Year 1, Week 30: 12 Potential Investigators in 30 Minutes

Some awesome miracles have happened this week!

When Elder Davis and I went on exchanges, we were trying to visit a Potential Investigator. She wasn't home but we knocked the guy next to her door. His name is Richie and he is from Jamaica. We spent some time talking with him. As we left and were leaving to go to a dinner appointment, we decided to knock more doors. We met a girl named Ashley who speaks only Spanish. I took over and talked with her, got her info, introduced our church, gave her some materials and scheduled an appointment for later. We were leaving again but felt that some other doors would be good to knock. We knocked two doors at the same time and both Hispanic people answered at both doors. I spent time talking with one of them and did the same thing, took information down and scheduled appointments for later. Then I moved to the other door and did the same thing. This happened literally for 30 minutes. We moved from door to door and everybody we talked with was interested and gave us their info. We met 12 Potential Investigators in the space of 30 minutes and were only 15 minutes late to our dinner appointment with Sister Vogel. Literally so awesome!!

We went to take our car into Firestone to get an oil change. While there, a member of the Church was working his shift. He talked to us about one of his Co-Workers whose baby was born 17 weeks early. He asked if we could get in contact with Elders in the mission to have them go to the Hospital with the family. Unfortunately, the baby passed away, but we were able to help this family come in contact with the church and hopefully something may come out of it.

T-Texts came this week. Elder Tirado is being transferred to Quaker Hill Spanish. Elder Smith and Elder Davis are both staying here which I am pumped about! I am Training a missionary. We will see how that goes...

We had some of the LA members we visited come to church which is awesome! It's been great to see some of these people come back to church.

Because we are getting Smart Phones we are doing a lot of training and stuff. We have been listening to a lot of things about Technology. One of the thing they have been talking about is how we need to unlearn all of the ways we used Tech at home and learn the ways of the mission. If we can do this successfully, then going home to Tech will be so easy because we have established these habits! Super interesting!

Alright, we are about outta time! Love you all

Elder Bushman

Knocking Doors
PB&J Burgers
Holy Land, USA (Look it up)
Nob Hill (A Little Piece of Home) 
Bowling! (And a new hair cut, self-cut)

Dinner at the Vogel's
Angels Round About...  (Photo from the MTC, circling around Facebook)

Year 1, Week 29: So Enlightening

This week has been good. We started out with visiting Less Actives. We have done a lot with Less Actives recently. We have decided that by visiting LA people, we will find more people ready to hear the Gospel. We figure that a lot of people in our area are willing to go to church, but just have some  concern that is keeping them back from it all. We have met some super cool families that we are going to hopefully get back in contact with and set up appointments. Lots of the LA families have children who aren't baptized and since their parents are, its super easy to teach kids. We have been working a lot on that this week.

We had exchanges with Elder Davis and Elder Smith this week. I took over the Waterbury Spanish area with Elder Davis and Elder Tirado went English. I learned a ton from Elder Davis. We talked a lot about how to most effectively plan to get the most out of every day! It was awesome.

Yesterday we went to the temple and had an awesome Endowment Session! Literally, so enlightening! Also, didn't fall asleep which probably helped!

Other than that nothing else really happened this week. We had lots of time to be out knocking doors and such with no real success. I hope that the 25 minute of audio recording makes up a little for the lack of awesome letter.

Also, I have a crazy recording for pops next week! It's honestly not important to Salvation or anything, so I won't take time to write about it, but it's a very interesting thought on before the flood and after the flood. I will be using time at night to discuss it so it's not hindering my actual study time!! It's pretty cool:) Anyway,

Love ya!
Elder Bushman

Year 1, Week 28: I Love Teaching the Restoration

The week started with some media referrals and some New Investigators! We met a woman from Jamaica who wanted a free Bible. When we met her she said she has been meeting with all kinds of missionaries and pastors. She has met with the JWS, Protestants, Mormons, Catholics, and Baptists to see which Church she wants to join. We gave her a Book of Mormon and the Bible and shared how they work together. She is super interested in finding out more, but we haven't had the chance to go back.

On Friday we had our all Spanish Missionary meeting. President basically roasted all of us saying we aren't good enough and how we need to do better. He obviously did this in a kind, loving, positive way, but that's pretty much a sentence summary. We talked a lot about how and where the Spanish program is going and what we need to do to become better missionaries. He shared the statistic that in the last 4 months, there has only been 8 baptisms in the Spanish group. That is very sad.. But it has given a lot of direction that will be very good! I am super excited for where we are heading!

Saturday was exchanges with the ZL. I went on an Exchange with Elder Warner who has been out for 18 months. We did a lot of knocking and taught some awesome Restorations. I love teaching the Restoration! I feel like it has the most power with the story of Joseph Smith.
One of the biggest things I learned from him is how to be super Bold. I am always a little nervous to be bold. If someone rejects me or my message I usually just say, alright, have a nice day. Elder Warner says, "What we are telling you is that Christs church is literally on the Earth today and you need to become a part of it." I also realized that if they reject us, they have now completely put not joining on there heads and not on ours. I have really enjoyed going out with older, experienced missionaries!!

On Thursday its service day!! We volunteer at a soup kitchen in Waterbury. We make bags that consist of soup, canned beans or corn, rice, pasta, meat, etc. to hand out to people who get on a list. We usually spend about 2 hours at service and have had some awesome conversations with people. We have met people who took lessons back in Puerto Rico and are interested in lessons again. We have conversations about the Gospel with the people who volunteer with us. 

Mom, you asked about what we do for church services.  Elder Tirado and I lead the music and do the piano. We have a piano that plays by itself. Last week we passed the Sacrament, Blessed the Sacrament, Gave the Talks, led the music and played the piano!

 

This week I have been reading Preach my Gospel and marking all the principles and promises! Most of the promises I have noticed are about gaining eternal life. Do these things and you can either help yourself or others reach eternal life! Very interesting. Preach my Gospel is not just a guide for full time missionaries but for EVERYONE!!! Its awesome. Definitely recommended reading

We went over to a members house on Tuesday for dinner. Because the members here are SOO nice they usually make something Keto for me. I was made, Tuna Salad!

This tuna salad was, tuna, raw onion, and green bell peppers!! Literally SOOO GOOD. I love onions and I am also a BIG fan of peppers now! I know dad is going to literally be so excited!! There is now only 1 thing I cannot handle.

Tomato.

Tomatoes literally make me sick. I HATE tomato.. Anyway,

Love you all!!

Elder Bushman

Year 1, Week 27: 1/4 of the Way

This week again was the same as last!

Love you much,

Elder Bushman

(Very Funny, Elder. He sent another email later as below...)

Hey Fam!!

How is everything going! I hope all is well. This week was good and super fast! I honestly can't really believe I am 1/4 of the way through my mission. I always thought that I would never leave on my mission. I left. I thought I would never leave the MTC. I left. I thought I would never get to the field. I did. I thought I would never get out of training. I did. I thought I would never make it to the 6 month mark. I have. I feel like I will never learn Spanish! I won't... That is basically where I am right now!!

This week was great. We finally got back in touch with Waddy. His mom just works a ton because her husband is still in the DR. He is coming to American though in March so they want to wait until he is here for him to be baptized. We are planning on continually going to teach him and then re-extend a baptism date at the end of February. We have an appointment to teach him on Tuesday, tomorrow, so we are excited about that! We are hoping that his dad will want to be baptized when he gets here as well.

The Vogel dinners are going to be different from now on. A new rule stating that there cannot be 4 Elders at dinner appointments have now come into play. Since we are a group and the English ward provides over our group, we can eat with both Hispanic members and English members. Just not all at the same time. We now have to have 1 companionship go at 6 and the other companionship go at 7:30. Its not too bad, just weird.

On Wednesday we had a big day of nothing!! Whoo.. So we called tons of people and finally got some appointments set up. We also received a media referral. When we went over her husband answered the door and said that he didn't want the Bible because it was a Mormon Bible. We explained that it was the King James version, just its a "Mormon" Bible because it is the one we use. He was chill after that. We also contacted a lady named Hazel. She was playing one of my favorite Hispanic songs, "Tu Estas Aqui" by Jesus Adrian Romero. We knocked on her door, taught the Restoration, and picked her up as a new investigator!! I basically have that whole song memorized so it was cool to hear coming from her house.

Later in the week we went back to Hazel's house to get back in contact with her but she wasn't home. The floor below was playing super loud Hispanic music so of course, we knocked the house. A girl named Cindy opened the door and we also picked her up as an investigator. We are working on getting back in touch with all of them.

One interesting thing about mission life is this: Elders only have female investigators. Sisters only have Men investigators. I don't know why this is but it is... In Waterbury, our investigators are, Ashley, Tania (got Baptized), Mary, Cindy, Hazel, Isabel, Marcel, Deborah, Sierra, Niyannah, and Waddy. Waddy is male but he is also 11 so we still have to get a male member to go over with us. This is THE most frustrating aspect of missionary work. Anyway...

The English Elders were door knocking and found a Hispanic woman who doesn't speak any English, so they called us and had us set up an appointment over the phone. I talked with this woman and set up the appointment, got her info, and had a conversation completely by myself. Was I proud?? Yes!! Her name is Rosa and she is super interested. Again, Female. We haven't been able to get a guy to come with us yet.

We had Interviews with President Miller this week. Again, super short interview but we had a training given by the AP's prior to the interviews. The training was involving Smartphones. Supposedly, we are supposed to get smartphones soon. Whether or not this actually happens, I have no idea. But it is looking more and more like it. I personally do not want any technology in the field. It is too much crap to worry about. I would rather just go about Missionary work like we have for centuries!

Love you all,

Elder Bushman