Zone Leaders doing some training by doing splits

Cole's seen deer, but no elk

Cole hauling wood.  He likes to haul wood, reminds him of Island Park

Flash flooding

Cole said its really hard to drive in and can get quite scary!

Hello everyone,
     So this week was quite the week my gosh!  Last monday on our pday we decided to drive up the mountain!  So we loaded up brought our cameras and we out the door!  Man it was beautiful it reminded me a lot of Island Park! Anyway so were probably 20 miles clear way up on top of the mountain when all of the sudden we hear ding ding!!!! We both look down on the low gas light comes on haha we never filled up!  In the meantime were sitting there blaming each other haha anyway I put it in nuetural and we honestly rolled all the way 20 miles down the mountain i have no clue how we made it to the gas station we were running on fumes!  So There is mondays story that was pretty fun! So on thursday we had whats called a mission tour!  Half the mission got together in chinle!  We had Elder Paul Piper chorum of the seventy come and speak to us!  It was really neat and so spiritual!  I actually got a chance at lunch to sit down and talk with him he began to ask me where i was from i told him Blackfoot, Idaho all of the sudden he smiled so big and said what part!  I said well i went to snake river and grew up in thomas!  He smiled even bigger haha turns out he grew up in thomas 3rd ward and graduated from snake river also SO COOL!!!! I was able to see all my MTC buddies there too it was good to see all of them and to hear they are doing good!  I got to see my MTC comp elder anderson haha it was good to see his goofy face and catch up with him!  We got to joke around and just have a good time it was fun!  So later in the week we were filling up gas and we went inside to get a receipt and i just locked the doors to the truck! We come back out and im pushing the remote button to unlock the truck and it wouldnt work! So i try to just unlock the door with the key!  That was working Its like broken or something so right now we cant lock our car at all so we might be going to get that fixed today in farmington maybe!  anyway so ya were at the gas pump parked with like three cars that are so ticked behind us and were locked out of our car!  I get this prompting you need to say a prayer!  I kind of just shrugged it off and kept trying to unlock the car!  Finally it just hit me YOU NEED  TO SAY A PRAYER!  I was like wow ok we will say a prayer haha so we did anyway we said amen and right after we tried to unlock it with the remote didnt work tried to unlock it with the key ya that didnt work either haha so right then i was like well that was dumb that prayer didnt work!  Less than five minutes later this like gangster navajo guy comes running up and i mean he is pumped up for some reason haha he is talking really fast and stuff he has a tire iron, and a screw driver in his hand haha he is like you boys need help haha i can get this open the whole time im laughing my butt off anyway he wedges the door open with the tire iron and sticks the screwdriver in there and asks us to twist off the antana to our car so we do! anyway he sticks the antana through the wedged door hits the unlock button and unlocks the car haha! He was such a cool guys just a straight up gangster and I know for a fact that wasnt his first time breaking into a car haha!  After i just sat back and thought wow heavenly father actually answered our prayer he might night have done it the way we were expecting but he still did it!  That just goes to show dont ever lose faith he is always listening!  We hauled wood all day saturday i acutally like to haul wood it lets me put my levis on and be up in the woods its gorgeous!  So we have been having nothing but problems with our septic tank!  It was all the way full and it wouldnt flush out at all! so all day yesterday we couldnt use the bathroom which didnt help because man the night before lets just say i didnt eat something very good and it made me so sick all i wanted to do was use the restroom so it was either life or death! Sink or swim haha I went outside and grabbed a stick and stuck it all the way down the toilet and all of the sudden it flushed out haha it was a miracle i was finally able to use the restroom man i dont know what i would have done! Anyway as you can see it has been quite the week!  Love you all!
Love Elder Rushton

haha um i remember looking at some kids blog before i came out with you and he was on the edge of the cliff so i figured it would be cool to do it to haha :) maybe this is why you get those uneasy feeling haha mom im perfectly safe i promise! dont get mad because there is not a dang thing you can do about it haha :) love you wont do it again!

I'm sending Cole ABC Boxes, these are from the letter A

Elder Fonnesbeck teaching Cole how to make Indian Frybread

So this week was really good!  Other then another flat tire this week haha we have just been moving right along!  Its been going by fast i have learned that as long as we stay busy everything just flys by!  In my time since i have been here things are really starting to change for the better i can see it! People are starting to turn around and realize what they have been missing all along!  In Mosiah it talks about god softening the hearts of the lamanites so they wouldnt destroy the nephites.  I really think that god is doing that right now!  Ya i dont think that they are going to destroy anyone but in the book of mormon it talks about the Lamanites sparkling like a rose in the last days!  I think its all starting to come together i can see it i really can!  We have ourselves a busy september coming up! We are set for having 4 baptisms coming up!  We have a temple trip to the snowflake temple, and its fair season around here!  Which is crazy because they have a fair in every single town every single week (chinle, ship rock, window rock) there are lots anyway the missionaries run a booth so hopefully we get to help out! So ya there is a busy september!  We have a general authority coming to talk to us this week on friday Elder Paul Piper chorum of the seventy! We had an amazing experience this week we met this brother and sister out tracting one day and we returning to teach them a lesson later on that week anyway we were like oh shoot we forgot to grab a book of mormon back at the trailer haha so in the middle of the lesson elder fonnesbeck reaches into his backpack to grab a pamphlet and somehow finds a book of mormon in there??? crazy like honestly we swear we did not have one in there!  It was so cool!  Since then they have been reading everything we tell them too in the book of mormon and seem like they are really interested! Yesterday we had around 52 people in sacrament so there was a lot!  Its always really cool to see that!  Yesterday i had the wonderful pleasure to talk in sacrament meeting haha it wasnt to bad i actually kind of enjoyed it!  All in all it was a good week i cant wait to see what this week brings!

Love Elder Rushton

Canyon De Chelly

Cliffs in Canyon De Chelly

Little Mud never hurt!!!!!

Cole and Elder Fonnesbecks 3rd Companion, Elder Woof, aka Baby!

Hello everyone,

Im doing really good still!  We had a really good week we did a lot of stuff!   On thursday we had a zone training meeting in Chinle and President and sister Batt showed up! Which was really really cool it is always nice to be around Pres. and Sis. Batt you can feel there love for you and they have such a glow about them!  This week sacrament numbers were really down because they had three squaw dances here in Lukachukai which is ridiculous! Its just a native ceremony thing!  NOT GOOD!!!!  Its so hard to get these people to realize that the traditions they do are not good! It comes from there wicked traditions of there fathers!   If they would just read the book of mormon they would understand that it talks about the wicked traditions of their fathers!  It all boils down to the great apostacy! We are getting a building that is going to be built here in Lukachukai which is really exciting construction starts in september and it should be finished sometime in december so i might still be here! They will be moving our camper over there sometime probably in november so we can live on the church grounds! Back to the traditions thing people around here will go and spend thousands of dollars on a medicine man so that he can give them some peyotte and heal them!  Me and Elder Fonnesbeck have given so many preisthood blessings in my time being here!  People ask us all the time did we have to go through schooling to have the preisthood!  How much do they have to pay for a preisthood blessing?  PEOPLE ITS FREE!!!!!!!!! Its is a gift strait from Jesus Christ to us!  He restored it to the earth!  It is the most powerfull things here on the earth!  I have finally come to realize what a big deal the preisthood really is!  It is such a blessing to able to have it!  I hope all is well back home!  I would like to give a special shout out to my bros back home leaving this week theyll be great! (Denim, Nate, and Wyatt)

Hello everyone,

So this week was crazy there was so much going on!  Basketball was so much fun i love it!  This last week was such a spiritual week!  I think now that im getting the hang of things im starting to be able to be in tune with the spirit and recognize it each and everyday!  Its honestly something that i have never noticed in my whole life!  Once i have been on my mission and come to realize it has been there all along it makes me feel dumb i didnt recognize it before!  We picked up three new investigators this week! Its so crazy seems like they are all coming and finding us and were not doing anything!  We had some lady come running up to our truck saying she wanted to talk to us she told us where she lived but we were way to excited we didnt even catch her name haha!  We set a baptismal date this week with one of our investigators it was amazing!  Since im the new guy i had to ask the investigator to commit to being baptized!  Man what a rush holy cow!  I have played in state championships i have felt the rush that comes from that!  Nothing compares to standing in that living room and asking someone if they will commit themselves to make the biggest choice of there life thus far and follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized! We are excited for that and we hope everything goes as planned!  Every day on my mission i have read the book of mormon everyday for at least a half an our everyday!  It is amazing to come to realize how much you can learn from that book and how much it can be bless your life!  This book is here for us to come closer to christ! READ!!!!! the quote from joseph smith in the introduction its amazing how powerful it is!  We have been doing a lot of service!  90 degreee weather sweating so bad ughh its hard!  Its wood hauling season which means just about everyone wants the elders to come haul wood for them haha We had exchanges this week so i went to chinle for the night on wednesday and elder tolman the district leader came here with elder fonnesbeck i was with elder scofield from montana!  Chinle was a great experience we had one lady tell us when she came to church she felt like she had angels behind her and she could feel there presence so strong and it felt like they were lifting her up and comforting her! its like what the heck why cant we feel that haha but that is so amazing! All in all i hope it was a good week!

Love, Elder Rushton