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