Dear Family, Well it was good to hear from all of you this week. Hunter, I finally read your letter that you sent me, one of my roommates hid it or left it somewhere so I wasn't able to read it till today, but it was really neat hearing about your experience on trek and the spirit that you felt. It brings back memories for me, from trek and also from Moroni's quest where hearts were touched and lives were changed. The youth programs that this church has and the Spirit that those conferences bring is just one more factor to the Truthfulness of this Gospel and of the church. It's insane all the sin and the temptations that youth face these days, but the Lord has provided every way and means necessary to combat it and for those that desire to come out on top and conquer Satan.
This Sunday at church, one of the Branch counselors spoke and he is incredible! Well his job out here hasn't worked out like they had planned it and so they are moving back to Utah so he gave a couple of last words for the Branch. He is such a down to earth man with an extremely powerful spirit and firm testimony of the Gospel. Every time he gets up to speak he invites everyone to take the things they have learned by the spirit and apply them in their lives and change, become better! In Elders quorum he asked everyone to think of the thing that they love most about the gospel and to ponder upon that. Then he taught about how it is the spirit that reveals those truths to us and that we should never do anything to offend that spirit. He talked about how we need to step up and become worthy Melchizedek priesthood holders. he said that he just heard a few of the priesthood holders out there talking about a Rated R movie they had watched that weekend and about how good it was and he said the spirit was offended. But he did it with such love and the spirit was so strong that I have no doubt that those that were talking about it felt ashamed. One of the greatest things I have learned out here so far is how important the Priesthood is, and how important it is to be worthy of it. We cannot be flirting with the lines, we cannot have one foot in Babylon and one foot in Zion, we need to have both feet in Zion on the trek to righteousness. My idea of what is right and wrong and what is ok and what is not ok has completely changed. It's no longer, "how far can I go before it is wrong?" but it is now "how valiant can I be?" I love the Gospel so much!
This week has been a pretty interesting week, another humbling week I would say. Elder J and I have been working really hard trying to find new investigators. Last week when we tracted that one day for 5 hours we found 1 potential. Well we went back Monday evening and had a really powerful restoration lesson with him and his girlfriend and set a return appointment for Wednesday. Well when Wednesday rolled around he called us and told us that he didn't really want to learn anymore but was grateful for the things that we shared with them. This little happenstance just reaffirmed my thoughts that we need to work through the members. So that is what we have been trying to do this week, but it is really hard since everyone lives so far apart. So we have been mainly working through our recent converts and teaching them how to do missionary work and just simply inviting people to do things. I've never had so bad of numbers on my mission, it's kind of funny but frustrating at the same time, but I still feel very confident that things are going to work out.
Oh so one day this week as we were at the Library we had this Jewish guy come and talk to us for a while. He was a rabbi at one point and he knew a lot about the church. He was asking us about our seminary program, church programs, garments, missions, standards, and all sorts of stuff, it was really cool! He was really nice and was just really interested on how the church worked. He asked us how Jewish people react when we talk to them and what we say to them. We told him that they are generally really nice and that we usually just talk about the book of Mormon or about Christ. He told us a story of when some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on his door and told him that 6 million of his people were killed because they rejected Christ. He said that is the only time he has slammed the door in someone’s face and I was just amazed at some of the things that people would say. Another great witness of the reality of the Great Apostasy. In fact that is one thing I have gained a massive testimony of since I have been here is the Great Apostasy, it is everywhere! Everything the scriptures talk about, with churches taking advantage of the poor and priest craft, and no consequences for sin is everywhere! So yeah I have learned a lot haha
I don't know, nothing else really glorious has happened this week because of our lack of investigators so I don't have much else to say. But I am grateful for all that you all do for me, for all of your prayers, and I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Bushman
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