February 6, 2011

Another week already! I can't believe how fast the time is going.

We had a great week again! Things are going really well. TH got
baptized! Yay! She asked me to baptize her which was an awesome
experience. It was a wonderful baptism too. She shared her testimony
and said that she's never been happier. And her family all came and
that was a great thing for them to hear. Her Dad is athiest and the
rest of her family isn't religious. There is no way they could not
have felt the spirit in that meeting. It was awesome and an exciting
day! Then on Sunday Elder Neeley got to confirm her. It was his
first confirmation and he did a great job. It was awesome.

Yesterday was also just a really really good day. AA was conferred
the Aaronic Priestood and so he and HT both are Priests. HT got a
calling today. And all five of our last recent converts except HT had
their interviews for their temple recommends. HT will have his
tonight. And so the plan is that everyone is going to do a temple
baptism trip on the 18th. Hopefully, we can go with them because that
would be so cool! But there were a lot of wonderful major steps for
everyone yesterday.

The work that we do with the Chinese students here just keeps
growing! Two members brought their friend to church yesterday and she
is chinese. Hopefully, we can start teaching her. Additionally,
________ is doing pretty good. She is still set to be baptized on the
18th of this month. She doesn't have as strong of a testimony as the
other recent converts did because she has no christian background at
all. She is doing extrememly well by living the committments we give
her though. She is living the Word of Wisdom which is great! We just
need to give the spirit a little bit more time to work in her. We'll
see what happens and hopfully she can be baptized very soon!

Also, there is a student that is from China as well. His name is
___________. He actually was meeting with missionaries last year and
then he went home for the summer and when school started again we
started to teach him. We haven't had the most consistent lessons but
he has made significant progress since I first got here. He also
doesn't have the greatest understanding since he has no christian
background. He went back to china over the christmas break and he had
a few great experiences so that when he came back he said he wanted to
be baptized! Awesome! And so he finally came to church for the first
time on Sunday and we're hoping to have him ready for baptism on Feb
25th. That would be awesome! Chinese people are the coolest people
ever.

It's pretty amazing all of the things that are going on in this ward.
Since all the wards were combined everything has just been growing and
growing. New people show up at church every day. It's bringing in a
lot of less active people and non members too. This kid got up in
testimony meeting yesterday and said, "even though I'm not a member
yet, I can feel the spirit really strong here and I know this is the
place for me." Ha ha! What? Awesome! it turns out he is from Idaho
and was meeting with Elders for a long time. He doesn't even want to
meet with us which is funny. He said he just has to work some things
out and he will be baptized. This ward just pulls people in! It's so
great. I really really really love working with the YSA age group.
It is fun. I don't know what I am going to do when I have to go and
talk to families again. I don't even want to think about it.

On Saturday night, after the baptism we took A* over to see the
temple. We walked around the grounds and then went into the church
close by and had a lesson in there. It was really great. I am so
amazed to see the impact that the Gift of the Holy Ghost has on
people. It is a gradual change but each of the recent converts
literally has a brighter glow. Each one is happier then they were
before and you can just feel the prescence of God around them. It is
amazing. All i have to say is this church is true. And then it is so
interesting to see the strong contrast between these recent converts
and someone who has lost their way along the path. We're visiting
with a less active guy who used to be on meth and do all this other
stuff. He was able to get off all of that but he still smokes and so
we're working on that with him. Smoking is a BEAST! I hate it with
all my guts. But the point is, he can't have the spirit with him as
much. And you can see it. Never ever ever lose the prescence of the
Holy Ghost!!!!

This email was kinda all over the place again. Sorry about that. It's
a good thing i don't have to worry about writting well for at least
another year. Thank goodness!

Well Fam Fam, I love you guys! Things are going great over here. And
this weather is INSANE! It's supposed to be in the 30's all week I
think. It blows my mind. Minnesota is not like this. Everyone
keeps talking about how amazing it is. i guess last winter was just
so bad that Heavenly Father wanted to give minnesota a break. ha ha.
But now that I say that, it's probably going to blizzard tomorrow.
We'll see.

Love you!!

Elder Ruesch

January 30, 2011

Goodness. I can't believe it. It has officially been a year since I
entered the MTC as a brand new missionary. It is so cool but also
strange to look back on the last year and look at what has all
happened. I have definitely been blessed to see some amazing
miracles. Missions are a funny thing.

_______got baptized! Yay! It was an awesome day. She was so happy.
We all were. It is amazing to see the progress that she has made in
the last couple months. The spirit has just taught her so much and
she has made leaps and bounds in her progression in the gospel. After
her baptism she bore a quick testimony and it was really really
awesome! Yesterday she even joined us for a lesson with another
student and shared a quick insight and testimony of the Book of Mormon
and it was really powerful. It is just amazing! She asked Elder
Neeley to baptize her and I confirmed her. Elder Payne, who is the
area seventy of this region came to our sacrament meeting. It was
really random. He didn't have any kind of business to conduct. He
just sat at the front and bore his testimony at the end of the
meeting. Pretty cool! But the cool thing was that he stood in on the
circle for _________'s confirmation. That was not only cool for
____________ but it was cool for me too!

This week was pretty busy. We didn't get much of a P-Day last week
but we still got everything done that we needed to. And last week
went really well! __________ is next up in line for her baptism. She
is doing so great! She will be baptized this Saturday. We are really
excited. This week we had a couple lessons with her. President
Clements wanted to actually come teach with us and so he came to a
lesson with___________. It was cool to have him there. He is very
close to the spirit. Cool experience. _____ also had to move to a
different house this week and we helped her with that a little bit.
That was super good too because we got to meet her mom. Her mom and
sister plan on coming to the baptism this week. I think that
___________ is going to be a great influence on them and hopefully, it
wont be too long before they are baptized too. Her dad is going to be
a little more difficult. But he'll warm up eventually. I mean c'mon,
this is the true church.

Ashley probably already told you but I forgot to mention last week
that I got to meet her future sister-in-law. She was at the church
when were setting up for _________'s baptism. It was really great to
meet her and she is really nice! I was super excited. I haven't met
brandon's brother yet but I hope to soon. That will be cool! It
looks like Ashley will be joining a very awesome family! That wedding
announcement that you are making sounds really cool! If you make a
DVD and mail it to me I should be able to watch it. I can make sure
to get permission but I am certain they'll let me watch it. Exciting!

_________ who got baptized in December gave a talk yesterday in
church. She was asked to share her conversion story and testimony.
It was SO GREAT! I love the testimonies of new converts. It is so
pure and 100% filled with faith. It is a really hard thing to change
religions and so they all have faith that this church is a better road
for them. Man, this church is so true.

We are hoping to see some more baptisms pop up for February. There is
a girl who's Dad is a member and she just showed up at church a couple
weeks ago. We met with her this week and she is really solid. She
will get baptized sooner or later, it is just a matter of time. I'm
really excited for that! We are also starting to get ahold of more
less active people and are working with them more to get them back
into the church. And so that is also keeping us busy. Since this
ward covers such a huge area, we have so many people that we are
trying to work with and keep in mind and everything. It's a little
bit overwhelming, but worth it. This is the best time in peoples
lives to either find the church or come back and so we have a lot of
work to do here!

Oh yeah! The lecture thing that we went to with the bishop last week
was really interesting. He was asked to speak to these senior
citizens about mormonism. The group is a lifelong learning group and
these people can take all sorts of classes about a wide range of
topics. The class they are doing now is called "Mormonism: The quest
for presidency." Ha ha. Some lady thinks that she is a mormon
historian and ran the class. It's funny. She isn't a member and she
taught the class a lot of weird stuff. And so when we came, the group
had a lot of weird questions. But I feel like we were able to all
answer their questions pretty well. Interestingly enough, the class
was at the Jewish Community Center in St Paul. It was definitely a
rare opportunity and I learned some good things. The world has such a
skewed messed up idea of what this church is. They are missing some
really big things. That's why it's so important to be a good
example. I can definitely say that anyone I have ever talked to, if
they know a mormon, they have a much better opinion of the church than
someone who doesn't know a mormon. It is really interesting.

Well, we are SUPER excited for the baptism this week. It's going to
be so great.

Love you guys so much!

-Elder Ruesch

January 23, 2012

What a delicious week it has been! School finally started and we
suddenly are getting extra busy. When all the student's went home we
had to totally build up our investigator pool again and so now that
the students are back, we have like twice the number of people we are
working with.

The week ended amazing with the baptism of _____________! He is such
an awesome kid and the baptism went really well. It was awesome! He
had no troubles for the week leading up to the baptism and he was just
as happy as can be on Saturday. He prepared himself well and has a
strong testimony. The great thing was that his parents even showed
up! I was surprised when he called us the morning of the baptism and
told us they were planning on coming. They were both pretty tense at
the beginning and you could tell that they felt uncomfortable. But by
the end of the program I think that they relaxed a little bit. The
spirit was very strong the whole time and it would be hard not to feel
it. And fortunately, President Clements came to the baptism too and
so after it was done and everyone was mingling he went over and talked
to __________'s parents and had a really great conversation with
them. I was the lucky one that got to baptize him and it was just an
awesome day! He also bore his testimony at the end of the program and
it was really powerful. That was awesome!

______________ is doing really well too! She came to ____________'s
baptism and also had a great conversation with President. She had a
few concerns and talked about them with President and she felt a lot
better about her own baptism after that. It's gonna be great! She is
so funny and we have had some great lessons with her. She passed her
baptismal interview and is ready to go for her baptism this Saturday.
Yesterday after church we helped her edit her essays for her
application to BYU. Ha ha. It was great. She really wants to be
accepted. And I am almost certain that she will be. She is pretty
dang smart and the essays were really good. Also, she asked Elder
Neeley to baptize her so that will be exciting!

Things are pretty much the same and are going great. ______________
is still set to be baptized on Feb 4th. She is really looking forward
to that day. She is doing really good and has developed a powerful
testimony really quickly. She is going to be getting baptized just as
quick as the ____________'s were. Pretty cool!

I'm trying to move as quick as I can because we have to cut our P-Day
a little short today. The Bishop has been asked to give a
presentation to some religious group that had been studying about all
sorts of religions. Recently, they are studying Mormons. So Bishop
asked us to come along and help with the presentation. I'm looking
forward to seeing how it goes. It should be cool.

Funny story that I must tell. Friday night we had to run over to the
church building to get the baptismal suits and randomly there was some
sort of birthday party going. They had music playing through the
sound system in the gym and it was really loud so we could hear the
music. While we were there several songs played and I didn't
recognize one of them! Elder Neeley knew them and I didn't know any.
Goodness! It's amazing how much you miss in just a year. I thought
it was pretty funny though. I don't think I have missed too much
though because all the songs were pretty dumb. Ha ha. The missionary
life is just the best!

Oh yeah! _____________ is still set for her baptism on Feb 18th too.
She has a lot that we still need to teach her but we are hoping to
have her ready by that day! We can do it!

We've got a crazy schedule this week. There is SOO much going on. It
will probably be the craziest week of my mission so far. I am really
excited! Hopefully we will have time to breathe. I am so excited for
all of the things that are going on. The Lord has been blessing us
like crazy. I think it is Elder Neeley's faith. :) He is an awesome
missionary. I'm excited to let you know next week about how awesome
our week was!

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

January 16, 2012

Well hey there!
This past week has been really awesome!! Many awesome miracles
happened. But first off, the transfer results are in.... Elder Neeley
and I are both staying! YAAAAAY! Thank goodness. I had a slight
worry that I had a chance of being transferred but all is well in Zion
and I will still be here. The Twin Cities YSA ward is the bomb. I
love this area and glad I get to stay. Plus we have several awesome
things coming up that I wouldn't want to miss.

So the news about __________ is actually still not sure. We didn't
get to talk to him on the phone all week because he has no service in
his house. But we are almost certain that he still is going to be
baptized. The ward kinda would rather have us do the baptism on the
28th, push it off a week so that we aren't throwing together a really
quick baptism. But I have a feeling that he is going to want to do it
this saturday, so we'll see. We called the branch president in the
branch where ___________ lives and he said that _______ came to church
and bore is testimony on fast sunday. He is doing great. I'll
probably send out an email later today to let you know what the plan
is! He is going to meet us at the institute in just a little while.

More miracles! We met with A*, our friend that is applying to BYU.
We met with her on Monday and had a really great lesson and then that
night she called us and said that she wanted to be baptized on the
21st! Woo! That was one dang exciting call. We had two other
lessons with her last week and decided to push the baptism back one
week to the 28th so that we can have a little more time to teach her
everything. She is doing super great and is excited! She even had
her interview with the Bishop yesterday for her ecclesiastical
endorsement for her BYU application. I'm sure that she will be
accepted and then Michael can be friends with her at BYU! Yay! That
would be really cool.

But I'm not done! Do you remember ____________? She is the one who
was a referral from the return missionary. Well, she is just solid to
the max. We met with her again and finally taught her the
restoration. We invited her to be baptized on February 4th and she
not only said yes, but she said "absolutely". Ha ha. She is pumped
and really loving the church. It's so great. In fact, she already is
signed up to take an institute class on the Book of Mormon this
semester. ____________ is taking an institute class too. But yeah,
it's going to be a great month!

OHHHH! So I just took like an hour break because ________ showed up at
the institute. Things are great and he is set for his baptism this
week! It is going to be great! And he asked me to baptize him. IT"S
SO EXCITING!

And then, our other investigator ____________ is doing pretty well
too. We have a lot to help her understand still. A lot. But we are
working on it and she is preparing to be baptized on Feb 18th.

This week will hopefully be super extra busy because the semester is
finally starting. They start tomorrow. So all of our investigators
that went home for the break will be back and we can teach a lot of
lessons. That will be great.

Last week ended in quite a bang too because one of the sisters
investigators got baptized. She is like the coolest person ever. The
best part is that she asked Elder Neeley to baptize her and then I got
to confirm her on sunday. That was so awesome. Elder Neeley
definitely had one of the most eventful first transfers of any
missionary in minnesota. We saw 2 people get baptized and then he got
to baptize someone himself that he didn't even teach. We are so
blessed. I can't even believe how well the work is going right now.
We have a lot to be grateful for!

On top of all these things, we are still doing a class every thursday
night for the students who don't know anything about God. Last week
was successful when the sisters got 3 chinese people to come and we
had a guy from india come. The guy from India even came to church.
Indian people are possibly some of my most favorite people in the
world. They are so nice! And for church yesterday, another one of
our investigators came to church that we never thought we would be
able to get to come. That was exciting!

But to be honest, of all those amazing things that happened this week,
probably my favorite part was when _______ (who was baptized last
month) was asked to give a talk in church yesterday about his
conversion story and his testimony. He gave a talk yesterday and
_______ was asked to give a similar talk next week. But his talk was
so powerful and so sincere. He just talked about the things that were
happening in his life before we started teaching him and how he really
got his answer that it was true and how it has been a blessing to him
thus far. I loved it so much! A lot of the things that he shared he
never actually told us while we were teaching him. It is just a
testimony that the Holy Ghost is the one in charge here and we as
missionaries just need to trust that God is going to take care of
these people we are trying to teach. He does give answers and he
always listens. This church is so true!

It looks like I got my wish :) the temperature dramatically dropped
during the week. It was 50 degrees earlier in the week and then it
fell to 10. That was a dramatically cold change. But it has been
fun. I finally have all the winter stuff whipped out. I'm sure it is
only going to keep dropping and dropping. Today was nice though.
It's gonna be a good week!

As I look back and read what I wrote, I realize how horrible of a
writer I am. i just ramble and splurge all my thoughts into the
keyboard, but hey, I guess that's me. So hopefully my letter makes
cognitive sense and you can be as happy reading this as I am writting
it. We have some wonderful weeks ahead! I'm looking forward to the
next transfer.

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

Pics!

January 9, 2012

My goodness, I think that we skipped summer and went straight to
spring! This last week wasn't cold at all. It's absurd! The last
couple days were in the 40's and then tomorrow might even hit 50. I
was getting myself mentally and physically prepared for this winter
and I was excited. And now all I have to deal with is this warm
weather! But I really do consider it a blessing. People are a lot
more willing to talk to us when they aren't freezing. In fact, we had
interviews with the president on saturday and when I got to the church
I hung up my coat. Well, when we left it was so warm that I forgot I
had even brought a coat and I left it at the church! Ha ha. I should
be getting it back today but it was craziness! I wont be surprised
though when it randomly drops to 20 below zero. That's minnesota for
you.

It was a pretty good week. We had some cool adventures. President
Clements has started having the AP's do exchanges with all of the new
missionaries at some point in their first transfer. And so on Friday,
Elder Neeley and I both went to the Assistant's area and split off
with one of the AP's and worked in their area all day. It was pretty
fun. The Elder that I was with for the day I actually have a funny
connection to. His name is Elder Crepeau and he actually dated
Jessica Frazier for a while in college! Ha ha. It's a small world
aint it? I thought that that was hilarious. But he is a way cool
Elder and a really good missionary and I had a fun time with him and
learned many good things. I think that Elder Neeley had a good
experience with the other AP too. It was a fun day!

We are still in contact with ____________. He is doing pretty well
and he is still solid on being baptized on January 21st! That is
exciting. It's actually the first saturday after the next transfer.
So there is always the slight chance that one of us will get
transferred but pretty unlikely since the training program for new
missionaries is 2 transfers long. But we'll see! I hope neither of
us are transfered.

________________ is doing pretty good too. This week we met with her
3 times which was awesome. We taught her about the ten commandments,
the word of wisdom, and more about modern day prophets. It was good.
She wasn't too excited to live the word of wisdom but she understood
why we have it and she has been living it ever since! It was funny
when we were talking about the ten commandments because we mentioned
keeping sabbath day holy and talked about how we need to keep it a
special day for the Lord by not working or stuff like that. She liked
it and thought it was a good thing. I don't know if she'll be ready
to be baptized on the 21st. We've talked about it with her and she
said don't push her too much, which I think is really good. Whether
or not she does it on the 21st, I do think that in the near future she
will be baptized. She's really close.

Our other investigator is also doing really well! We taught her the
restoration this week and it was INTENSE. It's amazing how difficult
it is to teach someone that doesn't have a christian background. But
she figured it out pretty good after we taught it to her twice this
week :) and she came to church and it's great! She even came to the
CES Fireside that we had last night. She thought it was SUPER boring
but endured the whole talk. She is funny. And then afterwards, she
asked us to teach her how to tie a tie. I didn't realize how
complicated it can be! Ha ha. But she figured it out.

Also! The girl that was a referral from that return missionary guy.
Remember her? Well she is doing really well! We had a fantastic Plan
of Salvation lesson with her last week and she came to church
yesterday. We were supposed to also meet with her on Saturday but she
got sick. She's feeling better now. So then we're going to visit
again this week and hopefully we will commit her to be baptized in
february. She really liked church. She is really exciting!

So things are going great! I'm still alive, awake, alert, and
enthusiastic. The institute building here has a ping pong table and
so last week the Zone Leaders came over and we had some INTENSE ping
pong happening. It was so fun. I don't think I've sweat that bad in
a long time. That's how intense that ping pong was. And it was so
fun that they are coming back again today. I'm excited. They are
going down!

I can't believe Jen's baby shower is this week! That's craziness.
Good luck with everything! That is super exciting!
Have a wonderful week and next time I email I should know what is
going on for transfers. Can you believe that another transfer has
already flown by? Gross!

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

January 2, 2012

Hola! Happy Happy New Year!
It sounds like you all had a great weekend! That Lobster meal sounds
like it was delicious. And the dancing sounded like a blast too.
Hopefully, MJ had fun at their party because it sounds like they
missed out on the real fun! New Years Eve here was pretty fun. We
thought that it would be quite the adventure to go into downtown
minneapolis and talk to people in the evening because we knew there
would be a lot of people around. It actually ended up being quite
successful and we had several people tell us that they would be
willing to meet. But the weirdest part was that is started raining!
Seriously? Rain in Minnesota on Dec 31st? It was absurd. The
weather has still been really warm. It has stayed at around 30 to 40
degrees for the last several weeks. But once 9 o'clock hit it got a
little colder and the rain turned into snow. That was pretty cool.
And of course, that night we went to bed at 10:30. But I decided to
set a little alarm at 11:58 so I could still celebrate the new
year :) It was fun. I woke up but Elder Neeley didn't even budge.
So I sat there for two minutes in my bed, waited till midnight, waived
my hands in the air and said a little "yay!" and then went back to
sleep. It was a good New Year. I actually got to start 2012 NOT
sleep deprived.

We had a great lesson with ______________ this week too. We watched
the Finding Faith in Christ DVD with her and again invited her to be
baptized. She gave the closest answer to a yes that we've ever gotten
from her :) So generally, the plan is for her to be baptized on
January 21st. Ha ha. We'll see what happens.

We had some interesting events with _______________. She is afraid to
read the BOM because she doesn't want to read it and convince herself
that it is true but at the same time she doesn't want to join without
reading the Book. So she is stressing herself out over this little
predicament.

So do you remember our other friends that came to the class we
organized? Well one of them dropped us because she isn't interested
but the other one is doing really good! We watched Finding Faith in
CHrist with her and she LOVED it. So it was good. We talked to her
about baptism and commited her to be baptized in february. Exciting!
Hopefully, if we work hard enough we can see a baptism every month.
That would be super duper awesome!

We also had two great miracles of new investigators! _________ is
doing great as a recent convert. She was talking to her friend about
the church and gave him our number and he texted us! So cool! And
then we met with him this week and have another appointment next
week. We're excited for him!

And then the other finding miracle is we got a random call from the
mission office telling us that a guy had called them and said that he
needed the elders to call him asap. So we called him and it turns out
he has been home from his mission for a week and a half and he had
been talking to a friend and got her to take the missionary lessons.
It was rad! So we went over on saturday and had a lesson with him,
his friend, and his other friend who is a less active member.
Awesome! The lesson went really good too and we have another
appointment next week. Our return missionary friend wont be there
though because he is headed off to the good ol BYU. Ha ha. He was
the epitome of a newly returned missionary too. It was awesome. He
had the fire! So we have two new exciting people to work with!
It has been a good week. Yesterday it started to get colder and that
was fun. But apparently, it's supposed to warm up later this week.
Crazy mother nature.

Students are slowly starting to return and things are going to keep on
picking up. I think that the next couple weeks are going to be really
exciting! Well, have fun as you all get ready to go back to normal
life. Fortunately, i don't have to worry about normal life for
another year.
Happy New Year! Make 2012 the best year yet!

Love,

Elder Ruesch

December 26, 2011

It was so amazing to be able to talk to you yesterday! It feels like
it was a dream and that it didn't actually happen at all. That is
probably because it was just too fast. It's amazing how quickly that
time actually went! Goodness. But nevertheless, I am still soooooooo
happy I got the chance to talk to you for just a short time. It was
so awesome that all of those people were there! I loved it! It was
like I was still at the party! I hope that you all had a happy
christmas. I wish I had had more time because I never had the chance
to ask you guys about what you all got for christmas! I want to hear
what awesome goodies you all got. I'm sure it was an awesome
Christmas. I sure sounds like it was.

So I'm not really sure what to talk about in this email. I feel like
you are all updated now! I guess I'll go over it all again briefly
anyway.
__________ is doing well. This week we had a lesson and at the end he
surprised us by saying, "let's do the baptism on the 21st." He is
determined to go for it . I hope that all goes well. I can't wait
for the day that he becomes a missionary.

Speaking of missionaries, ______________ is doing well and she texted
us last night asking about what sister missionaries do. We told her
that they do pretty much the same thing and asked her why. She said
that it's because she might like to serve a mission herself. How cool
would that be?! I was pumped when she said that. She's got at least
two more years to think about it though. It's just exciting.

____________ is still doing well also. I think that both ________and
__________ are just really happy still after their baptism last week.
Baptism is good.

We did have quite a miracle this week that I didn't really explain
yesterday. Since pretty much the only peolpe that are still around
now that school is out are the foreign students and many of them are
from china, we decided to put together a class for those who don't
know anything about God. We have found that most chinese people we
talk to are much more comfortable learning in a group setting then one-
on-one. So we thought the class might be a good idea. We held it
last thursday and sent out a bunch of emails to try and get people to
come. We were just hoping for even one person to come! I'll be
honest, I didn't have much faith in it. But the Lord showed me once
again that he's in charge and two chinese girls that I had talked to
on campus with Elder Mumford showed up! It was awesome! We had a few
members at the class to make it a bigger group and just taught the
class aimed at the two chinese girls. The lesson went really well and
so we invited them to church and they showed up yesterday! Word. It
was fantastic! The thing that was cool is that _______ came to church
yesterday as well and so all three of the chinese girls spoke chinese
together and it was good. We're meeting with the two chinese girls
again on tuesday and actually, I'm super pumped because one of them is
coming over to the institute building today to play some ping pong
with us. I hope that she is good! It's going to be way fun! Ha ha.
So that was awesome.

Like I said too, _________ came to church. She is doing really well.
She came with us to have dinner at the Bishops house on Christmas
eve. She was SO excited to come because it is her first Christmas in
America. She has an awesome experience too. The Bishop shared his
conversion story with her. She definitely feels something good in
this church! In fact, yesterday after church she commented to me how
she feels so happy whenever she is in the church or around members and
so forth. I told her that that was the spirit and she agreed. So
there are great things happening with _________!

The campus is a ghost town now. I have never ever seen so few people
in dinkytown and on the campus. It's craziness. This next week is
going to be quite an adventure.

We also have another investigator that is doing well. We had a great
lesson with her this week and she was really commited to read and pray
about the BoM. A few days later she texted us and told us that she
has been praying everyday and she feels so much closer to God. She
said that this is exactly the feeling she was looking for. The funny
thing is that she also said, even if I don't join your church I am
really grateful for you two guys and helping me get closer to God. We
just need to help her realize that it is actually the spirit that is
telling her that she needs to be baptized. We're also meeting with
her tomorrow and so I'm excited to see how it goes. Hopefully we can
commit her to be baptized!

Zone conference this week was awesome. It was really nice that they
let us watch Miracle! That was a really good movie. Sometimes I just
keep on going and going and never stop and so I get really up tight.
It was nice watching that movie to just have the chance to relax for a
second and let my mind rest. It was great!

Well I hope that you all have a Happy New Year! I'm excited to start
the year that the world is going to end in! Let's make the last year
before the end of the world a good one! :)

Have a wonderful week and hopefully it snows soon!

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

December 19, 201

We had a glorious weekend to the max here in the land of Minnesota!
On saturday both ________ and ___________ got BAPTIZED!!! Woo hoo!!!
It was such an amazing day. _________ was really excited and it was a
special day for him. And it truly was! Everything worked out
flawlessly. It was a miracle! President Clements came to _________'s
baptism as well. And then in the evening ________ got baptized! That
was also super exciting! I had the super amazing opportunity to
baptize her. She was nervous but the baptism went very smoothly and
we only had to dunk her once :) ___________'s cousin and aunt flew
out to the baptism. They are members and they are the ones that
introduced her to the church. So that was cool to have them come.
Both __________ and _________ were just so happy! It was cool how
each service worked too. It just worked out swimmingly. It was a
great day. Then in church the next day they both were confirmed. I
got to confirm __________ which was just killer diller and then
_________ was confirmed by a member of the ward. Talk about a party!
I loved it.

The baptisms were also really great because ______________ came to one
of them. He really liked it and I am sure he felt like he needs to be
baptized too. He has been waiting for way too long. He says that he
wants to be baptized the first or second week that he gets back to
school. That will be really great. I hope that he actually goes
through with that! He needs to be baptized. He has been waiting too
long. The thing with ___________ is that I really feel like he needs
to serve a mission. And he wants to. I think he feels like he is
supposed to also. And the longer he takes to be baptized, the longer
he waits to go on his mission. If he waits too long he may never go,
which is exactly what his family wants. (Little does his family know
it will be better for them too if he serves a mission!) So we are
praying all goes well this break and he gets baptized when he gets back.

Also, our awesome friend ___________ came to ____________'s baptism.
It was really great! She kept on saying things like, "If I get
baptized and I slip and fall and mess everything up, will I not be
allowed to me Mormon anymore?" Ha ha it was so funnny. She is
hilarious! But it was a good sign because she is really thinking
about being baptized. That will be awesome!

We had another investigator come to church yesterday. Her name is
_____________. She is trying to find a church and we have had some
really great lessons. I can see some great potential with her! The
great thing about __________ and __________ is they will still be
around over the Christmas break and so we will actually have a couple
investigators to teach. Otherwise, things are going to be pretty
sparse. We may end up finding a lot of foreign students to teach
because they are the only ones that don't want to fly home for
christmas and so they will still be around. Finals for the U of M end
on Thursday (kinda late!) and so we'll see what happens after that!

We also had a great miracle! Do you remember ____________? Probably
not. He is the one that emailed a member and said that he wanted to
meet with us. And we had a baptismal date set with him for dec 10th.
And then he fell off the planet. But last monday I gave him a call
randomly and he totally picked up and we set up an appointment with
him! We met up and taught him the Plan of Salvation. The lesson was
awesome and he totally knows that this church is true. He just has
really difficult struggles in his life and he can't quite bring
himself to act by coming to church or being baptized and stuff yet. I
think we may have rushed him too fast. But now we're going to take it
slower for him.

Last week was crazy busy but it was crazy fun too! Christmas time is
the best! You know, one of the things I'm starting to learn really
well is how to use my time wisely. That is one of the greatest skills
that the mission has taught me. I love it! It is amazing how fast
your time flies by and if you don't make every second count, it's all
gone and you've got nothing done. I think a truly honorable mission
is one where you used the Lord's time as effectively as you possibly
could. This is not the time for us, it is the time for the Lord. I
hope I can continue to use this skill throughout my whole life too.

The best way to sum up this week is to say happy. It's amazing, you
work so stinking hard every day all day and it totally pays off and
way more to watch someone make so many changes in their life and take
the step to be baptized. Missionary work is the most awesome thing.
SUPER EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS!! For our delicious skype sesh, I can't
wait!

Well Merry Christmas! Thanks for all the packages and letters. I got
a package from Brian and Jen this week which is awesome! I look
forward to opening my presents! And I have loved reading the letters
every day for my 12 days of christmas. It is the best! Thanks
everyone! I wish it was Christmas every month because I get so much
mail! Woo! Can't wait to talk to you! I really gotta go!

LOVE,
Elder Ruesch

December 12, 2011

Ha ha! I love how both mom and dad said they couldn't believe I
opened my birthday presents. I couldn't resist! Plus I thought there
was a chance I would get transferred and I didn't want to carry around
wrapped packages. But don't worry! I learned from my mistakes and I
have not opened the presents yet that you gave me for christmas. :)
But I did set up the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, which is the best
thing ever by the way! It looks great on my study desk. I also put
the paper christmas tree on the wall. Except the dumb tape isn't very
strong and the tree keeps falling down! But it is okay. I decked it
out with tape this morning. It should be good now.

So it has been an eventful week. It feels like forever ago that I
last emailed you. My new companion is Elder Nick Neeley! He is an
awesome kid. And guess where he is from? Just guess. I bet you can
get it. That's right! Logan! Ha ha ha. I love it. He graduated in
2011 (weird...I'm getting old) so he is a year behind me and he didn't
do any college yet. But he does plan on going to USU. That's three
companions in a row! Awesome! Cleary, Utah State is the superior
school. Either that or the Apostles know that the people that live
in Logan are more used to the cold and so they send them to
Minnesota. Or I'm just a perfect companion for a USU student. One of
those several options. Anyway, moving on. Elder Neeley is a way cool
cat. He's got some big muscles and could totally beat me up.
Fortunately, he is also really humble and teachable and willing to let
me teach him a few things here and there. The best part about Elder
Neeley is he is totally fearless!! It's amazing! When I was out my
first week I was scared out of my mind! I just wanted to hide in a
corner and not have to go knock on peoples doors because I didn't know
what to say. But Elder Neeley is just a machine! A lot of times he
has no idea what to say but he just takes his challenges head on and
if he stumbles a little bit I'll take over. His personality is
actually a lot like Thayne Thompson. He talks very similar and uses a
lot of the same words in his conversation. It's really fun. He and
Thayne will be best buddies when they get home. Elder Neeley went to
Mountain Crest High School. He played football there. Actually, do
you remember a time when Lone Peak played Mountain Crest in Rice-
Eccles Stadium? He played in that game. It's a good thing Lone Peak
won! But it's still a cool connection. So the moral of the story is,
we have been having a lot of fun the last several days. It's looking
like this is going to be a good transfer! I'm excited. Elder Neeley
will have no problem getting used to missionary life. I have been
very lucky with my companions so far! It's great!

So for the missionary work business, things are going great! I don't
know if I accidentally said that we were having a baptism today or
not, but that is not true. However! ____________ and ____________
are both going strong to be baptized this saturday! Word! We are
super excited! ____________ asked Elder Mumford a long time ago if he
would baptize her and it stunk that he got transferred. And so then
she asked me to baptize her. I'm excited about it but I also feel sad
because I wanted Elder Mumford to baptize her really bad. I tried to
convince President to let him come over to the baptism but it was just
too far. So that is sad. But he is already doing really great in his
new area from what I hear. So that's good! The funny thing about the
baptisms this saturday is _________ wanted to have her own service and
so we will be having two separate baptisms on Saturday. It is a
little more work to make that happen but it is definitely worth it.
Ha ha. It is going to be an awesome day! ___________ is really
excited and she is bringing several friends, and so that will be
really great. ____________ is having quite the struggle. The last
week is always the toughest week though and so I hope that both
__________ and _____________ can stay strong.

I hate satan so much. He's such a jerk.

Yesterday we went to a christmas musical program put on the mission.
A member brought a friend and we all rode down together. It was
really fun. The nonmember friend wasn't really interested in the
church but she was really cool and I think she really liked the
program. That was a fun thing to do. I love all the Christmas
celebrations. There will be the same program happening next week too
and Elder Neeley and I have been assigned to work at a table with all
the church supplies and answer any questions that anyone has. I'm
excited for that! There is a cool choir here called the Minnesota
Mormon Chorale. It is an audition only choir that is actually pretty
good. They sang at the fireside too. That was good.

This week is finals week at the U of M and so it might be a pretty
sparse week. With the weather getting colder and with finals, the
students on campus have been a lot less nice to us. It's weird how
things work that way. But I can see why. Everyone is just stressed
out.

So it is looking like I will probably be able to Skype with you on
Christmas. And it should probably be in either the afternoon or
evening. There is a member that volunteered to have us come over and
so we will probably go over there. We're not sure though. I will
definitely know by next week what the plan is. It wont happen in the
morning for sure because we will have church and all that good stuff.
I'll let you know!

It's been a good week! I feel like I'm always really tired. It
doesn't matter if I'm in high school, college, the summer, on a
mission, I'm always tired. It never ends doesn't it? Oh well. I'm
getting used to it ha ha.

Have a wonderful christmas! I think you're dipping chocolates this
week huh? Send me some cool pictures! I expect MJ to lick grandma's
fingers. :) Have fun!

Love you!

Elder Ruesch