Week 3: Bore my Testimony - all in Spanish

Photos Below...

Hello All,

Thank you for the letter you sent, the advice you gave, and the awesome details about everyone's status! It's awesome to see that everyone is doing well, growing in different ways, and just having a great time! The time is starting to go quick when I look back on it, hahaha! Here is some stuff from the past week:

First off, I love one of the elders here. He's actually right next to me, Elder McGary. You remember meeting his parents right? Anyways, he is awesome and we are so much alike! I was really hoping to have him as a comp but it wasn't meant to be. Anyways, he is a really awesome singer and we sing a lot together, mostly hymns. He's a base but can sing tenor and I sing tenor and so we just mess around with different songs and singing them. He also plays the piano so we switch off for different events and make up stuff when we have some free time! I love it and he is also really good at Spanish, so we always talk to each other and practice. It's really, really neat and I think he is just great. He also loves Psych so we make jokes and references sometimes... LOVE IT :) 

Anyways, yesterday was fast Sunday and I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting, all in Spanish. I bore testimony of the things I knew were true and shared a little of my experience in my first week here, how hard it was and how I turned to the Lord. I was really really nervous to bear my testimony all in Spanish and share that experience, but I felt super good afterward. The other day while practicing teaching an investigator, she said that she was worried about joining the church because of the traditions of her family and how catholic she was. I shared 2 Nephi 33:10. It is a sweet scripture and I am memorizing it in Spanish, whooot! We're working with her on the Book of Mormon! 

We got new roommates! Elder Muñoz and Elder Lopez. Cool, very nice guys! I love them! Will  send photos soon :) We've been playing soccer everyday this week with the guys down here....they...are...insanely good! It's crazy, these two guys just absolutely put me and the other elders to shame, it's really sad....but so AWESOME! Haha, Ive actually been getting good at goalie, whoot! 

I'm getting frustrated with the language a little...I feel like I cannot understand what people are saying and it is hard to formulate what I want to say. Translating back and forth in my mind and thinking and analyzing back and forth in Spanish is exhausting...I just need my mind to flip to Spanish, then I should be able to make progress...so far it hasn't happened yet... I found out that the biggest part of our efforts down here will be reactivation. My teacher said that 90% of the members here are inactive...NINETY PERCENT. How does that happen, I asked him. He said that elders down here baptize like crazy, but they aren´t completely rooted in the gospel, so they fall away. Kinda like the smart and the foolish man... Anyways, I promised myself that I would make sure the investigators were really ready when I taught them!

Anyways, gotta go! Love you all!

Elder Bushman

Elder Bushman over the Pedro de Valdivia Bridge

A CRAZY HUGE 6-story mall in Santiago

Elders Paxman, Bushman, Rice - Deep in Thought

From Mom: We were surprised to get a letter from him today! It turns out that the temple is closed on Wednesday so they are going to the temple on Tuesday which pushes P-Day to Monday! I told him he looked Happy, Healthy, and Handsome. He responded with, "I like the alliteration!"

"Every time you bring a convert into this Church you bless a life. Not one life, if he or she remains faithful, but many lives. For that which you do becomes the work of generations yet to come." - Gordon B. Hinckley