So wow, it has been a busy fun week!  So as you know I got transferred to Wide Ruins, AZ!  Which is a little tiny town on the Navajo rez!  I would guess we have about 400 people in our whole area!  The homes are very spread out!  We live in Sanders, AZ which is a bout 30 minutes away, that you have to take a little dirt road to get to!  We started out last week by doing some branding and castrating cattle it was so much fun!  I love doing that kind of stuff we had the Sanders Elders with us as well too so that was fun!  One of the bulls that we were castrating, I was trying to take it down and flip it over and in the process it stomped on my foot pretty good.  Haha so for the past week my foot has been pretty swollen and it looks pretty cool so that was fun!  Later on in the week we had a pine wood derby with the branch in Sanders.  Since Wide Ruins is not quite a branch yet all of the activities we do with the Sanders Branch so it is so much fun.  My first day they handed me a Pine Wood Derby car told me to carve it out and be ready to go by Thursday night (2 days).  I carved a pretty good looking car and colored it with the sharpie!  It has been a crazy week trying to get to know the area and the people.  I have met some good people that are very nice!  As I said before for church, we meet out in Wide Ruins.  There is a little abandoned house that someone lent the church, so the church has fixed it up and put a wood stove in there and that is where we meet for sacrament!  There is no running water and no electricity so it is sure something totally different!  Anyway so early Sunday morning we got up and headed out there to start the fire and get it warm for sacrament well it was sad because the no one showed up for church it was just us and a high councilmen from Holbrook, AZ.  I know that the Lord has sent me here for a reason and I know that there is work to be done here!  I love my new companion Elder Searle who is from Mesa, AZ.  He is a hard worker who I can really get a long with!  Anyway I love my new area I miss Sheep Springs.  Things here definitely are not the same but i will learn to love it! Take care and have a great week!

A very special family to Elder Rushton

Elder Rushton loves this family!

So this past week was weird it seems like week 6's always do that to you!  Anyway on Saturday I found out for the last time if I was being transferred or not!  I am going to be getting transferred which took me by complete surprise!  I have 5 weeks left of my mission so I just assumed I was going to stay here in Sheep Springs and just finish my mission out!  But nope I guess the Lord has bigger plans for me!  So I am going to be heading back to Arizona for a third time and going to a place called Wide Ruins!  Wide Ruins used to be in my zone when I was in Winslow!  So I know a little bit about that area!  If you remember me saying they meet for church in a little tiny house that was given to the church to use as a meeting place!  The house is no bigger than most peoples living rooms last I heard there was only about 6 to 7 people going to church there!  The house that they meet in does not have electricity and they have a wood stove that they use to heat up the place!  I think it is the elder’s job every Sunday morning to head out there and heat up the place and get it ready!  It is very very remote but I am really looking forward to it if anybody knows me they would know that this is exactly the kind of area I would love to serve in! You can really meet some of the humblest most amazing people in areas like this and that is what I’m most excited for!  I don’t want to be in a big city or some city rez area I want to be smack dab in the middle of nowhere with a Book of Mormon and an axe in my hand :)  I am very sad to be leaving Sheep Springs, NM!  I honestly thought I was going to finish my mission here!  The people here have been so good to me!  They have taken me in and treated me like family I will always remember Sheep Springs and the special time I have had here!  Take care and have a great week!

So this past week was great!  We had the chance to be able to start teaching someone new!  She is a new investigator who we found through a family that has just recently been baptized within the past 2 years!  It was so awesome we were able to have our first lesson with her at the member’s house who live right next door!  That is exactly what you want as a missionary is a family that will help in whatever way they can to fellowship someone who is learning about the church!  So that was great we taught her about the restoration and how the Church of Jesus Christ had to be restored and it was through the prophet Joseph Smith!  Later in the week we had the opportunity to help a lady who is starting a community garden!  So that was fun the community got together and we started on building the garden! It was awesome to see how many people showed up we got to meet a lot of the people in the community!  Little thing like that are the greatest way to be able to meet new people sometimes it isn’t always about finding new people to teach as much as it is just being able to be a good example and put the church name out there and being that follower and example of Jesus Christ because that is when people are curious and so it will lead them to ask questions!  Later in the week we also had a puppy show up at our house man this pup was in bad shape!  He was muddy and wet and cold and shivering so we brought him in and gave him a bath!  Then we fed him and let him loose well after that he liked us so much he wouldn’t leave ha-ha so we would leave for our appointments that day come home and night and he would just be sitting there waiting for us to come back!  We wanted to keep him so bad but we knew we shouldn’t so we were able to find a home for him so he is now safe and sound!  I had the chance to visit with my family yesterday that was fun it was so cool to be able to see my little nephew that was born it was my first time being able to see him since he was born!  I can’t wait to be able to hold him here shortly!  Happy late mother’s day to my mom and grandma's and all the other mothers that have always done so much for me thank you so much :)

Did some Branding with my friend David

Taught Primary with these kids.

So I will try to give a rundown of the last 2 weeks since I kind of forgot to send a weekly letter last week!  In the last two weeks we had a zone conference now this zone conference was a special one because it was my last one on my mission!  At your last zone conference you are expected to give what’s called a departing testimony!  It was the weirdest thing ever!  Throughout your whole mission you watch hundreds of other missionaries give there’s but in the back of your mind you really think that day will never come!  Well that day came and it was weird!  I will admit it was cool sitting back and watching a lot of the elder you came out with give theirs like Elder Peck, Makalio, Patterson, and many more!  I love a lot of those guys and we have become very good friends over the past two years and it was so fun to sit back and hear all the things we have learned over the past 2 years!  This past week we had the chance to have a branch barbeque it was way fun!  In the morning we decided to send a massive text out and invite everybody in our phone it turned out great we had a great turnout!  The weather was perfect we set up the volleyball net and we also played basketball!  It was a blast!  We had a lot of less actives come to the barbeque and in turn the fellowship there was great and they actually finally made it back to church this Sunday!  The more and more I spend my time here in Sheep Springs, NM I really truly feel like the work here is mainly for less actives!  Now a lot of people may say "no you always need to have investigators"  which yes I agree with but that is what we have tried my whole time here and I’m not going spend any more time working with investigators rather than working with less actives!  I have truly seen some miracles in my time here working with less actives so strongly!  I have watched an old branch president quit drinking completely and now be active in the church working on getting his temple recommend back!  I have watched a mother and grandmother who had such hard feeling for people at church and for the missionaries soften her heart and let us in her home and then even come to church for the past couple of weeks!  It’s been incredible to watch the Lord’s hands in all of this! Have a great week take care and happy mother’s day!