May 7, 2012

Hello!

This is your favorite Elder reporting again for the week! It has been
a better week. So things are starting to pick up! We saw some
fantastic miracles and so we are happy.

A while ago I told you about our investigator who we were teaching and
had set a date for baptism for May 26th. Well for a week or two he
totally fell off the planet and we were really bummed! But then we
asked one of our members in the ward to call him for us. This member
is super dedicated to missionary work and he is really helpful. Well,
he got ahold of our investigator and asked if he wanted to hang out.
So on Saturday they totally hung out for a while! It was awesome!
And after the member had called our investigator, I don't know if it
inspired our investigator to get back in contact with us or what but
he called us and apologized for not responding to us for a while and
everything. It turns out that his Uncle died not too long ago and he
didn't find out till a long time after because all of his family is
still in Nigeria and they didn't tell him. He was pretty upset about
that and he said he just didn't really want to talk to anyone. So it
was great to get back in contact with him. When he was hanging out
with our member on Saturday they were talking about what happens after
this life and it turns out that our member ended up teaching him the
entire Plan of Salvation! Ha ha. It was super cool and our
investigator liked it a lot. So that was awesome and it gets even
awesomer (don't judge my made up words, Ashley). He said that he for
sure would come to church and our member was going to pick him up and
bring him. But when Sunday morning came, our member went over to pick
him up and he wasn't at his house! Well it turns out that something
happened that morning and he had to run over to his friends house and
he was gone right when our member came to pick him up. Then by the
time our investigator went back to the house, our member was gone. At
that point, most of our investigators would probably just give up and
stay home. But he totally went and got on a bus and came to church
still! He was late but he still made it! We were way pumped when he
showed up! After these last couple weeks he has gotten a lot more
solid and it is exciting! It is funny how trials tend to do that to
you. I have developed a new philosophy for trials, specifically ones
that happen leading up to baptism. We always say that Satan works
really hard to get people to not be baptized. And that is true. But
even more than that, I think that God lets these things happen to
truly test and build their faith. Some of the people that chicken out
and can't handle the testing might not have had the faith needed in
the first place to be baptized. It is funny how much the experiences
we have help us grow. It shows how important this life really is!

Finals week is this week and then the semester at the U of M will be
finished. I will have completed a full school year at the University
of Minnesota! But not as a student. I think it is so funny that I
have stayed here for this long. I am going to enjoy the last few
weeks that I have because I will probably be transferred in two
weeks. Sometimes I like to look back and think of where I was last
year and see how much I have changed. Last year at this time, I was
just finishing up my time with Elder Farnsworth. It is crazy how fast
time goes!

So for the call next week, it looks like I will be calling you at 6:30
PM, Minnesota time. So that would be 5:30 PM for you? I think so.
Hopefully, that doesn't ruin your dinner time. It probably does.
Sorry. And once again, we can SKYPE. Elder Truman and I will just
borrow some of the members laptops and skype with you. And just as a
heads up, our call can only be for 45 minutes! It is quick but it is
good. I am really excited to see and talk to everyone!

One other cool story, last night we got a call to go give a woman a
blessing who is in the University Hospital. Apparently, the Hospital
here at the University of Minnesota is pretty dang good and people
from all over the world come here. So this woman was a member from
Louisiana and so we went over pretty late last night. Anyways, the
blessing went well and it was a good experience. But she said
something that was cool that I thought was worth repeating. She
thanked us for coming and then said, "I don't know you guys, but I
know your authority." Cool, huh? She doesn't even know us and she
actually lives in another state yet she recognizes us as people who
hold the Lord's Authority. I love that! That was a great testimony
to me of the Priesthood. So cool!

Well, I will be talking to you in a week! I best be off.

Love you!

Elder Ruesch

April 30, 2012

Herro!

Here we are with yet another week in the mission. Too fast!
Unfortunately, this last week didn't get much better from the week
before. But we definitely tried. Ha ha. And Elder Truman and I were
prepared to take the heat. It seems like everyone in the ward had a
bad week last week. All the students are stressed with school.
Others that are just working had all sorts of things happen. It
seemed strange that lots of rough things all seemed to happen at the
same time for lots of people. Ha ha. But we actually had a decent
amount of success on the campus this week and hopefully will have
several new people to teach once the semester gets rolling. We'll see!

We also had a meeting with the zone this week and President Clements
interviewed a lot of the missionaries. And then that night, Elder
Truman and I, as well as a few other missionaries, met with the Stake
President and President Clements to report and discuss how the
missionary work is going. It is really neat to get the opportunity to
work closely with such high class men. And it reminds me that being a
Stake President or a Mission President would be the WORST! It's a lot
of responsibility on their shoulders. That is for sure.

I don't know if I have mentioned this before but the singles ward here
covers 4 stakes. And so that is a lot of area and a lot of people and
it turns out that there are over 1,200 Young Single Adults within that
area, and most of them are not active. It is really sad. SOOO to fix
that there is a huge outreach effort that is being organized to pull
in the less active members that are YSA age and get them coming back
to church. We as the missionaries are trying to bring more people in
but also, there are several members who's calling it is to reach out
to these people and go to the family wards in the area and get their
names and invite them to come back to church. Super cool. I like
this church. :)

At this point, almost all of our investigators have disappeared. It
is the strangest thing. AY, who is the one that we pocket texted and
called, he disappeared again. UG! Even the guy from Nigeria who was
scheduled to be baptized at the end of this month has disappeared. It
can be really frustrating when people stop talking to you. They
don't realize what they are missing!!! Oh well. We do what we can.

All of the recent converts are still doing good right now! For the 3
Chinese students who were baptized, the church sends them a letter
(from Salt Lake) and gives them all the information on what they can
and cannot do in China as for sharing the Gospel and it gives them a
way to get in touch with members of the church out there. It is
really cool! The work is moving forward in China and we really have
no idea about it! I thought that was sweet.

Anyway, I don't have too much to report on. Yes, Mom, I will be able
to Skype. So get that computer ready! I don't know what time yet or
anything. Hopefully, we can do it in the evening. I can't believe
that after this Skype sesh, the next time we skype I will only have a
month left of the mission. That is super messed up!

Love you guys!

Elder Ruesch

April 23, 2012

Hello fam fam!
Welcome back to another episode of the life of Elder Ruesch.
This week was pretty terrible! Ha ha. I guess the Lord has to give
us those every once in a while doesn't he? Bleh! But I am happy to
report that Elder Truman and I are still cheerful and optimistic!
There are a few reasons why it ended up being so bad but it was mostly
because all of our appointments kept on falling through. We had like
8 different appointments set up with investigators this week and they
all fell through. Some just didn't show up and others called and
cancelled right before. It was stinky! We ended up with having only
one of our investigator lessons go through this week.

The worst part about lessons falling through is you get really excited
to have a lesson with these investigators because you plan on them
making significant progress and so you make awesome lesson plans and
everything and then they don't show up or cancel and all you have left
to do is go onto the campus and talk to people. Don't get me wrong, I
love talking to the kids on campus, but it is very exhausting if you
do it all day long because all of your lessons didn't work out.

I think part of the reason for the crazyness is the semester is coming
to an end in a few weeks and so everyone is really busy and doesn't
want to take the time to meet with us. Also, this weekend was OUT OF
CONTROL! They had this weird activity called Spring Jam. It kinda
feels like Homecoming but in the spring. To me it seemed like a big
excuse to party hard and get drunk. Ha ha. They had a huge stage out
on campus and there were bands playing all weekend and they had a
dance Saturday night. And when everyone is in their big groups going
to the dance they really don't want to talk to us! So the week was a
struggle.

On the bright side, we went to Taco Bell for lunch today and got some
Dorritos Tacos! Has anyone tried it? The shell of the taco is a
giant Dorrito! It is delicious!

Anyway, the week wasn't just all terrible though. We did have some
great miracles! The coolest miracle of all was on Thursday. We went
with a member of our ward to go visit a less active guy that lives in
a suburb of Minneapolis that is pretty far away. So we drove there
and had a great lesson. While we were headed back to the Institute
building we were on the freeway when the members car broke down! It
was a blue Volks Waggen Bug in case you were wondering. So we pulled
over to the side of the road wondering what to do. Elder Truman and I
stepped out of the car and stood outside while the member called the
insurance and got a tow truck. We were just kinda laughing at the
situation because we were pretty stuck. Well it turns out that the
tow truck was covered by the insurance and he was on his way but the
truck could only fit two passengers and there were three of us. And
then! We got a random call from one of our former investigators. He
was driving on the freeway when he saw us and called to ask if we
needed any help. So he came over and drove us to the Institute
Building and then the member we were with was able to just go with the
tow truck. And then the whole drive to the Institute we got to talk
to this former investigator and talked about where he's at and how
he's doing. It was a miracle! I actually had been hoping for quite a
while that we could get back in contact with this investigator because
he wasn't responding to our calls anymore. It turns out that he isn't
quite ready to meet with us again but it was definitely good to talk
to him and hopefully he'll be ready again to meet soon. It's pretty
funny that God has to break your car down in order to help you fulfill
his work sometimes. He truly does work in mysterious ways. It is
funny.

We also are working with a couple less active people who are trying to
come back into activity. There is one guy in particular who is just
awesome. We have been meeting with him for a couple weeks now. He is
doing awesome and has a really sincere change of heart. And you can
tell that there is a fire back into him. He now has a light about him
and a new commitment to be better and it is great to see. I love
seeing people bring the Gospel into their lives!

If nothing else, the last week's difficult-ness helped Elder Truman
and I grow closer together in our companionship and closer friends as
we had to rely on each other to still have fun and enjoy our
experience on a mission in the middle of a not fun week. It is a
special work that we get to be a part of and I am grateful for that.
We're still working hard and we are going to make this week better
than last week!

Well, the weather is beautiful. I can't wait to go outside. And we
also have a match set up with our Indian investigator in Ping Pong.
It sounds like he is pretty good. We'll see. Got to get my game on!

Have a great week! Love you!

-Elder Ruesch

April 16, 2012

Today we woke up and there were little snowflakes floating around! It
was randomly cold. But it didn't stick. Everything was just really
wet!

Yesterday we went to the President's Fireside, which is a fireside
where recent converts speak about their conversion story and it is
held in the mission home. ________ was asked to speak at it and he
did an awesome job! It was super great! He is doing so well. It has
been awesome to watch him grow since his baptism. He is already
planning on serving a mission and everything. It is exciting! Also,
Dad asked me how the converts are that got baptized while I was in
Plymouth. I actually saw ___________at the fireside and talked to him
about how everything was going. It has pretty much been a year since
he was baptized. He is still doing really well. Which is really
exciting to hear. I know that the __________'s are doing pretty good
too. They are planning on going to the temple pretty soon to be
sealed. I will be able to go with them when they do! I can't wait!

This last week was definitely another adventure. You guys asked me
how AY is doing (the one that we pocket called) and we don't know what
happened but he didn't show up to our appointment this week. It was
so weird! We had set up an appointment and then that morning we
texted him to see if he could still meet and he said yes but then he
didn't show up to the appointment and we can't get ahold of him.
Hopefully, he is okay! We'll see what happens.

We are still teaching H* that I've mentioned every once in a while.
She is the nicest girl ever and she is doing pretty good but she needs
a lot more time before she gets baptized and the problem is that she
is going back to China next month permanently. It is no good! We are
sad about it but hopefully down the road she will be able to find the
gospel again. Maybe when my son goes to China on his mission he will
find her. Ha ha.

We did start meeting with a new person. Her name is TR. She was a
cool story actually because she actually walked up to us on campus and
started talking to us. She has a friend who is Mormon and wanted to
learn more! So cool! So we met with her and invited her to be
baptized and she said Yes! In case you were wondering, we always
invite the person to be baptized in the first lesson that we have with
them. And you might be thinking, "Wow, that is really bold." And you
are right. It is very bold but it quickly establishes our purpose
with people and separates the solid from the unsolid investigators.
It is pretty intense. But it works really well. Anyway, TR is
actually a high school student. There are a few student here at the U
of M that are part of a program where during high school they take all
of their classes at the University and so they get High School and
College Credit at the same time. It's sweet! So she is a junior in
High School and actually lives far away but we hope to be able to
still teach her and hopefully she can be baptized in her home ward.
There are lots of things to teach still but we have high hopes!

It was a pretty normal week here. The weather was nice most of the
time. There was a hard core storm last night with tornado warnings
but nothing bad happened. Tornado season is always really exciting!

We are still working with our Nigerian friend. We have a date set for
baptism with him for May 26th and we hope to see it go through! I'm
absolutely amazed at how hard satan works to stop people from being
baptized. It is so ridiculous. But it is a true test of faith and I
guess some people pass and some people fail unfortunately. I'm glad
to still be staying here. We have more exciting adventures ahead here
in Dinkytown! Have a delightful week!

Love,

Elder Ruesch

April 9, 2012

Transfer calls were this morning and the big news is that Elder Truman
and I will be staying in Dinkytown for another transfer together.
Woot woot! It is going to be real fun. This will be my sixth
transfer in this area. That is crazy! So by the time I finish this
transfer I will have been here for almost 9 months. Pretty crazy.
This doesn't happen too often but I like it. I love this area and so
I am happy to stay!

We had a pretty great week! Easter is always a nice time of year. I
very much enjoyed sharing the Gospel on the day that we celebrate the
Resurrection. Holidays in this ward are so goofy because a lot of
people leave and so we tend to teach less but it's alright. Yesterday
we teamed up with the sisters and made a nice Easter dinner in the
Institute building and A* came as well as our investigator H* who is
also chinese. It was fun. And when I say nice dinner we had a HUGE
bowl of macaroni and cheese, beans, salad, baked potatoes, and
biscuits. Ha ha. We miss judged how much food we would need and
ended up making WAY too much. It was hilarious. But we had nice time
and it was a good to celebrate some how. Afterwards we went onto
campus and talked to people as usual and were able to find several
people who were interested in learning more about the church. Pretty
Great!

We had a great miracle this week. About a month ago we started
teaching a guy named AY. He is from Oregon and is a student here.
His mom actually just recently was baptized into the church and
referred him to us to teach. His dad died a few months ago and so
he's kinda been lost. So we had two great lessons with him over a
month ago and then all of the sudden he disappeared! Weird. So we
were pretty bummed. And then last Monday, Elder Truman accidentally
called him from his pocket and texted him a blank text too. And we
didn't realize it. But then he texted us and asked if we could meet
that night at 7. Woo! God is totally in charge. When we met it
turns out he has just stayed to himself for the last few weeks to read
the Book of Mormon and the Bible and figure out what he really
believes. So he has read over half of the Book of Mormon now. It was
cool. He loves the Book but he isn't quite sure if he believes it is
true. He also grew up catholic and feels a lot of loyalty to that
church. But we had a great meeting with him on Monday and talked a
lot about the role of the Book of Mormon and then we met with him on
Friday and taught the Plan of Salvation and that was really great
too. He is progressing well! He was supposed to come to church
yesterday but he woke up deathly sick and didn't make it. it was
disappointing. But he'll come eventually! It is quite a miracle that
we met with him this week.

We met with our investigator from Nigeria again and invited him to be
baptized on May 26th. He accepted! So we are excited for him! We
have a lot to teach him and we hope that all goes well on the route to
baptism. We'll see!

On Saturday we were able to go to a baptism of a guy that was in the
area that Elder Truman served in before he came to be with me. He
taught this guy for 6 months and now he finally got baptized. He was
super pumped and it was fun to go to the service. There was a really
great spirit there.

Well, this week is exciting! We have several first appointments set
up with potential new investigators of people we've met on campus. I
am excited! We had a terrible day on Thursday where everyone was
rejecting us hard core, but then we got a lot of blessings on Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday and so it made up for the disappointments. :)

It looks like your easter was great! It was fun to see those
pictures. We have the coolest family ever! It wont be too long
before We will be talking on skype again!

Love you!

-Elder Ruesch

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