I Have A Feeling This Email Will Be Short

Dear Familia and Friends,

First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY to LYDIA tomorrow, what a fun and exciting time, woot woot :D And thanks Mom and Dad, loved your Valentines made my day and was just what I needed, great letters. And Thank you April, it was adorable and appreciated. 

So this week, we had a great miracle, Sister Peek did an awesome and natural job in suggesting her friend to talk with us who her friend is looking for a church. Her name is Donna Dufour and we had a a great time meeting her. They've been changing things in our mission in how we teach lesson one and it is really neat. Instead of us reciting Joseph Smith's experience memorized we have the investigator read the experience and then we say, "I testify that what you just read is true." It's a unique way but powerful. At the end of lesson 1 instead of talking about the book of mormon we now tell people that we have a gift for them next time we see them. The next lesson is all about the book of mormon and we read parts of the first chapter with  them and then commit them to reading it all from the beginning to the end. Before we would assign different chapters and what not to go with different lesson points and we can still do that but it's more encourage to actually have them read it. It was a nice tender mercy of the Lord to have my prayer answered for Donna to come to church because she did :) She only stayed for sacrament but what a blessing to have someone come to church!!! We will be teaching her Lesson 2 or 3 this next week and will be committing her to a baptism date, wish us luck. 

Let's see, we haven't been able to see Monica, she keeps canceling on us and it's frustrating, we have good lessons with her and it's super spiritual and then she flakes out. ARgggg, so hopefully things will go better this week because I know she is so close! Blah.

We had a really nice lesson with Miguel and we brought a sweet member with us to his lesson. Laurel Murray, Laurel is incredible, she is in her 30's and is a miracle that she is alive and walking. She was in a car wreck 11 years ago, she was hit by a drunk driver. She was told that she would never walk again and she told us how silly doctors are. Her loving father promised her that she would be able to walk and with many priesthood blessings and the persistence and dedication of helping move her legs for her everyday she is now walking. She walks with a cane and is slow but truly amazing that she is. I am grateful for her example of her father's faith and for her faith. She struggles in talking and honestly the first time I met her I had wondered or thought that she was handicapped mentally. But then hearing her comments in Relief Society I soon and quickly discovered just the opposite, she is a brilliant individual and is powerful. I love how her comments always tie back to Christ and God's love. She always talks about what a joy life is and how her accident is the best thing that has ever happened to her. She has talked before about how people are distracted by the physical and how that is not it, it's all about the spiritual. She talked about how even she was distracted, she had played volleyball and did track in high school and was very active. After her accident she was angry for 6 years at God but now is so sincerely happy that it happened. My favorite thing she always talks about is seeing the Christ in each other and what a joy that is. We just need to see the Christ in each other. 

Anywho, I love her and am really happy we took the time to have her come teaching with us, she just beamed when we asked her too and had talked about how she had always wanted to serve a mission. She really had an impact on Miguel and I know her testimony brought him to say at the end of the lesson that he wants to get baptized. We are praying for a date and he is too. This week we should be setting a baptismal date with him. I am grateful for Miguel, he always ask good questions and really thinks about things seriously, it's great he is so contemplative about gospel topics. We've been praying for him too that his wife will be able to get her paper work process done fast, she's in the Dominican Republic and is trying to get to the states so she can be with Miguel. It would be neat to teach her too. 

It's been nice to see people coming closer to God and changing, nothing makes me happier then sitting down in a lesson and find out that they've actually been reading their scriptures. It's a nice feeling. It helps. Speaking of help, I am grateful to God and charity. I've prayed for it a lot and it's been tested as my patience is tried with my companion. That has been the hardest thing for me my whole mission and I didn't think it would be. Companions are driving me nuts though. I just want a best friend who is great to deal with. It's tough, my current one is emotionally disconnected and even though is great with being organized and being obedient, has a tendency to not really care about the people we serve. She does and then she doesn't and it's baffling to me. It's nice to have the open communication so we can talk about it and I'm grateful for that but she knows what she needs to do and pray for and yet won't. We can be the only ones to choose to be happy to choose to care. I am getting exhausted. I feel I have done what I can on my part to be a happy, healthy person, I am just sick of other people not doing that. To go day after day seeing adults choose misery is aggravating. We must all answer the call God has given us and choose His will not ours. I'm clearly not perfect but I am learning to choose happiness everyday instead of getting discouraged by others choices and it's nice to see a difference in my life. Again, I am working hard on it but it doesn't take hard work when I forget myself and do service or let others know they are loved. It only gets depressing when consumed with just being selfish and thinking of myself instead of others. What a difference it makes to think of others, to think of Christ, to think of God and His love. The bigger picture is everything. 

Much Love,

Sister Bush