Year 1, Week 22: That's a First!

Hey Mom!!

This week has been awesome!! We started the week with a Book of Mormon challenge that our zone was doing. Our zone goal was to place 293 Books of Mormon in a week. Our district goal, which consists of 6 missionaries, was 127. We were a little under half of the entire ZONE goal!! The week started slow because of Christmas, emailing and laundry on Tuesday, weekly planning on Thursday. On Friday night, our district was at 49/127. We had 2 days to place about 78 Books of Mormon. Elder Tirado and I went to work and put out 46 Books in those 2 days. We placed 66 in the week. With the help of the Lord, we met our district goal, 129/127 and our Zone goal of 299/293. That was an amazing experience in and of itself.

On Wednesday we decided to stop by an old media referral. He wasn't home so we decided to knock doors around his house. We went to one house, climbed the stairs and knocked the 3rd floor. A girl opened the door, holding a PS4 remote. I was like, "Hey, we are missionaries from our church, we are in the area sharing a message of Jesus Christ." She kinda looked at me and was like, "I'm not interested." Usually I say, "Alright, well can I just leave you with a Book?" But this time, I some how said, "Is anyone else in the house interested?" She asked and this girl replied that she was!!! She invited us in and said we could teach her anything. We taught the Restoration and it was probably the best Restoration we have ever taught together. She asked questions like, "How come people say that baptism is all it takes to be saved?", "What is the atonement?" and "I was already baptized, why do I have a need to be baptized again?" We started explaining that there needs to be proper authority and how infant baptism is against what we believe and what God has set forth for us. She said that she agrees and was saying how her baptism must not have been ok. When we invited her to be baptized she said, "wait, so I can do that over again?" She said yes and she agreed to be baptized. We asked her when she would be available to be taught again and she said, "How about Friday?" We agreed and left her with the commitment to read 3 Nephi 11 and left.

On Friday we went back and she had ACTUALLY READ??!!! No way, that's a first!! She explained that she didn't understand a lot of the words and things and asked us to explain them. We explained and at the end invited her to be baptized on Feb. 24. The reason her date is so far is (she has some issues to resolve). We left her the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and she said she would read it before our next meeting. She agreed to come to church and said she wanted to take a tour of the building if she could.

On Sunday, she was ACTUALLY at Church???!! No way, that's a first!! We showed her the building and baptismal font and then she attended all 3 hours. During Gospel principles she made friends with several of the young women and then she went with the same young women to young womens. We asked if she liked church and if she would want to come back. She said Yes!!! No way, that's a first!!!

Monday, yesterday, we found out that she had gone with some of the YSA to the church for a game day!! She is also coming to a member dinner with us tonight where we are teaching the Plan of Salvation! I also just realized that Plan of Salvation, shortened, is POS!;)

So far, our other investigators are still progressing. Tania still should be getting baptized on Jan. 11th! She has accepted everything so now it's really just the interview and if she has any other concerns.

New years Eve was spent with the Waterbury English Elders! We did the normal PDAY stuff but then we also played, NO TRUMP and Monopoly Deal! No Trump was full of TONS of laughs:) great game!!

This week we also had interviews with President Miller. Some people were in interviews for like 25 minutes. I went in for interviews and this is kinda how it went...

President Miller: "Elder Bushman, can you pray?

Bushman: *prayed*

PM: "Do you have warm clothes for the winter?

B: "Yes"

PM: "Do you have any questions for me?"

B: "No"

PM: "Awesome! Can I end with a prayer?"

I guess this either means my President Hates me or that he isn't worried about me!!

Anyway, not much else happened this week!! LOVE YOU ALL

Elder Bushman