she called us to
come dedicate the home. That was cool.

Did I tell you how the sister from Nauvoo was coming here? I think I
did. Well she's here and so we have 5 missionaries in the ward. It's
kinda intense.

Things are going well! I'm sorry my letters are always so jumbled. I
feel like I'm always rushed! Goodness.
I got a letter with some chocolate in it from Tres Hatch this week.
That was super nice. Tell her Thanks you so much for me!
I hear that it is supposed to snow here on wednesday. I'm excited!
It's gonna be awesome.
Can't wait to get the halloween package!
Love you so much!
-Elder Ruesch

October 10, 2011

Yet another week flies by at a crazy speed. There are so many things
that happened this week I don't even know where to start!
First off, quite the roller coaster this week. After General
Conference one of our investigators was just floating on air. He
really felt the spirit and was doing great. And then on Monday night
he ran into an Anti Mormon website... It just threw him through a
crazy loop. We met with him on Tuesday and when he came he was just
unbelievably upset. He felt like he had been betrayed and that this
whole process was just pretend. Over the course of the lesson we
talked through it with him. Fortunately, we had a really great joint-
teacher (the person who comes with us for the lesson and is a member
of the ward) who our investigator really respects, so she helped a
lot. He just asked question after question but by the end of the
lesson his mood was better and the spirit was really strong. Elder
Checketts was amazing and everything he said was 100% guided by the
spirit. It was fantastic! And that spirit that was there helped a
lot. We saw him again on Friday and he was doing a lot better. He
still had a million questions but we talked with him about his past
experiences when he's read the BoM and helped him realize that he
totally knows this church is true. By the end of the lesson we
committed him to be baptized! Usually, we challenge them to be
baptized on a certain day but this time we said we want him to pick
it. So closed by praying about it and then we didn't see him till
church. After Church we talked to him and decided to have his baptism
this Saturday, the 15th! Word! His girlfriend and her family are
going to come. It's super duper exciting! This kid is so awesome and
he is so ready. I think he may very well go on a mission in a year.
That would be super cool! If that happened he would go on a mission
before I even got home from mine. Exciting!

So that was super great! But that isn't all! We met with another
investigator this week and had a great lesson with him. We invited
him to be baptized on October 29th and he agreed! We have a lot of
work to do with him though. The thing that really stinks is that he
didn't come to church this week. He's an awesome kid though. He is
the one that President Clements first talked to and so President was
super excited when we told him he agreed to be baptized.

One more! We have another awesome investigator. We had a great
lesson with him this week too and committed him to be baptized on
November 5th! Come to find out that that is the week of stake
conference here so we will have to push it back a week. But it is
still exciting! All our investigators are progressing really well and
I hope that everything works out! Unfortunately, nothing ever works
out according to plans but hopefully it all turns out for the better.

We also have a another investigator who is super cool. He still needs
to understand a lot so we have much work to do. But he said that he
is going to make us some real deal chinese food. I'm pumped!

Guess who is coming to our mission to speak this Friday? Elder
Quentin L. Cook! They didn't tell us he was coming until last week
but once we got the news I was super excited. I'll let you know how
it goes. Maybe I'll get to shake his hand.

Are there any Famous Dave's in Utah? A guy in the ward took us there
this week and it was delicious. You should go sometime.
So it sounds like the U of M has a really good engineering program. I
might just have to transfer here when I get home... Ha ha. Maybe not,
it's really expensive. I could see myself coming here for graduate
school though. That would be a party. I think it would be really fun
to be a normal member of the Dinkytown ward. There actually is a kid
here who served in this mission a few years back. Pretty cool. He's
going to dental school here. I think that would be super cool to live
in Minnesota. It's a glorious place.
The weather was fantastic this week. Surprisingly warm. Which is
really good. The longer we can keep the weather warm, the less time
it is going to be freezing. Winter is going to be a great adventure.

I loved the picture of MJ all creeped out for Shakespeare. It was
glorious! I saw the picture and had NO idea what it was for. You too
looked LEGIT! It sounds like the competition was really fun. Way to
be so awesome! I'm sorry to hear that the school didn't do too well
on the actual prizes. But that doesn't matter. Judges are stupid
anyway.

So basically, life is really good. Oh yeah, other kinda cool news.
We work a lot with the sisters in this ward and there is another
sister missionary that is going to come to our mission for a few
transfers. She is coming from the Nauvoo mission. It's interesting.
I guess they do this to give the sisters a chance to do some actual
proselyting instead of just working on the site their whole mission.
She is going to be serving with the sisters in this ward. So that
will be pretty cool. She'll get to experience the best mission in the
world!
Anyway, thanks for all of the pictures and emails from you guys! I
love hearing from you! Tell MJ they are stupid because they never
write me. And I hope Brandon wins the drumming contest. That would
be cool.

Love you so much!
Elder Ruesch

October 3, 2011

Hey hey hey! It's been another great week in the good ol' Dinkytown. Conference was the bomb.com. I loved it so much! It was broadcast right in the institute building so we got to watch it there. ___________came to the Sunday morning session and it was super duper great! He got blasted by the spirit. All I gotta say is you can definitely put your money on the Prophet. Also, Elder Callister's talk about the Book of Mormon was so bold and so perfect for him to hear. Gosh, I love this church. He still wants more time to be absolutely positive on his answer though. We are doing all we can to help him realize it. He is really close. I'm glad he's taking this so seriously though and not just getting dunked at the first good feeling he had. This is an important choice and you need to make sure it's right.

We also had two other investigators come to conference! We have an investigator that President Clements actually talked to and referred to us. He is an awesome kid and has hardly no concept of religion and who Jesus Christ is an so forth. We've been teaching him since we got here and he is progressing really well. He's awesome. The other investigator was incredibly impressed by conference and I know that the spirit totally hit him.

We have another really great investigator that unfortunately didn't make it to conference but he is reading in the Book of Mormon. We taught him the Plan of Salvation last week and it went pretty well. I think he really liked it. We invited him to be baptized and he said he never has been baptized and was wondering what it consisted of and so forth. The part that stunk was we were way low on time and he had to run to class. We'll talk about it next time when the spirit is strong again. Hopefully we can get him to commit to a date.

We've also found a few new investigators and we talked to a super solid kid on the street yesterday. He has awesome potential. I think that October is going to be a very prosperous month. The Lord has blessed us a ton. It's so nice to be busy with the work. Things are going really well.

The weather has warmed up a little bit. It is 80 degrees today. I like the 60 degree weather better. But i'm not complaining because the days have been beautiful. I guess I should count my blessings before it is -20 degrees. I'm still loving everything. The work is still the same. I don't have much new stuff to report. Just that conference was amazing. I really enjoyed it a lot. It is so nice to hear the words of the prophet every 6 months. It has become my favorite weekend of the year. So good!

I also went on another exchange this week. I went to the family ward that covers downtown Minneapolis again. That was fun. It is amazing how different every area is. We went to the ghetto in North Minne and talked to all the people up there. It's always an adventure. Everyone there always says yes you can come back because they are the type of people that don't know how to say no. And then they just avoid us when we do come back. It's annoying. Good times in the ghetto. It's pretty fun. I just hope I don't serve there. Ha ha. But now that I say that I probably will serve there. Who knows. I guess then that way I would get all ends of the spectrum. Serve in the land of the wealthy in Plymouth and then in the ghetto of Minneapolis. The funny thing though is that Minneapolis is such a clean, nice city that the ghetto really isn't that ghetto. It's just kinda ghetto. Anyway, moving on.

Well I hope that you guys all had a fantastic conference weekend! Best of luck to MJ this week at the Shakespeare competition! That is super exciting! And Michael, don't get TOO worked up about your scene. Work hard and it will all come together. When it comes to drama, everything doesn't finally click until the last day. Ha ha. You're going to dominate. I'm excited to hear how it goes!

Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Ruesch