Year 2, Week 50: God is good. God is merciful. God is just.

Today is the final preparation day of my mission. It's incredible how fast time actually goes. I always say that things will never arrive but in reality, time passes so quickly it's so hard to actually keep up with everything. The mission has come and gone in a blur.. There were hard times, sad times, happy times, amazing times, emotional times, and every other adjective that could be used to describe the time spent in the mission field. I'm now thinking about Thomas going out on his mission or Spencer getting ready to leave. It felt like those days were so far away but in a matter of a few eye blinks, the time has arrived or is soon to be arriving. Haha! If you can't tell, I trip at the concept of time. 

I've had the wonderful opportunity to serve in the Massachusetts Boston Mission. I will forever be grateful for the people I've met here. I honestly, without a doubt, can say that my life has been changed. That sounds so cliche and every missionary says that but it's true. You learn, grow, struggle, laugh, and become the person God wants you to be while serving. Spiritual things never appealed much to me before the mission. I now can say that I have a testimony of the reality of my Savior Jesus Christ. He died for me. He suffered for me. He bled for me. He rose again for me. I am grateful and am forever indebted to Him for that. I know what it's like to feel guilty for mistakes. I also know of the sweetness of repentance and change. God is good. God is merciful. God is just. I know that to be true. I honestly don't know if anybody but my mother reads these letters but I encourage everyone to serve a mission. Whether you are 18 or 76 the mission is the place to be! Dedicating time to God is an incredible experience!

This week has been really really good! We had a great lesson with R. and O. We had some members there with us that shared wonderful testimonies! Both of them served missions and they were wonderful at helping us teach. We started the lesson with them just talking. All missionaries understand that when members just talk and get to know the people we are teaching, missionary life is good! Lol! They talked about work and parenting and what they have planned for the future, etc. It was great! We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went super well. R. told us that she had looked up baptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she said that she really like how we don't baptized kids until they are 8 and can choose. When we invited her to be baptized she said yes and that she was in complete agreement with the necessity of baptism. O. was hesitant and didn't say anything. The member said if he wanted to actually know if it's true he needs to read, pray, and come to church. It was a great lesson and our members helped a ton!

We had another great lesson with R. and V. and their family. They were able to come for a chapel tour and we had a Chilean family with us. We showed them the church and they thought it was great and really want to come. The only problem is he works. We are trying to figure out a way to get the wife and kids there while the husband works to get Sundays off. For right now that hasn't happened but we are trying. 

We also started an English Class and will have out first class On Tuesday at 7:30 pm. R. says he really wants to come to it so we are excited for that! We got a random call from somebody and started asking us about it. He said he was going to bring his girlfriend because he wants to learn. Hopefully we can have a pretty good turnout of people and try to start finding/teaching people that way. 

We also were able to teach M. this week. She still has trouble reading in the Book of Mormon and doesn't understand much of it. She also isn't coming to church so we will have to figure out what to do with that. 

We had some great member visits this week and are trying to help them share the Gospel. Nothing much to report with that yet! 

Well this week has been great! I'm doing well! I'm happy and excited! I'm excited to see you all this week! 

Love, 

Elder Bushman 

 

 

Year 2, Week 42: She Knows Everything

Hello! Yesterday was officially 2 months until the mission comes to an end. I'm not ready for that day to come! It's been an amazing experience and I have learned a lot from being out here. Let's see what happened this week??

We had our Zone Conference with Elder Randall K. Bennett and his wife. He is the area President and has come to our mission 3 times since September 2018. Our conversation ranged from Gifts of the Spirit to who is Elect to following all mission rules with exactness to any other missionary topic under the sun! It was really good and I was really excited to get out and work in the field!

In Cambridge, we have an interesting situation with some members. Before the Waltham Spanish Group was created all members attended Cambridge. When the group was created most members stayed in Cambridge and some broke off to Waltham. So the Waltham missionaries don't visit our members from Cambridge, and we never had permission to go to Waltham to visit members, so those members were never fellowship pedo by missionaries. There are several recent converts who went inactive when that happened and so Elder Skordas and I received permission so we could go out there. Is was really good! We met a lot of the people who aren't active and were able to set up some appointments to visit with them. We are also hoping to be able to teach a lot of there family who aren't members!

This week was great but we didn't have many lessons with the people we are teaching. E. and I. canceled 2 appointments but we will be seeing them tonight. They didn't make it to church again so we will have to spend some time helping resolve those concerns. We are hoping for that to work out. We will be talking with them about what's keeping them back and how we can help them. 

We did have a really good lesson with a lady named R. She was baptized in the Dominican Republic years ago and was even a temple worker in the Santa Domingo Temple. When she moved out here she got a job and wasn't able to go to church. The sisters met her and they we came in and have been working to help her come back to church. It's incredible how much information she has retained. Most people can't remember a whole lot about the church but she knows everything. A member with us offered to bring the Sacrament to her house but she said, "no. I need to be worthy and get to church. If I can't do that. I'm not worthy for it." She has a very deep understanding of how serious the Sacrament actually is and not a lot of Hispanics make that connection! It was awesome!

We did teach E.R. this week! Her son, A., was baptized back in November but then left for the Dominican Republic. He got back but never came to church. We have been working to get an appointment with him and we finally did. He was really excited to meet with us and told us all about him and his family. He said he wants us to teach his friend and he is going to be getting back to church which was really cool! E. said she would come to church but didn't. Again, we aren't sure what is keeping these people back from Church. That's the trouble we face out her. Nobody wants to go to church.

During my personal studies this week, I was reading in Preach My Gospel about learning to recognize the promptings of the Spirit. In this section, it lists scriptures and gives descriptions for all the things the Spirit does. I realized that I feel the Holy Ghost allllll the time but I rarely give the credit to the Spirit. For example, in Mosiah 5:2-5 it talks about the Spirit strengthening our desire to avoid evil and obey the commandments. This happens to me a lot! Through studies and instruction given to our mission from the mission President, I frequently feel this desire but I have never contributed it to the Spirit. I've always thought this was my own thoughts or desires. So one of the biggest things I've realized, is that I need to give more credit to God for the righteous things I experience. Through thoughts or feelings or desires, if they are good, it is God! It was a cool realization!

I know Jesus Christ is my Savior. He lives. I love being a missionary!! 

Love, 

Elder Bushman

Year 2, Week 37: Do you Come With the Card?

Wow! This week has really flown by! We had lots to do which was really exciting. We started out by just working and trying to find new people to teach. We had some success meeting new people but nothing so far. I went on exchanges with Elder Cheney, one of the English Missionaries, and we had some really cool experiences. There is man in the English Ward named Brother M.. He was baptized 20 years ago when he was about 50. His son, M. isn't a member of the church and his son, M. just passed away 3 weeks ago. To keep confusion down, I will call them. M1, being the member of the church, M2, being the son who isn't a member, and M3, if I ever refer to the sons who passed away. M1 has tried sharing the Gospel with M2 for years but M2 never accepted the message. M2 has had some drinking habits and things that have kept him from really having a desire to progress in the Gospel. Because M3 has passed away, that really softened the heart of M2 because he is looking for peace and comfort during this hard time. M2's wife, B., is also struggling with losing her first son, M3. M1 had shared with them the talk from President M. Russell Ballard where he talks about losing his wife and how he has kept his faith. M2 and Brenda said after reading that talk, they experienced peace for the first time since their son, M3, had passed away. M2 and B have a big interest in the Gospel because of this experience. On exchanges, Elder Cheney and I, met with them for the first time. Before even meeting the missionaries or coming to church, M1 had given them each, Books of Mormon, Gospel Principles, Ensigns, a Bible, Come Follow Me, and other church material. They al have been reading in the Book of Mormon and recounted what they have learned to us. They have a ton of questions that they started asking and it started moving our lesson in a crazy direction, bouncing back and forth between topics, so we just used our first lesson to talk about how they can't learn our whole message right away. It will take time and many meetings. We discussed how the only way for them to find out the truth is through prayer and scripture study and they need to be Diligent in it. We set the expectations of what we will do and what they need to do. They commented, "we know that this is the true church because it makes sense. All the other religions don't make sense."M2 then said he used to drink 15-30 beers a day and that he felt like he should give it up so he has been sober for 4 weeks now. Just stopped cold turkey. B. said she used to smoke but has given that up as well. Haha! Wow! Let me tell you, they are the most prepared people I have ever met in my life! I talked with the other missionaries and they came to church and had a second lesson with them!

Elder Shkapich and I met a guy named D. and his wife K. about 2 weeks ago. We taught them 12 days ago but haven't had much contact with them because of his brother who got sick and her work schedule. For work, K. leaves for 5 days to live in the house of a woman she takes care of and then she returns the next week. D. hasn't answered our phone calls either so we thought we were just going to have to stop teaching them. But, we called him on Saturday to invite him to church and he said he would be there. Church started and he didn't show up. 15 minutes in, he walks in with a member and sits down with her. We just thought that the member had been nice and showed him where to go but at the end of meeting, he gets up and hugs our branch president and then talks with another 3 or 4 members for a while. Turns out, he has worked with several members for years before they got new jobs, etc. So hopefully him knowing members will really help him along. We had a lesson with him that night and he had told his wife how awesome church was and that she needs to repent for not coming! Lol, she was working but said she would come next week. We talked a lot about how we need to read and pray to get an answer and committed them to do it! So we are really excited about them. 

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Saturday and were both down in the New Haven area. I went on my third exchange with Elder Jowers and really enjoyed it. We had some lessons and met some great people to start working with. Elder Jowers and I met this one lady named M. When we gave her a card she looked at us and said, "dang!! Y'all are handsome!! Do you come with the card?!?" As we left Elder Jowers looked at me and said, "Elder Bushman... I'll be honest.. I'm a little scared to come back!" 😂😂 it really takes serving a mission to fully understand how many interesting people are in the world! They all just need the message of the Gospel. 

This week we went over to visit F, T, M. and the rest of their family. We talked about how if we do the right things, God is going to bless us. T. had her court date on the 11th to see if she is going to get sent back to Ecuador or if she can stay here in the United States. After they talked it got rescheduled to the 19th so we are still praying that works out. 

We met a cool family on Sunday night. We knocked on their door and they just let us inside to share a message. J, V, F and A were all there to listen to our message. They are a very catholic family and first made sure we weren't missionaries for the Jehovah Witnesses. After we said that we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they said, "oh.. Ok. You can share your message!" 😂😂👍yeah👍

We talked with them about the Restoration and how we have the Gospel on earth again. They said at the end that they feel God's presence in our message and said we could come back on Friday! 

So that was our week! This upcoming week we have an exchange, Zone Conference, District Council, and Transfer Texts!! President said that Elder Shkapich and I won't be together but we aren't sure who is leaving Waterbury. 

In response to my mom's question of, "what is your favorite 'The Living Christ'" I love this section: 

"We bear testimony, as His duly ordained Apostles—that Jesus is the Living Christ, the immortal Son of God. He is the great King Immanuel, who stands today on the right hand of His Father. He is the light, the life, and the hope of the world. His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son."

I love this section because it helps us realize the incredible gift that Jesus Christ was and is to all of us. 

I bear testimony, as one of His ordained missionaries that Jesus is the Christ. I know he lives. He died on the cross and gave himself to take away the sting of death. He is the light, the life, and the hope of this world. He is the only way that can lead to true peace of mind and peace of conscience.

Elder Bushman

 

 

Year 2, Week 19: Talked with 70+ People in the Day

Hello Family, 

Wow! What a week this has been! We had 3 exchanges this week so time really flew! Like always!

We started out with an exchange with the Assistants. I was with Elder Jowers here in Worcester. Elder Fragoso was with Elder Benson also in Worcester. Elder Jowers and Elder Benson both came out with me and Elder Fragoso so we all go home at the same time! It was fun working with them. We didn't have very many appointments planned for the day so we just went out and did some stop bys and added people into our Area Book through street contacting. We talked with around 70+ people in the day! It was super fun! At the end of an exchange, we do an exchange inventory and we talk about the strengths of the person and extend invitations to them. I invited Elder Jowers to 1. Thank the people he is teaching to help build a relationship of love and 2. To focus on his own conversion to see how he can help others become as deeply converted as him.

He invited me to keep using Preach My Gospel in my daily missionary work and to ask more questions when I contact people such as, "why are you interested in our message?" or "how can we help you come to church?" stuff like that! It was really fun to learn from him and spend the day working with him. That night, we had a lesson with O, R & S. We talked about how we can have faith in the Lord and how we can help them come to church. S. said that he just needs to confirm with his boss and he will have every Sunday, starting the 16th off! So we are praying that works out! We are really hoping that they will be able to come to church soon.

We had 2 other exchanges this week! Nothing too crazy happened but it was good working with those Elders. We made a lot of plans with people to help them come to church. When we finished exchanges Saturday morning, we had 10 people confirm that they would be at church.

Sunday morning, we still had those 10 people say they would come to church and even made phone calls to ask how we could help!! We were super excited for church! The time finally came for Sacrament Meeting to start and! Haha nobody came. We called people later in the day and they said that they didn't come because they slept in, or they couldn't get a ride last minute, etc. We were disappointed but! We now know what we can do to help people come. 

Those who slept in, we can help them by calling or stopping by! Those without a car can be helped by having a member ride etc. So even though it was sad, we will know how to help them in the future! 

Just to let you know mom! I got both packages! Thanks so much for all you do! I love you:) 

I am loving every minute I have on the mission. It's been such a good week full of action even though people didn't come to church! I know that God is real and loves me. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior! I had a powerful witness to that while I listened to This Is the Christ by the TABCATS! ;) I love you all very much! 

Love, 

Elder Bushman 

 

 

Year 2, Week 11: Ahh! It's the Greatest!

Hello Family! This week has been pretty good. Let's see... What has even happened?? We had a cool experience that will be further detailed below. Happy Birthday to Eden! I know I'm super late but I'm trying:) I can't believe it's already half way through October! It's super nuts!

So O, R and S! The lesson went well! S. remembered a lot from Conference and understood the 2 hour church change. O&R fell asleep during it and missed most of it. They liked what they saw but couldn't tell us what happened. 

During the lesson, S. explained to us what faith was, O. explained what Repentance was, and R. explained to us what Baptism was. They all understand those three things so it was pretty easy to teach the Doctrine of Christ!! 

S. said that they would continue reading with R. We downloaded the Book of Mormon app on their Phone so they could listen to it.

O. got a new job at a Mexican Restaurant. He works as a chef. They didn't come to church because they worked this Sunday. They may not be getting baptized this month if they can't quickly change the schedule and get back to church with a commitment to come every week.

They are doing well however! They are fun to teach because they grasp everything very quickly!! 

R and A! We taught them the Plan of Salvation and started teaching them about the Commandments. They are 11 and 12 so they shouldn't have any major problems but it's still possible. R. wasn't understanding the importance of Church, Pray, and Read so we applied to Fortnite! R. said in Fortnite, you need weapons, materials, and medicine to survive. We said that church is where we get our medicine from the Sacrament, materials is what we read in the scriptures, and our weapon is prayer. It helped it click for him. Thir mom's divorce didn't go through so she doesn't have custody on Sundays so they can't come to church.

We had an awesome lesson with a family this week! M, J, J, S, M

We knocked on their door, they let us in! 

We taught them the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! It was great! We haven't taught a lesson like that in a while! We usually schedule appointments for the future so we can have members and such! 

First it was just three of them.  As we taught about the church of Jesus Christ S asked where it was based and where it is now. She resonated with the idea of the Church today! 

M had a beer at the beginning and said she couldn't stop drinking because it would go bad, but, after the opening prayer she felt the spirit and asked her husband to take it away! Haha! 

Half way through M. walked in with J. M. asked them to join; they both did which was pretty surprising! Usually people come and go and don't care to stay. J. believes in Christ as his Savior. 

S. gave a wonderful closing prayer with some help in the beginning and end, all we did was ask her what she would tell her Heavenly Father, she gave lots of thanks. 

J. M and S. all acknowledged they felt the spirit. We told them they would keep feeling it as they read and prayed

We had another lesson with a man named V. and A. from the Dominican Republic! 

A. believes strongly in God. He is a God-fearing man...he knows the purpose of the commandments and has a desire to follow them, he has been separated from a church for a while and we told him now would be a perfect time to come back! He had some confusion about which Church Christ left behind through Peter. He didn't understand that Peter led the Church of Christ and not some other church. 

A. knew that Israel used to be God's chosen people, he now knows that those blessings are freely given to all through baptism in the restored Church!! He accepted our baptismal invitation and so did V! 

V whipped out a dusty old BoM at the end of the lesson from when missionaries taught him years ago! 

When invited to pray and read for an answer, A. said he wouldn't ask... Until he fasted to receive the answer, he said that through fasting we receive answers from God!! They are incredible! 

Alex gave a wonderful prayer at the end, in proper order, just needs help to say the ending 100% properly! 

It's incredible to see what people already know that is restored truth! When we teach further truth, it's so easy for prepared people to accept it! I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. He lived and died for me! I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon is an inspired writing. I know that our Prophet, Russel M. Nelson is a Prophet! I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change people's life because of His Atonement and Ransom for our souls! 

I love being on a mission! Being a missionary is a great experience that I wouldn't trade for the World!! My favorite part of missionary life is teaching! Days without lessons are the worst!!! When I first came out, I never wanted to teach because I thought it would be boring and scary. Ahh! It's the greatest! 

Not much else to report! I love you all!! 

Elder Bushman 

 

 

Year 1, Week 35: Minister Like a Baller

Hello Family, 

First, this week has been crazy! Tons of stuff happening!

Tuesday was pretty uneventful. We did however have a super cool lesson with a woman. We met her knocking doors and she speaks English which is also disappointing but it was awesome. She basically told us that she was already saved and had Jesus and she didn't need any more Jesus in her life. We started asking her what she believed and asked her to share her church's beliefs so we could understand what she actually took as truth. She reads the Bible a lot and is interested in the Church now because we talked all about how our church's belief was similar but we had the correct authority. If somebody came to me and told me that the Church of Jesus Christ didn't have the proper authority and that their church did, I would die laughing! That would be so funny! But, when we yell this to people, it's super interesting how easily they accept that as truth. They say, "oh, wow... That makes sense." There is the difference between a true testimony and a fake one.

Tuesday night I decided to skip dinner just because I wasn't hungry. 

On Wednesday we had return and report in Boston. We got permission to drive up with the Southbury Sisters so that was interesting. We talked a lot about the challenges that new missionaries may have. Elder Neeley and I haven't had any problems so it was interesting to hear all the other things people say. We had lunch, but I still wasn't really hungry so I skipped lunch there. We went to the temple and did an Endowment session. Everytime I do an Endowment session my level of understanding and knowledge go up. The drive back from Boston was uneventful. I didn't eat dinner that night either so I completed a 48 hour water fast on Thursday Morning. 

We are still actively teaching G and A. We met with her on Thursday and Saturday and she watched ALL 4 sessions of General Conference. She even told us her thoughts about it. It was awesome! And, she is only 16. Isn't that crazy? 

After the first session of conference on Sunday, we had a lesson with a guy named E. We taught the Plan of Salvation and it was super awesome!! We talked a lot about why Resurrection is better than Reincarnation. It was awesome! We had 4 investigators who watched conference. It was great! 

Conference was FANTASTIC! I was literally blown away by it. Russell M. Nelson is a prophet! It's incredible. So many cool things happening in the Church. I committed to myself that I was going to be such a strong and active participant in Home Teaching when I returned but... Looks like I'll have to minister like a baller. It was also a super awesome experience to sustain the prophet and all the other General Authorities. I am a little bummed that Tad R. Callister isn't an Apostle.

Love you All!! 

Elder Bushman 

Year 1, Week 9: Just Like Amulek

Wow! Was General Conference Awesome or WHAT?? I'll be completely honest. General Conference was always a time of eating, lounging in PJ's, and wrestling brothers during talks. Actually paying attention to Conference was amazing. I learned tons of stuff. One of my favorite talks was by Tad R. Callister. He straight up said that the Book of Mormon is inspired of God and that Joseph Smith could not have done it alone. I wanted to hug this man. I have developed such a deep love for The Book of Mormon. I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. Thomas S. Monson is the Modern Day Prophet who receives revelation for The Church of Jesus Christ. Wow!! The Book of Mormon is Great.

I had several questions answered because of General Conference. Our Spanish Branch isn't super strong. Members fight with recent converts and recent converts swear they will never come back to church. Sister Oscerson taught that we need to serve in our families before we serve others. I believe that if we can get members serving there families, this will in turn get members serving members. 

Another question I had is, How can I recognize the Spirit more fully in my life. This answer came when a Seventy said, "Patient Covenant keeping brings the blessings of Heaven into our lives." If I keep the commandments and rules of a mission and then wait, the Lord promises these to me. "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say." Incredible how things start to make sense when you study the scriptures. We went to a chapel and watched Saturday Sessions in English. On Sunday, we watched the first session at a chapel and then went to a members house for the Second Session. It was great spending time with them. 

On Tuesday we met with Frankie again. He asked why we needed the Book of Mormon and as we were trying to explain two other guys came over and started talking in Spanish. (keep in mind we were speaking English with Frankie.) They started trashing the Book of Mormon and Elder Curzon stood up, just like Amulek, and said,"I Know the Book of Mormon is true. It was translated by the power of God." Frankie and the other guys were so impressed that he knew Spanish they had to tell like 10 other guys. It was great. We came back the next day (Wednesday) and Frankie said he wanted to keep the Book of Mormon and read it. We assigned him some chapters and we are going to follow up tonight.

Other than that, we did some service. Helped people move, carried bags to peoples cars, etc...

Love you all,

Elder Bushman

 

Other Info: Elder Eaton, my ZL, has a fantastic voice and asked if I wanted to sing with him in Zone conference coming up on the 17th of October. I agreed and we are singing an arrangement of I Know the My Redeemer Lives. I will record  it and send it to you.

 

BTW I love getting and reading Grandpa's letters. His thoughts are super deep and inspiring.

 

General conference was an answer to prayers to know how to help the people in our branch. Service. We are looking for ways to serve and get members to serve members

We also are going to start teaching English classes at a Library for community service.

 

Spanish is going better. Still struggling to understand but speaking is becoming better.

 

I don't have any photos this week but will get some next week.

 

"Oh, how we need general conference! Through conferences our faith is fortified and our testimonies deepened. And when we are converted, we strengthen each other to stand strong amid the fiery darts of these last days."

—Robert D. Hales, "General Conference: Stregthening Faith and Testimony"