Happy 10 Month Mark!

Dear Familia and Friends,

Holy Guacamole, today is my 10 month mark and I'm just shocked by how time is flying!!! Speaking of flying I am so sorry if I've missed anyone's Birthdays and I know I've always been terrible at writing people cards and what not but I did want to wish Ellen a Happy Belated Birthday, I hope it was a blast and went great! Yeeha! Oh and Dan, Happy happy Birthday!!!!! :D Speaking of calenders is April still making those by any chance or??? 

So, today is one of those days where I'm not quite sure what I want to share :) It's been a week with a lot of tender mercies and some challenges but I'm grateful as usual by the end of the day. Let's see we've had a couple of good lessons including with Monica and her niece Jessi who apparently Jessi's grandparents are mormon. Unfortunately Monica won't be baptized this Sunday, there's still a lot to teach and she's still praying but the last lesson we had with her went really well, the spirit was super strong and it was awesome to bear sincere testimony to her and Jessi. Jessi had asked Sister Godwin and I if we missed our families and I answered very honestly that yes it was really hard. But I followed with my testimony of how amazing this mission has been for my life and how grateful I am to be humbled and lucky to be serving God. I wouldn't trade anything for the beautiful the moments of being able to testify to people of God's love for them. I tried not to but I couldn't help but start to tear up as I then testified of that love for them. It was so nice to hear Monica after that say how strong she had been feeling the spirit from our visit, for the last 30 minutes she said she could feel it and it was cool too as her 15 year old daughter sitting next to her said she could feel it too. They are all making such progress. No matter the time they have been prepared and Sister Godwin and I are hoping to help them to the waters of baptism by the end of the month. 

That same day we ended the night nicely with a lesson with Matt who his comments were awesome and he had gone off on how disappointed he was with TV these days and how they never have a normal family. He talked about how it was always broken homes or single parents and where was the support for values. And later on in the lesson he talked about how frustrated how no one kept the Sabbath day holy and that there is no reason for stores to be open on Sunday and what not. It was so cool, I was shocked because he was right on and tee hee those moments are so rare sometimes when teaching people but he really gets it, he really knows his bible and it's one of the best feelings when people connect to the spirit and just seeing how they've been prepared. Love it! Oh I don't know if I've ever written about Matt or not but he was a former investigator of Sister Kitchen and Sister Anderson (who had trained Sister Kitchen) and he had a baptism date but gave up because of coffee and tea. Anywho before Sister Kitchen had been transferred he had sent us a reply to our scripture of the day text saying that he thought we were good people and wanted to meet up again and was in need of a prayer. He's married and has 3 or 4 kids, can't remember at the moment but he just has a sincere desire to be a better person and improve his home life. So, we're starting the lessons with him again and he said he was going to come to church without us asking but he didn't come yesterday :( But I know he'll come he is prepared and I think he knows it's true, he's got a good heart. 

So, ha ha we've had a lot of rules these last few transfers from President, including no mass texts (which is sad because scripture of the day was a great way to get people's phone numbers and it worked a lot in people eventually warming up to wanting missionary visits), we have one day a week that we have to just walk or bike so we can do street contacting which is good just a little difficult for Brooksville because it's a big area but it's good, and with most rules I'm ok but this has been the hardest rule recently when they said No music at all, not even mormon tabernacle choir. That has been hard for me because that is how I distress, I love music and I feel like every way that I use to distress before my mission has been taken away from me. It's really hard. Luckily President just said for now but our Training Leaders said that we need to mail home our cds so I will be mailing those home but at the same time our mission President didn't say to do that. He said no music for now so I'm debating what to do. I've been obedient and haven't listened to anything but it is a crack up to me how missionaries are constantly making up their own rules that aren't official rules from the white handbook or preach my gospel. It can get really annoying and old especially when they are saying that President said so, they use it as a cope out and again it gets old real fast when people act like the rules they make up obtain to my personal salvation and my purpose as a missionary. Argggg. Anywho, sorry trying not to complain. 

Let's see some nice scriptures I like recently include D&C 121:41, 123:17 and I'm looking forward to reading the CES broadcast that Pappy wrote about recently. Oh and next time I need to write about this sweet sweet woman in our relief society, her name is Laurel Murray and good grief they need to make a mormon.org video about her, she inspires me so much. Every Sunday she says the most tender comments and a sincere, Christlike joy just radiates off of her. She talks a lot about seeing the Christ in others and goodness, she's a very choice daughter of God that's for sure. I've learned a ton on my mission how anger is not of God and it was tough for me recently but God is very merciful. I prayed and prayed and prayed really hard in church yesterday to not be angry about some things and I just wanted to cry because in my heart I really wanted to not be angry and I really wanted to please God and I just super super stressed. It was really cool because in Sunday school we were learning about the freedom to choose and I just had the thought hit me really hard of not judging and it just impacted me really hard. I prayed and prayed in my heart to not judge because that's something I struggle with and I felt a huge burden lift from me and felt God's love. It was nice and I keep finding new ways that I'm learning about the Atonement then I'd ever expect. 

I'd like a thought one of our Elders had shared at our ward correlation meeting on Saturday around the Links camp fire. He had mentioned that Charity and love are the only Christlike attributes that it specifically says you have to pray for to acquire. It hit me strong and I realized I really needed to do that, not just for others but for myself. Oh and that same night was neat, Sister Link's mother, Hope, had asked us what a testimony was and then after we explained it to her she asked to hear all of ours. Sister Links parents have been visiting the past month and aren't members and her father asked for a preach my gospel and has been studying it. Her mother is pretty strict Catholic but I think she's been really impressed by the missionaries. I loved having a testimony meeting around the fire, it reminded me of home and when our family has our testimony meetings when we go camping. It was cool to because I asked Hope and Wally what their testimonies were because I wanted them to know they were included too and it was cool to hear them open up. Unfortunately it was a little tense between Sister Link and her mom after her mother had expressed how she had hope her children would of all stayed true to the Catholic church but she was positive towards us and she loves us. But yeah, besides the little tense moment, I was grateful for Sister Link in her honesty, I love that she's not afraid to be open and to just say how she feels about things and spoke up about God's and Christ's love. Overall it was a really good meeting and yessum. 

Ok, I better go and wrap this up, ha ha my emails will be shorter eventually. Just last quick awkward thing, tomorrow I will be meeting with Sister Tilley to evaluate my stress levels. Last week after a zone conference meeting President asked to see me and basically he had Elder Young (our mission nurse) send me a stress questionnaire. He said that I needed more joy, I have been stressed and ever since that last interview I had had with him it has been up and down for me. As we talked I cried because I was scared that meant me getting sent home, he told me I wasn't going home just needed to help balance out my stress levels. So, yup, I took the questionnaire and the good news is that it's not severe but I did score a 78 which qualifies to go talk to the lds social service counselor person...yeah. Ha ha after the interview with President on the car drive home with Sister Godwin I just cried and then she started crying to because she has been super stressed out too. Ha ha, we had a good laugh at ourselves and joked a lot about it all, ha ha Sister Godwin put it best when she said, "Well I guess missions are also good to find out if there's anything wrong with you." Missions serve a lot of purposes eh? :) And cool thing to is she took the quiz and talked to Elder Young to, ha ha she scored a 83. Woot woot we both will be talking to Sister Tilley and look forward to working through my insecurities, yay! Oh boy :p 

Oh and one last funny thing, today as we've been checking our emails, I looked over to tell Sister Godwin something and saw a picture of this man in a bike race and I said "ooo who is that!," bah ha ha she replied with, "Umm that's my dad." AWKWARD! In my defense he had sun glasses on and how can you really tell what a person looks like with a bike helmet on and what not, age can totally look deceiving. YAy, good thing I'm seeing a counselor tomorrow. :)

Much Much LOVe, I love you all, Love your stories and updates it's always a joy and the church is true! 

LOVE,

Sister Tasha C. Bush

P.S. You're all in my prayers and thank you so much for your prayers, I can feel them!