Week 33: I Want to...Make the Best of what God Needs me to do

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm happy that everyone is well and having such a fabulous time with the Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas which is right around the corner. We are all getting really excited for Christmas as we are 4 gringos in a pension and all will be getting lots of packages which we will share with all! :) Anyways, here are some things that happened this week:

So this week Elder Kern and I got our first baptism together! :D It was awesome, it was with D., O's older brother. It was a great baptism and D. felt fantastic and had a really really great experience. He prepared so well, reading almost all of 1 Nephi in the week before his baptism. He is doing well and the bishop is right on top of things, asking him to come in for an interview to receive the Aaronic Priesthood. We had some good support from a few families in the ward. The only sad thing is that (a few people) didn't come to the baptism. It was quite sad and it hurt D. a bit I believe. Also, the program was last minute so Elder Kern and I ended up doing both of the talks. In the end it turned out all right, it was just a message to me that we need to get the whole family involved a little more and having them over at member's homes. I sent some photos of the baptism. :) 

One crazy experience is that we started to teach a family, a young couple and two young girls. I'm trying to remember that they are children of God and my spiritual brothers and sisters, but it was a little hard not to judge them at first glance and say, "I don't think they'd be interested." We found out the dad of the family got shot in his hip and though it is healing, he is in a wheelchair right now...don't know why he was in a situation with gunfire but oh well. Also, the mom has tons of tattoos and is only 2 years older than me but has a child who is about 5 or 6 I believe. Anyways, she is quite interested and the dad is warming up to us. All we need to do is get them both together and start teaching them with some members. 

So about my Spanish. Ever since Elder Frost left and I had to train a gringo, I've noticed my Spanish and my accent have gotten better. I know more words, I am a lot faster and more fluid, and things make a lot more sense to me. I can read the Book of Mormon and understand practically 80 % of all the words I would say. It's very rare when I ask someone what a word means and I would say of all daily conversations that we have with people, I understand about 95 %... Anyways, it's been a great learning curve for me and I'm so very glad that God qualified me to train someone who did not know Spanish. Anyways, I think my next companion will be a latino but I'm not sure so I can't say that I hope for one either. But we'll see :D We still go to members homes every day to eat. The other day, our favorite family in the ward made BBQ ribs, french fries, and cole slaw :) Haha, they are so awesome! Hermano V. told me in English, "We tried to make like an Apple Bee's type lunch for you guys!" MMM! Soo yummy! :D Normally we have rice and chicken and for dessert...fruit :S Weird! So a few of my realizations are that I'm not going to mess around a lot when I get home. I've talked to lots of missionaries who say, "Yeah, I wanna wait like 4-5 years to get married and start a family and study, etc." Not me...I want to get started and make the best of what God needs me to do. I think I am leaning more and more to doing Accounting or another Business major. I've noticed that I have a thirst for learning now!!! I would say that I have grown the most in my testimony of the Book of Mormon. It is just soo important that we regularly are studying and learning and applying the things in the BofM. :) I don't really get homesick, but at times I just switch off thoughts between, "Wow, my mission is going really fast" to "Wow, I'm going to be out here for forever." :) Haha, but I don't get homesick really. Every other week I play the piano in Sacrament meeting. One sister, Hermana Volkert, plays the piano so we switch off playing every week. My favorite topic to teach about is the great apostasy. It just makes so much sense and it is really fun to use examples and object lessons to teach :D I haven't had to do a surprise talk yet...our ward is very organized and it would be strange if that happened. Our typical day is getting up at 7:30, exercise, preparation, eating, and starting personal study by 9:00. At 10:00, companionship study until 12:00 when we start our language study. We go and eat around 1:00 and by 3:00 we are proselyting until 10:00. We are in bed by 11:30...whoo...long day! :S So we have been taking it easy lately but in December we are going to be going on lots of sight seeing spots and going to hug flee markets and other kinds of stuff. Oh, and we are going to be going to the Jehova's Witness's Temple soon too...whoo! CRAZY! :D I'm not sure quite yet about Christmas but it should be at like 2:00 or so... Well, 10:00 a.m. your time! We are just going to be proselyting like normal on Christmas. We don't do anything special really...

So I sent a photo of me and a guy in my district who just came out of the MTC. His name is Elder Asay and we are real good friends, as we have a huge love for everything basketball and we just click really easy together. Anyways, I just found out that he lived right next to the Welch family's house in Highland and is really good friends with Taylor and Spencer :) Haha, who would've known. The other day the Welch's asked him if he had met an Elder Bushman in this mission yet. Elder Asay responded, "You aren't going to believe this, but he's my district leader!" :) Haha, he's a way good kid and I cannot wait to do divisions with him this weekend :) WHOOOHOO!

So that's all of this week, so long! Love you all!

Elder Bushman

 

Elder Bushman with Elder Asay

Excited to get his package - Elder Kern

The Encampamento

 "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."  - Mark 16:15