Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Thank you soo very much Mama for your packages! Ha ha they have been a delight and Sister Kitchen and I have enjoyed it very much. Today for P-day we're having our Mission Christmas Party on the beach and at the end of it they are having a ugly sweater contest which Sister Kitchen and I didn't have time to go thrift store shopping for but woot woot Thank goodness mama sent me an elf outfit that I'm totally going to wear for the contest part, so wait till next week for pictures on the beach in an Elf Outfit BABY! :D

And THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU CASSIE AND DAN RIDING, I LOVED the scripture case AND the cute red wallet AND the fruit roll ups, I screamed I was so stinkin excited. Tee hee I opened my present before Christmas!!!!!! Loved it! Oh and Thank you April for the card and letter, and Ellen and Gabe, thank you for your Christmas card :) Thank you Chelsea I love hearing from you!!! Getting letters and packages are the best, speaking of which DAD, I haven't gotten any of your letters the past 3 weeks, I will check with the mission office to see if they haven't come yet but yessum I have MISSED them VERY much. It's ok though because I understand that life is busy and I'm not the best at writing letters either and we all have our hard days (I'm being sincere by the way, I promise I'm not being a punk). So papa, it's ok. Oh and I just got mama's email that you have written and sent them it's just getting them from the office, tee hee, I love you Pappy!!!! AS for the REST of you, I would love some snail mail punks!!!!!! It's not like missions are hard or anything...whatever... :D I'm so funny! But on a serious note has something depressing happened? I had a really unfortunate dream last night and now I'm a tad worried I won't lie, some one please tell me if everyone is ok or if there is a serious medical thing that has happened to any of you. I love you very much and would much rather know so that way I could add my prayers too. 

Ok, wow what a cheerful Christmas email. Speaking of Christmas cheer, I was pleasantly surprised recently to see Daddy for a few seconds in the "Joy to the World," dvd we've shared lately for a Christmas message with less actives and give out to investigators. It was really cool because I didn't know if he'd be in it or not and then I shouted that's my dad and got really excited and then embarrassed because I was a little weird. I just was really happy to see a glimpse of Daddy. I really miss the family and it was nice to see Dad even though that was years ago it just was cool. 

So lame news, I'm having ingrown toe nail surgery on the 31st of December for my left big toe nail and the little toe next to it :( lame. Happy New Years! Yaaayyyyy....... Thought you'd all like to know. 

I was really touched to hear recently from Chelsea that, " P.s. Aliya prayed for you and Emmett last week! I was shocked because she has never met you but she came up with the two of your names all on her own! :)" It meant a lot to hear that and I'm so grateful, I have always felt a special connection to Aliya. Like Chelsea said, I have never met her but I remember when I first saw the picture of Aliya when she was born I cried, it was weird because I have never cried when seeing pictures of our new nieces and nephews and for some reason I did. I'm really grateful for our family and knowing that I have so many people praying for me even our little ones. Things have been hard lately, I have been really homesick. Not necessarily because it's Christmas, I love Christmas and am fine because we have had plenty of Christmas's as a family that aren't always together because of how big we are. So it's not that, I just really miss you all and love you very much. You all better have a wonderful happy Christmas!!!

Anywho, the Brooksville Ward are so good to Sister Kitchen and I, a lot of people have given us cards and presents and it really touched me yesterday at church because they hardly know me but have just instantly treated me so well. It was so sweet to see how sweet they are to each other too. In elief Society it was nice to witness one of the Sisters in the ward comfort another one who had a loved one pass away. It was touching to see in the closing hymn the one Sister started to cry and the sister next to her put her arm around her and then that sister just fell apart. Sister Kitchen and I just choked back our tears as we tried to sing the rest of the hymn, it was hard. I am so grateful for this gospel and how we get to progress and become like the Savior in being there for each other. I really like how the church's Mormon Messages have been focused on what will our gifts be for the Savior. I'm still trying to decide what mine will be for this new year. My gift that I gave this year was giving my will to the Lord.I am continually still working on that day by day and am definitely not perfect. I have days as a missionary where I totally wimp out and kick myself in the foot for not bearing a stronger testimony in certain situations. But I'm very grateful for our Savior who because of Him we get a fresh new start every day and if need even every hour or second. We are so lucky aren't we?!? 

 http://www.mormonchannel.org/christmas-videos?v=2919740155001&cid=HPFR122013274&im=true

There's a link for one of my favorite songs the tabernacle choir does, isn't it a great video too? 

So, Sister Kitchen and I have a soft baptism date for William Henderson, we'll find out next week if we can set an official date but we just had lesson one with him and he is this sweet old man with a great southern accent. I don't know if I wrote about him or not already but he's a good guy. 

Let's see what else, I'm grateful for Brother and Sister Link, we had our Ward mission leader meeting on Saturday night with the missionaries in our area at the Links Awesome little place with a bonfire in their back yard. They are the best!

Ok, enough from me, I love you all very much and seriously I want you to know how indebted I am to our family, to mom and dad and to every single sibling and your families and to some of my friends, ha ha but more to my family. :) You ARE amazing. I love you, and I love our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who makes all things possible, I am nothing and yet He takes time to remind me that I am everything to Him. I love our Heavenly Father and I'm grateful for the Christmas Season to remind us more of His love. 

God Bless you, much love,

Sister Tasha Bush

Beautiful Brooksville!

Dearest Familia,

Ahoy a hoola hoopla and a Happy New Area!!! I have been transferred to Brooksville and am serving with (drummmmm roollleeeee) Sister Kitchen!!!! Everyone's reaction was hilarious at transfers when it was announced that possibly one of the shortest missionary has been matched up with the tallest. I couldn't contain it and laughed as we hugged and exclaimed, "Oh this is hilarious and SO COOL!" The whole chapel was laughing, it was great :D I am 4'11 and Sister Kitchen is 6'1 we make a Great team! 

Brooksville is lovely, it is a lot more country like and the area is very widespread/ huge. We don't even live in our area, we live in Spring Hill, speaking of which before I forget the address is...

14295 Herring Hollow

Spring Hill, Fl, 34609 

I think that's the right zip code, ha ha pretty sure :D yay! Anywho I really am so happy to be a normal missionary again, it is sooo nice to get back to teaching families and working with less actives/ returning members and all the other fun crazy people. Our Bishop is great, Bishop Chickarello the spelling is probably wrong on that but he is a young guy and his wife is a sweet heart and they have 3 kids. Our Ward mission leader is non-existent apparently he is going through a hard time so I've never met him but I did meet his wife when I was on exchanges with Sister Kitchen a while back (cool eh?!). But not to fret we have the best ward missionaries who have stepped up to the plate, Brother and Sister Link, they are on fire and help out immensely, we love them! 

Other cool things, Brooksville is a real cute combination of people, it's got the beautiful country feel along with fun small town feel and hick ville/ghetto in some spots and yeah it's really nice, I like it a lot.

We've been encouraged by our mission president to get involved with community events to go to things where everyone is like sports or appropriate concerts. So, on Saturday Sister Kitchen and I went to Brooksville town Parade and with how small of a town it is there were a Ton of people there. We found out from a local that this parade has been a tradition for over 25 years. It was a perfect opportunity to hand out, "Night in Bethlehem," flyers which is a huge Nativity they do in Odessa at the Odessa Ward. They've done that since 2006 and last year had over 4,000 people come, check out the website it is such a smart idea and perfect opportunity for the church's name to get out and us missionaries each had an opportunity from different areas to come and help out different nights and it was really cool. Here's the website! 

http://anightinbethlehem.org/

Check out the videos and the photos, isn't that so smart! I love it, they have activities for the family and then a short show and after free cookies and hot chocolate in the church and again just a great opportunity to get the community involved with getting to know the church a little more. There was also a really sweet song, I can't remember the name of it but basically the theme of the song is "Do you have room for the Savior"? It was sung as Mary and Joseph are looking for an Inn and was a powerful reflection to ponder on if we have room for the Savior in our hearts always. 

That's been prominent in my life lately, everyday I strive to pray ( I don't always remember) but I try to pray to have my heart and my mind given to God and always have room for my heart's desires to be with God's and if they are not, I repent and ask for my heart to be purified and more fully with Christ. I've had a lot of cool realizations lately and I love God's timing with my personal studies and what's going on in my life at that same time it's perfect! I read recently in Alma 50 about how Moroni even after they had one a battle was still strengthening the cities and preparing themselves. It was cool to see how hard work brought them to being stronger and how simple means happiness came. They were happy because they kept the commandments and God promised them that they would be happy and prosper if they keep the commandments and if they don't they won't be happy or prosper as well. It is so simple! It helped me see it's as simple as Choosing the Right. 

Choose the Right, CTR, we are taught that as children and it has had a powerful impact on me as I continue to align my will with God's out here on the mission. I came to realize that yes, we should follow what the apostles and prophets have told us in praying for missionary opportunities but what I found to be really cool, when we stop and open up our eyes we will see and realize that we don't have to pray for opportunities! There are opportunities ALL around us it is just about as simple as Choosing the RIght, isn't that cool? If we choose the right we will naturally befriend everyone, if we choose the right we will naturally after befriending them telling them to check out our mormon.org page or inviting them to have dinner and eventually having a game night with the missionaries :D ha ha ARen't the words just perfect from the song, "Choose the Right, when a choice is placed before you." We can find opportunities daily with first ourselves in making sure that we pray and read our scriptures everyday (because we need to prepare just like moroni did), with our families, and then with others. Choose the Right! Get out of the comfort zone and HAVE FUN! 

That's another big thing I learned this week, I wasn't having as much Fun! How can I expect to teach about the plan of happiness if I am not happy? The last few days I was kind of unhappy, I wasn't having a really hard time or anything I just wasn't as happy or having as much fun. But woot that was fixed fast, we had dinner with our Bishop last night and the other missionaries and had a meeting after. And it was a lot of fun. It was nice and Sister Kitchen and I talked after on the drive back to our place how we both weren't having as much fun and just super stressed. It's really nice to get things back into perspective that God wants us to be happy and to proclaim that happiness to others, it has to be sincere or it means nothing! And it has to be done in a sincere way and in His timing. I have learned from Downtown Tampa that you need to first get to know about someone else before you throw down their throat that you are a missionary and here's the gospel. Because then it's about you and not them. People love to have the chance to talk about themselves, everyone wants to be able to share their story and it means a lot when you take the time to get to know them. By getting to know them you help them connect with the spirit and deep down they know they just need help remembering. 

Ok, wow, tangent again! Yikes :D Choose the Right and enjoy the time that it takes, I have found that God's love and timing is everything, sometimes people are ready to come back to church in a snap and others just need a little more time but either way Choose the Right to take the time. I love you all so much!!!

Speaking of tangents, really cool! Sister Burton pointed out to me that the hymn, "Joy to the World," can also be sung in terms of the 2nd coming, isn't that cool?!!! Go through and sing it and it will bring the spirit like none other when you think of it as singing it like the 2nd coming. A lot of Christmas songs are like that too, wonderful!!! I Love the invigorating Christmas Spirit, it's the best!!! I pray and hope you all are enjoying it too and woot woot I love you! 

Thank you for your examples of choosing the right! We have the best family EVER :D 

LOVE,

Sister Tasha C Bush 

I got to go to Donny and Marie's Christmas Concert, what?!

Dear Familia!

Christmas in the City...PSYCH I'm getting Transferred!!!! CRAzy eh?! Oh my heart a lot of feelings! The spirit was super strong and I have felt it confirmed that this is what is suppose to happen and I'm happy but I won't lie it's a little hard and my heart strings have been pulled at a lot of different ways. I love the Tampa 1st Ward and am really really reeeeaaalllyyyy going to miss them as well as my companion Sister Burton, we have had a good time together, especially the last two days which have been full of giggles and hilarious moments. It's kind of hard but at the same time I'm not sad, I am really happy and full of gratitude.

My heart is full! I can't say or write it enough, it IS a wonderful life. :) These last couple of days have been rewarding in the many things I've learned and the depth that it's impacted my life. Oh, Sister Burton is staying Downtown and will be training and the Downtown Elders are being transferred as well, so not really positive on what else will be happening downtown. I am going to miss her, this transfer has gone by so fast and it's weirding me out to realize that January 3rd will be my half way mark, it is flying. It's already December which by the way I love the Christmas Spirit and I hope ya'll know not to worry, I am really happy, of course I miss you Mom and Dad and the family but I'm really not worried for Christmas Eve or Day, I am happy.  My heart has changed a lot this transfer, it has been hard, but so rewarding spiritually. 

It only seems like yesterday we were coming into the city of Tampa, it seems like only like yesterday with our first meeting with Bishop Addison and our Ward Mission Leader Brother Lewis who had the funniest Freudian slip. Bah ha ha I can't believe I forgot to write about it, it was so funny in this meeting he looked at Elder Willard and meant to say, "You've had a lot of success," but instead it came out, "You've had a lot of sex." I died laughing and it was embarrassing and unexpected that only the Sister Missionaries were laughing uncontrollably and it seemed like it didn't even phase the Elders or Bishop even though I could see that one of the Elder Nelson's (there are 2 Elder Nelson's) was trying so hard not to laugh. Oh man alive, good times! 

Sniffle, I'm really going to miss them and the Tampa 1st ward.  I want our family to be friends with so many of the people in that Ward. Anywho, it was sweet yesterday saying good byes and oh man sweet Ethan Freestone who's 12, came up and hugged me and cried and ah, it was hard as I choked back tears reassuring him I'd visit their family and him. He was stinkin adorable as I told him our families were going to be best friends and he responded as he cried, "We already are." Good grief, kills me! That family is exceptional! I LOVE the Tampa 1st Ward!!!

Speaking of that ward, Sister Burton and I earlier in the week were able to help out one night with Ward visits and we died laughing when we discovered one of the less actives we were going to go find/meet was named Thomas Butts (oh and there is an Elder out hear name Elder Butt, isn't that just great!). On our drive over, here is how part of our conversation went as we came up with different ways of referring to them like, "How are the Butts doing?" or "Hey Butts get over here" or "Have you seen the Butts lately". Oh heavens we were so mature as we cried laughing and then we had to compose ourselves when we knocked on their door. Tom Butt was actually a really awesome guy, his wife wasn't as friendly and he didn't seem like he'd be coming back to church but I know they'll come around and I'm excited for the Tampa 1st Ward to fellowship them like crazy. 

Oh, cool side fact! Our zone leaders Elder Crowley and Elder Thomas (love these Elders, they are seriously the best of the best!) have been teaching and set a soft baptism date with a person they met who went to the Book of Mormon musical! So is it worth handing out mormon.orgcards at the Book of Mormon musical even for one person, heck yes it is! Praying more results will happen from it :)

I just can't believe I'm already leaving this area, we're having some cool things happening and people we've been meeting. Yesterday we saw a group of girls on campus having a bible study and talked to them and will be...or Sister Burton and her new companion will be joining them in January, sawweeettt! And yeah, we were going to ride the trolley/bus to teach all day on but unfortunately for me that won't happen but I'm really happy for Sister Burton and oh man I will miss her, we have had no drama and she's a doll.

Oh the concert! I know this email is long but how can I forget the Donny and Marie Christmas Concert :D After our MLC meeting (which was on Friday) we were surprised when the APs let us know that the activity was the Donny and Marie concert at the Tampa Times hockey lighting stadium. It was WEIRD, I'm totally an Awkward missionary!!!!! During intermission us missionaries just felt super weird and I don't know 2nd half of the show was hard to enjoy, it was sad. The 1st part of the show was fun and Christmas like and Marie sang a song with a bunch of pictures of Christ which was cool but then it got really old fast as she kept talking about herself through out the show and all of the people she's met and how cool she is and blah blah blah, it was sad to think of how she chose to represent herself. Oh and it was so weird and I felt so bad for the Elders, during the 2nd half of the show, Marie did a number from Chicago, you heard me Chicago, for a Christmas concert?! Yeah, she tied it into Christmas with how she loves New York aka an excuse to show every one how versatile she is in Singing so many different styles of music. Oh ha ha before that she sang a famous opera song in a Camono (how do you spell that?! asian dress thing) and then took it off after all scandalous like with a flapper dress underneath which I will give her props for it being modest and having sleeves but Sister Burton and I just shook our heads in not understanding the point of her trying through out the whole show to act all seductive and weird. It was weird. I will give them that they have super talented voices and Donny was a lot more humble but still consumed with loving himself as well as both of them bragged on and on about their number one hits and I'm not being very nice. I apologize for this whole paragraph, I just don't understand Pride!!! It drives me nuts and I know that I'm not perfect either and we all are working on it but to have a whole Christmas show devoted to yourself instead of the TRUE meaning which is the Savior and to not say anything in acknowledgement to Him leaves you empty and feeling weird and frustrated. I was really hoping that at the end of the show they'd say something about Christ but they didn't!!!! ARGGGGggggggggg! 

Ok, I'm done, I promise, negativity is not from God, I have really discovered that out here on the mission and it's all about choosing the right! I will write more on that next time but I better stop. I love you all so much and hope you know how much I love you and how grateful I am for Christmas being about Christ and that hope and happiness that comes from Him! 

Love you all so very much! 

LOVE,

Sister Tasha C. Bush

p.s. I am happy!   

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well Hellooo, helloooo!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Weird how it's December now, it is so strange to not have snow and practically perfect weather! :) Thanksgiving was actually good and we had two Thanksgiving dinners; one with the Freestone family who reminded me of home so much and the other with our ward mission leader's family, the Lewis's. Both were great, really fun and they were awesome to put up with all of the missionaries from our district. The Freestone's are living in their old Stake President's house who are on a mission and it was a really nice place. I about died when I looked outside and saw the view of their backyard which went on to this huge fancy golf course. It was beautiful and it really made my day when they brought out a golf club and we just hit a few from one of the holes I did better than some of the Elders - HA!  

Speaking of Elders check out this hilarious email our mission President sent out, I thought it was soooooo funny! They have gotten a lot more strict on rules between Elders and Sisters out here and this email was really entertaining to Sister Burton and I.

President Cusick

If I offer to go with my wife Stefanie on Saturday morning to the grocery store, ride with her to the pharmacy, run a couple errands, drop off the groceries at home, follow this up with lunch and then go have a fun activity. Sister Cusick calls this "unheard of" or "extremely rare."

If Elders and Sisters go on Monday morning to the grocery store, ride with together to the pharmacy, drop off the groceries at the apartments, follow this with lunch and then go have a fun activity like bowling, a hike or even playing at the Church. Some missionaries might call this "P-Day."

I call it a double date.

Dating is to happen after your missionary service.

Isn't that awesome! President Cusick has a hilarious sense of humor and is pretty funny when he isn't scaring and intimidating the heck out of us all.

Speaking of laughing on Saturday Sister Burton and I were dying laughing, I swear it was national hit on a missionary day, can we say awkward much? We had some guys whistle at us, we had another guy respond with, "You look nice" to when we said, "Hi, how are you?," a homeless man in an accent said to Sister Burton, "You look like a little Pumpkin," and what else, oh this guy who works at "Taco Bus," kept smiling at us the whole time (Mexican's are so flirty) and it was a super entertaining day. Do people not see our name tags? It was hilarious and keeps things fun when street contacting allllllll day. 

Transfer calls are this Saturday by the way. I'm looking forward to it. I love Sister Burton and I'm grateful for all that I have learned in this area and especially grateful for the Tampa 1st Ward, but I miss teaching. We try to teach as street contacting missionaries but it's rare, it's mostly give out a mormon.org card or a Book of Mormon and say a prayer and then that's it. We have some people who are facebook friends and we are looking forward to the lessons we can have with them but we haven't had a lesson yet. 

Oh to answer papa's questions, I think Facebook is a great way to reach people because they won't have "time" to talk to missionaries yet they'll spend 3 hours online. It's a great resource because people will actually open up a lot more on instant chat and you can post mormon.org videos and other links with accurate info when they don't have the right info. They have a lot of rules, you're companion has to see your monitor at all times and you have to approve what each other will post before it is posted so it's good because we are their for each other and don't have to worry about being tempted to do anything stupid like chat with family or friends. Did you know they are also allowing missionaries to have Skype lessons with people too? I also found out that the Temple Square missionaries have online proselyting time as well. Oh and they have a specific MTC Facebook Missionaries which I think they had over 200 or so baptisms from it, the number I think is higher. But it's great for people with Autism who face to face their social skills aren't as natural but on the computer they are on fire with the work.

Anywho, so sorry about this email, a guy was chatting with us but it's good because we got to befriend him and help him get to know a little more about missionaries :) Woot! 

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH! And I can't wait for Christmas! 

LOVE YOU<3

Sister Bush