The New Presidency Begins! July 7, 2014

Sent: Monday, July 7, 2014 4:50 PM
Subject: The New Presidency Begins!

Hello Everyone!!

Wow you guys had an amazing trip! It was definitely full of busy fun! You went everywhere! I didn't realize where all you were planning on going. Like Idaho and the campus. That's pretty cool. I can't wait to go with you to the trek and experience all of that. It's so cool that you got to do that. I'm glad that you got to go to your high school reunion as well! What a great start to the summer you have had! What else are you planning on doing before school ends?

Well I guess it's my turn to tell you how my week went. It was a fairly decent week. A slow start but we finished the second half of the week with a lot of great things. Monday was another good PDay. Tuesday we switched District Meeting to Wednesday because we had to drive to Anza (Hemet) and swap our truck for the truck that was in their area. I'm still not sure why exactly, we were just told to do it so we did. It mad for a fun little road trip. Wednesday's DDM went well. It was my first training with my new district and we have a high goal of baptisms for this month and I know that we can reach it. My training consisted of what commitments/invitations are, why they are important, and how we should extend them. Preach My Gospel has great ideas and insight on that topic which was my inspiration for the training. The reason our first half of the week was so slow was due to the fact that every single house we knocked on had no one in it to answer the door. It was quite frustrating to go to every single door and get to the point where we just expected no one to answer. But like I said last week, I've been doing a lot of studies and started fasting and praying a lot more and a lot harder. And as Thursday came along we started to have a little success. Part of the reason no one was home is  because of the 4th of July festivities. But Thursday night we were able to meet with the K's. I don't remember if I told you about them but they are a family with two teenage girls at home. . . .They were all baptized about a year ago except for B (the youngest (15) daughter) who is still not baptized and from what I have been told, she wants to do it for herself and not just cuz everyone else is doing it. Which is definitely a good reason. They came to church two weeks ago when I first met them and missed last Sunday. So we stopped by and had a short little meeting with M, Brother K, and invited the family to come to the ward breakfast Friday morning to celebrate the 4th of July. We also got C and his family to commit to coming to the breakfast so we were really pumped to see the turn out. Plus there was food so we naturally had to go. ;) The breakfast turned out very nice. The K's came and had a great time. Sadly C didn't come and later we stopped by to find out that they had just slept in and had forgotten. So we invited them to the P's for dinner that night ( BBQ and we did so with permission) and they said to make up for the breakfast they would definitely come to dinner. Unfortunetely during our long talk with C outside their home in the blazing 100 degree sun, a bird pooped. And yes you guessed it, it landed on me. I had felt something on my leg and thought it was just Elder Tui'one hitting me with his scripture case since he was swinging it by his side so I didn't pay much attention to the feeling. Then as C ran inside real quick Tui'one told me to look at my pants and on the side of my leg was a massive splat of bird crap. I was SO upset. Needless to say we went home right after that so I could wash off my pants and change into something else. That night was the BBQ and it was great! Amazing food and we had a blast with the K's and another part member family that came. We played some dominoes with them and ended the night there with a song by me and Tui'one (Child's Prayer, Tui'one played the guitar and we sang together) and great discussion. We were dissapointed when C didn't show up again. We haven't been back yet to see what happened but that will be one of the things we do either tonight or tomorrow. 

So I'm going to save the good stuff for last. So on Sunday the K's came to church and that night we had a great lesson with the parents and were able to talk about things we can do to help B_ make the step of baptism. We set an appointment with them to come tomorrow afternoon so we'll see what happens there. Our dinner on Sunday was with Brother L_. He is one of the most amazing guys and a great member and missionary. He is divorced and has a 6 year old son that is already a bull rider!! Most of his family are not members and he has told us that soon he will have us over to teach his girlfriend as well! But during dinner his niece who isn't a member ate with us and had some of the best, and most deep questions I've heard from a non member. She really wants to know the truth and wants to know if God is real. That was one of the best lessons I've ever been in and what made it so great was not only Brother L's amazing testimonies and answers but also the fact that she started the whole conversation. It was amazing and 100 % Spirit led. I really hope she has the desire to learn more and comes back to visit and learn. It was a great day. 

So to answer your question about President Mullen, no no one told me they used to live in Midland until we met him on Saturday and they both shared with me that they remember Nana and Papa. Papa was their Bishop and Nana was her Relief Society President. Sister Mullen told the zone a story about how Nana helped her a lot in a time that she was struggling. It was pretty cool to find that out. But to add to my terrible luck with not having any doors open during the first part of the week and a bird pooping on my pants, I had just put on my suit when President Mullen walked in and he came straight to our side of the rooom to begin introducing himself and Sister Mullen to us which left me no time to switch my tag to my coat which meant he didn't know who I was and sadly he noticed. Thankfully I wasn't the only one to embarrass myself during that meeting and I think he forgave me for my mistake. But the really cool thing about our meeting with President Mullen was, other than his great training, he announced that during his ttraining in the MTC he "was assured that we will have IPADS AND IPHONES BY THE END OF THE YEAR!!!!!" We've been talking about it and we think it might be in two transfers because we should be having another general authority come in August! So there's some exciting news for you. That also means I'll have to pay for it but I wont worry about that until it comes up. 

Well I gotta go. My time is up on the computer so I hope you have a great week and get caught up on everything. I can't wait to hear from you again. Love y'all!!!

Love,

Elder Kendell Bushman