So this week was great!  We really were able to visit a whole lot of people!  We also chopped a lot of wood this week haha and when you do that it makes out for a great week!  I have to laugh everyday we wake up I get to hear Elder Sparks tell me how sore he is!  Its only funny because I was once in his shoes I remember coming out and having to chop wood and the next day getting out of bed and feeling really sore in your shoulders and back! Helping people just gives you a good feeling inside!  Anyway this week we had a meeting in Gallup and we had the whole zone get together!  I love getting together with the other missionaries and seeing friends I haven't seen for so long!  I got to see my goodtime MTC buddy Elder Peck I sure like that kid and I can't wait for our fishing trip here in about 6 months!  On Saturday me and Elder Sparks had the chance to go and do some wood hauling with some members here in Sheep Springs!  We had the chance to go up to the mountain with them!  It is so beautiful up there!  I really love going up there!  We were able to find a new investigator this week that I really think looks promising!  Sometimes finding new investigators can be a real test of faith!  Sometimes after knocking and knocking on doors and after only finding less actives its hard to continue to look for the non members, but when you have the faith it really works out in the end!  I have come to realize it doesn't matter whether they are members or not they both need this gospel in their lives and we are the ones that can help them get there!  Sheep springs is great I'm loving it here and i cant ask for anything more!

So this past week I had the chance to pick up my new companion who I will be training his name is Elder Cody Sparks and he is from Montpelier, ID haha I try not to give him a hard time about going to Bear Lake High School but sometimes it just comes out!  haha He threw one of his pens at me the other day and he totally missed by like ten feet and I remember saying "what school did you go too?" haha it was pretty funny haha but anyway he is a great kid!  I remember praying for an Idaho elder and someone who could chop a lot of wood and that is exactly what I got haha I am so happy to be able to be with Elder Sparks!  We had a great week this last week I really put him to the test we chopped a lot of wood!  We are both very very sore haha I can’t even imagine how he feels for this being his first time chopping wood for this long!  Anyway we had a great week together we were able to go out and visit a lot of people and introduce Elder Sparks to them!  We are really hoping to get the people in this area to come back to church we are teaching a lot of members here who read the scriptures and pray but just really struggle with making it to church on Sunday so we are really focusing on that!  Sheep Springs is going great I am really starting to love the area and love the people in it!  I hope everybody has a great week!

So, this past week we had zone conference!  It was an awesome zone conference!  It was the Gallup zone and the Chinle zone that got together!  I got to see a lot of the missionaries that i love there!  We really did a lot of roll plays and practicing teaching simply!  I learned a lot from that zone conference and felt like it was a good one!  It was funny on our way to zone conference we had the Tohatchi elders following us and the Tohlechi elders following us!  The Tohatchi elders ended up hitting a huge rez dog and it took off there whole front bumper then on the way home the Tohlechi elders ended up hitting a dear and there truck didnt even get a scratch it was kind of funny how that ended up! haha and lets just say as for us the Sheep Springs elders well we missed a huge black cow by just a couple inches!  It made out for a very eventful trip!  We got back from zone conference and the next day i was so so so sick!  The sickness hit me around 6 that night!  We were at a members house and i did not feel good at all i started to get really sweaty and really light headed and all the sudden i made a quick rush to the bathroom and threw up!  The rest of the time we were there i just sat on the couch with a huge fever and feeling no good while elder david was in the kitchen eating the best pizza i have ever smelt that was no fun!  We finally made it back to the house and that nights sleep was probably the worst nights sleep of my life!  I had a fever of 101.7 degrees and i was either hot and sweating or i was cold and freezing with the chills that was no fun at all being on the middle of the rez with no where to go and get some nyquill!  That ok though i wouldnt change it for the world i still love the rez! haha Ill never complain about it ever!  Im finally starting to get over it a little bit!  Well  this last week we found out some transfer news as well Elder David will be taking off he will now be serving in the farmington 3rd ward!  I will now be training a new missionary im so excited!  I havent trained since my 3rd transfer im excited to see what this new transfer brings i cant wait i really think that having a brand new missionary to train will help me stay focused as i wind down to my last couple of months out here!  Im excited for this new transfer and cant wait to meet my new trainee!  Kind of cool my trainer Elder Fonnesbeck will finally have some posterity haha the Poulson+Fonnesbeck+Rushton line lives on!  Im going to miss Elder Fonnesbeck out here as he goes home this week  the lord new exactly what he was doing when he made him my trainer!  I couldnt have asked for anyone better! Anyway take care everyon and have a great week!

Hello Everyone,

So this week was a lot of fun!  New Years was fun to celebrate we had 3 people feed us that day so we were super stuffed but it was nice of them to think of us on new years day!  It was weird we just woke up like it was any other day and then realized dang today is 2015!  Anyway i remember way back when i was walking into the MTC and thinking i was not going to be getting home unil 2015 it seemed so far away but now its here and its flying bye!  So this week honestly we chopped a tone of wood!  My axe has definately been worn back in now haha i cant believe how well it has been holding up for how many time we have chopped wood!  Anyway we had a cool story we were going to visit a family that lives way up in the mountain its about 10 miles back off the main road i love going to there house because only there immediate family lives up there in what they call there compound anyway on our way up we pass a house and outside we see two old ladies probably in there 60's outside  chopping wood and so we put the truck in park and go out and talk to them they said that they are the only ones that live there and that there cousin brother hasnt come by for a whole months and they have to chop wood for themselves!  So we start chopping wood we probably chopped wood for a good 2 hours for them we got those ladies enough wood to last them a month so they were very happy anyway when we were all done the ladies came running out and told us there there 91 year old mom had just had surgery and that she was very sick and they asked us if we could give her a blessing!  So we did come to find out all those ladies that were in that house were all members!  They just hadnt been to church since they had gone on the placement program!  It was awesome finding a family like that and to see how the lord works i know that chopping wood  was exactly what we needed to do to win there hearts!  I love reading the story of ammon that is exactly what he did is he won the peoples hearts through service and that is trully where i have seen the most miracles come from on my mission!  Anyway things are great we had a great week and i hope you all have a great week as well and a happy 2015!

Love Elder Rushton