A Trip to the Rexburg Temple

Hello!
Hope all is going well!
This last week was good. I love mondays but I never remember the
things that went on during the week. Anyway, it was still a good week.
We have been seeing many miracles and blessing from following the
promptings of the Holy Ghost. I love seeing how God leads us to those
that are prepared! Many times this week we did not know where to go,
so we said a simple pray and followed the path God had for us. We talked
to a lot of people that were prepared to meet with missionaries but in
other areas. I still love to be able to help people though. We did go
to the Rexburg Temple. That was a great experience. It had been over 6
months since I've been to the Temple.

Sunday we spoke in the Rigby 5th ward on Sabbath Day Observance.
I learned a lot from studying for that talk.
I really like this scripture found in Isaiah 58:13-14

13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy
pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of
the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee
to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the
heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it.

I know of many blessings from  keeping the Sabbath day holy! I like
how these verses describe it. If we forget our own desires on Sunday
and do the things that bring us closer to God we will receive
blessings and these verses promise two different blessings.

1  I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth
In other words, prophets usually go to high places like mountains to
receive revelation and if we will keep the sabbath holy we will
receive more revelation from God
2 And feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father
Jacob and his seed were promised Eternal life. So are we!

Eternal life is the phrase used in the scripture to define the quality of
life that our Eternal Father lives. The Lord declared,

"This is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). Immortality is to live forever as a resurrected being. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everyone will receive this gift. Eternal life, or exaltation, is to live in God's presence
and to continue as families (see D&C 131:1–4). Like immortality, this
gift is made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. However,
to inherit eternal life requires our “obedience to the laws and
ordinances of the Gospel” (Articles of Faith 1:3).)

 I hope to one day receive the gift of Eternal Life.

”I bear testimony that Jesus is the living Christ, whose Atonement
makes it possible for us to be purified and so be worthy of the
companionship of the Holy Ghost.
“I testify that with our faith and diligence, we can one day hear the
words that will bring us joy: ‘Well done, thou good and faithful
servant.’”

President Henry B. Eyring

Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Rush

A trip to the Rexburg Temple with Elder Welling.

"I love to see the Temple, I'm going there someday"

This Last Week in Rigby was Good!

Hello!
How is life? Any crazy news?
This last week in Rigby was good!

Time is definitely moving too fast here. Things that happened at the
beginning of a day seem to have happened days or weeks earlier!
We have been walking around town a lot. It is funny to watch people
see us and run into their houses! I always tell them that I took a
shower but they still do not believe me.

We received a confirmation that our work here in Rigby is to help as
many people who have lost their way return to the fold. Less active
members of the Church are awesome! I love it when they realize the
need to return to full activity in the church. They have so much fire
to follow God's plan more closely.

We realized how could God trust us with new people to teach if we
cannot take care of the people God has allowed missionaries to teach
in the past?

God is great and I am grateful for the chance to serve here in Rigby!
I have been studying faith a lot lately. It has helped me appreciate
it more than ever before. I really like this quote!
"Faith, is the first great governing principle which has power,
dominion and authority over all things."
Faith is more than just a religious thing, it is in every aspect of our lives!

Scripture of the Day:
Alma 7:15  Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every
sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to
destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye
are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him
to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going
into the waters of baptism.

I second this scripture from the prophet Alma. It is important to put
our trust in God so we can overcome the obstacles in our lives! In the
strength of the Lord we can overcome and do all things!

Love,
Elder Rush

I think we are related!

Elder Welling found the first ever bathrooms at the TV museum in Rigby!

These were sent to me by an Angel Spy, Nan Ham and her friend Darla, who showed up at Elder Rush and Elder Wellings door and snapped pictures. Made my heart sing! Love my boy!

We Helped out with a Triathlon!

Hello,

Hope all is well!

This last week was interesting!

Elder Welling and I have been trying to find people to teach, talking to everyone, asking people for help, so far no success in our areas but we are finding many people for missionaries in other areas to teach! I have been learning even more patience here! We had Zone Training on Wednesday! It went pretty well. We discussed faith and my favorite quote from it was,"Make sure you include Heavenly Father in His work." I like the reminder to pray always. Prayer is so important and I love it! 

Saturday Morning we helped out with the Rigby Triathlon! We had to be there at 5:30 in the morning and as a missionary we do not get to make up sleep, so the past few days have been long but enjoyable! Anyway we guided the bicycle leg of the race. Elder Welling and I were in charge of turning everyone around at the half way mark! Then we went to Idaho Falls for Janet's baptism! It was Amazing! She was very prepared to be baptized! You could see it in her countenance!

Sunday we gave talks in Sacrament meeting and taught sunday school! So it was a good week!

Spiritual thought for the day is about doing the will of our Father in Heaven. I really like the scriptural example of Nephi.  All he wanted to do was God's will and there were many miracles because of it!

Helaman 10:4-5

"4 Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.

 5 And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will."

Happiness comes to us as we do the things God has asked us! True happiness that is!

Here is a talk from Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that enlightens this topic!

Put Your Trust in the Lord

Well I hope you are all doing well!

Love,

Elder Rush

P.S. I know God lives! And He continues to talk to us through living prophets!

Elder Rush returned for Janet's baptism!

I Met Our New Mission President

Hello!
I hope everything is going well!
This last week we met our new Mission President, President Hancock and his wife. They are awesome! I am really excited to serve with him! He lived on a farm in Winslow, Arizona! He is a great guy!
We had Mission Leadership Council and a mini Zone Conference. They were both very uplifting experiences. It was nice to see all the old missionaries. There has been a lot of changes in the mission lately. It is weird seeing all these new faces. It is crazy to realize how fast time moves.The Fourth of July was interesting. We had a zone breakfast and there is an Elder in our zone that makes foam/pvc pipe swords and stuff so we had a full out battle! It was really fun! After that we played basketball for 3 hours. My body was not in shape for that. I was very sore all Sunday and I am a little sore now! It was totally worth it though! Even though Saturday was an all day Preparation Day, Elder Welling and I thought it would be a waste not to go proselyting for a few minutes, however no one was home. We said a quick pray asking Heavenly Father to lead us to someone to talk to. We said amen and rounded the corner and there were 8 people to share the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with! It was a testimony builder to me!
On Sunday we received a call from one of our Primary Presidents telling us to get to her house as soon as possible, so we did. There was a young man there that wanted to learn more about our church. That was also fantastic!
At Mission Leadership Council, Elder Welling and I gave the spiritual thought. We discussed complacency and procrastination. We found a talk by President Eyring that discussed those topics beautifully. I encourage you to click on the links below! There is a 3 minute video that talks about it too! I really like the summary of it!
"All of us will need His help to avoid the tragedy of procrastinating what we must do here and now to have eternal life."

Life is not easy, but as we prepare to meet God again, He will lead us along the way.

I know God lives and loves each one of us!

Take Care

Love

Elder Rush

This Day President Eyring
Video

4th of July fun!

Part of Elder Rush's MTC group.

Has Anyone Melted?

Hello all the way from Rigby!

How are you all doing?

Has anyone melted from this excessive heat?

I am doing well. Elder Welling is doing well.

Rigby is pretty interesting! Population roughly 4000, 65% LDS. Everyone knows everyone, Lots of Farm Land!

We cover 4 wards here. The Rigby 5th, 7th, 9th, and Lorenzo wards. 

I miss Idaho Falls but Rigby is awesome!

They have this super fantastic Snow Cone place, that is free!

For my last day in Idaho Falls Elder Sincere and I are trying to accomplishing as much as possible and we were able to set another baptismal date with a man named Joel. So we had 6 baptisms lined up until Lauren and Mason were baptized on Saturday!

 I was able to baptize Mason! It was an awesome experience. The baptism went really well and many many people showed up. I was able to say goodbye to a  few more people!

We are teaching this family from England. They decided to move to the USA. They sold everything came over here and bought a RV. They traveled the country and felt they need to stay in Rigby. Now they are sellign their RV and buying a house! It is pretty crazy! They are fun to teach!

Miracles! Saturday we were walking around trying to finding people and we saw some kids skating in the church parking lot. We walked over to them and preceded to talk to them! We asked if they had been baptized and two of the three were members already. The 3rd said he had been attending church and wanted to be. The best part is he is moving from Rexburg to Rigby in the coming weeks!

After that we were walking down the street and saw this couple getting in their car so I walked up to their window and started talking to them. To make the story short, we taught them a lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel. After we concluded we asked when we could come back and teach them again. He said as so as possible! That was really cool!

It has been a good week!

Something that I have gained a stronger testimony of lately is obedience to the small and simple things on a daily basis. My happiness for the day really depends if I am being exactly obedient to rules like getting to bed  at 10:30 and things like that!

Well I love you all

Take Care

Love,

Elder Rush

Lauren and Mason's Baptism

Thank you to The Christensens!  Elder Rush lived in their beautiful home in Idaho Falls.

Transfer day! Hello Elder Welling

So long Elder Sincere

Elder Dalling