Jimminie Cricket!
Can you believe that I have been in Rochester for 3 months already?
Man! This is nuts.
Well, the news is hot! Elder Last is being taken away from me. It is
really sad :( He is being sent to an area in the middle of no where
up north to be district leader up there. I'm way excited for him but
he is super nervous. He is going to a struggling area. The fire
begins! So that is a bummer that he is leaving. I have LOVED serving
with Elder Last. He is a superstar missionary and we have had too
much fun together! But on the bright side, my new companion is also
freaking awesome! His name is Elder Carter. He is actually from
Nashville, Tennesse. I think he's been on his mission for a little
bit over a year. When I was in Dinkytown he was in an area really
close to me so I got to work with him a lot. And I LOVE him! So we
are going to have a party like it's 1999. But in a missionary
appropriate way. I have been way to lucky on my mission and I have
had some of the best companions ever! It is great. That is probably
the only good thing about being a zone leader. Most of the time you
get to have a killer diller companion.
Cool news! I thought I could share this. Do you remember Elder
Checketts? When I went to Dinkytown he was my first companion there.
And he was only with me for one transfer and then he left. Well now
it is a year later and he is going back there again! I was really
excited when I heard that so I thought i would tell you. I love Elder
Checketts!
So this week was full of all sorts of awesome moments, as usual. We
taught a couple new peeps. That was great! One lady is a single
mother of 5 kids under 8 years old. She and her boyfriend never
married and just a little while ago he walked out and it sounds like
he isn't coming back. Crazyness. But we happened to show up on her
door and we finally had a lesson with her this week. It was really
hectic but good! Our eternigator has been out of town for a week and
a half but now she is back and we had another good lesson with her
this week. We taught her the Plan of Salvation. She is doing so
well. She came to church again and there is something going on I know
it! There seemed to be something different about her. I think she is
finally beginning to realize that this is true. I hope she will be
baptized soon!
The ________ family is having it's ups and downs too. The whole
family came to church this week! The mom and her 3 boys. It was
awesome! I think they all had a good time too. We had an AWESOME
lesson with them this week. The 13 yr old is ready to be baptized.
He is just awesome. We went over the baptismal interview questions
with him and he is solid. He could be baptized any day. The rest of
the lesson landed on his mom. We are really trying to help her gain a
testimony. She is still kinda struggling with the same concerns but
we had a couple ladies from the relief society with us and they bore
powerful testimony and I think it really touched Sister _________'s
heart. Pretty much everyone was crying by the end of the lesson. So
that was neat. However, with a wonderfully spirit filled lesson,
Satan retaliated with more opposition. The father of the boys sent
Sister ___________ an email that was super negative towards the boys
being baptized and he won't give permission. The situation with the
father is worse than we thought. So we'll see what happens next. We
are just praying that his heart is softened. The whole ward here is
praying too. Everyone LOVES this family. They are so neat!
Our African friend is also doing well! Sadly, she is going back to
Nigeria at the end of this month. But it actually works out really
well. This will give her an opportunity to explore the church in
Nigeria too and she needs to speak with her husband about being
baptized. She has so much faith and I am fully confident that she
will be baptized soon whether it is here or in Nigeria.
Funny story, we met with a guy for the second time this week and
taught him the Plan of Salvation. It went well but at the end his
roomate who had been sitting in the kitchen listening for the whole
lesson said he had a question and brought out his Bible. I
immediately thought, oh great, here we go again. So he told us to
open to a scripture that talked about false prophets and then said,
"So who was Joseph Smith?" People like that only want to tell us how
wrong we are. They never want to listen. So I wasn't very excited to
begin a forever long lecture again. But our investigator totally
saved the day! He turned to his roomate and was like, "You can ask
your questions next time. I'm tired." And we left without being
bashed on! Yay!
I can't believe that MJ are going to college! They are all grown up.
And I can't wait for you guys to meet Aiko! That will be super
legit! Thanks so much for being willing to help her out. I am
excited to start another transfer! I only have 4 more left so I gotta
make the most of it. Have a lovely week!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
August 14, 2012
August 6, 2012
August 6, 2007
Hola!
I feel like every missionary always starts their emails home by saying
how fast the week went by. So to not be cliche I am just going to
move on. The weather was more heavenly than anything in the whole
world this week. It would storm at night. And then in the day
everything was nice and cool and the sky was perfectly blue. It was
70's for a lot of the week! Happiness.
I loved hearing about Christie! It sounds like she is doing some
crazy cool stuff! Elder Last knows that she is on the campain and so
anytime someone asks me about my family, he tells them that I have a
famous sister. Ha ha. It's pretty awesome. Sounds like she is
having some neat opportunities.
Our week was delightful as usual. We are experiencing a strange
phenomenon here in Rochester. We cover the 2nd and 4th wards in
Rochester and typically, the 4th ward has had hardly any success with
missionary work. Really good missionaries have been sent to that ward
and would leave with pretty much nothing happening. It was just kinda
dead for a while. And the 2nd ward typically would baptize quite a
bit and have a lot of work going on. Well right now the opposite is
occuring! We had 4 investigators come to Sacrament meeting in the 4th
ward and we had ZERO show up in 2nd ward. It is really strange. The
cool thing is that it has nothing to do with Elder Last and I. We are
working in 4th ward just as hard as other missionaries have. But the
Ward Mission Leader in 4th ward is just amazing. he is working so
hard to get the ward more involved in Missionary work and we are
having a lot of miracles because of it! So the lesson to be learned
here: Faith brings miracles. I have been learning that a lot over
the past several months. It seems that when I am just going through
the motions and I kinda forget how important this work is, we don't
have a lot happen. But when I have a lot of FAITH and confidence that
God is preparing the people here to receive his gospel, miracles flow
in like crazy. It is amazing! Faith is such a bigger deal than just
a belief in something. It is passionate, confident, and it takes a
lot of sacrifice. If there is anything I have learned as a
missionary, it is that I can do anything if I have the faith. So neat!
The 4 people at church were the ___________ family, our awesome
Nigerian friend, and a new person we met this week! The ____________
family is doing really well. They are SO COOL! Some of my most
favorite people in this whole world. They are facing some major
challenges so please pray for this family!
Our Nigerian friend is the coolest lady ever. She has INCREDIBLE
faith. And she is humble. So the message of the Restoration rings
true to her! We shared that this week and invited her to be
baptized. Unfortunately, she goes back to visit Nigeria at the end of
this month so she may have to be baptized there or wait till she gets
back. We'll see. She came to church in her traditional tribal
clothes and it was super duper cool! I don't even know how to explain
what it looked like but you can just know that it was awesome.
We have some new people that we are working with too! I only ever
tell you about the significant investigators that are actually
progressing. Underneath them, we cycle through investigators like it
is no ones business. Ha ha. It is kinda sad to be honest. We talk
to a lot of people everyday. And out of about 20 people that say we
can come back, we will only teach like 4 of them at the most. And out
of those 4, probably 1 of them we will actually teach more than once
or twice and they may come to church. You really just have to talk to
every single person you see because you never know who is ready for
the gospel and the more people you talk to the more chances you have
to actually have investigators! Oh and on average we probably only
have like 2 people a day tell us that we can come back to teach them.
Craziness! So it is a lot of work to find the elect.
The guy who came to church that we met this week, we talked to him
outside of his apartment building. He is a really cool guy that has
an interest in religions but has never found one that satisfied him.
When we shared the restoration with him it went really well and he
understood it super well! It was awesome!
One more lesson I learned, this guy in the 1st ward came to our
district meeting last week and shared a really cool presentation about
making covenants. He said that we shouldn't set goals, we should make
covenants. Basically, you promise you will do something for the Lord
and in return you ask for something else. So Elder Last and I took
this idea to heart and we made a promise to God that we were going to
do everything in our power to find a certain number of people that
would say we could come back to teach them if he would give us a new
family to teach in the 2nd ward. So it was a struggle but we did it!
Two nights in a row we were working our tails off to find one more
person who would allow us to teach them. And both nights, the very
last door we knocked on, the person told us to come back. Why is it
always the last door? I guess God tests us sometimes. But then God
kept his promise too! We had an awesome lesson with a guy last night
in the 2nd ward! We met him weeks ago but our appointments never
worked out with him. But this one finally did. We didn't teach his
whole family yet but we will soon! We shared the Restoration and the
spirit was really strong. He doesn't even believe in God but he is
searching for something. We just came at the most perfect time. Oh
my goodness! God keeps his promises.
Well, I hope that you all enjoy the rest of your summer. It is coming
to a close quickly! I can't believe it! Next week I will know what
is happening for transfers. I have been here in Rochester for almost
3 months now. Can you believe that? Messed up!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
I feel like every missionary always starts their emails home by saying
how fast the week went by. So to not be cliche I am just going to
move on. The weather was more heavenly than anything in the whole
world this week. It would storm at night. And then in the day
everything was nice and cool and the sky was perfectly blue. It was
70's for a lot of the week! Happiness.
I loved hearing about Christie! It sounds like she is doing some
crazy cool stuff! Elder Last knows that she is on the campain and so
anytime someone asks me about my family, he tells them that I have a
famous sister. Ha ha. It's pretty awesome. Sounds like she is
having some neat opportunities.
Our week was delightful as usual. We are experiencing a strange
phenomenon here in Rochester. We cover the 2nd and 4th wards in
Rochester and typically, the 4th ward has had hardly any success with
missionary work. Really good missionaries have been sent to that ward
and would leave with pretty much nothing happening. It was just kinda
dead for a while. And the 2nd ward typically would baptize quite a
bit and have a lot of work going on. Well right now the opposite is
occuring! We had 4 investigators come to Sacrament meeting in the 4th
ward and we had ZERO show up in 2nd ward. It is really strange. The
cool thing is that it has nothing to do with Elder Last and I. We are
working in 4th ward just as hard as other missionaries have. But the
Ward Mission Leader in 4th ward is just amazing. he is working so
hard to get the ward more involved in Missionary work and we are
having a lot of miracles because of it! So the lesson to be learned
here: Faith brings miracles. I have been learning that a lot over
the past several months. It seems that when I am just going through
the motions and I kinda forget how important this work is, we don't
have a lot happen. But when I have a lot of FAITH and confidence that
God is preparing the people here to receive his gospel, miracles flow
in like crazy. It is amazing! Faith is such a bigger deal than just
a belief in something. It is passionate, confident, and it takes a
lot of sacrifice. If there is anything I have learned as a
missionary, it is that I can do anything if I have the faith. So neat!
The 4 people at church were the ___________ family, our awesome
Nigerian friend, and a new person we met this week! The ____________
family is doing really well. They are SO COOL! Some of my most
favorite people in this whole world. They are facing some major
challenges so please pray for this family!
Our Nigerian friend is the coolest lady ever. She has INCREDIBLE
faith. And she is humble. So the message of the Restoration rings
true to her! We shared that this week and invited her to be
baptized. Unfortunately, she goes back to visit Nigeria at the end of
this month so she may have to be baptized there or wait till she gets
back. We'll see. She came to church in her traditional tribal
clothes and it was super duper cool! I don't even know how to explain
what it looked like but you can just know that it was awesome.
We have some new people that we are working with too! I only ever
tell you about the significant investigators that are actually
progressing. Underneath them, we cycle through investigators like it
is no ones business. Ha ha. It is kinda sad to be honest. We talk
to a lot of people everyday. And out of about 20 people that say we
can come back, we will only teach like 4 of them at the most. And out
of those 4, probably 1 of them we will actually teach more than once
or twice and they may come to church. You really just have to talk to
every single person you see because you never know who is ready for
the gospel and the more people you talk to the more chances you have
to actually have investigators! Oh and on average we probably only
have like 2 people a day tell us that we can come back to teach them.
Craziness! So it is a lot of work to find the elect.
The guy who came to church that we met this week, we talked to him
outside of his apartment building. He is a really cool guy that has
an interest in religions but has never found one that satisfied him.
When we shared the restoration with him it went really well and he
understood it super well! It was awesome!
One more lesson I learned, this guy in the 1st ward came to our
district meeting last week and shared a really cool presentation about
making covenants. He said that we shouldn't set goals, we should make
covenants. Basically, you promise you will do something for the Lord
and in return you ask for something else. So Elder Last and I took
this idea to heart and we made a promise to God that we were going to
do everything in our power to find a certain number of people that
would say we could come back to teach them if he would give us a new
family to teach in the 2nd ward. So it was a struggle but we did it!
Two nights in a row we were working our tails off to find one more
person who would allow us to teach them. And both nights, the very
last door we knocked on, the person told us to come back. Why is it
always the last door? I guess God tests us sometimes. But then God
kept his promise too! We had an awesome lesson with a guy last night
in the 2nd ward! We met him weeks ago but our appointments never
worked out with him. But this one finally did. We didn't teach his
whole family yet but we will soon! We shared the Restoration and the
spirit was really strong. He doesn't even believe in God but he is
searching for something. We just came at the most perfect time. Oh
my goodness! God keeps his promises.
Well, I hope that you all enjoy the rest of your summer. It is coming
to a close quickly! I can't believe it! Next week I will know what
is happening for transfers. I have been here in Rochester for almost
3 months now. Can you believe that? Messed up!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
July 31, 2012
July 30, 2012
Hey ya'll (not minnesotan accent),
Missionary life is always full of so many ups and downs! But the ups always outweigh the downs by a million. We had a good week!
We spent two days this week in La Crosse, Wisconsin. We have to go there decently often. We actually have to go this week again because one of the teams has someone being baptized and we need to interview him. So more long driving! Yay! Ha ha. Fortunately, the drive to La Crosse is beautiful. THere are a lot of corn fields and then it turns into luscious green bluffs next to the Mississippi river. I may have gotten one of the most beautiful missions. It is so awesome! Anyway, for the two days we spent over there we worked in both of the teams areas for a day. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoy going on exchanges with missionaries because I learn a lot and I always leave with a boost of faith. Missionaries are so cool.
Holy smokes! I can't believe I hit my 18 month mark this week. Bleh. I better move on before I barf.
I can't believe how quickly the time flies by. Everyday I get home and we never have accomplished everything we wanted to. There just isn't enough time in a day! Although, if I accomplished everything I wanted to every day the whole state of Minnesota would be members right now. But that is a different story. The main lesson I'm learning: Time is so PRECIOUS.
So as for the update on investigators, our investigator friend is still off coffee! We met with her on Monday night. She was only drinking 1/3 of a cup a day but she just couldn't let it go. It is funny. So when she quit she didn't have many head aches. The real monster now is she chews Nicotene gum. So in our lesson we committed her to cut back a little bit. She agreed easily which was great! Unfortunately, we wont see her for another week or so because she went on a trip. But I have full confidence she will keep her commitment.
The _________ family is doing well. So the way it is working now is we are mainly teaching the teenage boy to help him be prepared for his baptism. But the mom is always in on the lessons. In fact, she helps us teach it half the time. We talked about the Law of Chastity and the Sabbath Day Holy and she was a very active participant in the lessons. It's awesome. Coolest family ever. The main event of this week was we ended up moving the baptism date one more time. All of the friends that introduced the son to the church are going to be out of town on Aug 11th so we had to move it back to Sept 1st. Which should be the official date. Ha ha. The only sad thing about that is one of us may be transferred before then. We will see. The hope is that we can focus on the mom a little more now and see if we can help her to be ready to be baptized on that day too. That would be so neat! The biggest obstacle right now is the mom and her ex husband have joint custody of the son so the father has to give permission for him to be baptized. I hope he does! We're going to be praying for it. Sadly, they didn't come to church this week because the son got a big headache and felt super sick so they didn't make it. It was unfortunate. They were even driving to the church and turned around because he didn't feel good. No bueno. Things are still going well though!
So the girl who was baptized a couple weeks ago is doing awesome still! She went to girls camp this week with all the young women. So cool! So we are happy she is doing well. Hopefully, she can continue to stay strong.
I think I mentioned the African lady last week. She is from Nigeria. We has a lesson with her this week and she is so awesome! We taught her the restoration and she loved it. She even said the closing prayer and in it she asked Heavenly Father, "If this is the reason I came to America, please let me know." That was cool. It was such a sweet sincere prayer. And then on Sunday she came to church and loved it! This woman is so close to the spirit and she has a powerful faith. This is a wonderful example of how the truths of the restored gospel will only build and add to your faith if you are humble. She was the only person who came to church this week which was stinky but at least she came!
Speaking of being humble, I don't know what it was about close minded people but we met way too many hard core "Christians" this week that just wanted to bash. It was an abnormal amount! The thing that is crazy is every one of them pretty much quoted 2 Nephi 29 to us almost word for word. You know, "A Bible, A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." That one. All I got to say is, the Book of Mormon is true! I am just amazed at how these people wont even touch the book. It's like telling a little kid to just try a tomato because they say they don't like them but have never eaten one before. These people are like little kids!
I hope all goes well for Grandma! Keep me updated. I will be praying for her.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
Missionary life is always full of so many ups and downs! But the ups always outweigh the downs by a million. We had a good week!
We spent two days this week in La Crosse, Wisconsin. We have to go there decently often. We actually have to go this week again because one of the teams has someone being baptized and we need to interview him. So more long driving! Yay! Ha ha. Fortunately, the drive to La Crosse is beautiful. THere are a lot of corn fields and then it turns into luscious green bluffs next to the Mississippi river. I may have gotten one of the most beautiful missions. It is so awesome! Anyway, for the two days we spent over there we worked in both of the teams areas for a day. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoy going on exchanges with missionaries because I learn a lot and I always leave with a boost of faith. Missionaries are so cool.
Holy smokes! I can't believe I hit my 18 month mark this week. Bleh. I better move on before I barf.
I can't believe how quickly the time flies by. Everyday I get home and we never have accomplished everything we wanted to. There just isn't enough time in a day! Although, if I accomplished everything I wanted to every day the whole state of Minnesota would be members right now. But that is a different story. The main lesson I'm learning: Time is so PRECIOUS.
So as for the update on investigators, our investigator friend is still off coffee! We met with her on Monday night. She was only drinking 1/3 of a cup a day but she just couldn't let it go. It is funny. So when she quit she didn't have many head aches. The real monster now is she chews Nicotene gum. So in our lesson we committed her to cut back a little bit. She agreed easily which was great! Unfortunately, we wont see her for another week or so because she went on a trip. But I have full confidence she will keep her commitment.
The _________ family is doing well. So the way it is working now is we are mainly teaching the teenage boy to help him be prepared for his baptism. But the mom is always in on the lessons. In fact, she helps us teach it half the time. We talked about the Law of Chastity and the Sabbath Day Holy and she was a very active participant in the lessons. It's awesome. Coolest family ever. The main event of this week was we ended up moving the baptism date one more time. All of the friends that introduced the son to the church are going to be out of town on Aug 11th so we had to move it back to Sept 1st. Which should be the official date. Ha ha. The only sad thing about that is one of us may be transferred before then. We will see. The hope is that we can focus on the mom a little more now and see if we can help her to be ready to be baptized on that day too. That would be so neat! The biggest obstacle right now is the mom and her ex husband have joint custody of the son so the father has to give permission for him to be baptized. I hope he does! We're going to be praying for it. Sadly, they didn't come to church this week because the son got a big headache and felt super sick so they didn't make it. It was unfortunate. They were even driving to the church and turned around because he didn't feel good. No bueno. Things are still going well though!
So the girl who was baptized a couple weeks ago is doing awesome still! She went to girls camp this week with all the young women. So cool! So we are happy she is doing well. Hopefully, she can continue to stay strong.
I think I mentioned the African lady last week. She is from Nigeria. We has a lesson with her this week and she is so awesome! We taught her the restoration and she loved it. She even said the closing prayer and in it she asked Heavenly Father, "If this is the reason I came to America, please let me know." That was cool. It was such a sweet sincere prayer. And then on Sunday she came to church and loved it! This woman is so close to the spirit and she has a powerful faith. This is a wonderful example of how the truths of the restored gospel will only build and add to your faith if you are humble. She was the only person who came to church this week which was stinky but at least she came!
Speaking of being humble, I don't know what it was about close minded people but we met way too many hard core "Christians" this week that just wanted to bash. It was an abnormal amount! The thing that is crazy is every one of them pretty much quoted 2 Nephi 29 to us almost word for word. You know, "A Bible, A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible." That one. All I got to say is, the Book of Mormon is true! I am just amazed at how these people wont even touch the book. It's like telling a little kid to just try a tomato because they say they don't like them but have never eaten one before. These people are like little kids!
I hope all goes well for Grandma! Keep me updated. I will be praying for her.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
July 25, 2012
July 23, 2012
Hello!
I would like to begin with the most adorable story you ever did hear.
There is a lady in the 4th ward who has a son that's 3ish years old.
One day they were talking about Peter Pan and what your happy thought
would be for you to fly. And her son said that his thought would be
seeing the missionaries everyday! Aint that just the cutest? It's so
funny because to the world we put this name tag on and we are the scum
of the earth and then to the members of the church we put this name
tag on and we become heros! Ha ha. It is so neat to be an influence
for good in everyway. It just reminds me that I need to be an
excellent example to all the kids that really look up to the
missionaries.
We had a miracle in Rochester! I think I have mentioned before a lady
that we are teaching that is what missionaries refer to as an
eternigator (eternal investigator). She was taught for like a year
and a half and then missionaries stopped going over. And then they
started teaching her again like a year later and she's been taught
ever since. She has had all the same hold ups for the longest time.
So Elder Last and I are to the point where we are pushing her to take
the steps to be baptized or stop meeting with missionaries all
together. So a few weeks ago we were really bold and invited her to
be baptized on a specific date. She wouldn't commit to it but she did
tell us that instead she would read the BoM for 30 minutes a day and
pray twice a day and come to church. Since then her progress has just
soared! She has come to church 3 times now, and she is much more easy
to commit to live the commandments. She has forever had a hold up on
Coffee. There were two different times where she quit for one day and
then started drinking it again. I don't know why she doesn't want to
give it up so bad. But this week we had a powerful lesson on
sacrifice and we left the house with her coffee cup in our hands! It
was a total miracle! She even said that she feels good now about the
decision to stop. So progress is moving ahead! This is progress that
has not been made in forever! It is amazing the things the Libro de
Mormon can do! It has an amazing sprirt!
The _____________ Family is the BOMB! I love them so much. We had
two lessons with them. We had to move the baptismal date for the son
a week in advance because they will be out of town the next week. But
he will be ready by then. Holy cow he is the most impressive 13 year
old kid ever. In one of our lessons he started with, "Can you explain
the Law of Tithing to me? Where do the funds go to?" He is like a
little adult. He is very mature and will be do incredible things
during his life for the church. His mom is also doing well. We have
taken the focus of the teaching off her for now and put it on her son
because we want him to be ready to be baptized on his scheduled date.
I have full confidence that his mom and his little brothers will
follow quickly after though and also be baptized. They just need a
little more time. The major lesson I am learning from this family is
the importance of families. The mom and the boys are all broken so
badly because of the divorce. It breaks my heart to see them in
pain. And the divorce was years ago too. This couldn't have been a
better time for the gospel to come into their lives though. The only
way they can receive the healing they need is through the atonement.
Minnesota weather is crazy. It will rain and then the sun will come
out and get super hot and humid and then rain and do the same thing
multiple times in a day sometimes. I worry that I am going to shrivel
up someday when I come back to Utah. The dryness will eat me.
Our week was funny with a lot of ups and downs. We had these miracles
with these investigators progressing super well and we also had a TON
of lessons fall through. I am really tired of people not keeping the
commitments they make. We set up so many lessons with people and then
they just dodge us. It gets really really annoying. This week it
happened a lot. We got tired of it by the time the week was ending
but sunday night we actually had a first appointment with a lady go
through and it raised our spirits a lot. She was a neat lady who we
tracted into a few days earlier. We shared the restoration and the
spirit was really strong. She is also divorced and is looking for a
new church. What a neat time for missionaries to come by! Hopefully,
she reads the Book of Mormon!
We also talked to the coolest African lady ever yesterday! She was
from Nigeria. Talk about a strong faith in Christ. She was amazing.
So we shared a little about the Book of Mormon and the church with her
on the door and set an appointment to come over later this week. I am
excited! That is one thing that I love about Rochester. It is really
diverse for not being a super big city. There is a really big
population of Somalian people. I've also met people from Bosnia,
Romania, England, Ughanda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan and I can't
remember if there is more. But that is a lot! And I don't think I
have seen more different license plates than I have here. I should
start keeping track because I might be able to see all 50 states
license plates. I guess a lot of people come here for the Mayo Clinic
or something. It is interesting!
Well, that's about it for the week.
Anyway, I love you guys! Have a happy week!
Love,
Elder Rueschki
I would like to begin with the most adorable story you ever did hear.
There is a lady in the 4th ward who has a son that's 3ish years old.
One day they were talking about Peter Pan and what your happy thought
would be for you to fly. And her son said that his thought would be
seeing the missionaries everyday! Aint that just the cutest? It's so
funny because to the world we put this name tag on and we are the scum
of the earth and then to the members of the church we put this name
tag on and we become heros! Ha ha. It is so neat to be an influence
for good in everyway. It just reminds me that I need to be an
excellent example to all the kids that really look up to the
missionaries.
We had a miracle in Rochester! I think I have mentioned before a lady
that we are teaching that is what missionaries refer to as an
eternigator (eternal investigator). She was taught for like a year
and a half and then missionaries stopped going over. And then they
started teaching her again like a year later and she's been taught
ever since. She has had all the same hold ups for the longest time.
So Elder Last and I are to the point where we are pushing her to take
the steps to be baptized or stop meeting with missionaries all
together. So a few weeks ago we were really bold and invited her to
be baptized on a specific date. She wouldn't commit to it but she did
tell us that instead she would read the BoM for 30 minutes a day and
pray twice a day and come to church. Since then her progress has just
soared! She has come to church 3 times now, and she is much more easy
to commit to live the commandments. She has forever had a hold up on
Coffee. There were two different times where she quit for one day and
then started drinking it again. I don't know why she doesn't want to
give it up so bad. But this week we had a powerful lesson on
sacrifice and we left the house with her coffee cup in our hands! It
was a total miracle! She even said that she feels good now about the
decision to stop. So progress is moving ahead! This is progress that
has not been made in forever! It is amazing the things the Libro de
Mormon can do! It has an amazing sprirt!
The _____________ Family is the BOMB! I love them so much. We had
two lessons with them. We had to move the baptismal date for the son
a week in advance because they will be out of town the next week. But
he will be ready by then. Holy cow he is the most impressive 13 year
old kid ever. In one of our lessons he started with, "Can you explain
the Law of Tithing to me? Where do the funds go to?" He is like a
little adult. He is very mature and will be do incredible things
during his life for the church. His mom is also doing well. We have
taken the focus of the teaching off her for now and put it on her son
because we want him to be ready to be baptized on his scheduled date.
I have full confidence that his mom and his little brothers will
follow quickly after though and also be baptized. They just need a
little more time. The major lesson I am learning from this family is
the importance of families. The mom and the boys are all broken so
badly because of the divorce. It breaks my heart to see them in
pain. And the divorce was years ago too. This couldn't have been a
better time for the gospel to come into their lives though. The only
way they can receive the healing they need is through the atonement.
Minnesota weather is crazy. It will rain and then the sun will come
out and get super hot and humid and then rain and do the same thing
multiple times in a day sometimes. I worry that I am going to shrivel
up someday when I come back to Utah. The dryness will eat me.
Our week was funny with a lot of ups and downs. We had these miracles
with these investigators progressing super well and we also had a TON
of lessons fall through. I am really tired of people not keeping the
commitments they make. We set up so many lessons with people and then
they just dodge us. It gets really really annoying. This week it
happened a lot. We got tired of it by the time the week was ending
but sunday night we actually had a first appointment with a lady go
through and it raised our spirits a lot. She was a neat lady who we
tracted into a few days earlier. We shared the restoration and the
spirit was really strong. She is also divorced and is looking for a
new church. What a neat time for missionaries to come by! Hopefully,
she reads the Book of Mormon!
We also talked to the coolest African lady ever yesterday! She was
from Nigeria. Talk about a strong faith in Christ. She was amazing.
So we shared a little about the Book of Mormon and the church with her
on the door and set an appointment to come over later this week. I am
excited! That is one thing that I love about Rochester. It is really
diverse for not being a super big city. There is a really big
population of Somalian people. I've also met people from Bosnia,
Romania, England, Ughanda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan and I can't
remember if there is more. But that is a lot! And I don't think I
have seen more different license plates than I have here. I should
start keeping track because I might be able to see all 50 states
license plates. I guess a lot of people come here for the Mayo Clinic
or something. It is interesting!
Well, that's about it for the week.
Anyway, I love you guys! Have a happy week!
Love,
Elder Rueschki
July 16, 2012
July 16, 2012
Oh hey!
Here I am. Another awesome week. Every week feels like 4 seconds.
But then when I think about all of the things that happened in the
week. It feels like 4 years. That is a good thing though I think.
It is amazing how quickly time flies and the more I think about it,
the more I realize how much time I wasted before the mission. There
is always so much to do and so little time to do it! But that is the
story of life and we all face it.
We went up to the mission home last week and had a meeting there on
Tuesday. That was quite fun. I love seeing all of my friends ha ha.
We are always so spread that we never get to see each other! I got to
see Elder Neeley though and that was awesome! He is doing so good. I
heart that kid. The thing that is no fun about the meetings we have
is I always seem to leave feeling like a total dump of a missionary.
Ha ha. I just have so many things to work on and they teach us so
many things that we should be doing. Sometimes it feels like we are
expected to be the Superman version of a missionary. Elder Last says
he always feels the same way. The meetings we have with President
Clements are always very spiritual though and I love going to them. I
have some good things to work on and some new ideas to try so we'll
see what happens! President also came down to Rochester on Thursday
for interviews with the zone. So all the teams came in and everyone
was interviewed. We had to make sure everything ran smoothly and it
did thank goodness!
I have wonderful news! This week we had a great lesson with the
__________ family. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and invited
them to be baptized. And the teenage son was like "Yeah I was going
to talk to you guys about that today." So we set a date for him to be
baptized on August 18th. Yay! His mom said that she didn't feel
quite ready for that yet. She is progressing well and is still very
interested but just isn't ready to be baptized. Can I just mention
that this boy is like the most impressive 13 year old I have ever
met? He acts like a mature adult. You would never guys that he is
only 13. So anyway, his mom is really supportive of him being
baptized and hopefully as we teach him to help him be prepared for
baptism she will realize that it is something that she wants to do.
There is still a good month before the baptism. There are also two
younger brothers who haven't been too involved in our visits yet but
we convinced one of them to stay last time and the whole family
actually came to church yesterday. This was the first time that the
mom and her 3 sons were there. So great! This family is super duper
special. Seriously. I feel a really deep connection to them that I
have rarely felt on my mission. I just love their guts! And I want
them to have the gospel in their lives so badly. They need it. I
love this church!
CRAZY story. We met a girl who drinks WAY to much alcohol. We went
on exchanges on Thursday and so Elder Last was with a different
missionary when he tracted into this girl. But they sat down with her
for 45 minutes and in that time she smoked 6 cigarettes and drank 3
glasses (not shots) of VODKA! Her life is that she wakes up at 6 in
the morning and starts drinking. She drinks all day long, goes out
and parties in the evening, comes home late at night, wakes up in the
morning, throws up and starts all over. She needs the Gospel
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad. So Elder Last and I went over on Saturday
morning at like 10 am, where we knew she wouldn't be too drunk yet.
We were actually able to teach her a little bit about repentance and
baptism and then invited her to church. And she came!! It was a
miracle. We showed up at her home in the morning before church and
she was totally hung over. Really bad. But we had someone come to
pick her up and drive her to the church and she stayed the whole
time. At the end of the 3 hours she said that she actually really
enjoyed herself and wanted to come back again. I was amazed! It was
a total miracle. She isn't happy at all right now. She just drinks
to numb up her life. But the gospel will heal her if she lets it.
I'll keep you posted!
We're still on the hunt for more prepared families. The __________
Family is in the 4th ward and so we want to find a family in the 2nd
ward. We may have found them! We'll see. We quickly taught this
awesome guy who doesn't believe in God. We gave him a Book of Mormon
and set up a return appointment to come back this week. He was asking
some really powerful questions. We didn't have much time but the
spirit was strong during our discusison and I hope to see him progress!
We're also teaching a couple other young single adults. I think I
told you about the kid who played semi pro football but then got
assaulted and is now severely injured. We met with him but he isn't
progressing very well. There is another young fellow who also doesn't
believe in God. He is a really nice sincere guy and is really quiet.
But we've taught him a few times. He's a little stubborn but he is
reading and should be praying and I have full confidence he will get
an answer.
The Church is true fo sho. It's true. I feel so lucky to be serving
here at this awesome time. I look forward to seeing the miracles that
happen this week too! Hoorah for Israel!
Also, quick shout out to my super old sister! Ashley is turning 30
this week! Happy Birthday Smashley! Please don't have too many
wrinkles before I get home. I hope your birthday is a glorious one. :)
Love you!
-Elder Rueschki
Here I am. Another awesome week. Every week feels like 4 seconds.
But then when I think about all of the things that happened in the
week. It feels like 4 years. That is a good thing though I think.
It is amazing how quickly time flies and the more I think about it,
the more I realize how much time I wasted before the mission. There
is always so much to do and so little time to do it! But that is the
story of life and we all face it.
We went up to the mission home last week and had a meeting there on
Tuesday. That was quite fun. I love seeing all of my friends ha ha.
We are always so spread that we never get to see each other! I got to
see Elder Neeley though and that was awesome! He is doing so good. I
heart that kid. The thing that is no fun about the meetings we have
is I always seem to leave feeling like a total dump of a missionary.
Ha ha. I just have so many things to work on and they teach us so
many things that we should be doing. Sometimes it feels like we are
expected to be the Superman version of a missionary. Elder Last says
he always feels the same way. The meetings we have with President
Clements are always very spiritual though and I love going to them. I
have some good things to work on and some new ideas to try so we'll
see what happens! President also came down to Rochester on Thursday
for interviews with the zone. So all the teams came in and everyone
was interviewed. We had to make sure everything ran smoothly and it
did thank goodness!
I have wonderful news! This week we had a great lesson with the
__________ family. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and invited
them to be baptized. And the teenage son was like "Yeah I was going
to talk to you guys about that today." So we set a date for him to be
baptized on August 18th. Yay! His mom said that she didn't feel
quite ready for that yet. She is progressing well and is still very
interested but just isn't ready to be baptized. Can I just mention
that this boy is like the most impressive 13 year old I have ever
met? He acts like a mature adult. You would never guys that he is
only 13. So anyway, his mom is really supportive of him being
baptized and hopefully as we teach him to help him be prepared for
baptism she will realize that it is something that she wants to do.
There is still a good month before the baptism. There are also two
younger brothers who haven't been too involved in our visits yet but
we convinced one of them to stay last time and the whole family
actually came to church yesterday. This was the first time that the
mom and her 3 sons were there. So great! This family is super duper
special. Seriously. I feel a really deep connection to them that I
have rarely felt on my mission. I just love their guts! And I want
them to have the gospel in their lives so badly. They need it. I
love this church!
CRAZY story. We met a girl who drinks WAY to much alcohol. We went
on exchanges on Thursday and so Elder Last was with a different
missionary when he tracted into this girl. But they sat down with her
for 45 minutes and in that time she smoked 6 cigarettes and drank 3
glasses (not shots) of VODKA! Her life is that she wakes up at 6 in
the morning and starts drinking. She drinks all day long, goes out
and parties in the evening, comes home late at night, wakes up in the
morning, throws up and starts all over. She needs the Gospel
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad. So Elder Last and I went over on Saturday
morning at like 10 am, where we knew she wouldn't be too drunk yet.
We were actually able to teach her a little bit about repentance and
baptism and then invited her to church. And she came!! It was a
miracle. We showed up at her home in the morning before church and
she was totally hung over. Really bad. But we had someone come to
pick her up and drive her to the church and she stayed the whole
time. At the end of the 3 hours she said that she actually really
enjoyed herself and wanted to come back again. I was amazed! It was
a total miracle. She isn't happy at all right now. She just drinks
to numb up her life. But the gospel will heal her if she lets it.
I'll keep you posted!
We're still on the hunt for more prepared families. The __________
Family is in the 4th ward and so we want to find a family in the 2nd
ward. We may have found them! We'll see. We quickly taught this
awesome guy who doesn't believe in God. We gave him a Book of Mormon
and set up a return appointment to come back this week. He was asking
some really powerful questions. We didn't have much time but the
spirit was strong during our discusison and I hope to see him progress!
We're also teaching a couple other young single adults. I think I
told you about the kid who played semi pro football but then got
assaulted and is now severely injured. We met with him but he isn't
progressing very well. There is another young fellow who also doesn't
believe in God. He is a really nice sincere guy and is really quiet.
But we've taught him a few times. He's a little stubborn but he is
reading and should be praying and I have full confidence he will get
an answer.
The Church is true fo sho. It's true. I feel so lucky to be serving
here at this awesome time. I look forward to seeing the miracles that
happen this week too! Hoorah for Israel!
Also, quick shout out to my super old sister! Ashley is turning 30
this week! Happy Birthday Smashley! Please don't have too many
wrinkles before I get home. I hope your birthday is a glorious one. :)
Love you!
-Elder Rueschki
July 9, 2012
July 9, 2012
Hello again! It's been another delicious and eventful week. There is
never a dull week as a missionary!
So first of all, I appreciate all of the reports about the fire. That
is a scary thing that it got so close! It's kind of a funny story
about how I heard about the fire. So the girl who talked to you lived
in our ward and was an AWESOME help. She came teaching with us all of
the time and helped out a lot. Well just a couple weeks ago she moved
to Provo to go to work and to experience the unique life of a single
mormon in Provo. It was a sad loss on our part. But she became a
good friend to Elder Last and I. So she heard about the fire and
texted another girl who lives here in Minnesota who then texted us
about it. This is how the text conversation went:
"Elder Ruesch do you live in Alpine?"
"Yes."
"Oh Shellie wanted me to tell you that it's on fire..."
"Whhhaattt!!??? Tell Shellie to go put it out!"
"Okay I'll tell her too."
And then I preceded to give her mom's number to have Shellie call to
make sure everything was okay and our house was still standing. I was
nervous but I didn't feel too worried about it for some reason.
Somehow I knew things would be alright. But I'm glad I had Shellie
call you. I think you would be surprised how many people I heard
about the fire from before today. Every member I talked to that asked
me where I was from would then say, "Wait, isn't that where that fire
is?" And then I would have to tell then that it was but you guys were
safe. Everything in the church revolves around Utah because every
member has connections there. It's kinda freaky.
Anyway, on to more important things. This week was awesome! The
baptism went through and it was fantastic! The girl who got baptized
is just the sweetest person ever. She fits right in to the young
women and they all love her guts so she is going to have a wonderful
time in this ward. She was just beaming after the baptism and after
her confirmation on Sunday. A member of the ward baptized her and
Elder Last confirmed her. It was just fantastic. Things in the life
of that family are just crazy right now. It is so nice for the family
to have one glimmer of a happy moment. This girl is awesome. It's
hard to stay strong when everything is a disaster around you and she
just does it. I've learned a good lesson from her. Yay for
baptisms! They are such happy times.
Transfers went pretty smoothly. After I emailed you last week we went
out and worked for the rest of the day. And then on the 4th we had
the rest of our P-day from 2 until the rest of the night. That was
weird but cool. There were two ward parties that we dropped in on in
the morning/afternoon and we also went and delivered 4th of July
cookies to investigators. That was fun. We are cool. Speaking of
being cool, the weather on the 4th of July was SO HOT!!!!! Holy cow.
I died a little bit. We Minnesotans are really good at being dramatic
about the weather. But it was really hot. Fortunately, things cooled
down by Saturday. But I thought I was dyin. We saw this hilarious
marquee in front of one of the churches the other day and it said:
You think this is hot?
-God
Elder Last and I chuckled. Rochester has a lot of churches. Well,
Minnesota has a lot of churches but Rochester does especially. It is
almost disturbing. It feels like just another capitalist business
arena with everyone competing with each other to get people to their
church. I don't really like it. But at least people are going to
church right? If only they would listen to the fulness of the gospel!
The Cambodian guy I mentioned last week is on fire! We took him to
Family Home Evening with all the YSA's on Monday, we taught him in a
members home on Thursday, he came to watch the baptism on Saturday,
and came to church on Sunday. It was so great! He even went and
bought two new shirts and ties so that he could have them for church.
He was looking pretty shnazzy. It was so great. He is so receptive
to the spirit and he is just soaking all of the teachings up like a
sponge.
Unfortunately, we had our third lesson with the awesome investigator
that we met at the 5K and she told us that she didn't want to meet
anymore. We had a powerful lesson with her and she has totally felt
the spirit but she is facing a lot of family pressure and isn't strong
enough to resist it and is searching a lot of stuff right now and so
she is confusing herself. But I think she has a lot of potential in
the future. Maybe she will give it another shot soon. We'll see.
She has a lot of friends that are members so she still has good
contact with the church. It's just so sad! But that's life.
Interesting story. We tracted into a lady who left the church and
took her name off the records. She is really really bitter and has
faced a lot of hurt. But she let us come back and we visited with her
this week and will be going back next week. I don't know what changed
in her to allow missionaries to come over but I don't think it was a
coincidence that we knocked on her door. I hope she comes back! She
needs the healing of the Atonement so badly.
We have to drive up to the Cities for a meeting tomorrow. So we are
going to drive up today so we can play some Bball with the AP's. That
will be fun! It's a good thing I'm super good at basketball. I just
dominate on the court. In fact, some people go so far as to call me
Jimmer Jr. Ha ha! I actually have gotten better. We play a lot of
BBall as missionaries. Elder Last is a baller and so he shows me the
ropes. Ha ha.
Anyway, life is so good. I LOVE MY MISSION. And I love Elder Last.
We have so much fun together. Almost too much fun! And we are seeing
a lot of miracles at the same time. I am SO grateful for an awesome
companion and for the chance to serve the Lord full time. It is an
amazing opportunity and I'm going to make the most of what I have
left. It scares me to think that my time is running short. We're
going to baptize the world in the time we have left!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
Aka: Jimmer Jr. (But only on P-Day)
never a dull week as a missionary!
So first of all, I appreciate all of the reports about the fire. That
is a scary thing that it got so close! It's kind of a funny story
about how I heard about the fire. So the girl who talked to you lived
in our ward and was an AWESOME help. She came teaching with us all of
the time and helped out a lot. Well just a couple weeks ago she moved
to Provo to go to work and to experience the unique life of a single
mormon in Provo. It was a sad loss on our part. But she became a
good friend to Elder Last and I. So she heard about the fire and
texted another girl who lives here in Minnesota who then texted us
about it. This is how the text conversation went:
"Elder Ruesch do you live in Alpine?"
"Yes."
"Oh Shellie wanted me to tell you that it's on fire..."
"Whhhaattt!!??? Tell Shellie to go put it out!"
"Okay I'll tell her too."
And then I preceded to give her mom's number to have Shellie call to
make sure everything was okay and our house was still standing. I was
nervous but I didn't feel too worried about it for some reason.
Somehow I knew things would be alright. But I'm glad I had Shellie
call you. I think you would be surprised how many people I heard
about the fire from before today. Every member I talked to that asked
me where I was from would then say, "Wait, isn't that where that fire
is?" And then I would have to tell then that it was but you guys were
safe. Everything in the church revolves around Utah because every
member has connections there. It's kinda freaky.
Anyway, on to more important things. This week was awesome! The
baptism went through and it was fantastic! The girl who got baptized
is just the sweetest person ever. She fits right in to the young
women and they all love her guts so she is going to have a wonderful
time in this ward. She was just beaming after the baptism and after
her confirmation on Sunday. A member of the ward baptized her and
Elder Last confirmed her. It was just fantastic. Things in the life
of that family are just crazy right now. It is so nice for the family
to have one glimmer of a happy moment. This girl is awesome. It's
hard to stay strong when everything is a disaster around you and she
just does it. I've learned a good lesson from her. Yay for
baptisms! They are such happy times.
Transfers went pretty smoothly. After I emailed you last week we went
out and worked for the rest of the day. And then on the 4th we had
the rest of our P-day from 2 until the rest of the night. That was
weird but cool. There were two ward parties that we dropped in on in
the morning/afternoon and we also went and delivered 4th of July
cookies to investigators. That was fun. We are cool. Speaking of
being cool, the weather on the 4th of July was SO HOT!!!!! Holy cow.
I died a little bit. We Minnesotans are really good at being dramatic
about the weather. But it was really hot. Fortunately, things cooled
down by Saturday. But I thought I was dyin. We saw this hilarious
marquee in front of one of the churches the other day and it said:
You think this is hot?
-God
Elder Last and I chuckled. Rochester has a lot of churches. Well,
Minnesota has a lot of churches but Rochester does especially. It is
almost disturbing. It feels like just another capitalist business
arena with everyone competing with each other to get people to their
church. I don't really like it. But at least people are going to
church right? If only they would listen to the fulness of the gospel!
The Cambodian guy I mentioned last week is on fire! We took him to
Family Home Evening with all the YSA's on Monday, we taught him in a
members home on Thursday, he came to watch the baptism on Saturday,
and came to church on Sunday. It was so great! He even went and
bought two new shirts and ties so that he could have them for church.
He was looking pretty shnazzy. It was so great. He is so receptive
to the spirit and he is just soaking all of the teachings up like a
sponge.
Unfortunately, we had our third lesson with the awesome investigator
that we met at the 5K and she told us that she didn't want to meet
anymore. We had a powerful lesson with her and she has totally felt
the spirit but she is facing a lot of family pressure and isn't strong
enough to resist it and is searching a lot of stuff right now and so
she is confusing herself. But I think she has a lot of potential in
the future. Maybe she will give it another shot soon. We'll see.
She has a lot of friends that are members so she still has good
contact with the church. It's just so sad! But that's life.
Interesting story. We tracted into a lady who left the church and
took her name off the records. She is really really bitter and has
faced a lot of hurt. But she let us come back and we visited with her
this week and will be going back next week. I don't know what changed
in her to allow missionaries to come over but I don't think it was a
coincidence that we knocked on her door. I hope she comes back! She
needs the healing of the Atonement so badly.
We have to drive up to the Cities for a meeting tomorrow. So we are
going to drive up today so we can play some Bball with the AP's. That
will be fun! It's a good thing I'm super good at basketball. I just
dominate on the court. In fact, some people go so far as to call me
Jimmer Jr. Ha ha! I actually have gotten better. We play a lot of
BBall as missionaries. Elder Last is a baller and so he shows me the
ropes. Ha ha.
Anyway, life is so good. I LOVE MY MISSION. And I love Elder Last.
We have so much fun together. Almost too much fun! And we are seeing
a lot of miracles at the same time. I am SO grateful for an awesome
companion and for the chance to serve the Lord full time. It is an
amazing opportunity and I'm going to make the most of what I have
left. It scares me to think that my time is running short. We're
going to baptize the world in the time we have left!
Love,
Elder Ruesch
Aka: Jimmer Jr. (But only on P-Day)
July 8, 2012
July 2, 2012
Hello everyone,
Well it has been another week filled with events. We're working hard and we're seeing miracles! I love miracles.
Today actually isn't our P-Day. President changed our P-Day to be Wednesday after transfers because that day is July 4th. So that will be nice. But we were told to still do our emailing today. Speaking of transfers, the news is out and Elder Last and I are staying! WOO! I'm really pumped. Elder Last and I are having a really fun time. So I am pumped for the next 6 weeks.
Miracle time! We got a call yesterday from our Ward Mission Leader. He told us that the Bishop met with the parents of the girl we are teaching, and Bishop decided to go forward with the baptism! Awesome! So the girl is going to be baptized this Saturday. Yay! Her parents are divorced and her Dad flew here from Washington state and has been here for a few weeks. So he is going to be the one to baptize her. It is going to be difficult though because he actually had one leg amputated. So we're going to have to be in the font with him to help him baptize her. That will be an adventure. But we are excited! I'll make sure to tell you about it next week.
We invited so many people to be baptized this week! It was way awesome. As my mission has progressed I've learned to be a lot more bold. It feels so great to be bold. Instead of just being a little weeny who's scared of offending people. But it just so happened that this week we were teaching a lot of new people that we've just begun teaching in the last week or two and we invited them ALL to be baptized. We had an especially awesome experience yesterday. A couple days we were tracting and we met this Cambodian kid in his early 20's. We set up an appointment to meet yesterday. When we went over we had a AWESOME lesson. It went so good. The spirit was way strong. We pointed out the spirit and he was like, "I feel SO good! I feel happy!" It is amazing how the spirit can touch the hearts of those who are open. He's been totally seeking direction and we showed up on his door. The Lord is awesome!
We ran into an interesting situation with a family. we are teaching The lesson went okay but the mom actually opened up to us and said that she feels like God is calling her to be a Chaplain. Interesting huh? So she was wondering if women in the church are allowed to be Chaplains. Based on our evidence so far, we think it would be possible. But wouldn't that be so cool if she joined the church and was a Chaplain at the Hospital here in Rochester? That would be really neat. We'll wait to see what happens.
There is a lady we are teaching who was taught for a really long time by missionaries a couple years ago. And recently the Elders have started to visit her again. She is super awesome and is so close but for some reason she just can't bring herself to join the church. So recently, we tried super hard to commit her to a baptismal date. And she just couldn't bring herself to commit. But she did commit to read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes a day and to pray at least twice every day and to come to church every week. She came this week (the first time since I've been here) and she has been reading like she promised. It is so awesome to already see the change in her. It really is a testimony to me of the Book of Mormon. Now the secret is to help her realize the changes in herself! We'll see what we can do. She is such an awesome lady and I hope we can make it work!
Crazy story, we went to dinner with a family in the ward who moved in like a week ago. The wife had her parents there helping them get settled and guess who these parents happened to be? They were the mission president and wife of the Montana Mission several years ago. Can you say intimidating? We had dinner and shared a message and afterwards the Dad was like, "Nice work Elders, you passed." Ha ha. Goodness, I knew we were being graded the whole time on how good of missionaries we were. But he gave us a bunch of great advice and resolved faith to work harder. It was awesome but scary. Ha ha.
One more experience, we've been teaching this girl every week who used to be less active. I already have mentioned her before. But we have been going over all of the commandments with her to make sure she has everything down. So this week we went over the Law of Chastity! Ha ha. She was there and so was her active sister and another friend. It wasn't awkward at all or anything but I was just thinking about how funny the situation was. Here were 5 people all around the age of 20 sitting in a room reading a pamphlet together about the Law of Chastity out of their own choice and they were all enjoying the discussion. If someone random walked in on the lesson he would have been so mind boggled. I just think being a missionary is the best! We tell people how it is and don't beat around the bush. I LOVE talking about God's commandments.
Okay, one last funny story! Tuesday morning we had a lesson with someone at 9 in the morning. We went over and the lesson was with a newly wed girl in her twenties. She and her husband live with her parents. but it was only her that was willing to meet with us at this time. SO we went over and she answered the door right as this other lady is walking down the stairs in a towel. She clearly had just gotten out of the shower. So the the Lady freaked at her daughter who answered the door and was like, "Close the Door! Close the door! I'm naked!" Ha ha. And then the door closed. She came out shortly after and we had a decent lesson with her. Funny funny.
I really better go! There is so much to talk about. Thanks for the all pictures and I loved all of the emails I got from everyone. it sounds like MJ had an awesome Heritage tours. I loved their report. HT is the bomb! I'm glad that the Lehi Roundup was awesome. I hope everyone danced TWICE as hard since I was not there. I was definitely there in spirit though. :) Happy Independence day!
Love!
Elder Ruesch
Well it has been another week filled with events. We're working hard and we're seeing miracles! I love miracles.
Today actually isn't our P-Day. President changed our P-Day to be Wednesday after transfers because that day is July 4th. So that will be nice. But we were told to still do our emailing today. Speaking of transfers, the news is out and Elder Last and I are staying! WOO! I'm really pumped. Elder Last and I are having a really fun time. So I am pumped for the next 6 weeks.
Miracle time! We got a call yesterday from our Ward Mission Leader. He told us that the Bishop met with the parents of the girl we are teaching, and Bishop decided to go forward with the baptism! Awesome! So the girl is going to be baptized this Saturday. Yay! Her parents are divorced and her Dad flew here from Washington state and has been here for a few weeks. So he is going to be the one to baptize her. It is going to be difficult though because he actually had one leg amputated. So we're going to have to be in the font with him to help him baptize her. That will be an adventure. But we are excited! I'll make sure to tell you about it next week.
We invited so many people to be baptized this week! It was way awesome. As my mission has progressed I've learned to be a lot more bold. It feels so great to be bold. Instead of just being a little weeny who's scared of offending people. But it just so happened that this week we were teaching a lot of new people that we've just begun teaching in the last week or two and we invited them ALL to be baptized. We had an especially awesome experience yesterday. A couple days we were tracting and we met this Cambodian kid in his early 20's. We set up an appointment to meet yesterday. When we went over we had a AWESOME lesson. It went so good. The spirit was way strong. We pointed out the spirit and he was like, "I feel SO good! I feel happy!" It is amazing how the spirit can touch the hearts of those who are open. He's been totally seeking direction and we showed up on his door. The Lord is awesome!
We ran into an interesting situation with a family. we are teaching The lesson went okay but the mom actually opened up to us and said that she feels like God is calling her to be a Chaplain. Interesting huh? So she was wondering if women in the church are allowed to be Chaplains. Based on our evidence so far, we think it would be possible. But wouldn't that be so cool if she joined the church and was a Chaplain at the Hospital here in Rochester? That would be really neat. We'll wait to see what happens.
There is a lady we are teaching who was taught for a really long time by missionaries a couple years ago. And recently the Elders have started to visit her again. She is super awesome and is so close but for some reason she just can't bring herself to join the church. So recently, we tried super hard to commit her to a baptismal date. And she just couldn't bring herself to commit. But she did commit to read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes a day and to pray at least twice every day and to come to church every week. She came this week (the first time since I've been here) and she has been reading like she promised. It is so awesome to already see the change in her. It really is a testimony to me of the Book of Mormon. Now the secret is to help her realize the changes in herself! We'll see what we can do. She is such an awesome lady and I hope we can make it work!
Crazy story, we went to dinner with a family in the ward who moved in like a week ago. The wife had her parents there helping them get settled and guess who these parents happened to be? They were the mission president and wife of the Montana Mission several years ago. Can you say intimidating? We had dinner and shared a message and afterwards the Dad was like, "Nice work Elders, you passed." Ha ha. Goodness, I knew we were being graded the whole time on how good of missionaries we were. But he gave us a bunch of great advice and resolved faith to work harder. It was awesome but scary. Ha ha.
One more experience, we've been teaching this girl every week who used to be less active. I already have mentioned her before. But we have been going over all of the commandments with her to make sure she has everything down. So this week we went over the Law of Chastity! Ha ha. She was there and so was her active sister and another friend. It wasn't awkward at all or anything but I was just thinking about how funny the situation was. Here were 5 people all around the age of 20 sitting in a room reading a pamphlet together about the Law of Chastity out of their own choice and they were all enjoying the discussion. If someone random walked in on the lesson he would have been so mind boggled. I just think being a missionary is the best! We tell people how it is and don't beat around the bush. I LOVE talking about God's commandments.
Okay, one last funny story! Tuesday morning we had a lesson with someone at 9 in the morning. We went over and the lesson was with a newly wed girl in her twenties. She and her husband live with her parents. but it was only her that was willing to meet with us at this time. SO we went over and she answered the door right as this other lady is walking down the stairs in a towel. She clearly had just gotten out of the shower. So the the Lady freaked at her daughter who answered the door and was like, "Close the Door! Close the door! I'm naked!" Ha ha. And then the door closed. She came out shortly after and we had a decent lesson with her. Funny funny.
I really better go! There is so much to talk about. Thanks for the all pictures and I loved all of the emails I got from everyone. it sounds like MJ had an awesome Heritage tours. I loved their report. HT is the bomb! I'm glad that the Lehi Roundup was awesome. I hope everyone danced TWICE as hard since I was not there. I was definitely there in spirit though. :) Happy Independence day!
Love!
Elder Ruesch
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
June 25, 2012
June 25, 2012
Hello from the land of green!
I feel like every week I say that the last week has been really crazy. But I only say it because it is true! I wish I had time to tell you everything that happened every single day but we would be here for way too long. So I just give highlights.
Cool story, a couple weeks ago we were helping out at a 5k run. We were handing out water to the runners just to do some nice service. Well we got talking to one of the girls that was working with us and she asked why both our names were Elder. So we talked about our missions and all that good jazz. It turns out she knew a member family in our ward! So we invited her to meet with us and she agreed! We had the first lesson this week at the members home. It was fantastic. We taught her the restoration and it went really well. The spirit was very strong. Man, I love the feeling of the Spirit. He just makes life happy. Anyway, after we shared the first vision we pointed out the feeling of the spirit to her and said that it was here right now. She agreed that it was. Now we just need to help her make the connection better that it is true. We'll be meeting again this week!
You know, it really is amazing to me how unfamiliar with the Spirit people really are. We meet people ALL the time who want to just bible bash. But we'll ask them how they know that the Bible is true. Most will say because the prophecies in it have all come true or they will say that archeological evidence proves that the places and people of the book really existed. Although these things are valid and important, they are insufficient to prove the full spiritual truth of it all. People that are proud just like to be right and so they never recognize the fault of their logic! It is sad to me because they aren't willing to actually follow Christ and become closer to him. Even though they say they are. So in reality they have no idea what the Holy Spirit feels like or how much he can direct their lives for good if they just listen to it. Nothing is more powerful and quiet than the answers that come from the Spirit. That's where we find our truth!
Moving on. We met with the ____________ family again. We went into the lesson pumped! We had planned to teach the Plan of Salvation and invite them to be baptized on a specific day. But when we got into the lesson, they hadn't really read much because life was crazy. So there hadn't been much progression. So we ended up reading two chapters of the Book of Mormon with them and commited them to read the BoM everyday. The mom came to church though! I'm sure the kids would have too but they had to spend the weekend with their Dad. Apparently, the Dad is against religion and so he wont let the kids go to church when they are with him. That will provide a challenge for the family. Hopefully, something will work out.
We are seeing many great miracle! And life is good. I need to sign off pretty soon. One more cool story. We had several appointments set up for this one evening. Guess how many of them happened? None. Every single person ditched us! And it was so lame. But then two days later we stopped by one of those people's apartment and when they came to the door they were like, "We were just talking about you!" So we went in and taught them the Restoration and invited them to be baptized. It was pretty cool. Hopefully, they wont ditch us anymore now that they know that this is really God's work.
I hope to hear an update from MJ on their HT experience! And this time they don't have an excuse that they don't have time. It's summer! Glad to hear that all is well.
Don't get fried this week! I might be boiled.
Love,
Elder Ruesch
I feel like every week I say that the last week has been really crazy. But I only say it because it is true! I wish I had time to tell you everything that happened every single day but we would be here for way too long. So I just give highlights.
Cool story, a couple weeks ago we were helping out at a 5k run. We were handing out water to the runners just to do some nice service. Well we got talking to one of the girls that was working with us and she asked why both our names were Elder. So we talked about our missions and all that good jazz. It turns out she knew a member family in our ward! So we invited her to meet with us and she agreed! We had the first lesson this week at the members home. It was fantastic. We taught her the restoration and it went really well. The spirit was very strong. Man, I love the feeling of the Spirit. He just makes life happy. Anyway, after we shared the first vision we pointed out the feeling of the spirit to her and said that it was here right now. She agreed that it was. Now we just need to help her make the connection better that it is true. We'll be meeting again this week!
You know, it really is amazing to me how unfamiliar with the Spirit people really are. We meet people ALL the time who want to just bible bash. But we'll ask them how they know that the Bible is true. Most will say because the prophecies in it have all come true or they will say that archeological evidence proves that the places and people of the book really existed. Although these things are valid and important, they are insufficient to prove the full spiritual truth of it all. People that are proud just like to be right and so they never recognize the fault of their logic! It is sad to me because they aren't willing to actually follow Christ and become closer to him. Even though they say they are. So in reality they have no idea what the Holy Spirit feels like or how much he can direct their lives for good if they just listen to it. Nothing is more powerful and quiet than the answers that come from the Spirit. That's where we find our truth!
Moving on. We met with the ____________ family again. We went into the lesson pumped! We had planned to teach the Plan of Salvation and invite them to be baptized on a specific day. But when we got into the lesson, they hadn't really read much because life was crazy. So there hadn't been much progression. So we ended up reading two chapters of the Book of Mormon with them and commited them to read the BoM everyday. The mom came to church though! I'm sure the kids would have too but they had to spend the weekend with their Dad. Apparently, the Dad is against religion and so he wont let the kids go to church when they are with him. That will provide a challenge for the family. Hopefully, something will work out.
We are seeing many great miracle! And life is good. I need to sign off pretty soon. One more cool story. We had several appointments set up for this one evening. Guess how many of them happened? None. Every single person ditched us! And it was so lame. But then two days later we stopped by one of those people's apartment and when they came to the door they were like, "We were just talking about you!" So we went in and taught them the Restoration and invited them to be baptized. It was pretty cool. Hopefully, they wont ditch us anymore now that they know that this is really God's work.
I hope to hear an update from MJ on their HT experience! And this time they don't have an excuse that they don't have time. It's summer! Glad to hear that all is well.
Don't get fried this week! I might be boiled.
Love,
Elder Ruesch
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
June 18, 2012
June 18, 2012
Fam fam!
It has been another adventurous week here in lovely Minnesota! I
rained a lot this week which kept things cool. But today is supposed
to be toasty. Somewhere in the 90's I believe and like 80% humidity.
So it begins. I honestly like the -20 degree weather better than the
really hot humid weather! Goodness! So I will be roasting like a hot
dog for the next 3 months. Ha ha.
Speaking of crazy weather, we had a crazy flash flood this week! We
were at a members house sitting on the back porch going over a plan
for her to fellowship our investigator when this super low, dark cloud
started creeping over the roof. It was creepy looking! Everything
got dark and it dropped like 10 degrees. So we finished our plans
with the member really quick and the sprinted to the car right as the
rain started DUMPING! It was an intense storm. But we had a lot of
fun in it. Thank goodness we have a car and weren't stuck on our
bikes! I think we got somewhere around 8 inches of water from that
storm. Cool stuff!
On to more important things. We had a super awesome lesson with this
investigator that missionaries have been teaching forever and made
little progress with. We invited her to be baptized. She almost
committed to it! But she compromised with us and committed to REALLY
read the Book of Mormon everyday and pray morning and night. She
never seriously committed to that and now she has. We'll see if she
keeps it!
Also, we met again with the family that I talked about two weeks ago.
They are such an amazing family! The mom and son had us over for
dinner and we answered a lot of their questions. They really are so
amazing. I love this family so much and I hope they continue to
progress! You can tell that they are close to the spirit because
they will say things that we never say but they know are true. In the
lesson the son said something like, "We should read the Book of Mormon
together as a family each night and then we can go read on our own and
pray about it." And the mom was totally on board and thought it was
an awesome idea. Of course for a family that is learning about the
church, there isn't anything much better that you can do. The son has
already read through Mosiah in the BoM. I am so excited about them!
There is sad new too :( Our investigator that is trying to quit
smoking totally disappeared. It is so strange! No one has seen him
at his house in over a week and he hasn't gone to his work or
anything! We're worried about him. We have no idea what happened.
So we're having our ups and downs with investigators. We have high
hopes for the people we're working with and to find more people to
teach! Rochester is going to baptize like crazy very very soon. I
can just feel it!
Happy fathers day to everyone. Hopefully, it was a happy one.
Love,
Elder Ruesch
It has been another adventurous week here in lovely Minnesota! I
rained a lot this week which kept things cool. But today is supposed
to be toasty. Somewhere in the 90's I believe and like 80% humidity.
So it begins. I honestly like the -20 degree weather better than the
really hot humid weather! Goodness! So I will be roasting like a hot
dog for the next 3 months. Ha ha.
Speaking of crazy weather, we had a crazy flash flood this week! We
were at a members house sitting on the back porch going over a plan
for her to fellowship our investigator when this super low, dark cloud
started creeping over the roof. It was creepy looking! Everything
got dark and it dropped like 10 degrees. So we finished our plans
with the member really quick and the sprinted to the car right as the
rain started DUMPING! It was an intense storm. But we had a lot of
fun in it. Thank goodness we have a car and weren't stuck on our
bikes! I think we got somewhere around 8 inches of water from that
storm. Cool stuff!
On to more important things. We had a super awesome lesson with this
investigator that missionaries have been teaching forever and made
little progress with. We invited her to be baptized. She almost
committed to it! But she compromised with us and committed to REALLY
read the Book of Mormon everyday and pray morning and night. She
never seriously committed to that and now she has. We'll see if she
keeps it!
Also, we met again with the family that I talked about two weeks ago.
They are such an amazing family! The mom and son had us over for
dinner and we answered a lot of their questions. They really are so
amazing. I love this family so much and I hope they continue to
progress! You can tell that they are close to the spirit because
they will say things that we never say but they know are true. In the
lesson the son said something like, "We should read the Book of Mormon
together as a family each night and then we can go read on our own and
pray about it." And the mom was totally on board and thought it was
an awesome idea. Of course for a family that is learning about the
church, there isn't anything much better that you can do. The son has
already read through Mosiah in the BoM. I am so excited about them!
There is sad new too :( Our investigator that is trying to quit
smoking totally disappeared. It is so strange! No one has seen him
at his house in over a week and he hasn't gone to his work or
anything! We're worried about him. We have no idea what happened.
So we're having our ups and downs with investigators. We have high
hopes for the people we're working with and to find more people to
teach! Rochester is going to baptize like crazy very very soon. I
can just feel it!
Happy fathers day to everyone. Hopefully, it was a happy one.
Love,
Elder Ruesch
June 12, 2012
June 11, 2012
Yo yo!
It has been a crazy week. But it was really cool. We first went to
Wisconsin on Tuesday. The drive from Rochester to La Crosse, WI is
about an hour and fifteen minutes. So it is pretty far away but it
was a beautiful drive. It was an eventful drive too. On the way over
a bird flew right into our windshield. Poor guy. We also got a flat
tire. But all was well and we made it there and back safely.
In that area of wisconsin they don't have anything like mountains but
they have some tall bluffs that are COVERED in trees and it is so
green. Super pretty! La Crosse is basically right across the border
from Minnesota to Wisconsin. Just past the Mississippi river. We had
a lot of fun. I got to spend the day out there with Elder
Gottfredson. Do you remember him? He is my old companion! He was
the last companion I had in Plymouth. So that was cool to spend a day
with him again.
The thing that stunk about this week was pretty much everything in our
own area went bad. Ha ha. We had a lot of appointments fall
through. But that isn't something that I am not used to.
If there is one thing that I have learned on my mission it is that I
HATE SMOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But really. I do. Everyone smokes and
it is so hard to break. I hate it.
We tracted into a guy two weeks ago and taught him this week. He is
such an awesome guy and has a really sad story. He way playing semi-
pro football for the team here in Rochester. And 4 years ago he saw a
drug deal and so the dealers assaulted him and beat him up hard core.
He ended up with a pretty bad brain injury and is now blind in his
right eye and has a hard time speaking. In our lesson he kept asking,
"Why me?" So we taught him about the atonement and the spirit was
strong. We will teach him more about the Book of Mormon and hopefully
we can help him to understand trials and rely on the Lord. He had
such a pure heart.
Something fun, there was a YSA conference down here this weekend and
so a bunch of the members from the Dinkytown Ward came down and I saw
a bunch of them. That was way cool. Party in Rochester!
Things are going well. We hope to see some more success this week!
If only people were more willing to commit to things. Don't they know
that it is for their good? Ha ha. Story of my life as a missionary.
Tell MJ to have a blast on Heritage Tours! And tell them that it is a
lot easier to bring up gospel conversations with people. I have high
expectations for them to do great missionary work while they are out
of Utah! I hope they give out a bunch of Book of Mormons!
And that is so rad that Ashley is in Minnesota. She will soon be
converted to this land just as I am. It is a glorious place!
Mom and Dad, sorry you are empty nesters. I still love you though!
Love!
Elder Ruesch
It has been a crazy week. But it was really cool. We first went to
Wisconsin on Tuesday. The drive from Rochester to La Crosse, WI is
about an hour and fifteen minutes. So it is pretty far away but it
was a beautiful drive. It was an eventful drive too. On the way over
a bird flew right into our windshield. Poor guy. We also got a flat
tire. But all was well and we made it there and back safely.
In that area of wisconsin they don't have anything like mountains but
they have some tall bluffs that are COVERED in trees and it is so
green. Super pretty! La Crosse is basically right across the border
from Minnesota to Wisconsin. Just past the Mississippi river. We had
a lot of fun. I got to spend the day out there with Elder
Gottfredson. Do you remember him? He is my old companion! He was
the last companion I had in Plymouth. So that was cool to spend a day
with him again.
The thing that stunk about this week was pretty much everything in our
own area went bad. Ha ha. We had a lot of appointments fall
through. But that isn't something that I am not used to.
If there is one thing that I have learned on my mission it is that I
HATE SMOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But really. I do. Everyone smokes and
it is so hard to break. I hate it.
We tracted into a guy two weeks ago and taught him this week. He is
such an awesome guy and has a really sad story. He way playing semi-
pro football for the team here in Rochester. And 4 years ago he saw a
drug deal and so the dealers assaulted him and beat him up hard core.
He ended up with a pretty bad brain injury and is now blind in his
right eye and has a hard time speaking. In our lesson he kept asking,
"Why me?" So we taught him about the atonement and the spirit was
strong. We will teach him more about the Book of Mormon and hopefully
we can help him to understand trials and rely on the Lord. He had
such a pure heart.
Something fun, there was a YSA conference down here this weekend and
so a bunch of the members from the Dinkytown Ward came down and I saw
a bunch of them. That was way cool. Party in Rochester!
Things are going well. We hope to see some more success this week!
If only people were more willing to commit to things. Don't they know
that it is for their good? Ha ha. Story of my life as a missionary.
Tell MJ to have a blast on Heritage Tours! And tell them that it is a
lot easier to bring up gospel conversations with people. I have high
expectations for them to do great missionary work while they are out
of Utah! I hope they give out a bunch of Book of Mormons!
And that is so rad that Ashley is in Minnesota. She will soon be
converted to this land just as I am. It is a glorious place!
Mom and Dad, sorry you are empty nesters. I still love you though!
Love!
Elder Ruesch
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