I'm here!!!!!

Dear family of Elder Bushman,

            We are happy to send the good news that your missionary has arrived safely to the Florida Jacksonville Mission.  What a great joy and privilege it is to greet each missionary as they come off the plane in Jacksonville.  The smiles on their faces showed their excitement and readiness to be here.  We promise to take good care of your missionary.

            Your son arrived with 6 other missionaries and they have enjoyed a dinner together at the mission home, have been interviewed by President Barry and were trained by the assistants. We have taken pictures and I have attached a picture of him with President Barry and I.  As you can see he is well and happy although a little tired. 

             Elder Bushman will be able to e-mail home on Preparation Day which is each Monday.  He will let you know where he has been assigned to serve.  (Just a reminder ... when Monday happens to fall on a national holiday, those who use the public libraries will not have access to a computer, therefore, they usually email on Tuesday instead.)  

            Your missionary is about to make an eternal difference in the lives of others.  We hope you will be encouraged and comforted by this quote by President Lorenzo Snow: “There is no mortal man that is so much interested in the success of an elder [sister] when he is preaching the gospel as the Lord that sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord’s children.”

            We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for all you have done to prepare Elder Bushman to faithfully serve a mission.   We look forward to getting to know him as we serve our Heavenly Father here in the Florida Jacksonville Mission.

            Please accept our love and gratitude for trusting him to us and more importantly to the Lord.  May God Bless You,  President James W. Barry and Sister Marilyn T. Barry

Pictures from the MTC..... or not.....

Apparently Garrett hasn't figured out how to down load pictures to a computer, or there is not a place that he can send them to get developed at the MTC....  He did say that he has taken pictures - but I have none to share. I did however, find him in this picture......  KSL did a special on the MTC and aired a portion of it on the news last night; the whole show will be aired during general conference.  Well I was scanning through the pictures today - and came across this one...... notice the kid in the back left-hand corner - right in front of the cinderblock wall -  YEP - it's Garrett's hairline and eyes all right.......   A star is born.....

(Update - when I talked with Garrett today (Feb. 28th - he confirmed that it is him)

MTC Week 2 - and I'm out of here.... c'ya!

Dear Family,  Hey everything is still going great in the MTC! And i am so excited to be leaving on monday, we've been teaching so much and I'm just excited to to get out and teach some real people. Its crazy we've been actually teaching people that we've drawn on the chalk board haha We have pictures of that so i'll send those home if i can figure out how to get them printed off or whatever. I actually have a lot of pictures. My roomates and I have so many funny pictures and its just so much fun. Teaching is coming a long great, i still love it! I'm learning so fast and its so great to be able to share with people what i know. Its all about confidence and enthusiasm i've figured out. When it comes to teaching, i'm not shy at all. Its just like getting up to hit, You just have to know that the pitcher wont strike you out, and you have to have the same approach to teaching. No matter what they do, you have something important to here, something that can cause joy and happiness in there life more than anything in the world, and you get to share that with them. Its just so important that there is no room for being scared or nervous. We actually did this thing in class the other day where we taught the fall of adam and even in 30 seconds. We had to stand up on a chair and teach our district like missionaries used to do. It was so much fun! i loved it, i really got into it to. I'm also learning so many scriptures and i've never wanted to read them more in my life than i do now. It's like when i read the that everything sticks out to you in a different light and I just want to mark every bit of my scriptures, but i can't. I think by the time i get back my scriptures are going to be destoryed by all the marking haha

We do have sisters in our district, and one of them is really cute which is kind of annoying but its not to bad. I still can focus! They are really cool but so dramatic! there has been so much drama going on with them that i can't really talk about but its just crazy. Oh so something funny, so every time a new district comes in at night we get elder chan, one of my roomates, who speaks chinese. He's from china. I go knock on there door and tell them that I have someone thats going to talk to them about keeping there room clean and then i have elder chan come in. He just starts throwing out chinese and like yelling and stuff, its so funny! the kids just laugh and then we tell them whats going on, its the best thing ever, we just did it last night with the new missionaries.

Yes i did pick up Austin (Cheney) yesterday, and thats so awesome to hear that our ward was added on to not changed. It was really cool seeing him though and yeah they did take pictures. I got to show him around and take him to his classroom so that was fun. He seemed really excited.

Garrett and Elder Austin Cheney

Hey well thanks for all the love and support, I love you guys so much! Know that i'm working extremely hard and am so excited to serve the people in jaksonville. I only have a few more days and then i'm on the long path ready to serve the Lord no matter how hard it gets, through the good times and that bad. I know the lord will strengthen me if i have faith, just like ammon i will serve the people and win their favor and then I will teach them and bring them through the spirit to everlasting joy. Love you, thanks for everything.  Love, Elder Bushman

MTC Survival - week one....

Dear family,

I need to write to you in my email because I don’t have a lot of time to write letters today and I have a lot to write so I apologize. Everything here at the Mtc is amazing, the spirit is so strong here, but it is a lot of work. The first two days seemed like an eternity, I was already getting anxious about going out into the field, it wasn't good. I soon got over that though and now love every moment that I get to learn. I've been trying to learn every scripture that applies to things that we teach. I've been writing them down and still have a lot more to go but it is going well. I hope to eventually just be able to pop out scriptures whenever I want as the spirit directs. It's amazing how quickly you learn, especially when you pray about it. My companion and I learned the first lesson in like two days and we have gotten really good at teaching it! I love to teach, it is one of the coolest things ever! I know that is weird coming from me but it is true haha Every time I teach I just feel like I have something so important to say and people need to here it. We've just been doing role plays, but it doesn't feel like a role play when you're teaching. Almost every time we have taught the sister's they have cried the spirit is so strong. We've learned that you need the Holy Ghost always to be an effective teacher. Especially yesterday, yesterday was a really rough day it just started out bad. We couldn't focus, especially me, I got pretty upset about it because the night before we had a devotional where the speaker was talking about how we need to become disciples of Jesus Christ now and do everything thing we can to accomplish that. I felt like I did a terrible job at it. But I learned that sometimes you need a break, but you need to have it in moderation. So yeah everything is going great. Oh as for the zone leader thing. Basically we greet the new missionaries coming into the zone, take them on a tour, take care of the zone, make sure everything is going well, go to a lot of meetings, and give letters from the missionaries to the stake president.

Mom I don’t need pajamas I have them. Thanks for the rain jacket and everything else and thanks so much for the package it was awesome, my district loved the cookies. And hunter that’s good you want to go on a mission, but its good to grow up first, you got a ways to go so just be patient. Make sure you learn as much as you can before you leave it will help. Get your duty to god for sure, and build your testimony, your testimony and your smile will be the two greatest things you can have when teaching. Its helped me a ton. OH and you BETTER NOT have my cell phone!!!! Anyway everything is going well here, my companion is opening up a lot more and so am I. I can talk to random people and have a conversation it’s really cool. Well I love you thanks for all the love and support, I’ll try to write a letter next week, but until then peace out family.

p.s. THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!

Hi mom,

Everything is going well I’m working hard. My companion is elder Svedin, good luck saying that right. I can't write much I’m almost out of time but read dad's email its addressed to the whole family. I've seen a lot of people I know, Elder Barlow, Sterling Ward, Helam, Kid's I’ve played baseball against when I was little, and lots of other people - its crazy how small of a world it is. But anyway sorry this is short but I got to go cya.

Going, going, gone..... See you in 2 years!

Tradition was broken this morning.... When Jake left on his mission - he chose to eat at the first restaurant he saw in Provo as we came down off the hill - Dennys..... Really?  Of all tlhe places in Provo - and he chose Dennys.  So when Austin left on his mission - we had to go to Dennys - for tradition sake....  Garrett decided to chart his own course today - and chose his very favorite place in the world - L & L's.   He's got to be part Hawaiian - somewhere down the line....

 He was one happy missionary.....

After lunch - I wanted to go to the temple to take pictures of the family.....Well - Marty was driving - (and he hates crowds - and avoids them at all costs) and SO this is where we ended up - on the east side of the temple.....  all by our little selves.... so no one around to take a whole family picture.... SIGH...

 Isn't this a lovely picture of the boys in front of the temple?  Can you see the temple????

Austin, Hunter and Garrett

 Ok - I guess we will make due with what scenery we have.....  Dad, Garrett and mom....

 One very anxious missionary...... ready to go already....   

We have joked about this new way of doing things at the MTC as being the "drive by" method.  We joked with Garrett that we were going to just drop-kick him out the door as we drove by.  Because Marty had a meeting he had to be to by 1:30 - he had called the MTC to find out how long it takes now days -  and found out that we were allowed "90" seconds to drop our son off.... he thought they were joking..... 90 seconds?  Really?????  I think we set a new record in the shortest drop off time -  we took all of 30 seconds and we were gone......   It is so quick - before you can even get out of the car the greeter Elders already have your son's bags out of your trunk - and they are ready to wisk him off away from you!   I kind of felt "cheated" as we were driving away .... but Garrett was so excited and happy to get there - what more was there to do but say goodbye and be gone?  One more HUG for MOM!!!!!???

Garrett was fortunate enough to have a good friend from his football days there - Elder Helam Hemuli - be the one who greeted him and took him into the MTC.  That did my heart good to know that he was in good hands......

 Garrett and Elder Hemuli

I guess when I got out of the car and saw Elder Hemuli - I was so excited and happy to know that he would be Garrett's first comp that I said "hi" witih my arms wide open..... apparently he thought I wanted to hug him (which hadn't even crossed my mind).... but he looked at me and immediately said "I can't hug you!"  ha ha ha.....  I just wanted to tell him hi from his mom!

In the 20-30 seconds we were saying goodbye - this is all the pictures I had time to take.  But this one was the most important!  God speed Elder Bushman......  We love you!

It's official....

The family after Garrett's setting apart - let the emotions begin.....

Garrett and "dingleberry".....  Hunter is going to miss him so much!

These guys have been friends since they were 3...... we broke mission rules (yeah - off to a great start...) and stayed up way late reminiscing about the good ole days......  See you in 2 years Jordan!

Garrett with good friends and neighbors - the Lozanos - home teaching one last time before he got set apart.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.....

Garrett spent the day finishing up laundry, packing, and cleaning up his room - thank you so much Garrett!  Mom did let him sleep in - for one last time...... (after he took the car pool to school).

 Getting all the beauty sleep he can...... while he can.....

 Oh Yeah - let's drag the packing mess into the living room..... why keep it contained in the bedroom?

Success!  All packed and ready to go!  Only 5 more hours and until he is officially Elder Bushman!

Farewell..... Jan. 16, 2010

Me and my sweet grandma - Barbara Rinderknecht

My Iowa friends - couldn't have done Iowa without YOU!  Kelci, Heidi and Garth!

Thanks to everyone who came - I love you and am grateful for your support!

Here we go...... at last - the long awaited CALL!

Garrett arrived home from Iowa for Christmas about 2:00 am on Dec. 15th - and his mission call came at noon on the same day!  He was so thrilled to get it!  He is going to Jacksonville Florida - and leaves on February 9th.  We are so excited for him - I think all the experiences and growth that he has had at Iowa will help him be a better missionary.....  Having just got him home - my heart wonders - can I do this again?  Oh help!  But then I wouldn't want him anywhere else!!!!

 Waiting ANXIOUSLY for dad to get home from work......

 You are hereby called to serve......

YES!!!!!  IT'S NOT IOWA!!!!!!

The joke in our family has been that he was going to get called back to Iowa for his mission - and although I know he would have said yes, it would have been the biggest challenge in his life - by far!  So he was so relieved and HAPPY that he wasn't going to Iowa - he could have been called ANYWHERE!