Well... It has been a long, tiring, full, and busy week.
Sunday: Sunday was a great day. I woke up, went to church, had zone meeting, departure devotional, dinner, devotional, and sunday
night movie. Chad Lewis was the speaker and he gave a great devotional
on how trusting in the Lord is the best thing we can do. When we went to
see our movie, it was all full so we chose to go see the Testaments. In
Spanish. First, the Testaments is a super awkward and cheesy movie by
itself, so when paired in Spanish.... Super awkward. But, I did feel the
Spirit and understood a lot of the movie. After that we gathered as a
district to say goodbye to the Hermanas in our District. I grew really
close to our District so it was really hard to say goodbye. After that,
we headed back to our residence and went to sleep.
Monday:
All the Elders woke up at 3 in the morning to send off Elder Bird. He
was a close friend and example. It was tough to say goodbye but walking
him out gave me another chance to say goodbye to the Hermanas. All the
rest of Monday
was super weird because of the three people leaving. It felt somewhat
empty and awkward. But, I still went to class and did everything else. Monday was a little boring.
Tuesday:
I woke up, again at 3 to send off Elder Bybee and Elder Collins. I
finished packing (my bags weighed 46 lbs, 46 lbs, and 15 lbs, so I still
had tons of space) and headed out to the bus stop. I said goodbye to
the rest of the Elders and hopped on the bus. We traveled from the bus to
frontrunner, from frontrunner to trax, and trax into the airport.
Everything went well and we got to our gate. I called home which was
super fun. I have missed being able to talk with my family over the
phone so it was a great experience. When we got on the plane I was
seated next to a guy who was LDS. He was from Finland and served a
mission in Utah. He had just gotten sealed and was headed to Boston for
his honeymoon. He was a cool guy who spoke fluently French, Finnish,
Swedish, German, English, Polish and was working on mastering Spanish.
He was a little quirky but overall super chill.
After
the plane we landed, grabbed out bags and met the Mission President and
his Wife. President and Sister Miller are awesome people! They were
super kind and really energetic. We met the AP's who were also super
nice and fun. Elder Xiao is from California and Elder Ferreira is from
Brazil. The AP's took all the Elder's to the mission home and dropped us
off there with our bags. We went inside, had dinner, did some training,
and were sent to bed. The Mission home bed was the BEST. In the MTC I
didn't sleep through the night with out waking up once so when I woke up Wednesday morning and hadn't woken up during the night, it was amazing.
Wednesday: Wednesday
was great. We had breakfast, did more training with Senior Missionaries
and President and his wife and were sent out to do some street
contacting. Elder Tirado and I were put together as comps for street
contacting. We met this man on the street named Clyde. He was a JW who
started Bible Bashing with us. We were patient and didn't bash back and
tried to give him a Book of Mormon but he wasn't interested. We went
back to the Mission home were we had lunch and I met with President
Miller. When it came time to meet our trainers we all sat in seats with an open chair next to us and the trainers came in and sat
by us. At this time we still didn't know who our trainers were going to
be. I met Elder Curzon and we talked for a little bit but then President
Miller started reading off names of people who were getting trainers.
When he read my name, I walked to the front of the room and stood next
to President Miller, President than read off my trainers name and he
came to the front as well. We got some pictures together and than sat
down next to each other. After that we were told where we would be
laboring. Elder Curzon and I had been assigned to Hartford 2, a brand
new area. I was informed we would be shotgunning the area, which means
that neither companions had ever been there. So, we have NO
investigators, we don't know where anything is, we know 0 members and so
we are building completely from the ground up. We met the ZL's who we
share a room with and drove from the mission home in Natick to Hartford. Wednesday night we unpacked and went to bed.
Thursday: Elder Curzon and I woke up on Thursday
morning and went right to work planning, personal study, comp study and
language study. After studies were done we went tracking for 6 hours
trying to pick up new investigators to teach. We met a couple people and
placed 18 Book of Mormons. The people of Hartford are interesting...
Not much else happened on Thursday.
Friday: was a lot like Thursday.
We woke up, planned, studied, and went out knocking doors. Again, same
thing happened. We placed 12 Book of Mormons and got rejected a bunch.
That night we had a district meeting. We met the sisters in our district
(Our district contains 6 people. Elder Tebbs and Eaton, who are the
ZL's and also our roommates. Sister Morris and Sister Klipinger who are
the STL's, and Elder Curzon, who is the DL, and myself) and had a
training given by Elder Curzon.
Saturday:
Because we have no investigators and new investigators are not there
for our return appointments we haven't been able to have a progressing
investigator so we continued knocking doors on Saturday. We placed 22 Book of Mormons and talked with lots of nice people. Each day, we are walking anywhere from 4-7 miles.
Sunday: Sunday
was great. We went to church where I met a lot of the members. They all
speak Spanish so I understood nothing but it was still good. We went
knocking more doors and placed 12 Book of Mormons. In the 4 days Elder
Curzon and I have been together we have placed 60 Book of Mormons.
Pretty good. We knocked more doors and picked up another new
investigator and set a return appointment.
Monday (Today): So far the day has been good. Woke up, did some personal study, did laundry, went to the store, and now emailing.
Love you all,
Elder Bushman
Other Info:
Yes... I am pretty tired. The area is great, my comp is awesome!!
Hartford is a super weird place though. We have talked to crazy drunk
people who say we look like Matthew and John, We have talked to guys who
are drinking beer, smoking weed, and popping drugs right in front of
us. I actually really like talking to drunk people:)
We have had some awesome experiences where people are super interested.
Those people are usually English speakers so we pass them off to the
English Sisters so we haven't had an opportunity to see anyone progress.
It has been great though.
About Elder Curzon, I was super super happy that he is my trainer. I was hoping that I would
get him. Since none of my district came to Boston, I felt quite alone
the first couple days, but when I was put with him I felt like I had
someone to hangout with even though I didn't really know him. I wasn't
very surprised. President heard that someone knew Elder Curzon and when
he asked if anyone knew him I said I did and he smiled a little. So I
was hoping that meant I would be with him. I do think it is awesome!! We
have talked to each other about the craziness of it all. One of my best
friends at home has a cousin who lives in Nebraska, came on his mission
7 months before me and is now my trainer?? Coincidence? I think not:)
Questions:
What kind of access/time do you have to correspond with people?
I have 2 hours every week to email home. Unless there is some random reason that conflicts, but 2 hours a week.
Is it really a walking mission? And what does that mean? How much will you be walking?
Kind of. I was given a bike by the Branch Mission Leader. His name is
Lois Gonsalez and is super super nice and sarcastic. He is moving to
Mexico in the next couple of months so he is getting rid of tons of
stuff. He gave me 3 pairs of heavy winter gloves, a scarf, beanie, a
bike, dinner, and a pair of Sunday
shoes. He is super nice and I thanked him like 1000 times. He is great. I
havent ridden the bike yet, because Hartford is a place notorious for
bikes getting jacked so we'll see how much I use it. We walk anywhere
from 4-7 miles a day. Its pretty crazy.
Tell me more about Elder Curzon as a person and how your companionship is going...
Elder Curzon is super awesome!! He is really nice and fun to work with.
He is only 5 months older than I am and came out on his mission in
February. We work super well together and have a lot of the same
personality. He went to a semester of college before the mission and
wants to become a doctor. Everything is great. It is still a crazy
adjustment from the MTC but so far its been good.
How was your time at the mission home? Did you have a personal interview with the Mission President? What do you think of him?
The mission home was great. Very comfortable and nice. I love President
Miller. He is a fantastic guy. Sister Miller is amazing as well.
Oh, and I forgot my camera so I'll send photos next week.
"Our Heavenly Father can appreciate our love for Him by how well we serve Him and how well we serve our fellowmen."—Thomas S. Monson, "Four Words to Guide You"
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