April 2, 2012

Hello! It's me again!

Conference was awesome!!!! General Conference time for a missionary is like Christmas. I love it so much! It is sad to think that I only have one more general conference left as a missionary. Gross! But I sure did love the talks. They were all super inspiring and awesome. It was a fantastic weekend.

We had all sorts of ups and downs throughout the week. We started teaching 4 new people this week! It was really great! One of the members of the ward was at school in the computer lab browsing around on lds.org and another student tapped on her shoulder and asked if she was a mormon. She said yes and he told her that he was really interested in that church and wanted to come to it. So she immediately gave him our number and we called him up and met with him. And then he came to the last session of conference on sunday and loved it. It was cool! He is from Nigeria and it turns out that his brother was baptized into the church at some point. And so his brother would always bring home magazines and other church material and tell his brother about how awesome the church was. So now that this guy left Nigeria and came here for school, he has many more opportunities to learn about the church. Word!

Also, we had talked to a guy a few weeks ago on campus and gave him a card and told him to call us if he had any questions. He didn't want to meet with us at the time. But then this week he ended up calling us and said he had a few questions. It turns out that he got an assignment in a religion class to ask people of another religion some questions. So he called us! Score! The conversation ended up going ALL OVER THE PLACE. We somehow taught the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and The Gospel of Jesus Christ all in the same lesson. It was crazy but good and by the end he said, "Well, I need to go catch a bus, but can we do this again?" Absolutely! Ha ha.

I'm amazed at how we get to talk to people from all walks of life. This area has given me so much great insight into the world. Just this week, we met with a Muslim guy from Iran, a Chinese fellow with no faith in God, and the Nigerian guy I was telling you about. Plus we have conversations with all sorts of people on campus. Last week was Islam Awareness week on campus and Elder Truman and I even got free Quarans! Ha ha. We were pretty pumped about that. I have been collecting religious books and so far I have a Quaran, a Bagavad Gita (probably not spelled right), and several versions of the Bible. People like to give us their religious book because we are the ones who are lost apparently. :) It is really cool though.

Oh man! I need to tell you about a man named MG. This is funny. I don't think I've ever mentioned him before. But he is great. So MG is an interesting person. He is probably in his 50's. And what he does all day is he stands on a Chair on campus and reads the Bible and other things as loud as he can for everyone to hear. He does this Monday - Friday from the morning to the evening. He is super funny. Sometimes he'll just stand there while he's reading and hold out a dollar bill and tell people, "Here is a dollar from Jesus." He is hilarious. Back when I was with Elder Checketts, many eons ago, he gave Elder Checketts a big hug and then gave him two dollars and told him to give them to a homeless person, which he did. Super funny! So this week we went over and talked to him and Elder Truman got a picture with him. Sometimes when he's not reading the Bible he will kinda lay back on the side walk and play his guitar. It's hilarious. I can't figure what his motives are or if he is just crazy. He is the type of person where you can't quite tell. And it seems that he isn't getting any profit or anything from doing this all day. But it's great. Over Christmas break, he obviously wasn't around on campus and we missed him. We're good buddies with MG. Ha ha.

One other funny story. We were walking to the institute building yesterday from campus after talking to people for a while. As we were walking back, we saw this student guy from a distance start running. And just joking around I said to Elder Truman, "Run away from the Mormons!" Well it turns out, he really was! Ha ha. He was totally running away from us. And we know this because while he was running he ran into the Sister Missionaries who were on campus also, and they are harder to recognize as Mormon missionaries at first sometimes since they're sisters. So as he was running past them he said to them, "Watch out! There are some mormons over there. Stay away or they will talk to you!" And then the sisters showed him their tags and told him they were missionaries too and he freaked out and ran off. Super funny! I have never had that happen before. When the Sisters told us about it we were all laughing really hard. It was awesome.

So things are moving along. We are teaching one Chinese girl who is doing really well. She is the sweetest person that ever lived and we hope to set a day with her to be baptized soon. SS is also still on the radar. We were able to contact him this week and it turns out he has been having some issues I think with his family and so he hasn't had much time for anything. I've learned that it is impossible for a person to be baptized without some sort of adversity first. Heavenly Father tends to allow that to happen so he can separate the wheat from the tares and make the wheat stronger. It's quite interesting to see the Lord work. SS will be baptized soon but unfortunately, not this weekend.

That stinks to hear that Ashley and Brandon got sick. I ran into Brother Cummings on Saturday at the Priesthood session and talked to him for a while. He was telling me that the wedding was freaking awesome. Which is great! Yay for marriage!

Have an awesome week! I Love you all!

-Elder Ruesch

March 26, 2012

Goodness Gracious! It's already p-day again. I can't believe it.
The time is just flying by ever week. You know what they say, after
the first year, the second year goes by way fast. That is the truth!
As of today I have been out for 14 months. It just explodes my mind.
I thought it was just yesterday that i hit my year mark.

Yesterday was a good day! We finally had some investigators come to
church. We had a drought of three weeks where no one came. But
finally some came. Another Chinese girl came as well as a guy from
India and a guy in the ward brought his girlfriend again. We helped
his girlfriend to move a few weeks ago and she came to church today
and we are going to be teaching her the first lesson this week. I am
excited for it. We'll see how it goes!

We also finished of the night yesterday by taking our Chinese
investigator H* to a concert. There is a choir here called the
Minnesota Mormon Chorale and they are really good. Last night they
performed the Lamb of God oratorio in preparation to Easter. It was
really good. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of it before?
It isn't my most favorite thing in the world but it was a great
performance. The spirit was strong and I think that H* definitely
felt that. The piece goes over the last few days of the saviors
life. The best part was being able to listen to an excellent choir
perform. I felt like I was back in my element. After the
performance, we had a funny moment. This lady approached Elder Truman
and I and asked if she could take a picture of us and email it to our
moms. Ha ha. She explained that she is a missionary mom too and her
son is in Spokane, Washington.

The week was better and worse. It started out really bad. Our
investigator SS who is also from India that I've been talking a lot
about. He didn't come to church for the third time in a row last week
and then he just fell off of the planet. We we pretty worried because
he doesn't seem like one to do that. Finally, on like Friday he
texted us and said that he lost his phone and just found it again and
that's why he wasn't responding. But then we still couldn't get in
contact with him after that! And then he didn't come to church
yesterday again. So weird! Hopefully, this week we will be able to
get back in touch with him and be able to reset a date for baptism
with him. We're going to have to push it back to later in April now
that he hasn't come to church in a while. I don't understand why
people do that! It's frustrating.

We had a fun day with TX. As a reminder, he is the chinese guy who
got baptized on Feb 25th. He needed to shadow us for a paper he is
writing and so he spent an hour or so on campus with us while we
talked to people to try and find some new investigators and then he
came to an appointment with us too. Which was great because she
happened to be Chinese! So he did a great job relating to her and
helping understand the stuff we were saying. He would even translate
for her into Chinese sometimes because her English isn't super great.
It was fun though. Afterwards, we went back to the institute building
and he had us a chinese dinner. Yum! He made us something that we
call Hot Pot. It was delicious! I love Chinese people so much. The
culture, the language, the food, and everything about Chinese people
is the best. Who would've thought that serving a mission in Minnesota
would help you to find a love for Chinese people? Elder Truman and I
have learned to say a few things in Chinese and so everytime we talk
to a Chinese person on campus we will say it and they instantly love
us! It's a good technique :)

I love serving in this area because I think that it is the most
diverse area in the mission! We got free Quaran's on campus beacuse
it was Islam Awareness week or something like that. I also, just this
week I talked to a Quaker and a Mennonite. There are all sorts of
people around here on campus. It's good stuff! I am learning many
things about other religions. And in the process, I'm realizing how
much more true our church really is!

Oh, one other funny story. There is a guy in the ward who is dating a
girl who used to be in this ward but is going to BYU right now. Well
we hear about her all the time from this guy in the ward. And she
flew out for the weekend last week. I met her and thought that she
looked kinda familiar but didn't think much of it. But apparently,
she thought I looked familiar too and figured out that we were in the
same EFY group when I was like 16! How crazy is that? It's a small
world. i even remember now that Timmy had a crush on her. Ha ha!
It's so funny. Good times.

Things are starting to pick up more now. I think we are on an upward
slope now. Things were down for a while and hopefully we can see some
exciting things happen in the Town of the Dinky. It's such a poppin
place! We gotta get moving though because surprisingly enough,
transfers are in two weeks! Crazyness.

It sounds like MJ are busy beyond belief! Be careful to not get too
busy fella's. It's not worth it to kill yourself. Speaking of MJ, I
heard that you both have little lady friends! Watch out! Girls are
gross!

I hope you are having nice weather over there. The weather here is
fantastic. I seriously couldn't ask for anything better. And I am
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
pumped for General Conference. it is the best time of the year!

Love you!

-Elder Ruesch

March 19, 2012

Man! What a week it was for you guys! I loved getting all the
pictures that you sent me! It's so exciting!!!! Jen sent me some
pictures of little peanut and I loved those. And then from all the
pictures and emails it looks like the wedding was amazing! How
awesome! I am so pumped for the Smash face and Brandon!!!!!!!!! I
can't contain my excitement!

This week was a pretty good week. The university had spring break all
week long and so we thought that the campus was going to be barren.
But it turns out there was still a decent number of people around to
talk to. We're working really hard to try and find new people to
teach because we just don't have that many investigators. So we're
working on it. We were able to have a few appointments with people
that we had never taught before and so we're slowly teaching more and
more again. With a lot of our recent converts, we're kinda in the
awkward stage where they can't rely on us so much any more and need to
rely more on the ward. So we still meet with them and support them a
lot but we're trying to meet with them less and have the home teachers
meet with them more and other members as well. I've learned how
fragile this time is in a recent converts life. They have a brand new
testimony and are trying to get used to the culture within the
church. For some people, it is really easy and for others it is
difficult. But everyone needs this church and needs to stay active
within it. So we're working on helping these converts to be super
solid! So far, they are all doing well. Which is so great!

Last week I forgot to tell you a hilarious story. We had a training
meeting with the mission president two weeks ago and after it was
done, one of the Elders came up to me and said, "Elder Ruesch, I have
a very important question. How do you get your hair to look like
that? I've been trying to get it to look that way for ever but I
can't get it to work. What do you do?" Ha ha! I laughed really
hard. He said it in a joking way but he was still serious. Sister
Clements even heard him ask me and she laughed a lot too. It was
great! Soon my supremely parted hair will become world famous!

Speaking of hair, I totally gave Elder Truman a hair cut this week and
it looks good! I am extremely proud of myself. The first hair cut I
have ever given anyone. A lot of missionaries like to cut their own
hair because it's a lot cheaper. But I just don't trust my companions
with my hair I guess!

Another awesome story. A member in the ward here is a professional
fighter. He does MMA fighting and makes quite a bit of money. We
helped him help his girlfriend move and he felt the obligation to take
us out to eat to a nice place. So he took us to a place in Downtown
Minneapolis that is a lot like Tucanos and it was awesome! I ate way
too much food but it was glorious.

Anyway, back to missionary things. We been having a little bit of a
tough time recently. Yesterday was the third week in a row that we
haven't had an investigator to church. It was frustrating because we
had several people who said they were coming and we even had members
going to pick them up but they all totally bummed out. I don't know
what the deal is. But it is lame. Oh well.

So I got a letter from Mike Summers this week and he was asking me
what advice I should give the Priests as they prepare for the
mission. So I'm gonna include it in here and then Dad can pass the
news on. Yes? Okay. The most important thing in my opinion is to
learn the doctrine. They need to have a solid testimony of the
truthfulness of this gospel. I thought that I had a strong enough
testimony before the mission. And I did but it can grow so much
more! I think it is really great to make a real focused study on the
atonement of Jesus Christ. A testimony of the Atonement will change
the world. And it sounds like you guys are studying preach my gospel
a lot? That is great! They need to know the 5 lessons contained in
chapter 3 like the back of their hands. They MTC doesn't ever talk
about what to teach anymore and instead they focus on how to teach.
And so they need to already know what they will be teaching so that
they can improve their teaching skills. The last advice that I would
give them would be to then practice teaching. Which it sounds like
you guys did that too. But practice helps SOOOO much! Especially
when the person you practice with has real concerns and real problems
that they need to help them work through. It's important to learn how
to teach people and not lessons. If the Priests can do those things
they will be far ahead of all the other missionaries at the
beginning. To me, the most important is to gain a powerful testimony
of the Book of Mormon. That book is incredible and it will change
their lives as well as others.

So I'm running out of time. Garrett Vance also asked me to walk him
through what a normal day on the mission is like. I will talk about
that next week in my letter!

By the way, this weather has been out of control! It's been in the
70's almost all week long. We skipped spring and went straight to
summer. It is super messed up! Minnesota is being crazy. I am
afraid that this summer is going to be ridiculously hot. We'll see.
Right now it doesn't look like the weather is cooling down at all
either. Weird!

CONGRATULATIONS to Ashley and Brandon again! I am so excited for them
and I hope that they have fun in Cancun!!

Love you guys!

-Elder Ruesch

March 12, 2012

Wow! I didn't even realize that the wedding was this saturday until I
read my emails. Holy smokes! That is just mind blowing. But I am so
excited! I can't wait to hear how it goes and look at pictures. I
hope you send me a BILLION pictures :) I'm not surprised that so many
crazy things are going on before the wedding but I'm sure that
everything will just turn out fine. Ah! It's so exciting!

This week has been alright. Things have slowed down quite drastically
compared to the last few months. All of our investigators either got
baptized or disappeared... Ha ha. But I guess that's how the gospel
works. Some accept it and some don't. Agency can be a painful
thing. But Elder Truman and I hit the pavement hard on campus this
week and talked to a lot of students to try and find some new people
to teach. Hopefully, we can get some solid new investigators!

I totally forgot to mention a couple weeks ago about the sisters. So
you remember how the sisters in the area left? Well at the transfer
they came back. Sister Randall was transferred back in and she is
training a new missionary. So we are back to sharing the car and
everything again. But it is good. That is one reason why we aren't
teaching as much anymore too since we don't have to take care of twice
as many people. Ha ha. We can focus more on finding some new people
now. It is an interesting situation because we're really focusing on
making sure that our recent converts stay strong and become
comfortable on their own in the ward while at the same time trying to
have more baptisms. The recent converts take top priority though and
fortunately, all six of the baptisms that have happened in the past
while are still active and going strong. I am very grateful for
that. It is always SUPER sad when a person gets baptized and for some
reason loses their testimony and stops coming. We are determined to
not let that happen though!

Did I not mention that JF is not getting baptized in our ward this
week? She is still set to be baptized but last week we passed her to
the Elders that serve in the family ward that she lives in. There are
several reasons for it and she will do best in that ward. So we're
going to try and get permission to go to her baptism but we really
aren't teaching her for the final stuff on the way to her baptism. I
am really excited for her though. She is coming from a crazy past
life and totally changing her life around and it is amazing to watch.
It's cool to watch how amazing the spirit works.

We had a funny experience with SS this week. He is the guy from India
that is set to be baptized on April 7th. He is so solid that it is
almost humorous. The first time we taught him was about 3 or 4 weeks
ago and he had briefly mentioned to us that he drinks coffee and he
knew he needed to stop. Since it was the first lesson we don't want
to overload our investigators and so we kinda just brushed it to the
side and said he should focus on finding out the BOM is true first and
then we'll talk about it later. Well we taught the Word of Wisdom
this week and when we asked him if he would live it he said he hadn't
had coffee for 3 weeks! Turns out he still just decided to give it up
after the first lesson we had with him. We had no idea about it or
anything. He is really solid and is way pumped to be baptized.

This week is going to provide some difficulty. The U of M is on
Spring break and so everyone is gone. The campus is quite barren.
Hopefully a lot of the Asian students will be around again. Just like
during Christmas break. We'll see. Breaks are difficult for us but
it seems that when we endure them and work hard, we get good
blessings! We're going to have to get creative for this week again!

Life is still going good. We have a few other investigators but none
of them are really progressing at the moment. There are a lot of
people in this world that I just don't understand. People are willing
to meet with them and we can invite them to change over and over
again, but they just wont do it! I've learned that that tends to be
the reason why God lets us go through hard trials. People don't get
humble unless experiences force them to be humble it seems. No wonder
this life here on earth is so important! We need to get the
experiences. We also have another investigator who is also from India
and he is extremely difficult because he considers himself a member of
our church but doesn't want to be baptized. Ha ha. It is so
strange! He is the smartest guy ever and he believes in all
religions. That tends to be the Hindu culture. All we can really do
is get him to keep reading the Book of Mormon and hopefully he will
understand the Doctrine of Christ a little better.

Well, life is going good! It sounds like everyone is still staying
super busy! What a busy year it has been for y'all! MJ, make sure
you don't die. It sounds like you guys are really really busy. Just
remember, never compromise reading your scriptures. That is one major
thing I have learned. You can be as busy as you want. As long as
being busy doesn't interfere with your relationship with God. As I
look back on my senior year, I feel that it happened to me more than
it should have.

GONRATULATIONS TO ASHLEY!!! I'll be praying for you all week! It's so
exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a super wonderful week! Love you all!

-Elder Ruesch

March 5, 2012

Wuzzup!

It has been a pretty good week. Quite crazy! We actually did end up
having a decent snow storm. We were supposed to get like 16 inches of
snow or something like that. But this winter, minnesota decided to be
slightly tempermental. The temperature warmed up just enough so that
intead of snow, it was freezing rain. It would rain and then when it
hit the ground it turned into ice. Weird. It did end up snowing a
bit though overnight so we ended up with like 4 inches. Since it was
so icy, they postponned the transfer and did it on thursday instead of
wednesday. So I got one more day with Elder Neeley! :) It was fun.
And then on Thursday I got my new companion! Elder Truman is
awesome. He's got a lot of experience behind him and is a great
teacher so it's really nice. This is the first time I didn't have to
worry at all about making sure our lessons are under control the whole
time. Elder Truman can help me out. :) So I think I am really going
to enjoy my time with my new companion, he's really solid and so we
can just get the work done! I'm excited.

Oh man! I loved the pictures of you guys in New York! It looks and
sounds like it was so fun! I am jealous and I can't wait to get my
package of cookies. Elder Truman is really excited for the cookies
too. I told him allll about them. mmmmm. And MJ, i expect a full
report from you on how awesome your New York experience was! It is
due next monday morning. Consider it an assignment!

It's kinda funny. Right now we are kinda at a state where all of our
investigators either got baptized or have stopped meeting with us. So
we're working on building the area up more!

We are still teaching our friend from India named SS. He is solid and
really awesome. This week we set a goal with him to have his baptism
on April 7th. He is really solid and being baptized is one of his
major goals. But he wants to make sure he has a strong testimony of
the Book of Mormon before he takes the dunk. He has never read it
before but he has studied a lot of other things from the church. He's
watched general conference talks and read all sorts of things by and
about Joseph Smith. It's really cool. But now it's down to the final
stretch of reading the thing that holds it all together - the BoM!

The other girl that we were teaching that is scheduled to be baptized
on the 17th is doing really great too. i believe we call her JF.
She's already had her baptismal interviews and passed them and
everything. So she is doing awesome. The news with her though is
that she wont actually be baptized into our ward. She is going to be
baptized into the family ward in her area for several reasons. It's
kinda nice because we've already taught her pretty much everything and
she is ready to be baptized and now we can let the other missionaries
in that ward plan the baptism and stuff. It's a good tag team
effort. I like it. Hopefully, we'll be allowed to go to the
baptism. We should be. I'm really excited for her!

We had another great miracle this week! We got a referral for a guy
who is a student at the U here. He's actually from Idaho and it turns
out his mom is taking the lessons in Idaho. His Dad passed away last
month and so he's been having a kinda rough time. But the Bishop in
the ward where his mom lives called the institute and gave us his
number. We'll call him AY. So we called him and met with him! The
first lesson was a really funny experience. We were teaching the
restoration and were having an awesome lesson. The set up was great
and we had talked about the Apostasy and then we just starting to talk
about Joseph Smith. We read James 1:5 with him and told him that
Joseph Smith decided to pray about his question. And just as we were
about to explain the First Vision, he stops us and says, "Guys, I'm
really sorry but I acutally have to go." I forgot to let you know
that I have a thing I need to get to right now." Ha ha! It was
terrible timing! But we laughed about it and he said he was having a
lot of fun and set up another appointment with us for the next day.
When we met the second time we finished up everything and challenged
him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Everything turned out
just fine, I just thought it was funny how he happened to have to go
at the absolute worst moment of the lesson. He is an awesome kid and
has a lot of real intent to get an answer. So we'll see what happens!

Yesterday was crazy! We had zero of our investigators show up at
church. I was super bummed but it is alright! We've had a lot of
success recently and so we can have a slow moment every once in a
while. I think God doesn't want to overflow us either because he
wants us to make sure that our recent converts stay active! So we're
really focussing on that.

Holy smokes! I can't believe that Ashley gets married so soon.
That's crazy talk! But i am excited. It is going to be fun.

And mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Did you get my card? You were probably
in New york when it arrived. But hopefully not. I hope that you had
a great birthday in the land of New York City. It would be an awesome
place to celebrate. Yay for birthdays!

We've got some good things ahead. i'm already counting down the days
until general conference. It is going to be super awesome!

By the way, have any of you created a profile on Mormon.org? If not,
consider yourself chastised! You should all create one because it is
awesome.

It's gonna be a great week! I am excited to see what adventures we
have ahead. Happy March!

Love,

Elder Ruesch

February 27, 2012

Goodness. I was probably a third of the way into my email when
everything collapsed on me and the email was lost. So now I have to
start all over again. But I will survive!

So the transfers are in! Are you ready to hear some craziness? I was
really surprised! Elder Neeley is getting transfered and is being
sent to the Lake Nokomis Ward. It is over in South Minneapolis. And
I am staying here in the Twin Cities YSA ward again! Craziness! I
was definitely not expecting it but I am really excited to stay here
longer. My new companion is going to be Elder Truman. He is from St.
George and has been on his mission for 4ish months longer than me. He
is going to be my first companion that has been on a mission for
longer than me other than Elder Farnsworth. Coolness! I am really
excited. So we are going to party it up here and try to have a few
more baptisms. Elder Truman is an awesome missionary and so hopefully
we can see some good success. We'll see what happens! I am really
sad to see Elder Neeley leave though. I have had a blast serving with
him! We have gotten along really well and had a lot of success
together too. It's been fun. But this area is really different than
any other area in the mission and so it is good for him to get the
boot and have some more experience in a different area. He's going to
have a lot of good success on his mission!

Other great news! TX and TS were baptized on Saturday! Hooray!
Elder Neeley baptized TS and I baptized TX. It was really fun. After
I baptized TX, we were walking up the steps into the bathroom and he
was like, "That was awesome!" Ha ha. I thought it was funny. It
really is awesome though! Both TX and TS are students at the U of M.
TS is a girl and TX is a boy. They didn't know each other until the
day of the baptism actually but it was good for them to have another
person being baptized at the same time. There is a really strong
spirit at baptisms. It's amazing. We had two investigators at the
baptism and there is no way you can't feel that special spirit as
these people are participating in this ordinance. The Church is so
true! The next day in church, I confirmed TS and then a member of the
ward confirmed TX. It was really great! It was a good way to finish
off the transfer.

Did I mention a _______ last week? Probably. She is the one that
called the institute when we were in the middle of ward council. She
wanted to change her life back around. Yes I did mention her because
we have a baptismal date with her set for Ashley's wedding day! :)
Anyway, we are facing many adventures with her. She has a lot of
difficult struggles in her life and so we are helping her work through
them. It's interesting learning to deal with all of the challenges
you are faced with. She knows the church is true and wants to be
baptized really bad but has other obstacles that she needs to work
out. Other people have a really hard time coming to know if the
church is true or not. And other people have family struggles.
Something I have learned a lot about in the last few months is that
everyone is going to have problems as they head to baptism. So the
key is to not sit back and pray that no challenges come, but to
instead plan on challenges and then learn to deal with them when they
arise. And this is a similar principle of life! And I really believe
that that is one of the reasons we need the full gospel of Jesus
Christ. It is the only rock in our life that will help us to deal
with all of the problems and challenges that hit us in life. The
gospel is the only thing that can solve everything. It's great!

Yes, it is true. My shoes were either misplaced or stolen. Ha ha!
It was so funny. But it is a bummer though. My other pair of shoes
are in really good shape though and so they will easily be able to
last me for the rest of my mission. No problem. SO don't worry about
getting me another pair. And who knows! Maybe my shoes will
magically show up again! Ha ha!

Last letter I mentioned that we had just taught a guy and he accepted
the invitation to be baptized. He has done a ton of research about
the church and knows a lot. He is actually from India and was raised
Hindu but doesn't follow it at all. So we taught him for the second
time this week and he is SOLID. He is a definite baptism soon to
happen. It may be in either march or april but it will happen soon.
He also came to watch the baptism on saturday and we will be teaching
him again tonight. So excited!

Unfortunately, not everything in missionary work is always happy.
_______ who we had set to be baptized on March 17th is having
difficulties. After the last time we taught her and set her date for
baptism, we didn't hear from her for a week or so because she had a
lot of things going on. Well after that she told us that she doesn't
want to be baptized anymore and she wants to explore other churches
too. Noooooo! We were sad. Because she has totally felt the spirit
in our lessons and as she's read and everything. But something has
happened that we don't know quite what and she backed out. She does
have a lot of pressure from family and from friends and so we are
worried about that. It just makes me really sad. You can't deny the
feeling of the spirit! It's a bummer but we are hoping she will let
us at least meet with her again to talk about it all. We'll see.

I watched the wedding invitation! I just didn't play the music. Is
the music important at all? But it is SO GREAT! Ashley, you are
totally getting married!!! Weird. It's so exciting!
Also, I'm an UNNNNCCCLEEE!!!!! Yes!!! I was so excited when I got
the letter with pictures of little Emilia. Awe man! Make sure she
knows that i am her favorite uncle! Congrats to Brian and Jen!
MJ, good luck in New York! It is the best thing ever! I am so pumped
for you. And congrats to michael for getting to the finals of
sterling scholar. Good luck with your interview!
So many exciting things are happening in the family! Life is just too
good. I am very happy.

I better go. We're going to go bowling! Cool huh? We have several
missionaries here and several peeps from the ward too. It's great!

Love you guys!

-Elder Ruesch

p.s. we're supposed to get a ton of snow tomorrow! WOrd!

February 18. 2011

Hello!

Did I mention to you on monday that I was going to be emailing you today? I thought I did. But if not, surprise!

Today has been an awesome day! We started it off by being at the temple at 7 in the morning for a baptistry session. A bunch of people in the ward were there as well as AA, A*, and TH who all were recently baptized (sorry the initials are so confusing). Moral of the story, three of the people who got baptized recently went to the temple! Talk about awesome! AG and HT didn't make it but that's okay, they will come next month. After the baptisms I had to actually go interview another set of missionaries' investigator who is getting baptized next week. And then after that we came back to the institute and taught a first lesson to a guy we just met. And the lesson went really well. He actually referred himself on mormon.org and he is SOLID. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted! So it has been a morning full of baptism things! I love it!

This week has been crazy. There is something magical happening in this ward and people are just falling into our laps! It is kind of ridiculous how people just keep on showing up out of nowhere. While we were in a meeting before church last week, a girl called and said that she wanted to change her life and wanted to come to church. This girl will be called JF. She pretty much thinks that she is a member. When she was 15ish she went to church with her friend for two years but her parents wouldn't let her get baptized. And then after a while she got caught up in some stuff and stopped coming to church. Well now she is going to the University of Minnesota and wants to get away from all that stuff she was into and chnage her life up. So she called the institute. We ended up meeting with her twice this week and set a goal for her baptism to be on March 17th! Awesome!

But this is not all! Have I ever mentioned SW? She showed up at church several weeks ago. Her Dad is a member and she wanted to figure stuff out about the church for herself. So we've been teaching her for a while and we had a great lesson with her this week and also set a date with her to be baptized on March 17th. So there you go Ashley! That will be my wedding present for you. There isn't much that I can do as a gift. But I will celebrate by having two baptisms! :) Yay for marriage!

The spirit is so amzing. I am so glad that this church is true! Because we get to have the spirit with us when we teach. And there is no way we could work without it. On Monday we had a lesson with our investigator from Uganda. She is really cool but just doesn't have any motivation to read the Book of Mormon. In fact, she stopped meeting with us for about a month but we got back in contact with her again and she came to church last week. She also came to see __________'s baptism which was really good. Anyway, after all of our failed attempts to get her to read more of the Book of Mormon, we were teaching her the Plan of Salvation on Monday and we only got about half way through because she was asking so many questions and we were able to answer all of them. it was amazing and the spirit was super strong. And then she opened up to us about a lot of stuggles that she's had in her life and we told her all about how the Plan of Salvation will help and how everything that is unfair is made up through Christ. We talked about it for a long time and it was really really good for her. Later in the week she texted us and told us that she is reading everyday now, not because she has to but because she wants to. It's amazing how much the spirit helps! :) Ha ha. That was a really cool experience.

I mentioned last week about a girl from China who emailed us out of the blue and then came to church. Yeah so we taught her this week and she is awesome. A* came to the appointment and helped translate words and phrases that she didn't understand. it was really good! I am way excited for her!

So things for next saturday are still going well. TX and TS are both still on their way to be baptized! It's looking like we're going to start our own little Chinese branch here :) ha ha. They are both doing really well and I am excited for their baptism. This ward is SO awesome because everyone is so friendly and they all hang out together and so it is really easy to feel loved in this ward. And they have activities ALL THE TIME ha ha. In fact, yesterday they had spa night and it sounds like it was hilarious. We didn't go of course but apparently they had all this stuff set up at the institute like it was a spa. Kinda random but I hear it was fun. There is cool stuff going on all the time!

Do you remember how several months or so they combined all of the singles wards in the twin cities? i think that that is the reason for all of the success that we have been having. There is just a lot of excitement right now in the ward and a lot of people are just showing up that are really prepared and ready for baptism. I feel so lucky to be apart of this work here in this ward. It is amazing! There are so many things going on. It is really cool to be apart of it. Everyone just has a lot of faith! And now more people are being baptized and more people are becoming active again. It's great! Pretty soon this ward is going to be too big for the institute building.

So I just realized that you all probably think that my email isn't going to come until next saturday. Woops. Sorry I should have explained that one more. But oh well, you can be surprised with an email today! :) My next email wont be until a week from Monday. In fact, by the time I email next I should know if I am being transfered or not. I can't believe how fast time goes! Transfers will be in a week and a half. That's crazy.

I hope that everything goes well for Brian and Jen and the coming of little peanut! I'M SO EXCITED!! Let me know how everything goes. It is super exciting!

Well, I'm excited to see how church goes tomorrow. Getting people to church is always an adventure. I'm sure things will work out good though. Have an awesome day and weekend and week everyone! I'm excited to let you know in week how everything is going. I wish I had time to explain everything that happens each week because so much stuff happens. I just have to give the highlights. It's good though. Oh yeah, we also had Zone Conference this week and that was good.

Welp, till next time!

With Love,

Elder Ruesch

February 13, 2001

Wow! It has been a crazy week. Every time I write these emails I
look back and it blows my mind how fast the last week was but also how
many things happened. This week had an extra dose of crazy compared
to most weeks.

First off, benefits of serving in Minnesota! General Mills head
quarters is here and so many people work there in the church. Over
the course of my mission I've gotten tons of free cereal. But this
week a girl in the ward gave us three boxes of toaster strudel! Talk
about delicious. I was really excited about that and so I thought I
would let you all know.

On to things that are more connected with missionary work. Both of
our investigators are doing pretty well. ________ was set to be
baptized this Saturday but we talked to her and pushed it back a
week. She is progressing really well and living all of the
commandments. We just want to be sure she is really solid in her faith.

Our other investigator that is scheduled for baptism next week is
doing really well too. I've been teaching him for a LONG time and
over the last 3 or so weeks he has progressed so much. It's really
amazing! He made it to church again which is great. These people are
just crazy because they all take like 20 credits or more for school
and they never sleep! It's craziness. But somehow they do it and get
all A's.

Now here is the crazy news. On Saturday, President Clements called us
and told us that a sister in another area was sick and has to go home
and so he is going to move the sisters in this ward out to be with the
companion of the sister who had to go home. So we now have to take
all of the sisters people that they are teaching on top of our own
people. It's insane! President said that it is a temporary thing and
that hopefully when the transfer comes in two weeks he will be able to
move sisters back in to this ward. But for now, we're going to die.
We've been trying really hard to work out our schedules well. It had
been an adventure but it should work out fine I think.

This Saturday is going to be amazing. The ward is doing a temple
baptisms trip and all 5 of the recent converts are going to be going.
So we got permission to go! Yay! It is going to be really neat. So
because we are going to the temple that day, we had to make saturday
our p-day. So expect next weeks email on saturday.

Another cool thing that happened in church. _______ blessed the
sacrament for the first time yesterday! Woot woot! That was really
cool. As expected, he made a mistake the first time and had to say it
twice. I think everyone does that. But it was great! He's just on
fire right now. He is doing so well!

Xazmin tells me all the time about how her conversations that she has
with mom and michael. It's pretty hilarious. She thinks mikey-boy is
the coolest kid. And she is excited that he is excited about the
sciences. She is a freakin genius and is going to save the world
someday. So michael, make sure you stay in close touch with her and
learn lots from her! She knows what she's doing for sure.

The thing I love about this area is we have so much diversity among
the people we teach. We're teaching peeps from India, Uganda, and
China. And we've taught someone from Korea and hopefully will be
teaching a guy from Russia. The University tends to pull in people
from all over the place. It is quite excellent.

One more quick miracle. The Dinkytown missionaries have their own
email that they can use to get in touch with the students. And so we
got a random email from a girl who got our email from a friend and she
just wanted to learn about God. So we emailed her back a lot of
activities we have and stuff and yesterday she showed up at church!
It was cool and we have an appointment this week to meet with her.
Exciting!

And finally, I went on an exchange with the New Brighton missionaries
this week. And they took me over to visit the Cummings!! It was
awesome. They are the coolest family ever. I don't think I've ever
met cuter kids. They were hilarious! Ashley is going to have a dang
awesome new family. I am excited for her. I got a picture with them
and so I can email it to you. Fun fun!

Well, I love you guys so much! Life in Minnesota is super excellent.
It couldn't be better. And now we've got a date with the grocery store.

Love,

Elder Ruesch

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