Dear Family, Well first off I would just like to say HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! I hope this weekend will be one of thanks and gratitude as we remember the wonderful things that God has done for us in giving us our families, this world and nation to live in, our friends, our homes, our jobs, the gospel, the scriptures, and most Importantly our Savior Jesus Christ. There are so many wonderful things to be grateful for even in these trying times because we truly are blessed in every aspect. I know I am so grateful for all that the Lord has provided for me, I can't ask for a better family, I have wonderful friends, and I'm serving the Lord, can it get any better than that?! It all reminds me of a scripture in the Book of Mormon, It is part of King Benjamin's address and I can't think of a better scripture that makes me feel grateful.
18 Behold, ye have called me your king; and if I, whom ye call your king, do labor to serve you, then ought not ye to labor to serve one another?
19 And behold also, if I, whom ye call your king, who has spent his days in your service, and yet has been in the service of God, do merit any thanks from you, O how you ought to thank your heavenly King!
20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—
21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.
22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.
23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.
24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast. Mosiah 2:18-24
I love this scripture so much, because it not only says how we need to be grateful, but we also need to be humbles because with out being humble and realizing that the Lord has already given us everything, we cannot be grateful. So anyway I'll talk about my week now. Well I think first off I'll address Dad's letter pertaining to the sister missionaries. I'd like to say that no I do not have the same point of view on sister missionaries as Austin and Jake, in fact I very much enjoy having them in my district. They are very hard workers and have a lot of success and they can sing which is very nice because none of the Elders can. So far I haven't ever had any drama with Sisters except for in a zone meeting a long time ago. One of the Sisters in my district was actually in my district in the MTC as well so it's nice kind of already having the loyalty of her and they are doing a fabulous job in Middleburg.
Mom, it is true that we are in a "Mormon Moment." We had a leadership training meeting this past week and that was something we talked a lot about. It's incredible the kind of publicity the church is getting at this time, there has been no better time for missionary work in the United States as at this time now. With the two members of the church running for the Republican candidacy and also the Book of Mormon Broadway musical, which is the number one play on Broadway at this time, more people are wanting to know about the church than ever! Right now the Church is making a big push for their media campaign, Mormon.org. There are more and more commercials that are being made and by the end of the month there should be over 100 video profiles on mormon.org. It is such a wonderful tool, absolutely incredible! So if anybody that receives this letter doesn't have a profile yet on mormon.org well I would strongly encourage you to make one. 80% of people that go to mormon.org and chat with online missionaries are baptized! It truly is inspired and one of the best missionary resources that we have.
Ok so we had a wonderful week, we were able to teach a lot of lessons, especially with our baptismal date, J. She is so solid and such a wonderful person. We watched prophet of the Restoration on Wednesday with her and afterwards she was like "you could have told me that I was going to cry" haha the spirit was so strong and we were able to answer a lot of her questions that she had that night and she just soaked it all up. We also have this man R.who I think I told you about, well we never got to see him this week, but I added him on Facebook and I guess he has been looking at my blog and he told me he has a lot of questions. How exciting is that?! We have an appointment tonight with him and I'm thinking that he is going to be really solid and his family as well.
We also had a couple of lessons with this guy named K.this week. He was a referral from a member and he is actually dating a less-active member. Well we set up a time last week to go see them on Friday and when we went to the less-actives house, she wasn't home yet, but he was there so we went and knocked on the door. Well he came to the door with no shirt on and what looked like a shower cap on his head. Well we soon found out that it was a pair of this less-active ladies panties on his head and he thought that we were her. Talk about awkward hilarious situations....yeah that was one of them! hahaha Well he was a little tipsy, but by the end he said he wanted to come to church with her. Well they didn't show up at church and we went and saw them last night, luckily there were no panties on his head and he was more sober haha We watched the restoration with him and it was really powerful, the spirit was working with him and we gave him a lot to think about. We committed him and the less-active to read together but we'll see how well that goes.
I also went on a trade-off this week with Elder G, one of our zone-leaders, we had a great time and worked really well together, it was a blast! It's kind of ironic because Elder C is one of the other zone leaders and he was actually my first district leader in B, so it's fun working with him again. Oh and Elder B is in my zone again haha I love Elder B, he is the best, I really hope I get to serve with him sometime. This week is going to be crazy though because of everything going on. My district alone has 4 baptisms coming up this weekend, so I get to do 3 interviews tomorrow which is exciting. So there is a lot of work to be done and a lot to be accomplished, and that's what I love about the Gospel is that it continues to roll onward.
Well I don't think I really have much else to talk about, so thank you for all that you all do, I love you, I'm grateful for you and I hope you all remember what the Lord has done for you this week. Have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Bushman
p.s. Mom thank you for the sweatshirt and I think that should be good enough for the cold times lying ahead, I have gloves.
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