Right now my bike is fixed, but we are going to have someone bring it down to us from the store. Right now we are walking but it's okay because our area is really small. I like walking too so it's good.
Thanks for praying for our investigators. They are all really great people and we are praying for some miracles.
Thanks for your confidence. Being a leader is different because now I'm having a lot of people looking to me for things and it takes some getting used to. I've got a lot to learn but I'm just taking it step by step. All I am going to do is just do my best.
I'm SO excited that Harrison is going to be serving a mission! It's the best thing to do. I've learned so much on my mission that I couldn't have learned anywhere else. He's going to love it. I'm going to love seeing him before he goes too! It's fun being with Elder Knudsen because it brings back a ton of memories of when I just started off. He's still got a little greenie fire so it's a lot of fun.
Yeah there are a lot of really great people in this area. Honestly this is a trip down memory lane. It's strange to see how much everything has changed. There are a lot of really great people who left and now the mission is really young again. I'm starting to freak out because I'm almost at my 18th month mark and so now I'm getting a little anxious to just go out and teach. I really want to get as much done as I can with the time that I have left. This week I was thinking about the part on the Best Two Years that when he's at the train and he says, "These moments go by so fast. Just don't let one moment pass you by". That's kind of how I am right now.
It's really fun being with Elder Knudsen. He's a really cool guy and it's fun to talk with him. He did a lot of marching band before his mission so we talk about AF a lot. Whenever we go to Logan we are going to have to stop by and see him. As of right now I've got companions that live in Florida, Virginia, Hawaii and a lot in Northern Utah. It's pretty cool.
Lockwood is legit! It's a really small area but there are a lot of cool people. This week we met this really fun guy he was really nice and bought us a soda and some subway and in exchange we attempted to teach him the first lesson. It's funny because we ran into him twice in the same day. I think that he will probably become an investigator too but we'll see.
Right now most of my companions are all over the place but I know a couple of the missionaries here. It's weird because everyone around me is super young and the zone has changed a lot. I'm just across the bayou from DH and I'm only a couple minutes away from Broadway 2 Central (which by the way are now hermanas). Houston is full of churches. There's pretty much a church on every street. I'm still getting that Latino food so I'm really happy.
I like being a district leader though it's a lot different. It's taking a little bit to get used to it. My district is AWESOME though. They are really good missionaries. District meeting is different but I like it and I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Yeah my mission has been a great experience.
Love you a ton!
Elder Ressler
Monday, January 26, 2015
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Lockwood - January 20, 2015
Lockwood is really good. Pretty fun being back in the city. My area is SO close to downtown. Yeah I'm a little nervous about being DL but that will be all right. In the end I'm just another missionary. I tried to explain to Elder Knudsen that I'm one of those missionaries that likes to do things without a lot of people seeing me and so it's different for me to be called to be DL.
Yeah lately it has been really nice here in Houston. There was a week that we had a lot of rain and it was really cold but lately it's been sunny and high 60s It's pretty nice. I'm really happy to be back in the city. It's super great though it's weird to see how much everything has changed. When I left Broadway I was one of the youngest missionaries and now there is only one missionary older than me. Weird huh?
It's been really great with Elder Knudsen. He's a great guy. He's doing a really good job on learning Spanish and it's crazy because I can remember when I was at that stage. Pretty nuts. Elder Knudsen is from a place just outside of Logan but I forgot the name. I'm his second companion and he graduated and then left pretty much just like I did. I'll make sure to send some pictures. He was in marching band and played drums. He's really good too. He has three sisters and a brother who went to Argentina and is married now. He said that he lived in Orem for the first part of his life then they moved to Cache Valley.
I really give credit to learning Spanish to reading in the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It's been amazing to see the blessings. I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish and I'm starting it again. I also have the Book of Mormon on tapes so I listen to that too. It's been amazing learning Spanish and it's been a huge blessing to learn as I read. Sometimes I don't have a whole lot of time to read during personal study and so I really love the time I have to just read during language study.
Right now my bike is in the shop in Kingwood and the pedal fell off the first time from normal wear but the second time was because the guy in this other shop didn't tighten it enough. It will probably cost about 30 dollars. I talked to the mission office and they said that if I need to I could borrow a mission bike and use that for the rest of mission. If I keep having problems with it then I might just do that. It's been cool because I've seen a lot of miracles happen with my bike too. It has never cost the amount that they told me at first. I'm sure that the bike problem will be fine. If anything I might end up using a mission bike but we'll see. I just know that I'll be all right :)
So right now we are teaching a lot of people with some really great potential. There is this one family we're teaching and they are really great and are doing well. The mom and dad aren't married but we invited them to get married on Valentine's Day and baptized the next day. Right now they are thinking about it. Hopefully it will go through because that would be great.
Honestly I have seen so many blessings from going on a mission. I've had a lot of incredible experiences and I can't imagine not having gone. The people that I have met have really changed me and I hope that I have made a difference in their lives too. Above all I've really come to know my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ on my mission. It's been incredible.
Love,
Elder Ressler
Yeah lately it has been really nice here in Houston. There was a week that we had a lot of rain and it was really cold but lately it's been sunny and high 60s It's pretty nice. I'm really happy to be back in the city. It's super great though it's weird to see how much everything has changed. When I left Broadway I was one of the youngest missionaries and now there is only one missionary older than me. Weird huh?
It's been really great with Elder Knudsen. He's a great guy. He's doing a really good job on learning Spanish and it's crazy because I can remember when I was at that stage. Pretty nuts. Elder Knudsen is from a place just outside of Logan but I forgot the name. I'm his second companion and he graduated and then left pretty much just like I did. I'll make sure to send some pictures. He was in marching band and played drums. He's really good too. He has three sisters and a brother who went to Argentina and is married now. He said that he lived in Orem for the first part of his life then they moved to Cache Valley.
I really give credit to learning Spanish to reading in the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It's been amazing to see the blessings. I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish and I'm starting it again. I also have the Book of Mormon on tapes so I listen to that too. It's been amazing learning Spanish and it's been a huge blessing to learn as I read. Sometimes I don't have a whole lot of time to read during personal study and so I really love the time I have to just read during language study.
Right now my bike is in the shop in Kingwood and the pedal fell off the first time from normal wear but the second time was because the guy in this other shop didn't tighten it enough. It will probably cost about 30 dollars. I talked to the mission office and they said that if I need to I could borrow a mission bike and use that for the rest of mission. If I keep having problems with it then I might just do that. It's been cool because I've seen a lot of miracles happen with my bike too. It has never cost the amount that they told me at first. I'm sure that the bike problem will be fine. If anything I might end up using a mission bike but we'll see. I just know that I'll be all right :)
So right now we are teaching a lot of people with some really great potential. There is this one family we're teaching and they are really great and are doing well. The mom and dad aren't married but we invited them to get married on Valentine's Day and baptized the next day. Right now they are thinking about it. Hopefully it will go through because that would be great.
Honestly I have seen so many blessings from going on a mission. I've had a lot of incredible experiences and I can't imagine not having gone. The people that I have met have really changed me and I hope that I have made a difference in their lives too. Above all I've really come to know my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ on my mission. It's been incredible.
Love,
Elder Ressler
Monday, January 12, 2015
Lockwood - January 12, 2015
So right now I am in a place called Lockwood. It's named after a street in downtown Houston. We were walking to a member's house a couple of nights ago and I realized that we were right next to downtown! Crazy stuff. My companion's name is Elder Knudsen. He's a really great guy from Logan UT and he's been out for about 4 months. As far as mission heritage goes he is the brother of Elder Woodruff.
Yeah I love that Mormon message with Elder Holland telling about the little league football team! It's so true.
https://www.lds.org/youth/video/sanctify-yourselves?lang=eng
We are going to be called at any time to give a blessing and we may not know when. There was a time at the beginning of my mission. We had begun to bike to our area when we both had the impression to go and grab my oil vial in the apartment. We had already begun so we just kept biking and ignored the prompting. Then late at night our dinner appointment asked us to give a blessing to her daughter who was sick. We felt awful knowing that we hadn't listen but we gave her a blessing of comfort. Now from now on I always have a some oil on me.
I've given a lot of blessings on my mission. It depends on the area that I'm in but I remember giving tons. There was a really great experience that Elder Mamea and I had in my last area. There was this guy who we found while knocking. He was really nervous because he had just gotten out of prison and he was going to have to go back for a couple months. The night before he was super agitated and he said he just wanted to calm down. We had the impression to give him a blessing and when we did he sat up and looked at us. Then he said "whoa what did you do?" He said that he felt great and there was a cool change in him. I hope that he does all right. It was just awesome to see the change that he had.
Thanks for being such a great example to me dad. You are a really great Priesthood holder and I really look up to you.
I'm on a bike again and it's a funny story but for some reason my left pedal kept falling off so I took it to the shop and got a new one and it started to fall off too. I'm thinking about having the mission lend me a bike or something but we'll see. I was thinking about the options but I feel like I should keep using the one I have now
The church can be like a big support group. The youth go through a lot of really tough challenges but if you work hard then you can have them help each other out.
I really want to go and do temple work when I get back. We had a really cool opportunity last night to teach a couple who aren't married about the plan of salvation. They really want to be good examples to their children and we told them that they have the opportunity to be sealed together forever. It was really cool and the spirit was really strong.
Love,
Elder Ressler
Yeah I love that Mormon message with Elder Holland telling about the little league football team! It's so true.
https://www.lds.org/youth/video/sanctify-yourselves?lang=eng
We are going to be called at any time to give a blessing and we may not know when. There was a time at the beginning of my mission. We had begun to bike to our area when we both had the impression to go and grab my oil vial in the apartment. We had already begun so we just kept biking and ignored the prompting. Then late at night our dinner appointment asked us to give a blessing to her daughter who was sick. We felt awful knowing that we hadn't listen but we gave her a blessing of comfort. Now from now on I always have a some oil on me.
I've given a lot of blessings on my mission. It depends on the area that I'm in but I remember giving tons. There was a really great experience that Elder Mamea and I had in my last area. There was this guy who we found while knocking. He was really nervous because he had just gotten out of prison and he was going to have to go back for a couple months. The night before he was super agitated and he said he just wanted to calm down. We had the impression to give him a blessing and when we did he sat up and looked at us. Then he said "whoa what did you do?" He said that he felt great and there was a cool change in him. I hope that he does all right. It was just awesome to see the change that he had.
Thanks for being such a great example to me dad. You are a really great Priesthood holder and I really look up to you.
I'm on a bike again and it's a funny story but for some reason my left pedal kept falling off so I took it to the shop and got a new one and it started to fall off too. I'm thinking about having the mission lend me a bike or something but we'll see. I was thinking about the options but I feel like I should keep using the one I have now
The church can be like a big support group. The youth go through a lot of really tough challenges but if you work hard then you can have them help each other out.
I really want to go and do temple work when I get back. We had a really cool opportunity last night to teach a couple who aren't married about the plan of salvation. They really want to be good examples to their children and we told them that they have the opportunity to be sealed together forever. It was really cool and the spirit was really strong.
Love,
Elder Ressler
Monday, January 5, 2015
Cleveland, TX - January 5, 2015
I'm doing great! This week was a super weird week but luckily everything is starting to settle down. As far as stories we had something really cool happen. We were having a hard time finding people to teach so one day I felt impressed to go to our area book and look at some potentials. On the first page we looked at we found a name and in the note part we saw that she was baptized a long time ago and after that fell off the deep end. So we decided to go by and try her later at night. When we did we got kind of lost looking for the house and were about to give up when a guy came out of the house across the street and started to shoot what sounded like a .22 which ended up being a pellet gun (so don't worry mom) to scare us away. We started to walk away so that he would stop and then about 15 minutes later he came by in a truck because he thought we would call the police. It turns out that he was the son of the woman we were trying to find and that he was also baptized. We set up a time to meet with him and when we came back he let us in. The house was made completely out of plywood and you could tell that he didn't really have much. We began talking about church and he told us that he wants to start coming back and to quit smoking and drinking. He also really wants to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. So yeah it was pretty much a miracle.
As far as my Spanish, I think if it hadn't been for Elder Gamez, I'd be concerned about my Spanish. We didn't really speak Spanish a whole lot to each other but the way that he said things made me fix a lot of my errors. And if I was losing my spanish here it's all good because I got a call that I'm being transferred and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be going back to the city so exciting stuff. I'm going to miss Elder Mamea a lot but it's all good. I'll see him around some time.
I can't believe that it's happening. I'm going to miss Cleveland a lot. I feel like I had a lot of things happen here that helped me to change and hopefully it's for the better. I'm really going to miss the Torres family which are the ones related to Grant. They are a really great family. I really enjoy being around a lot of people and there are a lot of things that I miss about it. I'll probably go back though I'm not too sure how far into the city I'll be. I may be in Broadway but I could also go back to a place called Cloverleaf which is right next to Denver Harbor so that could be fun. There is also an area that is called West Lake which is a big possibility. I really agree that you have to look for the good in every place. Elder Woodruff was always saying that I was super optimistic and that I need to keep it up. There are a lot of times on my mission that I've been too serious but I've always had to put myself in check. It's hard sometimes but I've had a lot of help from my companions and there is always something that will happen that will make me smile.
You can always tell when a missionary is trunky because they will always be talking about home and they just stare off into space a lot.. I am right with you dad. I was super blessed to be born in the gospel and out here I feel like I am way too blessed. I've seen A LOT of really horrible living conditions. It just makes me so grateful for the life that I have. Honestly we don't know how blessed we are until we go on a mission.
Elder Mamea and I have talked a lot about missionary work and the styles of missionary work that people have. I try my best to be like chill and loving as well as obedient. It all just comes back to really loving the people and not being selfish.
I really do feel your guys' prayers and I am so grateful for your support. Honestly missionary work would be really hard without people rooting us on and I am so grateful that we have this church and this gospel. Thank you so much for your example. I love you a ton.
Love,
Elder Ressler
As far as my Spanish, I think if it hadn't been for Elder Gamez, I'd be concerned about my Spanish. We didn't really speak Spanish a whole lot to each other but the way that he said things made me fix a lot of my errors. And if I was losing my spanish here it's all good because I got a call that I'm being transferred and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be going back to the city so exciting stuff. I'm going to miss Elder Mamea a lot but it's all good. I'll see him around some time.
I can't believe that it's happening. I'm going to miss Cleveland a lot. I feel like I had a lot of things happen here that helped me to change and hopefully it's for the better. I'm really going to miss the Torres family which are the ones related to Grant. They are a really great family. I really enjoy being around a lot of people and there are a lot of things that I miss about it. I'll probably go back though I'm not too sure how far into the city I'll be. I may be in Broadway but I could also go back to a place called Cloverleaf which is right next to Denver Harbor so that could be fun. There is also an area that is called West Lake which is a big possibility. I really agree that you have to look for the good in every place. Elder Woodruff was always saying that I was super optimistic and that I need to keep it up. There are a lot of times on my mission that I've been too serious but I've always had to put myself in check. It's hard sometimes but I've had a lot of help from my companions and there is always something that will happen that will make me smile.
You can always tell when a missionary is trunky because they will always be talking about home and they just stare off into space a lot.. I am right with you dad. I was super blessed to be born in the gospel and out here I feel like I am way too blessed. I've seen A LOT of really horrible living conditions. It just makes me so grateful for the life that I have. Honestly we don't know how blessed we are until we go on a mission.
Elder Mamea and I have talked a lot about missionary work and the styles of missionary work that people have. I try my best to be like chill and loving as well as obedient. It all just comes back to really loving the people and not being selfish.
I really do feel your guys' prayers and I am so grateful for your support. Honestly missionary work would be really hard without people rooting us on and I am so grateful that we have this church and this gospel. Thank you so much for your example. I love you a ton.
Love,
Elder Ressler
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