Sept. 15 - Great Week!

Sent: Monday, September 15, 2014 5:19 PM
Subject: Great Week!!!

Hey everyone!!

I can't believe you are probably in Alaska right now on a cruise! That is so cool! I'm not sure if you'll be able to receive this email or not but I guess just in case I'll send it anyway. ;) haha Can you send some of that rain and cooler weather over this way? It's 105 degrees today and will be the rest of the week! I walk outside and start sweating! Congrats Kenzie on getting first place with your team in your run! that's awesome! . . .  Congrats Logan on being Choir Beau! That is way cool! I'm a little jealous cuz you actually got to do the parade. ;) Way to go Tanner on getting the cheerleader float! Haha Are you gonna take the Rockhounds offer!? That's a pretty sweet deal man! Sounds like piano practice is still going normal.  That's really cool that you got to go out with the sisters again. And I'm glad that you got to follow up with Mrs . . .! Keep up the work! :) 

Well my week was pretty great! A lot of things happened so I will try to get them all into this email as much as I can. Starting with Monday, Z-- (the 19 year old that comes out with us all the time) set up an appointment for us with one of his friends! Her name is S-- and she is pretty cool. We had a really good first lesson with her and invited her to be baptized. She is super open and accepted the invitation. Her only hold up will be getting her to church because she works only on the weekends all the way through church. But other than that S-- seems very sincere and interested to learn! Pretty cool experience for Z-- to invite his friend and have her start taking lessons. The reason he invited S-- was one day at the P--'s there was a party and she was there and we told him to go ask her if she would be interested and without hesitation Z-- went right over there and had a good long chat with her and another friend and shared his testimony and after that she said she would like to learn! Awesome experience! After our lesson with her she actually fed us! It was a pleasant surprise. Although I was a little apprehensive due to the fact that as soon as we left we had to go to the Bishop's for our real dinner appointment! During which we challenged him and his family to share the Book of Mormon we had given them a few weeks ago. And then we went over some names with Bishop that we had on our list that we didn't recognize. During the prayer for dinner his little boy T-- said something I thought was very interesting and inspiring (and he didn't do it on purpose but I noticed it) and I'll just quote him..."Please bless the food that we are thankful for" Rather than blessing all the food he only blessed the food that we were thankfull for. I told Elder Hoyt afterwards that I hoped he was thankfull for it all otherwise it wasn't all blessed! 

Tuesday was another District Meeting, afterwhich we went to the Olds home again. I don't remember if I told you before about them but Brother O-- is actually 92 years old and his wife is not a member. Brother Cromar from the Bishopric asked us to stop by and helped G-- (bro o--) put up some curtains. When we got there Mamason (sister olds) would not let us put them up and said it was too much work. G-- being the typical old stubborn man wouldn't give in and devised a plan with us and their caretakers to get Mamason out of the house on Thursday and when she was gone we came in with G--, found where she had hid the curtains, put them up, and rearranged the front room to G--'s liking. It really looks a lot better, but I can gaurantee is shocked his wife when she got back! Haha None the less Mamason surprised us and took our invitation and came to church for the first time this last Sunday! It was amazing to see her walk inside the building! Wednesday we went to Riverside for another Trainer/trainee meeting which was a lot of fun to catch up with Elder Tui'one and others I've served around. That afternoon we taught V-- and her two kids B-- and A--  half of the first lesson. It's going to be a slow process because unlike what they made it seem like to us, they don't really have a good knowledge of religion so we will be teaching them small and simple things. But they have a lot of questions which is good and there can be a lot of potential with them. That night we got to teach another one of Z--'s friends and played ball with him and some other guys in the stake at the church. It was a lot of fun! I wish we could do that every week but I don't think we will. he wasn't too interested but there is definitely a seed planted there.

Thursday we spent most of the morning at the O-- doing their curtains and after lunch we saw A-- and did a little weekly planning. Friday morning we did some yard work for a sister in the Lake Perris ward and came back to finish up our weekly planning we hadn't gotten done. Saturday was a super good day.We switched things up a little and went on exchanges with Elder Felix and Elder Vang. Elder Felix came with me and Elder Vang (who came out with Elder Hoyt) took Hoyt into his area for the day. We wanted to give our trainees a chance to do things on their own. It turned out to be really good. We did some service that morning and then had a little lesson with A__. Afterwhich we drove to Menifee so I could give two baptismal interviews! It was a really good experience for me and exciting to see this mom and her daughter making the step to be baptized! They were baptized yesterday after many years of waiting! Felix and I picked up a new investigator named C who we will be seeing tomorrow, and stopped by E--'s and had a good little lesson with her about the Book of Mormon. She seems super interested and committed to read! That night we finished the exchange and found that our companions had found some new people to teach and had a pretty successful day together! Sunday was church which was really good and at 5 I got to see Bill again! Guess why!?! Cuz he was my ride to A__'s baptism!!!!!!! It was an amazing baptism and absolutely amazing to see her finally be able to get baptized and see the difference in her when she came up out of the water! I am so happy and proud of her! Now the missionaries just have to work on her dad R__! On the way back Bill and I stopped at his house and had some soup and a slice of pie! It was so great! It brought me back to Pie Night a year ago! I loved it!

We ended the week with 26 lessons! the most I've had so far! It was a really good week and I am looking forward to this upcoming week! I hope you all have a great week and stay safe! Can't wait to hear from you again. I hope you got the flash drive. Let me know if you did. Love you all!

Love,

Elder Bushman