Happy New Year!

Dear Familia,

Goodness, I love you! Skyping was so motivational for me and just energized me for the work and really added to the list of reasons why missions are so awesome! Mom and Dad are the best and just seeing and talking to you two made me appreciate you THAT much more and I realized how happy my family makes me. It was nice talking to Gabe and Ellen and the Kirbys!!!  I can't believe how grown up the kids are, goodness, is this what getting old is like? :D 

But on a serious note, I really loved talking to the family. Mom and Dad, I miss you two so much and talking to you two helped a ton, I loved our conversation and I realized, "Wow, I really miss a gratifying conversation." In the mission you get that with some people but not always with your companions. I am grateful Mom and Dad have great, solid, COMMUNICATION. Talking with the family, I never realized how that is something that I'm extremely grateful for. It's been hard with Sister Kitchen. I have tried so hard to ask her questions, have fun, be there for her, give her space, do service for her, leave her a kind note, and praying! It's super frustrating to be pumped up about the work and wanting to be close to someone and they just are grumpy. ARgggggg I am tired. But this is the happy thing I get to learn right now so I'm grateful for it. It's tough, I will share what I learn from personal study during our companionship studies and I'm happy and I ask her what she learns and she'll just give a blatant, "I read in 2 Nephi and in Preach My Gospel and an Ensign from the article, it was good." .......I understand that we all have times like that but it's Every single day. I have stepped back and thought ok anything on my part to work on and I'll work on Listening more or asking more questions or leaving space for silence. We have had so many car rides of over 30 minutes (our area is big) just in silence. I love silence but it's the majority of the time. 

And the conversations just aren't as gratifying. We have had maybe 3 good talks where she opened up on fun memories or what not and we had a good time talking, sharing funny awkward date moments or family Christmas traditions. Fun conversations but few and far between. I love spiritual conversations and yeah it's tough. I really am trying and I do care but I'm so sick of girls and their ornery attitudes. I can't stand grumpy people. Heck, I've had success in becoming friends with grumpy people when no one else could and then they become a lot less grumpy and kinder. Good grief it's a whole other story of working with people who are kind in public and at home have a whole other side. Mom, Dad, and siblings I am so sorry how I treated you all at times back in high school when I had my bad days. Even in college, aaaaahhhhhhhhh. It's horrible and stupid. 

Good grief, I apologize about this email but heck this is my reality right now, I've done a really good job about not writing  about the unpleasant moments from companions in the past (there has been a lot that I haven't written about) but I needed to write about it or I might have a break down. I understand that we all have our hard days but for crying out loud learn to communicate instead of treating everyone crummy and even though you think talking about feelings is weird. Face your feelings and get over it! Hey thanks family, writing that last sentence was what I just need to hear, "Face your feelings and get over it!" I need to apply that to myself with this situation. 

Wow, well there is my human venting email, I apologize it's a little negative, please don't judge Sister Kitchen. I think the grumpiness is just from homesickness and she grew up differently. I realize that it is a huge blessing I was raised in a home where we were taught to naturally communicate our feelings and not everyone's home is like that. 

On the positive note, Christmas was great skyping and after I wish it would have been more productive but that's in the past now. The week has been a little rough and our numbers weren't very good because I got sick on Saturday, but luckily I didn't throw up, I just had a really bad stomach ache that made me feel like I was going to but I didn't, woot! 

Other positive things, Aunt Pam was a sweetheart and I got a huge package from her with some awesome Tabernacle choir cds! Oh and other positive thing we do service for our neighbor Jan and her husband Ken who lives across from us. We gave them a Book of Mormon and a Joy to the World dvd with some treats for Christmas. :) Jan has started to read it and has been asking us some questions about what we believe. It's great, we are hoping to start teaching her! We have to be careful with the apartment complex in how we go about things so we've been doing a lot of service for Jan and I love her. We were helping her put her Christmas decorations down (it reminded me of mama and her bins) and putting her bins in her garage which by the way garages here in Florida are used as storage units, it is very rare to see anyone actually use their garage for their cars. Anywho it was super sweet because Jan let us know how she talks about us all the time to her husband Ken. She really appreciates us and it's been fun to get to know her and her to get to know us. She had some Elvis tree ornaments and I asked her if she had seen the musical "Bye Bye Burdie" and she loves that show, ha ha we started singing some of the songs from it. She said she liked getting to see this other side of us, ha ha! I swear people mix us up with nuns so much (well Jan is Catholic) but people really look at missionaries like we are from another world. Ha ha well we are different from the world, thank heavens. 

Anywho, one other cool thing, on page 807 in the bible, JST John 1:1-3 compared to John 1:1-3 has really given me a different perspective, is the "word" the gospel or is it the holy ghost? What do ya'll think? Before I read JST I thought the "word" was Christ which at times it is but now it has a new meaning. Love it!

Oh and I just got a call today, I'm having my ingrown toe surgery on January 2nd instead of tomorrow. Woot to the woot this will be fun :) 

Ok, enough out of me, thanks for putting up with my venting and I will do better on writing more positively. My gift to the Savior this year is to Choose the Right, right now! Which I might not have in venting so much in this email but WOOT the New Year doesn't start till the 1st, so HA! Choose the right, right now! 

I LOVE YOU!!! And hope and pray you all had a Merry Christmas and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR full of Ugly Bug Balls and what not :D

LOVE YOU!

Sister Bush