Another day of miracles....

Dear Family, Well it has been quite the week, that is for sure! I'm glad Hunter had a good experience at trek and that he felt bad for the girls. I would have felt bad too if they had actually done anything but all they had to do was pull the carts for a quarter of a mile on flat terrain on our trek, even the girls complained that it wasn't hard enough, maybe Hunter's experience was different.

 

Anyway so this week was transfers and I did get a new companion, His name is Elder J and he is from SF Utah. He was a district leader when I was in my last area so we went on one trade off before. He only has 2 transfers left though, so I will probably kill him off too, which means I will be with the YSA's for 6 months, so it should be fun.

Wednesday night after transfer meeting we had a really good lesson with one of our investigators. She came to institute on Tuesday and absolutely loved it and we had a lesson with her the next evening. We brought our branch mission leader with us and taught the restoration. It was a really powerful lesson and she is an amazing girl, she is very attentive to the lessons and is very open and honest with us which is really neat. She went out of town for the weekend but we are going to see her this week and she is coming to institute tomorrow, so we are excited about that.

Anyway so the week went on and it went pretty well, we had an amazing miracle yesterday. We were tracting in apartment complexes trying to find young single adults and just having no luck at all, until finally we knocked on this man's door! He had said that missionaries had just contacted him a little earlier and gave him a Book of Mormon and that he had asked them a few questions. Well I asked him if we could come in and share more and he accepted, so we went in and started talking to him about religion and about God, did a few How to Begin Teaching points and then went strait into the Restoration. We taught a powerful Restoration and there was a great spirit in the room and he asked us a lot of good questions. The Lord is truly in this work and leads us to where we need to be. I really don't even know how we find people, it just happens, it really is the hardest thing in the world to find young single adults, but every week we somehow find 3 or more investigators. The scripture that says "that we are saved by grace after all we can do", comes to mind. The Lord provides the way after all we can do, I have gained a firm testimony of that.

So we have a baptism coming up this weekend which I am super excited about! She is doing great and just soaking everything in and then the very next weekend we have another baptism with another investigator, so the Lord is just blessing us and now we just need to keep finding people to teach because if we run out it's going to be a sad day for us, that's for sure haha.

By the way I would really like to get Elder Sears address if that is possible, I would like to write him. I got a letter from KL and it seems like he is doing great. I love hearing from her and hearing about the things that are going on with their family. I was always was so grateful for their family and what they would do for me. I'm glad Hunter is having an opportunity to home teach them, so Hunter take full advantage of it. Well I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!  Love, Elder Bushman!

P.S. I am still wanting to do the kings peak trip next summer, so I hope everyone is getting ready and in shape !) 

Leadership training - Elder Bushman - 3rd row back.

Transfer day - I love that Elder Bushman is front and center - big as life!

Handsome group of Missionaries.....
One final pose with Elder G before he goes home....

Life......

Dear Family,   Well sorry this letter is finally just getting to you today, I forgot to tell you all that once again because of transfers our P-Day is on Tuesday, so no worries I didn't forget about you! Thank you so much for the letters, it's good to hear that all is going well back home. Dad I am impressed you are still keeping up with all those young guys, I'm glad you are staying young haha And that was so weird hearing from Elder Sears, he seems like he has changed a lot since I last talked to him, actually I was wondering if you could get his address for me, I would like to write him. So yesterday we got some sad news that a missionary that served in my mission passed away from a motorcycle accident. He was companions with Elder A at one point. I was saddened by the news, but I am so grateful for the understanding of the plan of salvation. Also his family are going to donate his organs so that others might live, it's just incredible how many ways this young man has been used to save lives, whether spiritually or physically and he will yet be doing a great work beyond the veil in the spirit world. 

Well this week has been a great week! There is a real fire burning in the mission right now and many miracles are unfolding.  I'm really just beginning to understand the consequences of decisions and actions, I was reading Alma 5 the other day and it hit me really strong at how accountable we are as members of the church. Alma the whole time was just listing question after question like Have you had this mighty change of heart, have you spiritually been born of God, Have you had him image engraven upon your countenance, do you put your faith in the Redemption of him who created all things and so on? The whole time he is just asking if we have done all these things to help us become more like our Savior and the whole time I'm thinking, "I need to shape up!" But that is the great thing I love about this life, that no matter who we are or who we have been we can change and become better. So I am grateful for the enabling power of the Atonement.

Anyway enough of my little shpeil about the world, I'll get back to my week. I don't really know what to talk about, there has been a lot of really good stuff that has happened this week, it's hard to know where to start. Preparing for Zone conference this month President Barry has had all the missionaries do a study on the Doctrine of Christ. On Saturday we were studying the Principle of Faith and that day we were supposed to go out and find 2 new investigators. Elder G and I were determined to find 2, so we prayed mightily for the opportunity and then went out to work. We worked hard all stinkin day without any success, we tracted and tracted and contacted and contacted but we continued to pray. Near the end of the night at 8 pm we were in this apartment complex and heard this girl crying uncontrollably. At first we weren't going to talk to her but we decided to go over anyway. We were able to teach her a lesson and get a new investigator, it was incredible! Then we got a phone call from the elders in K and they gave us this way sweet referral that had just been to her sister’s baptism and felt the spirit extremely strong and now she wants to get baptized and she lives down here!   Anyway it was a pretty miraculous night! Then we went and had an amazing lesson with this lady. We had an amazing lesson where we read from Alma 32 and she felt the spirit super strong so we invited her to church but she didn't really want to go, but then we told her how amazing church was and she said she would come. She came to church the next day and absolutely loved it! She is way neat and I am excited to teach her more.

But anyway that was basically our week, I will be getting a new companion tomorrow so I am excited about that. Elder G and I had a blast this transfer, and no he didn't get trunky at all which was really nice. But it's always exciting to start over and get someone new to work with. Well I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!  Love, Elder Bushman

Elders G, A, H and Bushman

Field trip

A YSA  posted this for Elders Bushman and G.  Go forth stripling warriors!

Dear family,

Well it is good to hear that everything is going well back on the Home Front. So JR wants me to walk onto Snow with him huh? That's interesting, I'll have to think about that. I think I told you how one of my new roommates played for the Bingham A team all growing up and so we played against each other throughout all of little league, it has been a blast talking about all of our experiences, oh also he played for the Mud Cats. So despite all the fun talk about football, I think baseball will be my better choice in the end, although I would love to play football again, I’m just not sure that will happen. Anyway we had a great week this week, I wish I had a lot of time to tell you all about it but we are going down to St. Augustine today with some recent converts, so we are in a hurry, but I will do my best!

Right now I am just super excited because our mission is doing really well! This week was a blow out week numbers wise and we should be seeing many baptisms rolling forth in the next few months!  Right now Elder G and I are teaching 2 people with solid baptismal dates, one for August and one for the end of July, so they will be back to back.

And right now I am sitting next to a guy who is talking to me about religion, he is pretty nice but he is talking a lot about Gay's and being Christian. Well at least I shared a little bit of the gospel with him and invited him to go to mormon.org and he said he wants to come to church, so maybe something good will come out of it. 

Well anyway my week has been good...... We had an amazing experience this week when we got a referral from Sister Barry. She had met this girl named A at the Olive Garden and she asked her if she was Mormon and she said yes, are you? She said no and then Sister Barry asked if she wanted to be a Mormon, and she said maybe. So she got her information and we gave her a call and actually had a lesson with her at President and Sister Barry's home! How amazing is that? I don't think to many missionaries get to teach in their mission Presidents home, it was incredible and the spirit was extremely strong. We invited her to be baptized and she said she would if she came to know it were true, so we set a tentative date for the 29th. Unfortunately she is moving at the end of the month so maybe I’ll send the referral to Elder Payne.  Well I am about to get logged off, sorry got to go!  Have a great week!  Love you all! Elder Bushman

Raindrops keep falling on my head....

Dear Family,  First I want to say that yes, I have been getting all the letters and I have enjoyed them very much, especially this week’s letters. I am just so grateful to hear of all these people that I have loved growing up doing well and succeeding and excelling in life. Secondly, I apologize that my letters have been shorter than usual, I guess that is just what happens when the mission gets longer, it seems like my mind is so congested with thoughts throughout the week that when Monday comes around I just relax my brain for a bit, so a lot of the time I just can't think of anything to write, but I promise to do better. Oh and mom thank you so much for telling me about Viliam!  I was actually thinking about him the other week or so and was wondering if he ever did get off on his mission, so it is so good to hear that, I hope I get to see him again someday. 

Well this week has been a really good week. Our recent convert B is just an amazing guy! Ever since he has been baptized he just wants to go out and do missionary work with us. He is always asking us if we have appointments and who he can share the Gospel with. The other day he set up an appointment with his sister and we drove out to see her and had a really weird lesson in a Gas Station parking lot, yeah I know first a gym now a parking lot, well anyway it went really well and he was asking all these questions, really good ones too, so it's been a lot of fun.

 We have been really limited on miles this week since it was the end of the month, so we did a lot of work around where we live so we didn't have to travel that far. In fact on Thursday evening we had 3 people drive to us at the church so we could teach them there haha it's brilliant, I wish we could just do that every day, just have an all-day teaching session at the church!  But anyway the first lesson went really well. A recent-convert, invited her friend to come with her who has been asking questions about the church and we went on a church tour with her. We showed her around the church and talked about Christ and then we went into the chapel where we talked about the Sacrament and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love this part of the church tour because the spirit is really so strong in the Chapel, it's incredible. She told us that she has been trying to find a church that she feels comfortable in and that she thinks that she found it. We taught her again on Saturday and she accepted a baptismal date for the 29th of July, but it will probably happen earlier because she told C after Church on Sunday that she wanted Elder G to baptize her and he is leaving in 3 weeks so it will have to happen sooner! 

This week it rained extremely hard for the first few days, it was incredible to see the amount of water that got built up.  I've never seen anything like it. At one point Elder G and I drove through probably a foot of water, it was a lot of fun. But here  the flooding wasn't too bad, but it was really bad in Gainsville and other places closer to the Gulf. 

Oh and by the way Mom, we actually do a lot of tracting because we don't get that many referrals. We just go to all the apartment complexes and start knocking and hoping we find young non married people haha So one day that is exactly what we were doing. We were driving  on the way to an appointment, still had some time to wait however, and Elder G decides to make a turn. I am really confused of course and ask where he is going and he tells me we are tracting, so I said ok and we went to these apartment complexes where missionaries used to live. Elder G said he wanted to knock on their old door and so we went up there but that guy was not interested one bit, so we went to the next door. This guy answers and we start to talk to him. He remembered the missionaries living next to him when they were there a year ago and he started telling us about an experience he had with missionaries when he was in Gainsville going to college. He said that his roommate had invited them in one night, that he didn't get a whole lot out of what they were saying because his roommate was arguing the whole time and he really wanted to know more, so he invited us in. We went in and taught him in his wife about the Book of Mormon and even watched a Mormon message off the internet, technology can be incredible! Afterwards they both asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon and wanted to know when we would be back by. It was a tremendous miracle, eventually once they come to church we will have to turn them over to the other Elders but they are an amazing couple.

So Sunday was an interesting day for us, a very good one though. We were just tired from the long week but we had an incredible fast and testimony meeting! I love the young single adults for that reason, because most of them are returned missionaries or recent converts and they all have such real testimonies and share good experiences that are good for everyone to hear. I was also able to confirm B a member of the church which was a really neat experience for me, he is only the second person that I have confirmed my whole mission, so I always get nervous haha but I got over it.

Yesterday Elder G and I were talking about the challenges that the YSA are facing in their life's  and about how life is just at the doors for us and it's scary. I mean we see these people in all these situations and we just keep telling them how the gospel will help and the blessings will come, which I know they will, but then again we aren't in their situation and it's so easy to be positive when it isn't happening to you. It just made me grateful for the life that I have had growing up and all the things that I have been blessed with and it also opened my eyes to the fact that I still have a lot of things I will have to face in my life and I just pray that I will continue to have the faith and the confidence to push through them, which I believe I do. I am so grateful for the Gospel!

Oh and also this week as I was lying in bed thinking about my mission this far and life in the future, I started thinking about what I am going to do with my life. I thought about how I still want to work hard and not get lazy, and that I want to be diligent in my studies of the gospel and with that I knew I needed something hard for me to do so I could have goals and plans to achieve those things and then it struck me really hard how I can't give up on Baseball. I felt very strongly that I needed to continue in that and that it will keep me focused and on task in my life. I believe that it will be the right path for me and that I still have much to learn from it, so I just thought I would let you all know that.

Anyway so I hope this letter was better than the previous ones and I am grateful for all that you all do. I hope you have a wonderful week and that many blessings will come your way. Remember to always read and pray and trust in the Lord. I read in preach my gospel this week that Faith is confidence in the mission and power of the Holy Ghost. That really hit me hard, I hope we can all have more faith and confidence in the spirit, love ya have a great day!  Love, Elder Bushman