November 25, 2013

Dear Familia!

We've had a lot going on like usual, went on 2 exchanges this week and will have 2 to do this week and I really enjoy it. It's been funny we've had 3 so far and every time I have been the one to leave the area. I'm really grateful for Sister Burton and that we both are sensitive to the spirit, we prayed to know who is to go where and who is to say and every time so far we both have felt that I am to go to these other's Sisters area. I've been to Dade City, other parts of Tampa, and Brooksville now. It's been fun to see other parts of our mission and I am time and time again impressed with our fellow Sisters. It's sweet to hear each of their stories of why or how they choose to serve a mission and I'm always left with deep appreciation and gratitude in their decisions of serving missions. I've also learned a great deal on every exchange, Sister Mortenson for example is one of the most organized and best planners I've met and a stinkin sweet heart and I think she's related to the Hinkley's which would make sense because she's a steller missionary. And ah, I was going to talk about Hermana Graves, Hermana Snow, Sister Skeems, Sister Kitchen and Sister Anderson but I only have a few minutes left so I will write more later on that. 

Ok, cool things. We met this guy named Manuel who is a spray paint artist. He does these art pieces all with spray paint, no brushes and just uses stencils and other really really creative ways at creating these incredible Art pieces and wow, it is epic! He is super receptive and open to learning more about the gospel and ha ha we found out he lives right above us at our apartment complex, so cool! So if you could pray for Manuel and his girlfriend Stephanie that'd be great. We haven't had the opportunity to teach them a lesson yet but we've prayed with him. Another great thing, his friend Steve has added us on Facebook and accepted a book of mormon the 2nd time we saw him. He told us that ever since he met us his life has gotten better and we told him that was because of God and we pulled out a book of mormon and he gladly accepted. Ha ha even cooler, we saw him again this week and he had given our phone number to a friend of his in Arizona who is looking for a religion and he told her to give us a call :) Yeah, that made our day.

We also had a really cool experience with a Muslim couple, they are so sweet and I really admire their faith that they have. Hermana Snow and Sister Burton met them on exchanges and then I and Sister Burton had a lesson with them. Hermana Snow amazingly had an Arabic book of mormon, she had order one to send to her dad for Christmas because he was going to learn Arabic and she thought it was kind of random but then she realized she had order it because of this couple. The husband is going to read it and they want to invite us over for dinner some time. They are from Saudi Arabia and are going to school here and the wife has only been taking English 7 months and she spoke it great. Oh and crazy thing ha ha they told us about their arranged marriage and she is my age and he is 28 and they are the cutest couple and are really happy, good thing eh?! Ha ha, oh his name is Majad and her's is Sahim, I'm not positive how to spell their names but I'm really praying that they will read and pray about the Book of Mormon. They are very dedicated Muslims but we were able to share the 1st vision and they liked it and we discussed a lot of the similarities between Mormon's and Muslims, ha ha Majad asked if Joseph Smith had copied things from Muslims. They were a delight! 

Let's see what else to talk about... oh woot! The Book of Mormon musical is finally over!!! Thank Heavens, we were able to help out a couple of other nights and it went really well. Us missionaries just had good laughs about all the not so kind things that some people said or did but we all just had fun with it and were just that more inspired to treat everyone as children of God. There were a lot of positive articles about us missionaries in the news paper and what not and I am really excited for those who's lives will be changed by it. The Hermana's (Hermana Birch and Larsen who I absolutely adore, these women are AMAZING) had a really neat experience where they talked to a lady and she then decided not to go to the show and helped pass out mormon.org cards instead AND she's going to meet with the Hermana's and have a lesson. She wants to learn more and I'm praying will get baptized so cool!!!!

Oh, to answer Chella Bella's questions :) As street contacting missionaries we are mainly just suppose to try to get referrals to people and give them to other missionaries to teach. It is hard because I miss getting to see the process of people's testimonies grow and what not and it's hard because you just automatically love people and it's hard to only have fast encounters or eventually have to hand them off. But it's been great for me, I've learned sooooooo much and Sister Burton and I have been able to teach a couple of lessons here and there. And we do get to work with people for a little before we hand them off, so it's a lot of hard work and a slower process then what i am use to... well I guess in some ways it's faster but yeah ha ha at the end of the day I love it. 

We had a really neat experience with this homeless man named Steve, he was a sweet heart and just pray that he'll read the book of mormon more. It baffled me that he use to be a lawyer and has a wife and 2 kids but got divorced and I don't know how he became homeless but he is now. It's weird how you can go from being successful to the streets. I think it's so strange and frustrating to me because we have choice as human beings, we have the opportunity to do so much with our lives and it's hard to see people who Choose not to do that. And yes, we do have a Choice. Which I highly advise ya'll to watch this CES broadcast or print it out and read it, Sister Jenkins had written me about it and said some really sweet things to me about it and I looked it up on lds.org and printed it, it is wonderful and amen amen to it! Ah, so good! HEre's the link...

http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2013/01/i-will-give-myself-to-him?lang=eng

Anywho, oh before I forget HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZAKIA AND ELIJAH!!!!!!!! I was so excited for Zakia going to the temple, that really made and makes my heart extremely happy! The temple means the world to me and it always makes my day when I hear you all are going. I love letters from Mom and Dad where they mention going to the temple and I know they are already seeing the blessings in their lives from it! I have a strong testimony about making time for the Lord and going to the temple as often as possible because we can make it possible in going. So at the very least go once a month and if you're really ambitious go once a week...or more... :D woot to the woot!

Elijah! I will eventually have a letter coming your way! It is crazy trying to write letters, ha ha the white handbook has a rule for missionaries to limit writing letters and to only write letters on Mondays. Poopala poop but I know blessings come from being obedient but I can and love receiving letters whenever there is no rule against that SO keep it up :D 

Ah, well I'm about to be kicked off, I love you all so very much! And oh Sister Burton and I spoke in church yesterday and if I do so say so myself we did a really excellent job. We had a lot of really sweet compliments after, ha ha one of the Hermana's said that it was general conference worthy, yeeha that's humbling ha ha! We talked about gratitude and drum role no surprise missionary work! Ya'll can check out some of the scriptures I used if you want to or not :) Alma 26:35-37, Luke 17:11-19, Mosiah 2:19-22, Alma 34:38, and John 16:33.

ahhhhhh gotta go! 

LOVE, LOVE, LOVEEEEEEEeeeee So much LOVE,

Sister Bush

p.s. Be happy, you deserve it!!!

Hello, Hello! Never Know What To Title My Emails

Familia!

So first things first so I don't forget - we switched apartments with the Elders so the address is the same accept for the apartment number and oh instead of Dr. it's Ave. I'll just write it out again but I have been getting everyone's letters and I have loved them! Oh Dad, I have gotten all your letters and postcard and they are the best!  :) Hey cool thing, Sister Burton gets a letter from her dad every week too and we both get our letters from our Daddy's on Thursday, it's great :) And packages from our mamas. :D Funny story by the way, in Dad's last letter at the end of it, He said "You are the Best," and it was awesome because I told Sister Burton because she always tells everyone, "You're the Best!" and she laughed because she said her dad had said that in her letter too! So cool!

So the address is 502 S Fremont Ave Apt # 1507, Tampa Fl, 33606. 

Alright, so I love Sister Burton.  She is hilarious and is always saying the funniest things like recently, "It's time to check out mails to the E, our net to the inter." She cracks me up and is great to work with.  We don't have problems and companionship inventories only last 5 or 10 minutes.  She hates contention and is just easy to work with. Oh and speaking of companions, Sister Jenkins and Sister Howard are the sweetest. They stay in touch and I get emails from them every week and even though they are crazy busy (because we missionaries are, seriously I have never been this busy in my life nor this exhausted!) they have both sent me snail mails and are so stinkin sweet. I'm really grateful to have made such valuable lifelong friendships out here, they're wonderful. 

This morning I had a really good scripture study and confirmed things I need to hear from the Lord. Before I talk about that earlier this week we had interviews with our Mission President (on Wednesday). It was crazy because I wasn't nervous at all to meet with him even though everyone else in the mission is, it's hilarious he intimidates the heck out of all the missionaries. I felt relaxed and not worried to meet with him at all and things had been a little hard for me the couple days before  that, I was just really stressing myself out in wanting to be perfect and basically the adversary was doing a great job in sending negative and discouraging thoughts about myself. We discussed only for a few minutes and things were going well and before he was going to tell me more things he asked me if there was anything else I needed to ask him. And as I tried to ask him my question I started bawling uncontrollably, and by uncontrollably I mean super embarrassing type of crying, the kind that is like from your childhood crying, the kind where you can't breath and you're having hiccups crying. Oh my lanta, it was so embarrassing and I, through broken words, apologized to him and said I was fine and that this was really embarrassing.  Oh man it was great. And he laughed too and said it was ok and to just breath. Ha ha, President Cusick is awesome. He asked me what was on my mind and again to just breath. I was having a hard time composing myself, so he told me to walk around and write down what's on my mind and come back and we'd discuss when I was ready and he'd continue on with other interviews in the mean time. I ended up just going to the restroom to sob. It was so strange but I guess I just hadn't cried in a long time and it all just came out there. Sweet Sister Burton came after her interview and hugged me and Hermana Snow came and talked and it was good to realize that I just needed to relax and that God wants me to be happy and that the Atonement is there to help us when we are stressed. It is All encompassing. I expressed how confused I was because I thought I was fine but realized I had been giving myself a really hard time. I also realized that the night before had been rough at the opening night of the Book of Mormon Musical.  I deal terribly with rejection, I hate rejection and the feelings from that show had brought up feelings from the past. So silly how even though you take care of things from the past you really need to accept the Atonement more fully so the past doesn't keep bothering you :) Everything had just built up, stressing myself out in being obsessed with being perfect, wanting to be confident but afraid I'd become prideful, wanting to focus on Christ more, letting the past be the past, missing family, and I really miss our Heavenly Parents and Christ. 

I had a great cry, great fellow sisters, great insights and learning experience and I'm just grateful again. I was able to pull it together and laugh about it and finished my interview with President Cusick. He gave great advice starting with that you can't be perfect that's not possible :) and had a really good example of the need to receive the gift of the Atonement.  My "Preach My Gospel" was on the table and he used it as the example saying how it's like him trying to give me this gift but then me being hesitant and pulling back and forth on whether or not I'd take it. We talked about how I was worthy and I had repented before my mission of everything that I needed to and that I needed to receive that Atonement. The gift is there for us all, we just need to take it. 

President had Sister Burton and I take a break from the Book of Mormon Musical (they had enough missionaries there) and I told him I could do it and he said he knew I could but that a break would be good. Luckily we were able to help out again on Sunday which I was really grateful for because I wanted to help out so badly and I was just fine on Sunday and we had a great time! It was so much better then Tuesday night. 

Anywho, I am so much happier.  Sunday's studies and this morning's have been great. I read in Alma 36 and I love vs 3 and vs 21 really reflects my experience that even though I was having a stressful time and sad it was great because Sunday and today I am SO happy. I really find that description in the verse perfect because the joy I feel today is soooo sweet and I have finally been able to just relax, but still be a hard worker. I also wrote next to verse 21, "The joy of depression," it reminding me of what Dad teaches and I feel like it goes great with it! Read all of Alma 36 if you have time the ending is great and I love verse 30 that is is so simple. Keep the commandments and we will prosper! Also the last sentence, "Now this is according to his word." So good!!!!

Awesome Quote by the way,

"In a real though figurative sense, the book of life is the record of the acts of men as such record is written in their own bodies. It is the record engraven on the very bones, sinews, and flesh of the mortal body. That is, every thought, word and deed has an effect on the human body; all these leave their marks, marks that can easily be read by Him who is Eternal as easily as the words in a book can be read." - Bruce R. McConkie 

I found it in my Bible and love it.  It goes along with my study on the word "word" :) 

Ahhhh I gotta run, I will add another really cool quote next week and more about the cool spray paint artist we've met and how he is our neighbor!!!! SO COOL! and about Jasmine and etc.

SO yes, with Christ we can be happy and life is so good and I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Love,

Sister Bush

Woot to the woot!

Dear Familia!

What a week :) Sister Burton and I gave away 31 Books of Mormon this week and it has been a blast, crazy, exhausting, but delightful and never a dull moment. Ha ha! Sister Burton got proposed to by a homeless man and oh I was laughing so hard.  Earlier this week this car was turning at the intersection while we were waiting to cross and this black kid shouted out to us, "Hey White Girls." It was sooooo funny! We got a good kick out of it! 

Let's see what else... we talk to people all the time and we've had some sweet/neat experiences with a lot of people, sorry it's hard to even know which one to share, Victoria or Steve or Tim or Rakisha or Morgan or Jasmine or Edward, it's been neat! 

Before I forget I wanted to share a quote from our ward mission leader who is just soooo awesome. Brother Lewis is a Marine (or in the army?), but at one of our meetings he said, "The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in battle." It is so true with missionary work, the better and more I study from Preach My Gospel the more confident and secure I am and the more I testify to people about the essentials. That's been really nice here in the city, since we usually only have a few minutes with people.  Sometimes people will talk to us for 30 minutes or an hour. I have worked on testifying more about the Book of Mormon. I have been striving to use it more and it is amazing the miracles that come about from sharing scripture verses with people.  I have stopped asking people if I can share a scripture with them and I just pull out the Book of Mormon and say, "Oh what you just said reminds me of this...." and I share whatever scripture that relates and it's really cool to see what the spirit can do when I get out of the way. There was a man we talked to on a park bench and after a good chat Sister Burton pulled out a Book of Mormon and said a lot of good things and asked if she could give this man the book. He said no thanks and I just opened up the Book and said there's a scripture I'd like to share (I think it was Alma 24:14) and I testified and after Sister Burton asked, "Are you sure you don't want it?" And it was awesome because he said, "Alright, you sold me, I can't say no to that, I'll give it a chance." I LOVE THE SPIRIT! It's great what it can do.

I know it must be a fun adjustment for everyone with every member being a missionary and although the transition might be uncomfortable it doesn't have to be! It's really easy being a member missionary because you don't have to feel pressured in giving your neighbors a Book of Mormon and expecting them to immediately come to church. Just keep being your natural selves and invite them for activities and know that every effort counts and be open to letting the spirit guide every situation and interaction because opportunities will arise for you to testify or just naturally talk about beliefs.  It will be fun for me to transition too - that will be so werid.  Ahhhh!!!  It's going by way too fast, this is crazy!!!! Anywho while it's on my mind, I want to keep it a goal of mine to at least give 1 Book of Mormon away a week when I'm home and I want you to all hold me to that. Ah, let's not talk about that though, I love home, but I also love being here. 

By the way, I had a really sweet experience this morning in my "sacred grove" prayer (a 10 minute out loud pray before personal study) and I'm nervous and I cried but I know it's time and it's been on my mind the majority of my mission. I prayed to Heavenly Father for Him to give me a mountain not only for my faith and my relationship with Him, but because I know it's time to pray for that and that Heavenly Father wanted me to. I don't know what it is that is going to happen, but I felt at peace and I know that Heavenly Father will be with me every step of the way. I cried and expressed that I am scared to Him but not at the same time because I felt His love so strong and again that this is time. I remember earlier on my mission when I prayed for more faith, but I stated clearly to Him that I wasn't asking for a mountain because I remember President Erying's talk from a while ago where he shared his praying for a mountain experience and how hard it was, but his testimony of the Savior was beautiful. 

Anywho after that pray and plenty of tears I opened up my scriptures and it was cool that my study was in Alma 32 and encourage ya'll to read it :) It's a lovely read and I think the biggest thing I got from all of my study was the power of believing, "I CAN." I know with God WE CAN do anything. There is so much inspiration when realizing I CAN and the power that brings, but even more so when there are moments where we all feel like we can't, we KNOW and should REMEMBER, Christ CAN, He Can and that is why WE CAN. 

I love you all so much and I've gotta go but I will write more about Sister Burton and everything next time and will share more stories. Oh I know these are people from my last area but will you continue to pray for Alicia Benally and Juan Herrera and Bridgette Herrera. Ah gotta go! 

I love you I love you, and God loves you! 

Love, 

Sister Bush

Tampa 1 Metro Area BABY Bring on the Street Contacting!

Dear Familia,

Yeeha, soooo to answer all of your questions as you've been dying for a week. :D  I am serving with sweet Sister Burton in the Tampa 1 Metro area, so what does that mean? That means it is a completely brand new area and there are 2 sets of missionaries being sent there, Sister Burton and I and Elders Willard and Nelson. Guess what do we do in this brand new area? We are basically down town in Tampa and a couple of islands by it, Davis Island, Harbor Island, etc. and we Street Contact ALL day EVERY day. Did we have any direction except that? Nope, ha ha we actually didn't even know our boundaries or about the Islands until the 3rd day or so we were in the area. We have been instructed to street contact and basically we are just planting the seeds and trying to get referrals for other missionaries, IT IS AWESOME!!!! I was excited at first and then the first day was a painful reality check on how hard it was and awkward to go up to people on park benches or in passing as the walk by or ya da ya daaa how to make it as natural as possible so they don't get a weird impression about Mormons. Ha ha! So the First day was a little hard but Now I am pumped up because we have had a lot of neat experiences happening already and it is becoming so much more natural and I've been really learning how to trust the Lord and know that I'm not a bad missionary just because we are not teaching full on lessons all the time and that we are just doing things really fast and in passing and handing out Books of Mormon's. It is crazy and awesome, I love it!!! And it really is providing so much growth for me and taken me out of any comfort zone I might have had left, definitely taking that all away, ha ha.

Oh and ha ha I'm a Sister Training Leader too, which means I'm like the girl version of a Zone Leader. So Sister Burton and I will be over 7 sets of Sister Missionaries and we have exchanges once or twice a week. The MLC meeting (missionary leadership correlation or conference meeting?) was really cool on Friday. We got to hear all the new things that are in planning for our mission/ development, including Facebook which the majority of us leaders are involved in and are waiting for phase 2, phase 1 was creating the Facebook pages and only adding President Cusick and President May as our friends. Phase 2 will be further instruction to come and making sure our Zones are Super obedient because if they aren't we as leaders are held responsible, no pressure right? Oh and get this other piece of exciting news, they are working on ipads for our mission and in the next couple of months us missionaries who are obedient will be getting mini ipads to do all of our area book stuff in and to use instead of having to carry our scriptures around and being able to show people videos and what not. Isn't that epic?!  

Oh and guess what guess what!!!!! So The Book of Mormon Musical (by the creators of South Park, not cool at all and really bad) will be coming November 12th downtown Tampa at the Straz theatre and will be going for 2 weeks or so. Our mission President is already working on plans for it where 8 sets of missionaries will be at the theatre with boxes of Books of Mormon's to hand out to people and go with the logos that the church has been putting out of...The Book is always better then the movie or show, something like that! So we will most likely be involved with that since we are the street contacting missionaries and HOLY COW, isn't that crazy?!?

So, ha ha lots of stuff that I'm grateful for and have already had so much personal growth from it all. I'm really grateful to the Lord and echo Ammon's exclamation of joy in Alma 26, God is good. I had prayed last transfer to be a better missionary no matter what transfers brought, to be more focused and just better for God. I prayed to be more of who God wants me to be and who He knows me to be and to help me remember who I really am from the pre-existance. Heavenly Father answers prays, to be a better missionary He has called me to be a Sister Training Leader which requires me to be an example and a more/exactly obedient missionary because other missionaries will be watching me and follow after what I teach spoken or unspoken. Pray answered :) And then to be more of who He knows me as, ha ha I have been put in a street contacting new thing which requires me to completely trust and depend on Him and to have confidence. I love how prayers are always answered in unexpected ways, it is beautiful how God works and makes me think of Elder Bednar's talk, loved where he talked about when we ask for certain things and God gives us situations or other things to give us not only what we ask for but more of what we really need. 

I am very grateful and blessed in more ways then one. I love our apartments, carpet floors, aw I missed carpet floors and a nice gym which is epic, I've been working out a lot harder and it is Fantastic! Also another HUGE blessing is the Tampa Ward which I wish we could work more with but oh their are 8 of us missionaries who attend that ward so the other Elders Nelson and Shupe and Hermana's Snow and Graves get to work with the ward and they are so lucky. We work with them to but in a different way, we are not involved with less actives or recent converts since we are street contacting missionaries and yessum are area book process is ha ha not really existing since we just do what we do :)  But anywho, the first time we went to the Ward building, it touched my heart deeply because on the inside it is SUPER similar to the Cliffside 1st Ward which just warmed my heart because it was like a piece of home for me and I was really surprised by it and had so many random childhood memories and thinking back to what the building was like growing up and wow, it really had an impact on me and I was grateful. It felt like home which meant a lot because I really miss home but it was sweet to have a piece of it here. 

Oh and I wish you could all meet our Ward mission leader, Brother Lewis, good grief that man is ridiculously AWESOME, I look up to him so much, he is hilarious and on fire!!! I'm going to send a copy of the ward mission plan he came up with in correlation to the "To the Rescue" thing to mom and dad. He is amazing, he gets it and his testimony is booming. Our bishop is such a neat man and is a sweetheart, Bishop Addison, good grief, both of them and their love for their ward really impacted me. 

And ah, testimony meeting, I cried with the first testimony who was this cute little boy who just recently got baptized and he talked about how he can feel the spirit and how some days he gets mad and feels the difference but knows that it's ok, that the spirit it still there and that he can say sorry and it's ok. He then bore his testimony that he know's the church is true and he started to cry as he said that we are all God's children and God loves us. And good grief, that got me, such a tender testimony at such a young age and I'm just grateful for families raising their kids right and I'm grateful for our family and bah! So good! Attending church that day was powerful for me, it was the closest I have felt to home on my mission thus far and really meant a lot. God is good and I'm so happy. Ahhh this email is getting way too long and I don't know if you'll all make it because it's so long, ha ha so here's my new address oh and when ever there are transfers feel free to send your letters to the mission office address because they'll get it to the new address's while ya'll wait for my new one :) Just letting ya'll know, not because it was hard this week just because I love letters, promise I'm doing great!  

So here's the address...

502 S. Fremont Dr. #420, Tampa, FL 33606

I know this is really long, so I'll try to wrap it up but last night we met a lot of cool people on campus, Rakisha and her two kids, Sosonia and Alyia (cool right?), and we met a girl from India, Sonam and met a guy from Shrilanka, Rashawn, and met a guy named Wayne Magee, ha ha this cool Black guy who apparently has Irish and native american in his ancestry, super cool.

So yes, missionary work has been adjusted to something else and I'm learning how to have 1 minutes/5 minute lessons which is great because I prayed to teach more simply and more simplified. Again Heavenly Father answers prayers in very un-expecting ways. So yes, we're coming up with creative ways to contact, we'll be riding the bus to talk with people, possibly side walk chalk of the plan of salvation like they did in London was it? or New York? Can't remember and yeah, we're going to try to set up a table at the University for different events. Yessum lots of creativity going on, woot to the woot! 

Ok, I'll stop writing but I love you all so much and my heart if full and don't forget to have the courage to just ask the Lord. He wants us to ASK and He WILL give! I love you all so much and am truly grateful and I'll try to remember to give more cool details on some of the people we met and what not!

LOVE YOU MORE THEN WORDS CAN EXPRESS or like a weird man singing to himself,

LOVE,

Sister Tasha C. Bush

P.S. to give you comfort since we are in a city, we will be getting pepper spray, our mission President is going to be getting pepper spray for all of us Sister's, yay! :D