TO EVERYONE:
Sooooo this week in the middle of the night i woke up to my companion talking! and yes, she was giving a tour in her sleep. she doesnt remember any of it but i sure do! Sister Moss in her sleepy voice started out "Heber C Kimball was a man of faith...." and went on for a few minutes! haha quite a funny experience.
oh and the other thing was that we experienced our first tornado warning. so the siren went off during a storm and we sorta all freaked out. i wasnt as scared tho so i did my best to keep my companions calm haha. we were in the basement for like 20 minutes tops. (the basement did begin to flood tho haha) anyways, when our district leader called and said it was safe we went back upstairs. the next day we discovered that a lightning bolt from the rainstorm had hit the tornado alarm system and accidentally made it go off! so it was a false alarm all along haha. but it was still a fun adventure!
okay, also transfers!! This upcoming tuesday sister Yamamoto will come. she is from Japan and has been in the provo MTC learning english. Sister Jones and sis Y will be companions, and will be moved to Carthage. a few other people will move around but most everyone will stay the same. sis Beckwith and sis Teauge from Carthage (our STLs) will move into our yellow house with us. i will still be with sis Moss! i am excited for sis Jones too. Carthage is wonderful, and she will be a good companion to sis Y. (she is already trying to learn some Japanese for her haha) so thats the change! nothing to huge! ill be with sis Moss for a while more! yaya(:
quick spiritual thought: "the eye of faith" is a phrase used in the scriptures. What does it mean? I feel that people often say that we dont need to see the future, because we have faith. and that is a cool idea. but i like to say that it is because we have faith that we can see the future. When a person has faith in Jesus Christ, their lives begin to change. their hearts are transformed and so is their future. faith in Christ allows us to see miracles in our lives, it allows us to see the promises of God being fulfilled. faith in Christ allows us to feel the truths of the gospel, thus giving us an anchor to hold on to in stormy waters. I encourage you to study faith if you are in stormy waters. and if you arent, i still encourage you to study faith! because storms can come very suddenly sometimes and as you prepare you can be ready to sail safely. you can try reading in Alma 32, Ether 12, Hebrews 11, and 1 Nephi 8. all great chapters. also if you would like any conference talks on the subject i can give you some! i have more than 40 haha. just let me know.
thank you so much for all your support! you guys are amazing(:
have a great week!
Sister Bush
TO MOM AND DAD:::
yes! the purpose of the book of mormon is the same as my purpose! that is why the book of mormon is so powerful in the hands of a missionary. my problem is, im not quite sure how to use the scriptures more during tours. because it almost seems weird to whip out your scriptures in the middle of a tour to illustrate a point. you know? and so im thinking on maybe memorizing some so that i can quote them? im not quite sure how i will do it, but i do know that i want to use the book of mormon more in my teaching.
thank you for your love, testimony and prayers! i am so grateful for your support. it comes in various ways: pictures, emails, testimonies, spiritual thoughts, sweet memories, prayers, ect. i love you guys! i hope and try to support you too(:
also! i really appreciate the lyrics you sent me hahaha my companions and i love to sing it randomly while we are in the house.
ive been busy on pdays, but president doesnt give us a time limit so ive been pretty good about replying to people. i dont spend a super long time emailing, but i do get enough time to reply to pretty much everyone! maybe i just dont get a lot of emails haha. i dont know but i love talking to anyone who emails me!
your story about faith preceding the miracle is inspiring! I LOVE IT. it reminds me of the story when Heber C Kimball was called on a mission with Brigham Young to England and both of their families (and them included) where sick with malaria. they couldnt even walk on their own and their wives couldnt get out of bed. they postponed the mission for a bit, but then decided to leave anyways because they wanted to serve and had faith that God would heal their families! they said goodbye to their children shaking with fever and their wives laying ill in bed. they even needed help getting in the wagon the day they left. they were just so sick and they knew they probably wouldnt see their families for a couple years. i cant imagine the faith they had. what i love is how they gave their families a cheer. this is where the "hurrah hurrah hurrah for Israel!" comes from. they gave a cheer, Heber C Kimballs wife got out of bed to wave them off saying "God bless you" and they were off. what a huge sacrifice. and the Lord blessed them greatly for it. Heber C Kimball and other missionaries in England were blessed with 6,400 converts (who eventually came to Nauvoo.) amazing right! the greater the sacrifice, the greater the miracle! though your story of faith and moving records to the ward is not the same haha i do feel that the principle is the same. faith before the miracle. wow you guys are amazing. pioneers in the Bush family(;
first off! fathers day call! it was so good to see you guys. it really made my day. but the weird thing is i feel like the call was only like 5 minutes long! and then all of the sudden i was back into my crazy missionary life haha. it was fantastic to see all of your faces and be able to have an actual conversation. i love you all so dearly.
on sunday i got an extra interview in with president Lusvardi and it was good! a ten minute interview. even though we pretty much never get to talk one on one, i feel that President Lusvardi completely understands me and cares about me. he is a very busy guy yet whenever i talk to him i can always see how genuine he is. what a nice man haha
okay. so. have you ever wanted the spirit of prophecy? like reading through the gifts of the spirit and thought "man it would be cool if i had that one." i know i have. well this week i learned that anyone can have it. and heres the quote to prove it!
"“Revelation may be given to every member of the Church. The Prophet said that every man should be a prophet; that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. It is not only the privilege but the duty of each member of the Church to know the truth which will make him free. This he cannot know unless it is revealed to him. …The gift of the Holy Ghost is given to the members of the Church so that they may have the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Let it be understood however, that they will not receive revelation for the guidance of the Church” (Joseph Fielding Smith)
isnt that amazing! if you have a witness that Jesus is the Christ, you have the spirit of prophecy. this didnt make sense at first to me, but as i realized that the 12 apostles and first presidency have a special witness and have the spirit of prophecy i realized that it was because they had that special witness that they have the spirit of prophecy. once realizing that, it hit me that i am right now a special witness of Christ- and have been taught to promise people blessings. If i am speaking by the spirit, I am speaking for the Lord. therefore, i have the spirit of prophecy. wow. what an honor and burden that is upon the shoulders of every missionary in the church! and what a blessing for the members of the church that have so many people filled with the spirit of prophecy. you two have the spirit of prophecy as well- just for your own individual lives and for the family. but still! how cool is that! if you have a testimony of Christ, you have the spirit of prophecy. wow. anyways, thats just ONE of the amazing things i have learned this week!
this week we have served in the Heber C Kimball home and the Seventies Hall. these sites are slower in the morning, so we got to watch the youth devotional by Pres Nelson and other cool things like that! can i just say holy cow about the youth devotional. so cool! i was awestruck. the spirit was very strong, and i realized that these really are the latter days.
because we have a lot of free time at the sites we not only study and learn amazing things from the spirit for hours every day but we also do fun things! haha im sure youve noticed. we are currently working on a tangled parody song- the morning song by many Moore- except we are making it about our sites and what we do when no one comes to visit haha. it is pretty hilarious, we will send the video when we are done.
i know it might look like all we do is mess around.... thats probably because those are the only times we use our cameras! anyways i promise that the majority of what we actually do is missionary work(;
speaking of missionary work, let me tell you about Heidi. i know i mentioned her before but there is more! Heidi is amazing. she has a lot of trials in her life but Nauvoo has changed her. the change is pretty drastic too. in the past she has not only been inactive but has gone down a dark lonely scary path. Nauvoo has completely turned her around. she has a testimony now. she has a goal to get her endowments and be sealed to her daughter. and she wants to do it here in Nauvoo. she plans on coming back next summer. i have faith that she will. i kind of think of her as my first progressing investigator. we will keep teaching her while she goes home and starts on the path to the temple. she is so grateful for us that she picked out artwork of the savior for us and gave it to us. each art piece is different and beautiful. Heidi told me that she picked mine because she knows of my love for the Savior and has been inspired by the relationship i have with Him. she says i have helped her get back on her feet. i was so grateful for that. we love her and we will continue to help her achieve her goal of going to the temple!!!! man i love being a missionary.
ahhh yes the tornado warning siren thing. so it went off during a storm and we sorta all freaked out. i wasnt as scared tho so i did my best to keep them calm haha. we were in the basement for like 20 minutes tops. (the basement did begin to flood tho haha) anyways when our district leader called and said it was safe we went back upstairs. the next day we discovered that a lightning bolt from the rainstorm had hit the tornado alarm system and accidentally made it go off! so it was a false alarm all along haha. anyways it was still a fun adventure!
so this week we had a mission tour with elder Kim B Clark of the 70. he is so great!! he gave a young adult devotional a while back about Joseph Smith so it was really cool to get to see him and hear what he had to say! he gave a lesson about being a successful missionary. he promised that if we develop these 5 attributes we will be successful:
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
obedience
having the Holy Ghost with us
loving the people
working hard
his message was great! i learned a lot from him, from his wife, and from the spirit. also i got to meet him and shake his hand so that was cool. a lot of the sisters got to give tours to him but we werent one of those :( which is sad cuz we were at the 70s hall and hes a 70! so we thought for sure he would come! i guess not haha. it was cool to learn from him anyways. also sister Bonnie L Oscarson was here this week. we didnt get to meet her though. but still cool! im sure more general authorities will come.
oh ps in preparation for elder Clark they had us read some scriptures- one was alma 32. at the time in my personal study i was also in 1 nephi 8. as matchy matchies go, i dont know why i have never noticed all the cool things before! it is amazing! you have to check it out. i love the imagery of growing our own little tree of life in our hearts <3
okay okay transfers. soooo on tuesday, sister Yamamoto will come. she is from Japan and has been in the provo MTC learning english. Sister Jones and sis Y will be companions, and will be transferred to carthage. a few other people will move around but most everyone will stay the same. sis Beckwith and sis Teauge from carthage (our STLs) will move into our yellow house with us. i will still be with sis Moss! so that is good cuz she is my bestie. i am excited for sis Jones too. Carthage is wonderful, and she will be a good companion to sis Y. (she is already trying to learn some Japanese for her haha) so thats the change! nothing to huge! ill be with sis Moss for a while more! yaya(: this week we will serve at Heber C, the Tin shop and family living center.
this week im emailing late because we went to a baptism in burlington! (an hour-ish away) Patty visits Nauvoo a lot and has been taking the discussions for months. so i dont know her super well but we went to support her and she was so happy! the baptism was small, humble and a sweet spirit was there. so great!
and last of all you saw the video of us having an ice cream dinner! haha that was so fulfilling it made me happy and feel a little more at home(: im glad i have such a great district that will help me with my weird and wonderful family traditions!
last thing: this week i felt that i wasnt really doing my all as a missionary. its not that i was doing a bad job because i wasnt. ii was doing a good job. but I knew i could do more and Heavenly Father knew i could do more. at first i was discouraged as i realized that i had been slacking. but then with gratitude for the atonement of Christ i put it behind me, and just started new. im much happier now as i have been giving my all. i give my all to the tours, to my studies, to my companions, to my prayers, to my service- to everything. and i do it with faith in Christ that as i give my all, He will make it enough! i havent changed anything im doing drastically, but in my heart i can feel the difference. and i love it. isnt the gospel of Jesus Christ just the most wonderful thing you can even think of? because it is so wonderful, i spend quite a lot of time thinking of it. and because im doing that, my spirit has just been so happy (:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:
sooooooo im really honored to be your daughter. you two mean so much to me. i love you so so much, it isnt even logical haha.
cant wait to hear from you again!
hugs, prayers, more hugs, and more prayers!
love,
