August 8, 2018

Hello all! 

the title of my email today is a quote from the Nauvoo pageant, and it is Brother Lairds way of describing the gospel. it tastes good. I decided to quote him for many reasons. 

first reason: pageant is over. for this year anyways. and im super bummed about that! but i am excited for next year, im already counting down the days haha.

second reason: this week i have learned a new truth in the gospel of Jesus Christ and it tastes so good to me! I shall explain in a series of quotes, scriptures, experiences and thoughts. sorry if its boring, i just gotta tell someone!! 

have you ever wondered why God doesnt seem to answer your prayers? I know I have. and i realized the fault is not on His end, its on mine. 

Moroni 7:9 states "And likewise also is it counted evil unto man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such." 

God receiveth none such? when reading this i suddenly realized that if we do not pray with real intent, He doesnt even receive our prayers! so how could He answer them if He does not get them? and so i wondered why we have to be sincere for Him to receive them.

 the answer came when I was again reading in the Book of Mormon, this time in Alma 7:21.""And he doth not dwell in unholy temples; neither can filthiness or anything which is unclean be received into the kingdom of God;" 

 if you arent praying sincerely, with real intent, your heart is not pure and your prayer cannot make it to heaven. it would be against all the laws of heaven and earth for your prayer to be received by a pure, perfect God if your prayer is not sincere and pure. learning this truth just astounded me! I realized just how many prayers of mine never reached heaven because i was not sincere. i now have a goal to not just say words when i pray but to have real intent, a humble and sincere heart. 

everything is summed up well with a quote by elder wirthlin which says:

"Prayers that do not demand much of your thought will hardly merit much attention from your Heavenly Father. When you find yourself getting into a routine with your prayers, step back and think. meditate for awhile on the things for which you are really are grateful."

wow. what a new perspective i have on prayer. it is meant to be a conversation with our Heavenly Father, not an order for blessings. I have so much ive learned about it I could go on and on. 

anyways! i invite you to evaluate your prayers! if you arent sure how to, try looking over the evaluation in preach my gospel on page 95. it is awesome. 

well, sorry for going on and on about prayer! but it just shows how much I love talking to my Heavenly Father! 

and i love talking to you guys too. have a wonderful week!

yours truly,

Sister Bush

email to family:

Hello!!!! 

I'm so so so so glad you guys are officially moved in haha. And I'm excited to look at the pictures of the house!! 

Sister Swaney is very cool. When we give tours together, she is the Alma to my Amulek. She has a strong, sincere testimony that always compliments mine. So that's great.  This week we have been working on bearing pure testimony. It has had a huge effect on me and I can tell it makes a big difference to the guests. The difference between a testimony and a pure testimony is explained in a conference talk by elder ballard. Check it out. Oct 2004. 

I do miss sister Moss but I got to see her quite a bit this past week so that's good! Now that pageant is over tho we don't see each other as much :/ 

So! This week elder Brent h neilson of the 70 came to visit! He gave some REALLY awesome talks and trainings. I was very inspired. I'll send some of my notes your way haha cuz their talks inspired me to study further and it's been cool. 

We've been pretty busy here at Carthage, on Sunday from 12-5 alone we had like 670 visitors! Crazy. But then our numbers dropped to like 150 on Monday because people left since pageant is over. So now we are decently slow. And it will get even more slow as soon as the young performing missionaries leave... (sadness) 

When I sang in British pageant for the last time I cried a little. I can't believe it's already over.  The show ends at like 1015 but we all stay and have to put up all the chairs, clean up trash, put away equipment from the stage and stuff and help clean up the stage! We didn't get to bed until like 1 or so, and we left early. Then we had church at 730 the next morning and it was fast Sunday and we had a million tours. Man we were exhausted haha it was crazy. 

In Carthage on the tour, one of my favorite favorite parts of the tour is when I get to recite the first vision. The spirit just fills the room to testify of his experience. I love it because the kids calm down and we are able to start off the tour with the spirit. 

This week we had a little girl in our tour that bled where Joseph bled! Outside the jail, by the well, her older brother pushed her and she wacked her head on the stone. Blood everywhere. It turned out okay cuz she just cut her lip but it was a kinda scary moment! 

The abeytas came this week! Boy was I surprised when I walked back in the VC after a tour and I saw them waiting there! I got to give their tour and it was super weird! But so good to see them at the same time. I love those guys. They said they will come back next summer since they aren't too far away(: 

There was a really cool tour I got to give with a brother and sister (old folks) who couldn't climb the stairs to the martyrdom room. So I got to give the virtual tour, and instead of playing the tape that plays in that room I got to read it. It was so powerful. I sang the song that plays too. We were all crying, the spirit was so strong and these two were so sweet. Moments like that just make my mission. 

On Sunday we had dinner with the hughes! They are so great. And funny too! Sister hughes kinda reminds me of you mom haha we also watched 17 miracles with them. Sis Yamamoto is really fun to watch movies with! 

We also had a cool tour with the Wilsons. A couple that had just dropped their kids off at efy. They had already taken a tour but told us they wanted a second one! That's rare! So we took them through again and at the end we were all crying, the spirit was so strong. It was a long story but they basically said they felt they needed to go through it again because they needed a tour from us- to hear our testimonies. It was amazing. 

I'm teaching sis Jones and Swaney how to budget lol. I'm actually doing pretty good with eating healthy and still budgeting! So I'm proud of myself. 

Another cool tour! Sis Swaney and I got to give a tour to a bunch of missionaries in the Iowa mission who are about to go home. I felt prompted to testify of the Book of Mormon, invite them to cling to it and promise that it would give them guidance in what they next needed in their lives. It was pretty cool. 

This week I called Heidi to see how she's doing! It was good to see her, encourage her and update her. We talked a lot about seeing the Book of Mormon with new eyes. I love it...

 I love you guys so much!! 

You mean everything to me (: 

Your loving daughter and missionary 

Sister Bush