Yr. 2, Week 5: He Mimics my "Swoosh"

Dear Family and Friends,

Well here is a little bit about my comp and my new sector. My companion is a good worker! He has a lot of skills in teaching, talking to people, and being people's friend. He has taught me a lot up until now. He works hard and is almost completely obedient. I also have a good bud in the pension: Elder Vorwaller. He came with Elder Kern to the mission and is a really cool guy. He is way into music and so we talk a lot about that :D So my new sector is big, we do a lot of walking. There are lots of really good members. Our ward mission leader is a guy who just got back from his mission like a month and a half ago. He is GREAT! His name is F. D. is also a returned missionary who will drop anything at any time to go out with us. He says he sometimes feels bad because he's using us to relive his mission!!! The bishop is pretty cool! He went to Mt. Timp temple during conference weekend so we had fun chatting about Utah. He's WAY funny! We live in a 36 story apartment building ... we are pretty high up and I can see out over all of La Florida... before going to bed, after praying, I sit on my bed and look out the window at the city. We have a lot of good members there and I really like working with them. We have several investigators soon to be baptized so I am stoked about that :) I talk about that in a second. Elder Kern is doing really well back in our old sector. He is training an Elder Prens from Colombia and he really likes him. He said that the M. family and the A. family both went to the ward activity this past week and LOVED it!!! He said they stayed there until real late and socialized with so many of the members :D I thought it was awesome!!! 

So here are the two most important investigator families that we are working with right now: the G. family and D. The G. family is a part member family we found on monday. The dad is a member, RM, high priest and his two oldest kids are members but his two youngest kids aren't. We reactivated them this Sunday and the dad commited to preparing himself to baptize his two youngest kids. We are having an FHE tonight with them!!! D. is a young mom about 26 years old with her two kids. She is single and works a lot but she is a step away from baptism. She has come a long way from what I have heard and her kids are just AWESOME! The boy tries to mimic my hairdo...when we go over he runs into the bathroom, wets down his hair, and mimics my swoosh, running is hand through the front part of his hair!!! :D AWESOME!!!

That's pretty much the week! I'm stoked to be here :) Love you all!!!

Elder Bushman

 

"We have come to this earth upon a mission; that we may have power to go forth and warn the nations of the earth. As elders of Israel, very few of us fully comprehend our position, our calling, our relationship to God, our responsibility, our work the Lord requires at our hands." -Wilford Woodruff

Yr. 2 - Week 4: New Sector and New Companion

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, the big news of the week is that I received a call from President Wright on Friday night saying I was heading to a new sector and receiving a new companion. I'm now in the ward La Florida 3, stake La Florida. :) I'm really excited! My companion is Elder Muzante, from Peru. He is 25 years old, he has 5 months in the mission, and I'm his second companion. This zone is really awesome, I'm in the same zone with Elder Rice and Elder Holsclaw (two of the guys from my MTC group! I'm also with Elder Wilson, Elder Gowdy, Elder Skousen, Elder Vorwaller, and others. Just REALLY great missionaries :) I feel as though it will be a powerhouse zone these next few changes! :D

This last week was a pretty good week. We had a lot of lessons with members, we really stepped it up with working with the bishop and our ward mission leader. Haha, it was really funny, in sacrament meeting, the second counselor said, "Well now we are going to give a little time to Elder Bushman to bare his testimony since he will be finishing his mission." I got up there and said, "I hope nobody goes to the temple because I'm not going to be there." I was trying to say in a funny way that I was not going home... But after the meeting, more than 10 people ran up to me and said, "Oh my gosh, I cannot believe you are leaving, how did you mission end so fast?" Etc.  etc.! Haha, I had to tell them that I was not going home but just to another sector! :) Hahaha! 

We used the "Because of Him" video a lot this week to teach about the Resurrection. We taught the M. family the Plan of Salvation using the video and the pamphlet. They understood it completely and it was awesome! We also shared it with a completo shop owner and he really loved it, saying he was going to check out mormon.org and stuff. 

Anyways, there isn't much else to report on account that I am in a new sector, without photos, and I haven't even hit the sector yet. But, things are great, I am excited, and we'll see you next week! Take care, love you all!

Elder Bushman

 

"Sharing the gospel brings eternal rewards. That is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to labor without a salary, to labor without the comforts that we sometimes have at home, but to labor for the salvation of the human family, to bring our Father's other children to a knowledge of the truth." - George Albert Smith

Yr. 2, Week 3: We Need to Make the Lord our First Priority.

Dear Famiy and Friends,

Wow, this week was a little strange in the fact that we had a tough week as far as lessons taught goes but at the end of the week I felt really good about it and very pumped up :) Before I get to some of the things that happened during the week, here's some thoughts from my sweet mother's email:

So the big fire in Chile is NOT in Santiago, but Valparaíso...like 2 1/2 hours away! So we are safe from it here but it is really tragic :S We're really sad for these people and also the people from Iquique (seriously like 1,000 kilometers away, we didn't feel anything) where the big earthquake was... So about missionary work online, honestly, that is the mission president's least concern, he's not that big into it. I doubt we'll be doing it during my time in the mission. When we are in people's homes, we always make it a point to say hello to everyone at the meal, or the lesson, or when we drop by a house. We always try to talk to the youth and help them out and stuff.

We had a really cool experience this week. We had been visiting the A. family for quite some time and Elder Kern and I were feeling that things just weren't going to work out with them. They weren't keeping their commitments, they skipped out on appointments, and left members hanging on visits as well. So, we stopped going by. This week we got a call from Hermana A. asking us why we didn't go by. We told her that we didn't think they wanted us to continue to pass by. She told us to pass by her house. So we did and we shared the story of Martha and Mary and why we need to make the Lord our first priority. We were a little forward with them but we were honest in that we said that we nor the Lord could make a difference in their lives UNLESS He was their first priority! They committed to going to church and we were really praying they would show up. Church started and they weren't in the chapel. The sacrament started and they still hadn't showed up! But the sacrament ended, and guess what...their family walked it :) YEAH!!!! Several members went up and said hi to them. They said they liked it and we were feeling really good about them!! :) It was truly a miracle!

Yesterday, in addition to the normal meetings at church, we had the Chapel Openhouse for the other ward. We still participated and invited a lot of people to it! Our investigator family went to it and really enjoyed it. Elder Kern and I had previously invited them to be baptized but they avoided the invitation; but after our presentation on baptism, they said they had A LOT of doubts and questions cleared up about why we are baptized and what it is that baptism does :) Hopefully that will mean significant progress soon!! Also in the openhouse, we did a presentation to a woman who has been inactive for 20 years. For some reason, the presentation took the angle of the gift of the holy ghost instead of baptism. She said she still remembers how she felt when she received the Holy Ghost. She said she wants to feel it again. Then a sister from the ward mentioned baptisms for the dead so I asked if she had ever been to the temple... She said no. I asked her if here grandparents or great-grandparents were members... She said no. Elder Kern and I invited her to come back to church after 20 years next week and to talk with the bishop about receiving a temple recommend to go to the temple and do baptisms and confirmations for her ancestors. She agreed :) We were so ecstatic :)

So this week we had a great correlation meeting with our ward mission leader, Hermano A.! We talked a lot about our investigator families and we are really excited to involve the ward with these people so that they go to church and enjoy the blessings of the restored gospel :) We are also going to be receiving two assistants to the WML, a guy who will head on his mission in one year and a recently returned missionary from Brazil. :) We're really, really excited!!!!! :)

Anyways, this was just a small portion of all the MARVELOUS things that happened this week :)

Love you all, take care!!!

Elder Bushman

"Gather the Saints, but do not flatter; invite, but do not urge, and by no means compel any one."
 - Brigham Young

Yr. 2, Week 2: 17 Cookies and 2 Liters of Chocolate Milk

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, conference was downright amazing!!! :) I loved every, single talk and I was just so inspired, especially by the talks from the priesthood session and from saturday!! :) I had brought two questions to conference and both were answered during the five sessions. I loved Randall L. Ridd's talk from the priesthood session. He talked a lot about how we need to use the internet for good. There were many things that he said in the talk that I want to implement when I go home. Henry B. Eyring's talk from the priesthood session was outstanding. He talked about being an example of priesthood heroes. I was really impacted and I want to be someone's hero of priesthood service and worthiness :) Our plans for General Conference went great! We made about 70 cookies and divided them up between us four in the pension. I ate like 17 cookies and drank two liters of chocolate milk myself to finish off saturday. Sunday rolled around and the gringo family in our ward made us four 24 cinnamon rolls!!! It was pretty fetchin' awesome and we still have some left :D YES!!! Conference was amazing and I'm sad to think that I only have one left in the mission...I'll be home two in a half weeks before next year's April Conference.

So we saw L. this week. It has been quite up and down for him lately. He is reading the BofM a lot and praying every day. He also accepted our baptismal invitation but was sick so he didn't go to conference. Also, he said he might move back down to the south of Chile because things aren't going too well up here. We are going to be having a FHE tonight with the N. family, so hopefully everything goes well there and he will stay in Santiago and progress...if that's the Lord's will :)

So here in Chile, the men shake hands, give a hug, and then shake hands again. I'm so accustomed to it that it is COMPLETELY automatic. Also, the women give eachother kisses/hugs, and people of the opposite sex give eachother a kiss...it's REALLY awkward when a woman who doesn't know the mission rules comes in for a kiss and we just stick out our hand... :) HAHAHA!!!!!

Well, that's about it for the week! Chao!!! Love ya!!!

Elder Bushman

“You’ve prepared for this for millennia.
This is your moment to perform.
This is your four minutes!
The time is now!” . . . . . ~ Pr. Bishop Gary E. Stevenson