Promptings/MTC Mafia/Talent Show - Dec 28, 2010

Here's the second email from Jon. BE WARNED, we did not fix his spelling. It appears that his Honors English classes (and Spelling Bee awards) have gone out the window in favor of Italian. I have provided annotations for some confusing parts.

Ciao!

Before i really get started about the week i just want to say that this feels really weird using english; a couple anziani and i decided to go the whole day with out english, and it's turning out to be really helpful.

Martedi- Our first p-day felt kinda wierd.... We didnt have class or anything, and we didnt even get anything done that we should have, and i really regretted it... I had a hole in my new sweater i needed to patch, and shoes to polish and niether got accomplished.... oh well. The choir's musical number was pretty fun though (i was in it, along with the rest of my district, but i cant remember the name of the song we sang...)

Mercoledi- Okay, first off, let me just say that Anziano Webb and I have had A TON of ups and downs since we got here, but wednesday definitely was an "up." We were supposed to be practicing teaching about the restoration (but it always got side-tracked to another topic), and another companionship in our district was pretending to be investigators, and it got intense. Anz. Hater we later found out was portraying what he would be like iif he didn't have faith. He would say things like "Well, if I was God, i'd be bending over backwards to make sure my children made it back to me" and we tried for about 40min to convince him that God was doing everything possible, but he didn't think so. And it wasn't until (and mind you, this thought flickered through my mind at least 3x and i ignored it untill my companion finally brought it up) my companion had Anz Hater read John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave His Only Begotten Son" that he felt the spirit truly testify to Him that God does love us, and that He did do everything he could to help us return to him.

Giovedi- Ehhh, i don't remember exactll all that happened, but i know we made some "lame di luce" (lightsabers)

Venerdi- Reminded me of waiting in line for a midnight showing. so, there are over 2000 missionaries at the MTC, and we all figured an apostle or the prophet would speak to us around Christmas, so when Christmas Eve devotional came, we got in line at about 5. And the Devo started at 7. It was awesome. we took lightsaber pictures and memorized sciptures unitll the rest of our italian mafia (zone) arrived and then we were asked to help pass out popcorn treats to all the missionaries after the devotional, so we got to go in an hour before everyone else and save our own seats. Unfortuantely, there was no apostle friday night, BUT it was still a great devotional.

Sabato- Christmas was awesome. We went and had our meager MTC breakfast, and then our district joined together to open presents, by the way, I LOVED my presents, theyre perfect! thanks mom, dad, chelsea, and zac! oh, and i recorded that 20 min on my camera, so you can watch that when it gets there in like 2 days. After that, we went to the CHristmas talent show, and it was AMAZING! it lasted about 3hrs, and about 90% of the performances were outstanding. I also recorded like 3 of those, but my bvattery died, so i couldn't keep recording. Butt! you should call the MTC and see if you can get a recording or something, it'll be worth it. After the talent show was a pretty decent turkey "powder" (-Anz. Hater) and gravy, and theen we immediately got in line for the next devotional. on our way there we saw up at the front office that something was going on, and my companion noticed that elder Russell M Nelson was there, so we rushed to get in line, and of course, the italian mafia had dibs on the first couple rows. Causer we're that cool. I don't have much time to talk about what he said, but the biggest thing that struck me is that he was VERY intellectual. He dissected a lot of words, and connected all the sccriptures together, and w/o any notes. It was amazing. We also heard from him that night and in priesthood on Sunday.

Domenica- ruinning out of time, nothin special happened though. stayed awake during my meetings, so that's improvement.

Lunedi- we met with Giacomo (one of our techers portraying an former investigator he had) for the second time and things went great. We had planned on teaching him about the plan of slavation [salvation - but funny mistake], but the Spirit led us otherwise, and we ended up discussing faith, and having enough faith to pray, and by the end of the lesson he was praying for us, and excited to keep praying, again, sorry i cant give too many details, i only have 3 minuti left.

Martedi- today was awesome. a HUHGE improvement from last p-day. anz hater, terry, parrish and i are not speaking english (only italian) and it's great. Also, i had been missing my italian scriptures for 3 days now, and really didnt want to buy a new set, and i found it today! so that was a huge answer to prayers. We played a lot of ches today, while i folded my clothes and we snacked on christmas junk.

umm... quick extras; i'm currently in the process of translatinmg "i love the lord" to italian, almost dont [done], i'll have it to you guys next week =P and.... ya. mom, dont worry about sending too many letters, you can send as many as you want. same goes to the rest of you, i like herain [hearing] ohow things are goin.

CIAO!

ci vediamo!

We made out pretty good for being in the MTC on Christmas!

Let's open then up already...

One of my Christmas presents - this is what too much down time can do:/

My Christmas PJ's

Now, how did he do that!

Chess and spray cheese - - what else could I need?

Anz Smith and I

I had to give a lesson on polishing/shining Sunday shoes...

My first mending job...the first of many, I am sure.

Look what I can do!!!

FREE and EASY Way to Send a Letter

For anyone that wants a FREE and EASY way to send a letter to Jon, you can use dearelder.com. Once you go to that site, on the left side click on the link that says, "Provo MTC (FREE)" and fill out the form like the picture below:

Then type your letter in the text box and click "Send Letter". These letters are printed out Monday through Friday before noon and put in the missionary's mailbox. This service is free as long as the missionary is in the MTC.

Jon's time on the computer is limited to 30 minutes every Tuesday (P-day), so he's not able to spend time answering personal emails. With that in mind, if you want him to write back, make sure you give him your mailing address.

If you'd like to send him a letter the old-fashioned / analog way (so, 20th century), while he's in the MTC send letters to:

Elder Jonathan Robert Bushman
Provo MTC Box 159-0222
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604

And after February 13 (roughly) send them to:

Anziano Bushman
Italy Milan Mission
Via Gramsci, 13/4
20090 Opera MI
Italy

2nd Italian dist./MTC food - Dec 25, 2010

Dear Family & Friends,

Before I finish telling you about the week a few things… please make sure anyone who wants to write to me knows how to use DearElder.com, or they can use standard mail, but please don’t email back to the address that I use, because I only have 30 minutes to access that each week.

Anyways, P-days are Tuesdays, so that’s the only time I can write/email, but I get letters anytime Monday through Friday (we check 2 times a day). I talked about my district in the email, so I won’t repeat that, but the other Italian district that came in is also pretty hilarious. I only know about 4 out of 8 of them:

Anz. Schuern is from Gilbert (I think he went to Basha High) and is like best friends with the English and French anziani.

Anz. Wilkey is from Southern England and is hilarious. When we first met our branch president (4 Italian districts & 4 Portuguese districts) our president said something about wearing pants, or needing to wear pants for the service activities and Anz. Wilkey raised his hand and said “Excuse me, what are pants?” hahaha…it was funny. Apparently pants = underwear in England and trousers = what we call pants. Anz. Portelano is his companion, and he’s from France and is hilarious as well. He speaks better Italian than English, so that’s always fun.

My teachers are great. Fratello Calder served in the Milan mission, and one of the first things he told us was that Italy has 3 degrees of glory…well now, there’s only 2 missions, but you get the idea (Milan = Exaltation). Ya, it was funny. He’s a great teacher and has as exceptional knowledge of the language and grammar.

Sarella Swensen is basically an angel. She always knows exactly how to invite the spirit, and she’s the nicest person here by far.

Sunday night we had an AWESOME fireside. The main speaker was acting as Willard Richards (close friend to Joseph Smith) and he performed the entire account of the persecutions and trials that Joseph Smith went through. He was talking 60mph and did not even stop to catch his breath or get a drink of water (about 75 minutes). It was great. The musical number, not so great. It just had no movement, so it kinda was a let down, but oh well. Choir was alright. There’s too many people for it to be fun. The food is pretty good. Definitely not amazing, but better than having to cook for myself. My guess is all those RM’s (Return Missionaries) that claim the food was amazing just didn’t have a mom as amazing as you. Oh well.

Ciao

-Anziano Bushman

My district/Gift of Tongues - Dec 21, 2010

Ok, well I only have 20 minutes to type this because I had to waste time recovering my LDS account username and password, but oh well. And you can post this entire letter if you want on the site you made (or are making).

So, just to answer a few of the questions you had: P-days are Tuesdays; I get mail twice a day (lunch-12pm and dinner-5pm), and Dad, I got your message Monday after dinner.

Alright, well, the MTC has been great so far, and I’m not gonna spell check, so excuse any mistakes. My companion's name is Anziano Webb, he's from Provo, and he's our district leader. I have 6 Anziani in my district, and our district, as well as the new district that arrived last Wednesday, are all going to the Milan mission. Both districts are pretty sweet. I share a room with my companion and Anziano Terry and Anziano Parrish. Anziano Terry is pretty quiet most of the time, but he's warming up to us, and is super excited about learning the language. Anziano Parrish has studied Spanish enough to think he's fluent in it, and so he brings up any and every opportunity he gets to talk about Spanish, and that's why we made out first “commandamento del distretto”, and it was "Thou shalt not speak pagan languages." We now have 8 commandamenti, and several other inside jokes including hilarious quotes from each other. Anziano Jeter (Hater) is probably the most quotable. He was a dancer back home and therefore is very healthy and I guess "dainty" would be a good way to describe him. I'll give you quotes later when I have time, but Anziano Hater (that's how you would pronounce Jeter in Italian) is pretty awesome. His companion is Anziano Ellsworth, who was home-schooled and is probably the most shy of us, but I think he's starting to like us as well.

My companion has been having some rough night's sleep, and has been waking up with a sore throat each morning that lasts the entire day (just like when I would sleep with my window open) and has therefore been VERY grumpy the past two days, and kind of hard to deal with.... and I know that's just one of the many trials I need to get through, but it's rough... It's hard though because the first few days we got along so well, so I really think its just cause he's worn out, but I know that I can still do more.

As far as curriculum goes, we have memorized our purpose in Italian, and we're trying to have section 4 memorized by Sunday. We learned how to pray in Italian on Thursday, and have been saying all our prayers in Italian ever since, and learned our testimonies in Italian Friday and have been sharing them as well ever since. Both have also been growing exponentially since we learned them. The gift of tongues is a huge blessing here, and I am having no problem at all with the language, and my time's up....sorry.

I'm going to try and send letters back as well that will be more personal, but I can only write those whose addresses I have. Mom, you have the authority to edit, or do whatever you want with this email. I love you guys!

¡Arrivederci!

Anziano Bushman

Waiting for the Devotional

District Commandments

Christmas has come to the MTC

Me and Anziano Webb

Goodbye at the Airport

There is nothing to prepare a family to say goodbye for 2 years! This is probably the best hard thing any of us has done so far...

Mom, Anziano Bushman, Dad, Chelsea and Zac

He is ready!

Set Apart on Dec 14

Jon was set apart for his mission on Tuesday, Dec 14, 2010 at the Stake Center. Tons of family and friends were there:) We didn't think to take pictures except for this one. Luis, David and Danny will all leave on missions in the next several months - - all good friends from Jon's priest quorum in the Gilbert 9th Ward, Gilbert Val Vista Stake of Zion.

Luis, David, Jon and Daniel

From left to right: .