Fruit Snacks are Heaven!

Dear Family,

First off thank you so much for the package and for everything that was inside, especially the fruit snacks! Oh my goodness, I have been munching on those for the last week, I have missed fruit snacks. I don't ever by anything unless I need it because I am super cheap so I never by fruit snacks haha And thank you for the recorder I was going to send you some recordings but I forgot to bring the cord to plug it in, so next week!  However, unfortunately the video that was supposed to be on the card for my camera did not work. It said there was nothing on the card. So I never got to hear or see what was on it. And Grandpa thank you for the letter with the talk, that was really insightful. And thank you Grandma for the card and yes I'm allowed to receive money but don't worry about sending any its fine, but thank you so much for the card!

Alright well to start off this week it was really slow! On Monday Elder G and I went to M's house to drop him and it was pretty sad. We asked him why he didn't come to General Conference and he got really defensive with it and told me how hard it is to be a single parent which was just a lot of excuses, but I didn't tell him that. But we left there on good terms so that is what is good. Then on Tuesday I think Elder G and I probably tracted for about 3 hours all together and didn't find anyone which was pretty hard but it was good. It was so funny because we had this one guy that Elder G talked to, which I actually recorded this door approach, but he answered and Elder G introduced himself and put his hand out to shake it and the guy said, "This isn't a social event." I was like "A social event? Well of course not, were here to share a message about Jesus Christ." then he said "Do your history buddy." and closed the door. It was absolutely hilarious, I don't know why, but it was, probably because what he said made absolutely no sense haha 

Well anyway then on Wednesday we went to see L in the morning and she came outside before we could even go into the house and she told us she didn't want to learn anymore.  She said that she had done what we asked by praying and reading and didn't feel like she received any answer. So she told us that she decided to not learn anymore and that this is what she felt like the answer was, and that it was the answer she wanted in the first place. She didn't even have an open heart at all, she never wanted to accept it. This was something I was not expecting and was kind of a blow to the stomach, I was shocked!  But all we were able to do was to bear our testimonies to her and let her know of the truth. I think it finally took all the way till Thursday before we taught our first lesson of the week.

Thursday was a really good day. We had zone meeting and Elder R and Elder T did a wonderful job!  Elder R did this really cool analogy of baseball to missionary work and how it works with our goals so I could relate really well. Elder G and I had decided to tract this street the night before and as we were knocking on doors one of the ladies said "latter day saints?" and we said yes have you talked with missionaries before and she said yes. She told us that she would listen to our message if we would come in and be part of her daughters lemonade tasting science fair project hahaha Well a little unusual way of getting into a house but oh well we'll do whatever it takes. So we went in and participated in her daughter’s science fair project and test tasted lemonade with different types of sugar in it. Then we were able to sit down and tell her about Joseph Smith and the restoration. She had a lot of questions actually, she is Catholic, so of course she believes that there never was an apostasy, but she said she was really interested in the Book of Mormon and said she would read it.  She wouldn't set up a time that we could come back because she didn't think her husband would be ok with it, but we will go back in a couple of weeks and see how the reading has been going.

Then on Friday we had a super long weekly planning session as we prepared ideas for how the Ward could help out with the missionary work. We also made a bunch of cards that tell people if they want to learn more about Mormons that they will come over to the church every Wednesday night at 7 p.m.  Obviously we didn't write it just like that but we thought it would be a good way to find people. Then later in the day Elder G and I went tracting for another hour and a half and in that period of time found 4 potential investigators. One of them was really solid. He was a 21 year old guy named J. As he came out the door we told him who we were and he said he was ready to listen. He said that in a world with so much bad things and confusion, it's been hard for him to find a faith in God and Jesus Christ.  Well we basically taught the first lesson on his door step and invited him to read the Book of Mormon. He said that he would and that we could come back and teach some more, it was a sweet miracle. Then later as we were waiting to go on a trade off, we saw this guy across the street smoking a cigarette. I thought to myself that we should go talk to him but I said to myself that we didn't need to. Again I felt that we should go talk to him and again I decided against it. Finally a third time I was nudged to go talk to him and decided to go do it. We went and talked to him and he was very receptive. He was from C. and didn't like it here in Florida at all because he didn't have any friends. We talked to him for a while and invited him to church and he said he would come.  It was really cool. We went back and talked to him the next day and he was pretty drunk.  But we invited him to repent and come unto Christ and he started to cry and he told us that he didn't have any desire to do any more wrong. However he wanted some cigarettes but I told him he didn't need them. We had a prayer with him and we prayed that he wouldn't go get cigarettes, he told us afterwards that he couldn't go and that we had some weird power. It was pretty incredible. Unfortunately he didn't end up coming to church which was pretty frustrating, but we really made a big impact on his life.

We had some really busy days on Saturday and Sunday. In the Morning on Saturday we went and saw this kid named A who we had been trying to see for a long time. His grandparents are against the church so it’s been hard for him to talk to us, but they were out of town so it was a good opening. He wanted to know our beliefs and we gave him a 13 articles of faith card. He was cool with all of them and said he would read the Book of Mormon and come to church, but he needed to get his license first.  So that was a cool thing that happened in the morning. Then later we went and saw L and the first thing he said to us was; "Now you know that I'm not going to convert right?" We asked him if the spirit told him it was true if he would, and he said that it hasn't yet and we said we'll see.  He had a lot of good questions about the Book of Mormon which we answered but he isn't the brightest, so I think with a lot of the things we went over his head a bit so we will have to simplify for him later. On Sunday we went and saw a lot of members and it was a really good day except for people not showing up to church. But yeah there is my week for ya.

I don't really have anything else to say, but I hope you all have a great week!  Love, Elder Garrett Bushman