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