God is Guiding His Work! - March 24, 2011

We had a scambio on Monday, and so I was in charge of our area, even though I’ve only been here 3 weeks. When we pulled out the bikes, for some reason I checked my tires and saw that they were kind of flat, and then for some other reason, I didn’t think that I should fill them up. So, we went to our appointment, and when we were a couple hundred meters away, I ran over a nail and popped a tire. I immediately started blaming myself and wished that I had pumped up the tire in the morning. The rest of the day was kind of difficult getting from place to place on foot. We eventually found a bike store, but with every step that I had to roll my bike I was almost mad at myself for not pumping up that tire. We did get to all of our appointments that day, and when the night came I went to pump up the other tire, (because in the morning I saw that they both could use some air) and found that the pump was broken, and all the air was released from my bike. I was left with a completely flat tire and no pump. So that was another awesome excitement. After a night of thinking things through, however, I was able to find a hand pump to fix the flat tire. But the part that really got me is that if I had ignored that strange feeling I had to not pump up the bike tires the morning before, then I would have had a flat tire from the second the day started, and who knows how long it would have taken me to find the extra pump, or find a solution. And for all I know, we may not have gotten to any of our appointments on time. And, although it took me more than 24 hrs to realize it, I know that that was the Holy Ghost guiding me the morning before, and telling me to not pump up the tires, because He knew that the pump was broken, and that that day could have been ruined pretty badly.

It may sound strange, and it may sound a little crazy, but if you were out here, and if you could see all the things that happen out here, you would know too, without a doubt, that this is the work of God. And that the growth of his Kingdom is not going to be stopped even for a second by a flat tire, or anything.

We were actually just talking last night about how blessed we are here, and how much power we have as missionaries, and we connected it to being completely without distractions, and completely dedicated. Then we started talking about when we get home (at first I didn’t want to worry about that far ahead, but then I ended up feeling like this was one of those <<decide to do it now>> kind of things) and how hard it will be to keep this power. I mean, some things we won't be able to do, because we won’t have the call of a missionary anymore, but we can still keep all the rules, and receive A LOT of power to work miracles, but it's going to take a lot, and it's kind of scary thinking about it, because most missionaries actually plan on not following all the same rules. We didn’t plan on following the same rules either, and then missionaries try and do the same things they used to do (with bringing people to the gospel) but they don’t have the same power because they’re not making the same sacrifices. Obviously I won't be able to devote my entire life to preaching the gospel, but I will still be able to be seen as a disciple of Jesus Christ at all times, but that's going to mean a lot.... I won't be able to listen to the same music, I won't be able to see all the same movies, everything will have to change, and I can honestly say that I have never been made to be so afraid by something ever. But then we started talking about all the things we will still be able to do, all the music that is still uplifting, all the games, and sports, and other things (this list is still very hard to remember, but I'm trying) and it gives us a little bit of hope...

 And I'm not boasting of myself when I say this (just amazed at the power of the Lord, as was Ammon) but the Lord has worked some serious miracles through us already. My second day of being here, we had weekly planning and my companion had asked me to be thinking about a transfer vision. Namely, how many people we were going to bring into the Fold of God this transfer. And he gave me some great talks about goal setting, and we prayed about it. Now, I had no idea what I was getting into, and this number definitely did not come from me, but when Anz Jenson asked me how many people we were going to baptize this transfer, I said 7. I later found out that that was more than the entire mission baptized in this last month of January, and that 7 was kind of really unheard of. But, we knew we had to do it. When we made that goal, we made a covenant with the Lord to keep it. So the weeks went by, and we found a solid 3 people after about 2.5 weeks, that will be ready to be baptized on April 9th. But we needed 4 more, and for some strange reason (which I originally thought was pointless, and kind of strange) my companion set a new goal that those remaining 4 would be a family of 4. So we went on, working with all we had, and staying positive even after all the doors slammed in our face, and the countless amount of people that did not want to listen. And at the end of that week we knocked on another door, and they let us in, and long story short, there were 4 of them, and they were very accepting of everything we taught, and wanted to hear more. We immediately took this to be our four that we had prayed for, and we were just stoked. A couple days later though, we found out that we had been misreading them, and they definitely weren’t going to be ready by the 9th of April. So we continued on, and as each day went by, it seemed less and less possible, but we knew the Lord would guide us to find this family if we did everything he asked. And now we were down to the point where we truly needed a miracle, because this family of four would at least need to come to church twice before baptism, and we only have one more church service before April 9th. But Tuesday night, due to no direct effort of our own, in ward council one of the members mentioned, almost in passing, that there was a part-member family (we believe he said the mother was baptized, and there was a 9, 10, and 12 yr old, and also the husband) that was wanting to be baptized, and we're helping them move in on Saturday! And we know that this is far from over. Even after we baptize 7 people on April 9th we won’t be even close to over. We have also considered the fact that these may not be the 4 that will be baptized on the 9th, but it gave me great hope, and proved to me that God can and will do anything for those who keep his commandments.

I brought this up because the same thing can happen back home, and we know it. And we want to be able to find the people for the missionaries (and participate in the lessons with them) and be those instruments of God to deliver his children to the missionaries, but one of the things I have learned is that we need to be willing to sacrifice everything. That has become very real to me. And back home in Arizona, I feel that there is a lot more of me to sacrifice.... But I know that it's what I want to do. I just have to make sure I can be strong enough when that time comes.

Claudio is as solid as ever! He's a little worried about the physical movements of baptism, just because he's older, and a little larger, and his hip troubles him a lot.... But the Lord will help him, and we'll make sure he knows that.

As far as food goes, we normally just eat pasta, and it's just super delicious. And all the sauces we use have detailed ingredients, so I'm starting to record the ones I like so I can make them on my mission and after. We eat a lot of fruit, and I can’t say I’ve had a pizza that has blown my mind yet, but then again my companion doesn’t really feel the need to eat anything delicious. I haven’t had a white pizza like Bishop Slater was talking about, so I’m going to start looking for one... but yeah. Its good, but I know it can be better.

con tant'amore

Anziano Bushman

My first Baptismal Committment! - March 16, 2011

Buon Giorno,

Well, ironically enough, right after hearing about Anziano Cluff's situation last week, we went to Milano for p-day fun, and we met up with our zone leaders, because Anz Jenson is like in love with them or something. Idk. He's crazy. (also a side note, I had my first burger king in milan, right next to the Duomo, which by the way is pretty cool), and it tasted exactly the same, and twice the price. ALSO the Italians taking my order kept trying to correct how I said hamburger. Cause they’re wrong. It was funny.) ANYWAYS, Anziano Cluff and his new companion were with the zone leaders. Apparently that was his first day in Milano, and he had been transferred for some reason or another that he didn’t tell me. But anyways, I got to spend a couple hours with him as we walked around Milano, and made sure he was doing okay. I saw him again (and Anziano Schuern) in stake conference this last sunday, and Anz Cluff said he was doing a lot better, and that he liked this area wayyyy more than his last, so that was good to hear! I kind of feel like although I've been released as their zone leaders, I still have a legitimate ability/responsibility to make sure they’re doing okay, but I like it =)

Claudio. Claudio is awesome. We found him my first week here, and he's about 65-70 yrs old, he's short, and fairly large, and AWESOME! We've taught him about 4x, and he came to church a week ago. The only real thing we've had a problem with, is that he likes to pray using written prayers. And we've talked about praying from the start, and he keeps telling us that he knows he needs to use his own words, but for some reason he doesn’t...  And he's read all the way up to Mosiah in the book of Mormon already, and he loves it. So, this last Saturday we challenged him to baptism. At first we were worried, because at times it has seemed like he doesn’t quite understand what we're telling him, but when we invited him to be baptized, he just laughed. He knew it was important to be baptized like Jesus Christ was baptized, but idk, I guess he thought he was too old or something. And he told us he didn’t expect that at all, and asked us if we were sure (several times) if we really wanted him to be baptized, by immersion, and so he said he'd think about it, and we challenged him to pray about it, and then left feeling slightly discouraged, because apparently this is a fairly normal response for old people. They feel like they’re too old or something. We went to his house again on Tuesday, so we could teach him the rest of the gospel lesson (persevering to the end) and follow up on our invite to pray. We talked more about the Holy Ghost, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost that we receive after baptism, and we talked about how important it is to have so we can have that guidance to help us persevere to the end, and then I challenged him, again, to baptism. He laughed a little bit, and it was silent for about 20 sec, then, he accepted!!! It was so awesome! We know that it's not over yet, that there is still more to be taught, but he will be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint on April 9th! And then, to top it all off, at the end of the lesson, anz Jenson asked if he (Anz Jenson) could say the closing prayer, because we still really need to focus on the prayer dealio, and then, like usual, Claudio misinterpreted or something, and started the prayer himself. Only this time, when he prayed, he used his own words!!! SO, Anz Jenson and I are reallllllly stoked! (we also currently have 6 other baptisms planned for April 9th... .so it should be a pretty epic day!!!)

The bike is just an average decent bike. I don’t have too much faith in it though... But oh well. The Lord will provide. The suit is still gross. I'm wearing it right now because it keeps raining, and there’s no point in getting it dry cleaned and then ruined again, so ya. It sounds like it will always either be a rainy season, or a hot season (if I’m still in this area) and I’m not so sure what all these missionaries consider <<hot>> because Arizonians are the only people on the face of the planet that know what that words means.

We ate with member families twice the first week, and twice since then, so not that often. It sounds like our ward mission leader wants us to have a members house to eat at each sunday though, so that’s pretty awesome! For breakfast I eat about 150g of cereal (everything is measured by weight, so ya) and I’ve found some pretty good fruit+granola cereals, and chocolate flakes+granola, so I'm pretty content. And then we have a very large supply of strawberry jam, so I'll have a piece of toast every once in a while. And at night I'll occasionally eat an orange, or some oreos, or something healthy like that. I even got chocolate cake last week! 5 euros, and it was delicious!

The companionship is going great, we had a scambio on monday, and I became very, VERY grateful for Anz Jenson. But I mean, there are always things that are going to bug me, and it's a little awkward at times because he keeps telling me over and over that he feels he doesn’t even need to train me (because I've <<already got the language down>> and am <<good at teaching>>) and he'll say that in front of other missionaries, but then when it comes down to it, like when we're teaching or planning, and I mention something that we're doing that doesn’t make sense, I just feel like he writes it off or tries to justify it, and I really feel like he doesn’t trust me, but I figure that just means I need to be doing more to gain his trust, so all is well!

vi voglio bene tutti!

la chiesa è vera

-Anziano Bushman

The Book of Mormon is true! - March 9, 2011

***To preface the next letter, Jon asked us to take chunks of our individual emails he sent and put them together to make up the letter for the blog. He only has so much time on p-day, so hopefully that will save him a little. So if thoughts and ideas don't flow from one to the next, you will know why.

ciao! vi voglio bene!

Last night we went out on Pastoral visits, and I was kind of nervous because I was separated from my companion, and wasn’t extremely confident going in without an english speaker with me. So when we got there, my temp. companion told me a little bit about this less active member that we were going to go visit, but only things like his name, he has a son, and he doesn’t come to church anymore. Basta. Not very helpful. And then for the first 20 min. of our talking with this member they were just talking a lot, and catching up, and I heard them say some numbers (this less-active member mumbles a LOT, so he's way hard to understand), and I figured out that they were talking about a divorce that had happened, and how much he has to pay, and then my temp. companion said that now I was going to give us a spiritual thought, and I had NO IDEA what I could come up with that could help this guy, I didn’t know why he wasn't coming to church, or what the deal was, so I pulled out my Libro di Mormon and kind of absently turned to 2 Nephi 4, because it is without a doubt my favorite chapter in the entire book. So, I started talking about it, and how it's my favorite chapter. Then we started reading parts of it, starting with Nephi talking about how <<unworthy>> he is, and how Nephi is kind of a complete stud (except I didn’t know how to say stud) and yet he still feels all this shame. Then we started reading further, and Nephi starts talking about all the things the Lord has done for him, and the miracles he's seen, and the love he's felt from God. Then we ended with verses 26-28 when Nephi then says that if all these have happened, <<why should I yield to sin because of my flesh?>> and 28 then says <<Awake my soul, no longer droop in sin...>>  And after that my companion talked about it for a little bit, and this member we were talking to said that he was going to read this chapter every morning, and my thoughts were <<wow, i didn’t even ask him, or commit him to do anything, and he's gonna read everyday, sweet!>> I later found out, that this member was having serious issues with feeling worthy, and that’s why he wasn’t coming to church. And I can honestly say that if I had know that before, I could not have possibly found a better scripture to read him, and it was not by any skill of mine that that happened. AHhhhh the scriptures are so awesome!!! Seriously, I can really see now how this book can truly help every single person, with whatever problem/issue/worry/whatever they have!

Also, there are some twins here in Muggiò ward, whose counterparts I knew before, namely Luis Belchior has a twin here named Austine, and he's an awesome investigator we have. Gerard Butler has a twin that taught our Sunday school class. George Clooney's twin is in our bishopric and also so is Bro. Porter's twin.

In church, I don't really feel like a minority, because everyone loves the missionaries (I think they’ve only had missionaries for almost a year now). And also because there are a ton of hispanics, and other people that speak poorer italian than me. Although, I do get called out by the italians (the itlaians are not bashful AT ALL) if I ever start nodding my head, and after church they’ll ask me if I’m tired, or if I’m alright, its a little embarrassing.... but it's funny, so ya. We have like 8 investigators, and when they come to church we sit by them in all three of the meetings, and our focus is 1) to worship God and partake of the sacrament/renew our covenants and 2) to make sure our investigators have an awesome experience and 3) to get to know the members.

Oh man, the weather. It's normally pretty chilly, but literally the 2° or 3° day I was here, it poured, and poured. So let me paint this picture real quick. We were running late because Vanessa (one of our crazy investigators that we are now going to have to drop because she is crazy, and doesn’t listen to our testimonies, and interrupts us every time we try to answer one of her questions) talked forever (as I came to find out was typical of her) and so it was like 9:10 when we left her house, and for some reason, we got lost or something. I don’t know how, I think my companion said we were trying to take a short cut, but I didn’t know the roads at all, so I was just following him. Also, I was wearing my favorite suit, we didn’t have pancho’s or rain jackets, and it was one of the worst rainstorms they’ve had. SO, we rode in the rain for about 90 minuti before we got home, had to call the president and tell him because we were ridiculously late, and also my suit was completely drenched, like quite literally like I had jumped in a pool. There were puddles of water everywhere, so the water also jumped up into my shoes every five seconds which was awesome, and my suit is all wrinkly and gross now, and idk if i'll get to take it to the dry cleaner anytime soon because my companion doesn’t usually see any need when I tell him I want to do something, and he'll just reason it out.... BUT! I will not complain, aaaaand, yeah. It rained several other times, but we brought panchos, so we were mostly good. But I don’t like wasting my time talking about all the lames things.... so that’s the last of that I’m gonna write.

We are the only two missionaries in the Monza area. We have 6 missionaries in our district. Us, the zone leaders, and two sisters (incl s.lla willy from the mtc)

I think i adapted really fast to the missionary lifestyle, no jetlag or anything, and within about 4 days I was able to start eating like an italian as well!

A few of the missionaries in my travel group have had some struggles and even wanted to come home. idk why, but I haven’t had any of those problems, or even close..... I do have a pretty awesome battle cry that I found I think on the flight here- moroni 9:6 the whole verse, but especially the reason mormon gives <<for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness>>

But I’m adjusting great. It's awesome, and it really is proof that this is the Lord’s work, and looking back and seeing all the things in my life that God has done for me to prepare me for this moment, its awesome! I would list them, but I’m out of time...

Mission prep prepared me a lot for giving out copies of the B of M, and really the best thing you can do, is read out of it. Show them some scriptures that mean a lot to you, and read the b of m yourself daily, no matter how little time you have, so you can keep building your testimony of it, because it really does have all the answers to all of life's questions, and I know that for a fact. And for staring the conversation, check out what Nephi did in 1 Nephi 7:4, first he caught their interest, maybe got to know them a little, talked about things they liked, and ten bust out the word of God. Maybe even tell them about what your doing with this whole LIGHT program.

  

Oh, and one thing that I learned from my companion today about loving others, is that when we call them out on something they’re doing, even if they’re against us for one reason or another, we're placing ourselves against them, and we need to make sure they know that we are always on their side. Basta.

ti voglio bene un sacco

Anz Bushman

The view from my apartment window

Monza, Italy and 5 course meals! - March 3, 2011

Buon Giorno!

So, I just realized that none of you are probably awake right now, and that seems really weird... oh well. Second of all, Italy has weird keyboards... the apostrophe isn't where it's supposed to be... kinda annoying.... oh well!

To start off, I didn't get to email yesterday because we had an unexpected leadership training (which apparently everyone goes to, 2-3 zones at a time) And as soon as my companion found out and told me, I knew that you wouldn't like that I would have to wait another day to send an email....sorry!!! So, today is p-day, but normally it is on wednesdays. And yes, email is supposed to be a thousand times easier, but also we are not allowed to have email correspondence with anyone other than pres. wolfgramm and our immediate family, so mom dad chelsea and zac, you can all email me at this email address, but no one else can. If anyone else wants to stay in touch with me they can send letters though, and you can just send it to the mission home if it might get here between transfers (thats the safest way) or if you know I will still be in muggiò when the letter gets here, you can send it to

5 Giornate 14/9

20835 Muggiò (MB)

Italia

OK, now i'm going to try and summarize the week....

Mercoledì- we were met at the airport by Pres and Sis Wolfgramm, and i immediately shoved a whole bunch of overnight stuff into one bag, and then the assisstants to the president and the president drove us to the mission home. We got there at like 6pm or something, and then we split into two groups, and my group went out and did some <<strada>> (street contacting, and they use those little bracket things instead of quotation marks) and some <<casa>> or door to door. The first thing that I noticed though that was kinda different than what i expected, was that everyone drove on the right side of the road, and not the left like i thought it was... oh well, maybe im just dumb. ALSO everyone drives kinda crazy. But the more I paid attention, i think they just drive like that because they know everyones paying attention (way more than in america) But if an american were to drive out here, or an italian in america, people would get upset. and possibly injured. anyways, the casa was pretty fun, we talked to one guy when we were leaving a building, and i bore my testimony of the book of mormon and talked about how much it had changed my life, and we gave him a book of mormon and he seemed really interested, so that was awesome! After that we had interviews with the president, and Bro Ritchie told us about the whole money situation in the milan mission, and then we went out to dinner. We went to a pizzeria, and each got the huge pizzas. I ordered one called vulcano, and i didnt exactly know what to expect, but when it arrived I found out why it was called vulcano- it was hugely inflated, like the top layer of cheese just had one ginormous air pocket between it and the rest of the pizza! But it was wayy good! there was one kind of meat on it that i didnt like and had to pick out though, and then it was way too big for me to be able to finish, but it was delicious. Then we got taken to a hotel where we would stay the night (i roomed with anz terry and scheurn) and it was a pretty nice hotel.

wow this is taking a long time to type.....

Giovedì- first off, we never got a wake up call like we were supposed to, so instead of having 90min to get ready, we had 20min, and we ended up being 10min late. Oh well, we survived. We then went to a long meeting where I dont remember much of what happened... It kinda just seemed like the same kinda meeting that Anz webb and i as zone leaders would give to the new missionaries in the mtc, so that was alright i guess. I met my companion, Anziano Jenson- who is a very awesome guy! He reminds me a lot of jeremy hunt, except, different, but i cant put my finger on why.... Oh well. We are serving in the Monza area (we live in Muggiò though, which is 2-3k away from monza, and monza is the biggest città there).

    -just a little bit of info about our area, on our map in the apartment, there are about 40 cities in our area, and there's a ton that we cant even go see ever, in fact, (because we're on bike, and theres not a decent metro system there) we only can really afford the time to go to MAYBE 10-12 of the cities, ever. It's kinda way depressing.

   Comunque, we then ate lunch, and I specifically was remembering how much italians ate, so i made sure not to eat a lot at lunch, and then we headed out to Muggiò via the Milan grand central station (which was way awesome). Around this time I found out that most missionaries dont take the time to eat dinner, and instead just eat a really big lunch. And i kinda really wished I had known that a couple hours sooner, and I very much felt like the hobbits when they first started travelling with aragorn (i actually just barely thought of that analogy, but it describes it pretty well). But, i survived. Also, on one of the trains, I felt a huge responsibility to talk to people, but i was wayy too afraid of not being understood, or being made fun of, so it took me a long time before I did.... but when I did, it was to ask this waayyyyyy grumpy looking lady how to say <<luggage>> in italian, and she immediately was smiling and talking with us, so that was a huge surprise to me. And as we talked, all the previously grumpy faces around us turned into smiles, and at first i thought it was because they thought that i sounded funny, but for some reason that didnt matter to me anymore. And I have since learned that italians just love to talk, and they love when anyone comes up to them and talks to them. They all start with grumpy faces, but my companion described it pretty well, he said that its like a huge scary, intimidating wall that they put up, but then as soon as you start talking to them, 90per cento of them just throw away that wall instantaneously. It's awesome. And also, there are SO MANY foreigners in this area, so no one speaks correct italian, and i fit in just great! I then unpacked and settled in a little bit.

    -Our apartment though is pretty awesome. We have 3 main rooms: the bedroom, study room, and dining room, and all three are pretty decent size. We also have a little kitchen, and a little closet, and a storage closet outside for our bikes. Some things that I wasn't expecting to be in our apartment: two fairly large nice desks where we study, washing machine, a nice hot shower, tons of food (apparently we do service for a lady every once in a while and she gives us loads of pasta and crackers and stuff), a weight set (theres a bench with i think about 50kilos/110lbs and the bench has a little thing to work out your legs, and there are also some dumbells), and tons of leftover clothes from missionaries of the past.

   Alright, so after getting settled in, we got on our bikes and headed about 7-8k away to an appointment. It was with a woman named Vanessa (and her husband, but he's in romania most of the time) who is from ecuador, and talks really fast, but she's also way nice, and they fed us these little cake treat things that had pieces of pineapple in them, and it was wayy good, and I was definitely needing food, so that was good. They had a ton of questions, but it mainly seemed like they were more interested in teaching us about God, so we kinda walked away from that with little hopes of returning. Then we rode back home, and I realized that I dont like bike seats. Because now it hurts to sit on them. Bahh.

Venerdì- we talked to a man in the post office while we were waiting (for literally an hour) to start my promesso application, and he was wayy chill. He wasnt from italy, i think he may have been from nigeria, but it was a long time ago.... and we talked and gave him our information, so if he ever is interested in the church, or remembers that day, he can call us. (and I started off with really weak contacting- i know now what i should be doing better, so yeah. non giudicatemi).

Well, i'm just going to talk about some stuff about italy real quick cause im out of time- so, we had a lunch appt with the ward mission leaders on sunday, and theyre an older couple, and way nice- the montrasio's- And I just want to describe to you how this meal went down.

Course 1: some decent slices of salami/sausage meats on a plate, some cooked mushrooms, and some other weird stuff, all of which they made us eat more of.

Course 2: lasagna, the main dish, what i thought was the last dish. This lasagna was green, and kinda mushy.... But after i overcame the look and feel, it was wayy good, and they tried to offer me more, but i was full, and they made it a point to not push it, because then they started talking about how italians always do that, and they really shouldn't. So, i was stuffed, ready to give a spiritual thought and go home.

Course 3: they brought out some meatball deal-ios that were wayy good, along with some type of wayyyyy watered down mashed potatoes (maybe) and gravy, and this jelly stuff. And the jelly actually tasted wayy good with the meatballs, but like i said, i was already stuffed.

Course 4: fruit. this was our second lunch appt, and fruit seems to be a common way to end the meal. The fruit is wayyyy delicious though, the oranges are super delicious, so i didnt mind stuffing that down so much.

Course 5: they brought this holiday cake thing out that was like huge slices of some fluffy cake thing. It was kinda flavorless, but kinda good, but also had a weird taste to it.... sorry, im not being very descriptive, but i've got to end the email there, so hopefully i'll be able to write more next week.

vi amo tutti!

-Anziano Bushman

My MTC District when we first arrived in Italy. Left to right: Anziani Ellsworth, Smith, Russo Webb, Parrish, Wilkey, Cluff, Portellano, Me, Jeter, Jeter, Terry, Scheurn, Murray and Warren, and Sorella Maciel and idk the other ones name.