Join us in Welcoming Home Elder Bushman

Yr. 2, Week 51: I am Forever Indebted and Grateful

Dear Family and Friends,

First off, a couple things mom: no I won't be writing next week. We do our changes and we have some free time but we aren't doing much and then they take us to the airport, so this will be the last time I write, just FYI. Also, don't worry about a calling card, we've survived 2 years, we can wait 4 hours more :) Plus, it'll make the reunion that much AWESOMER! :D 

Second, here's a little update on the week we had. A few highlights! ...

1. Our investigator L. is making EXCELENT progress. He's been alcohol free for a week and a half and has been reading the BofM (he's in chapter 8), he's praying with his wife, and we had two great visits this week with members from the ward. J and H.S. came with us and they both supported him a lot and really just made him feel GREAT! Anyways, we are super stoked for him, he's got a baptismal date for the 5th of April. I'm really excited to see the photo of his baptism. 

2. This week we visited the B. family twice and they were GREAT visits. The first one we were able to teach a bit about church and baptism and the BofM. They are reading so great. C. is in like chapter 6 of 1 Nephi, G. is in chapter 5 of 1 Nephi, D. is almost done with 2 Nephi. IT'S so awesome. The youngest boy C., D., and G. have baptismal dates for the 12 of April. We invited C. to be baptized and he accepted but we weren't able to commit him 100% for the 12th, but that's a job for this week. We had a sick lesson with G. last night where we read the BofM and talked about it. She told us about the change she feels in her family, the incredible spirit she feels in her home, and how much she loves the BofM. Anyways, it was amazing. I love that family! They will be baptized, if not on the 12th, soon after it :D Elder Deal and his new companion (?) are going to do a great job.

3. So we were FINALLY able to visit with D. and her family. Last week they told us that they had some doubts and that this and that and the other! This week we talked a little bit about God's will, and his commandments, and asking and receiving. We read 1 Nephi 2 and it just hit her hard. She prayed at the end and it her prayer she asked God to help her resolve her doubts but that above all that he helped her to do his will. It was awesome!

Everyone, Friends and Family, everyone I know! THANK YOU for your support and for writing me and for praying for me while I have been on the mission! I have felt your influence and I want you all to know that the mission has changed me and I am forever indebted and grateful to my Heavenly Father for this opportunity! May God bless you through His Son Jesus Christ as He has me. See you soon!

Elder Bushman

Elder Deal: "Mate overdosed Bushman! In reality he just fell asleep on the floor after daily planning and we posed him like that"

I FINISHED ALL THE PRACTICES IN THIS BOOK :)

This is the best dessert alive...in Chile that is! Haha!
Melón con Helado (melon with ice cream, nothing special, just AWESOME!!!)

Elder Kern and I last P-day of mine

Elder Deal and I last P-day (we played soccer and it was AWESOME)

Yr. 2, Week 50: I'm Going to Read it Every Day

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow, what a week. It was a really, really great week. Looking back on it I can see the ups and downs of the week, the frustration and joy we felt, the tough and easy things, the fun and dumb moments, but I just remember the good. Seriously looking back I only focus on and can remember the good about the week. I really like that. :)

So a quick summary of some of the investigators:

B. Family: this week it was really hard to visit with them, however, this weekend we were able to teach them some really cool, awesome things and they are just progressing awesomely. Sometimes they cancel on us and sometimes they aren't there but when they are and when we coordinate well, it's incredible the spirit we feel with them. Yesterday we taught them and it was awesome. They asked us some questions about the BofM and everything and they really have been reading. D. has read up until 2 Nephi 15. It's incredible and she has really marked some things and has been able to tell us why she did so. Anyways, really awesome! We invited them to be baptized and to a date and they agreed. Anyways, they won't be baptized until after I leave but I don't care, I'm really stoked for them. THEY ARE AWESOME! :D Hahaha!

J and P: we also visited with them yesterday and it was sick. We taught the restoration and P. was just knocked off her feet. We gave her the BofM and she was like, "I'm going to read it, I'm going to read it every day in the subway on my way to work!" It was awesome. J and P want to baby bless their baby and we told them about it and they want to come to church and everything! Anyways, they are doing great! 

L: this was an old investigator that we were visiting but we left him because he didn't progress. However, we taught him again and he's decided to be baptized. We invited him and his wife to set some goals as to what they thought they needed to do in order to prepare for baptism. We came back and they said they were going to pray every day in the morning and night, read the BofM together, go to church when L. isn't working, and he wants to be baptized the first week of April! :) Anyways, we visited with him with J., our convert and it was awesome. I think it strengthened J. and helped L. know that there is someone at church who has made changes and who is happy! 

A little bit about my studies this week. While on divisions I had a great study about Virtue. PMG led me to read D&C 48:33. I was meditating on it a bit because I was trying to understand a bit more about why the Lord would be telling the saints to be sanctified and virtuous. I read the section heading and it all made sense. The lord was helping them to know who he wanted the meetings of the church to be directed. So as I kept studying, it made more and more sense why the Lord wants us to be virtuous as we perform sacred covenants. In D&C 133:4-5 it talked about being clean those that bear the vessels of the Lord. So I thought for a long time about what vessels meant and 2 Timothy 2:21 helped me to understand. I loved this study because it helped me to understand what it is that I want to be as I represent the Lord in administering Christ's grace and blessings through those covenants. 

So that's a bit about the week that I've had and I've really had a great time. It's been so fun and so great to be with Elder Deal. We have lots of fun together. He comes home a change after me and is going to BYU too and we we are planning lots of fun stuff to do! Haha, we're good friends! :D 

Love you guys, take care!

Elder Bushman

Yr. 2, Week 49: Lots of Optimism

Dear Family and Friends,

Man, things are going well. We have lots of optimism and we are doing great things down here in our sector. We are seeing great help from our ward members and we have been seeing great miracles as well, lots of great people to teach and find. We have lots of people to teach and stuff and I think that these last three weeks we are going to start teaching them regularly again. Everybody is back from their vacations and we are going to be able to help them and everything and I think we are going to have lots of success. Anyways, here's some of the ...Highlights:

I ate a really hot pepper this week. It's actually so hot that the name of the pepper is a swear word. In mormon language, it's called a "shiz mother" pepper. I imagine it's called that because that's like the first thing that would come out of someone's mouth when eating it... haha! Anyways, photos to be sent (P.S. Ben, I'm preparing for the blazin' challenge with these peppers ;)

Lately we've been teaching a less active named J.C. Elder Denison and I visited him and found him just out of the blew. Two Sundays after, he came back to church randomly. We thought he was out working but he came to church and has been here the last four weeks. Every time we go and visit him he is always studying the manuals and the scriptures. He is AWESOME. Yesterday we was ordained a priest and got the Aaronic priesthood. Super awesome! He's cool! 

We've had some crazy experiences with the B. family. Really sweet lessons but then we don't find them home and so on.  So we're not sure. Anyways, they are definitely feeling the spirit, we are just going to need to see if they can overcome those difficulties!

That's it folks, love you all!

Elder Bushman

 

 

 

Yr. 2, Week 48: Studying the Attribute of Christ - Hope

Elder Bushman's letter was answering several questions about coming home. Here are some tidbits about Chile and teaching...

The vacations are going to be over next week. There's still some people gone but even though others are home, they still go out and do stuff like the pool, camping, shopping, etc., and it's hard to get back with them sometimes. They usually go to the beach (an hour and a half away) or the go to the south of Chile to camp or stay in cabins and stuff. 

I think some of our investigators could be baptized! They have the potential and I have the faith that if they really just fulfilled their commitments they would be baptized! However, it's cutting pretty close. Even if we don't have one, I'll be stoked to hear from Elder Deal about the baptisms.  

This week was a little tough with teaching our investigators. We weren't able to take anyone to church, A left on another vacation, C and Y were doing lots of stuff, D worked all week and we didn't get in a single visit. We weren't able to visit with C and G all week either. However, despite all the difficulties we had this week, we found some new people. 

We had some really good lessons and some really good studies. Not much to tell, we are stoked to work really hard this week. We really have been trying but we haven't seen many results. I'm studying the attribute of Christ, HOPE. I really like it and I think it has everything to do with my last few weeks in the mission. I'm going to study this attribute this week, Virtue the next, Diligence the following, and Patience the last. I'm really excited :D 

I love you all, take care guys!

Elder Bushman

Yr. 2, Week 47: Some Really Amazing Studies This Week

Dear Family and Friends,

Everything is going really well. I would say this week was a bit of an up and down week in regards to investigator progress, however, it was a week of increased personal spiritual growth in addition to increased faith. Let me tell you about some of the experiences I had this week had increased my faith and also helped me to improve and grow as well.

First off I had some really amazing studies this week. The first one spawned from a scripture our bishop shared in Isaiah 43:2. I later read verses 1-3 and began to study the different names that appear there in regards to Jehovah. It was interesting as I began to study the phrases and words, “Thou art mine” “Holy One of Israel” “Thy Saviour”. That led me to study many different scriptures in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and D&C and Pearl of Great Price. I looked up scriptures in John 1:1-14, Hebrews 1:1-2, John 12:35-36, 46, John 14:6, 2 Nephi 9:10-11, 19, Mosiah 3:7, D&C 110:1-5, etc. I began to see a lot about how Christ really was all that Isaiah said He was in his writings and that He truly was the God of the Old Testament. But more importantly, I began to understand better Christ’s role in my life and His love for me. Anyways, I shared it all with Elder Deal. It was amazing, I loved it. Another amazing study from this week was a study in Alma 43:18-21. I linked these scriptures up with some in Ephesians 6:13-17 about the armour of God.  I linked in the different things about the armour and I saw that the “thick clothing” was something not mentioned by Paul in the New Testament. I thought of the temple and the physical protection we receive there. Therefore, I, throughout this study, was able to see how the armour of God really surprises the devil and how much it protects us compared to those who do not wear it. Pretty cool :D

We had a great experience while trying to exercise more faith to baptize. We taught L. 2 and the Sacrament to A. and her son J. It was a really good lesson and we were able to focus on how the atonement and the doctrine of the sacrament and baptism help us progress and therefore fulfill our purpose on earth. We then invited her and her sons to go to church and she accepted while adding, "I want to get baptized." We were stoked!!!! Haha, now she and her two sons went to church yesterday and we have an FHE set up for this Thursday with them and a family in the ward. One of the kids in the primary personally gave A. a Book of Mormon and she loved it. I think it touched her and I saw her looking up the scriptures related to the hymns that we were singing. She has a baptismal date for the second week of April and we are going to be extending the same date to her son who's 14. :D It was a sweet experience. I think they are going to progress real well.

We visited lots of other people but there wasn't a whole lot of progress with the W. family nor C.B's family. We visited D. and it was great but they didn't go to church or anything. Anyways, some people have paused in their progression, etc. However, with A. we are seeing some good things with others. This week we are going to go full force with D's family and C's and J. and P. etc.

Anyways, take care guys! Love you!

Elder Bushman 

Adios, Elder Nelson!

 APPLEBEES!!!!!

Yr. 2, Week 46: Studying the Scriptures with Temple Eyes

Dear Family and Friends,

Things have been really good and this week was awesome! We had some sweet miracles and we met some new people and we had some really awesome lessons. Here are some of the highlights:

This week Elder Deal and I went to the temple to do an endowment session. It was really, really cool, I loved it. We both went quite prepared. We had talked about some things and we both did some studies and thought of some questions when we went. The night before we went, I personally read Alma 33 and I loved that chapter. I began to understand that truly praying and worshiping God is in having a relationship with Him. V. 3-11 talk about how God hears our prayers and that he answers us through the scriptures. Even though the Zoramites were thrown out of their synagogues, they still could pray and read the scriptures. I loved verse 16 because God is so saddened when we don't want to understand Christ's sacrifice. It makes me glad that he wouldn't be mad at me because I am sincerely trying to understand it. Verse 22 was great as well because it talks about how sure Alma was when he said that Christ would come. :D Anyways, when I went to the temple, I just understood so much better everything. A few things I learned in the temple:

1. God loved Adam and Eve so much that it was a big act of love that they put the cheribums and flaming sword in front of the tree of live (that was explained even more to me this week as I read Alma 42. 

2. It truly isn't meet than man should be alone.

3. God's plan ALWAYS included the fall and the need for a Redeemer. 

Anyways, Elder Deal and I talked a lot about the things we had learned and we have more questions for next time. I am very excited to go again and I've been studying the scriptures with temple eyes so as to understand and see the hints and signs and hidden references to the temple and the ordinances therein. 

This week we found some new investigators super awesome. WE FOUND 8, which is probably the most I've found in one week in the mission. Here they are:

F: this is a less-active's daughter who, by invitation of him and us, went to church two weeks ago. So we visited with her and taught her a bit of lesson one. She's 15 and really has a great desire and she loved church. It was interesting to see how the spirit touched her heart and although she is pretty shy, she was able to be outgoing and make some good friends.

H, V, S & C: Last Monday we contacted V. and, although she said that she was catholic and that she wasn't going to change religions, she said that we could go by and see her son who was having some struggles. We went by on Friday and when we got there, H., S. and C. all tried to flee so V was like let's just sit outside...but we were like, can we at least meet them? Haha, so we went in and introduced ourselves and H. and V. started talking with us first. Then C. joined and after a second invitation, S. came and we had an AWESOME first lesson. We talked about coming unto Christ and repentance and how we do that through prayer. We said a prayer with them as a family and invited them to say one as a family once a day. When we left V. was like, "You guys were sent from the Heavens." Haha, she was really happy. :D 

M: This guy is a very learned Christian and has lots of really educated questions in regards to the Book of Mormon and our restored gospel. It has been interesting. He has read up until Alma in the BofM and he's been leaving us homework and certain stuff so that's fun, haha! :D He's a cool guy and really wants to keep meeting with us. We are just worried that he might be too focused on learning by study instead of by faith. :S But we'll see. 

J and P: These guys were cool. We talked to J one day when we were looking for a reference. He lied to us and said that his name was S. because he thought we were never going to come back. Well we did a few times and we finally saw them yesterday. We talked about getting to know God. P. is really religious and she is clearly sad that J. isn't very believing. However, she said that it was incredible that he was listening to us and at the end of the lesson he agreed to pray. It was a sweet lesson because she was like come over every day and J. really likes us! :D They are pretty darn humble and I think they could progress fast. 

We haven't met with C, G, etc. much this week because they are on vacation, and so is the story with many others... :)

Well that's everything folks! I'll keep you updated!

Elder Bushman

This is called "Lentejas con Chorizo"...this is a typical Chilean dish, and I made it all by my self the other day for lunch. It was pretty good :)

Elder Deal and I went to the temple for a session. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

This is Me, Elder Carvalho, and Elder Prens. My great-grandkid, and my grandkid :D