Conquering Italy! April 27, 2011

So, I have been seriously lacking on time to just read the Book of Mormon and learn  what it has to teach me, but recently I figured out that I can understand it pretty completely in italian, and reading it out loud makes for a good language study, so I've found some time to read a chapter or two each day now. And as I was thinking about the whole obedience with exactness thing, and the negative attitude of most missionaries towards it, I went to go do my language study, and picked up in 1 Nephi 2, and as I was reading, it really, really hit me what was being said. About from verse 16 to the end, minus the whole large in stature thing, I felt very confidently that God was talking directly to me through these words. And that there may even be the possibilty that God would have me be a teacher of my brethren here in the mission field. But I know for sure that I won't be an effective instrument at all, in fact I would be pretty ineffective if I just went about trying to teach them, but I know that I can't be an instrument in the Lord's hands if I don't seek him dilligently and with lowliness of heart. So that was a really neat, and also really blunt answer to my prayers, and I just thought I would share that with you. It kind of even felt like a second patriarchal blessing. It was way cool.

Another thing that happened this week, is the sunday school president in our ward is about 25 yrs old, and he had to fill in for the gospel essentials class, and asked us to help him because he was nervous. Turns out he served his mission in england, so he spoke english, and in fact several times throughout the lesson couldn't think of the italian words that he wanted to say, and had to tell us the english so we would give him the italian word to tell the rest of the ward. It was kind of funny.

There is a member of the Church living in our ward region that is from the United States, and she's here teaching english to people, and this week we saw her at the Ward barbecue, so we talked to her a little bit to get to know her and everything, and she was more than willing when we asked her if we could send people her way to learn english (because we have been considering starting the english courses, but they would seriously hurt our opportunities to teach our progressing investigators, and we were kind of at a crossroads of what to do) and then she told us that she was trying to teach the gospel to this family that she is living with, but wasn't having much success because she isn't too accustomed to the language and gospel terms, and so we decided to team up on this effort, and she gave us their number and everything, and things are looking pretty good! So we are going to have a family to teach here pretty soon, and also a member to be there with us at each lesson!

Pasqua (Easter) was great! we ate at the Merenda's house, and s.lla Merenda made a delicious lasagna for us, and several different meats including lamb, rabbit, and sausage. ALL of which were very delicious. I think the only thing I've run into here that I don't like is the tuna. Tuna is gross. Comunque, then roberta (the daughter) had picked out presents for us, and I guess it's a tradition, but they gave us a very large chocolate egg (about a foot tall) and I had to break it open by hitting the top of it with my fist. Then there was a little toy inside it, but that seemed to be the only traditional thing we saw. Idk. Hahah but the little girl, Roberta, who chose the presents, got an egg for herself that was about twice as big ,and she literally could've fit inside it! haha it was funny. We did notice people gathering olive branches on palm sunday, but I still don't get what they were doing with them. Also they celebrate the day after easter, and call it <<Pasquetta>>, or also <<the day of the Angel>>. And that was way fun, because we got to go to a ward grigliata (barbecue) and Anziano VanAucker and I laughed a little to ourselves as we watched all these italian families bringing little tiny grills, and then lighting them with little sticks and branches, it was fairly comical. And a lot of them didn't even know how to start the fire, so there was one member who was a seasoned pro at the whole grilling thing, and he went from grill to grill helping each family. It was great. The food that they made was delicious though! They made a ton of meat, which italians never do, and that was basically all it was: meat, bread, and grilled potatoes (just like baked potatoes). Then we got to play some calcio, so that was super fun. We got to show our calcio skills off to the ward, and got the young men all buddy buddy with us. We also got really burnt/tanned. So that was fun. And exhausting. We did have several investigators there with us, so it was still a useful missionary activity, and I figure if we get the young men in the ward to think that we're pretty cool guys, that will make them have a good attitude towards serving a mission themselves. Also, we grew closer to the ward, and thus got several referrals, and a couple of people to help us out in teaching lessons to our investigators.

Unfortunately we do not have a ward choir... The women sang in our ward though. It was pretty good.... I feel like there's not much opportunity for people to sing in organized groups here, and so thus they don't know how.... Oh well. They brought the spirit, and that's all that matters!

Unfortunately, Azayra went out of town with her family for pasqua... And so she'll be two weeks baptized without the help of the Holy Ghost..... But, she will be confirmed this coming sunday and given the holy ghost, and I will be performing that ordinance.

Ahh with Claudio, things were looking up. He was progressing A LOT better than he had been before, so we went over the baptismal questions to see if he was ready to redo the interview, and he couldn't remember who Joseph Smith was.... And every single time we've talked about Joseph Smith and asked him about Joseph Smith he tells us he doesn't remember him. We even gave him a picture of the first vision that says <<Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ. They called him to be a prophet. 1820dc>> and he went and got it laminated and everything, but still, nothing. We've taught him several times about Joseph Smith, but nothing seems to stick... Bahhh idk. If you have any suggestions, I'm sure even in a week we would more than welcome them. Also, when we got to The Word of Wisdom he was shocked (again) that we wanted him to stop drinking even a little bit of wine after lunch. We had been checking up on that every visit, and he had been drinking grape juice that we bought him, and he told us that he was going to go buy more, but some how he got a hold of more wine. And we have even put a little sign on what used to be, and i guess now is again, his wine cabinet, that has a wine bottle in a red circle with a cross through it. I don't know what to do with him. He really wants to be baptized, and is upset each time we have to set a new date for him. But he can't be baptized without a testimony, and he can't gain a testimony without obedience... Prayers would be nice. Just if you could pray that he will even remember. Remembering is always the key..

Carlo is still interesting. He seems to maybe have a testimony though, so the teaching is going good. He reads the Book of Mormon and remembers the things we teach him, I'm just worried sometimes his priority is just to get married, and so he acts like the perfect student.... Idk, if he's reading the Book of Mormon, and following the commandments, he's likely to gain a testimony anyways.  He does keep telling us however that he wants to get baptized with his girlfirend, who lives in Bergamo, so we won't even get to see the baptism, but oh well.

With Bruno we tried to get him to come to church, but instead he just gave us ice cream, and then didn't let us leave until we picked some ice cream to take home. He said he couldn't come to church because he works Sunday mornings, and it's way busy Sunday morning. I'm hoping to go back sometime in a week or two and maybe just share with him a spiritual experience we had, and then tell him that we still have plenty of ice cream in the freezer, and maybe committ him to pray, or read the Restoration pamphlet... His ice cream is way good though. I'm going to also have to ask him how he makes it.

(In response to Chelsea's email) That's way awesome that you're taking the initaitive to organize a whole service project for some random person like that! That's definitely something I've been trying to work on.. Key word being <<trying>>. I think I'm starting to realize the significance in the short statement made about Jesus Christ's life when all that's said is <<And he went about doing good>>. That's how I want to be remembered. And doing service projects like that is the perfect way to start.

And I am most definitely on the verge of conquering Italy. It's pretty intense, not gonna lie. Everything's been building up, and now we're just going to find, teach, and baptize people every week!

ti voglio bene!
Anziano Bushman

Pictures! April 20, 2011

So, we were biking down a canal path to an investigator, and we saw sheep being herded, with two shepherds, and a guard dog watching over all the sheep. It was hilarious! I didn’t know people still did that! They all had little cowbells (or sheep bells) on them, and they were just chilling eating grass and getting some water. It was hilarious!

Next, we were heading home from an appt, and I hear this little whiny engine coming up behind me, so I just figured it was another scooter (a lot of people ride scooters here) but I turn around and what I thought I saw was a mini (like 3-4ft tall) semi truck! And inside there was some guy all crunched over driving it lol. My companion later told me that it was a scooter with a shell on it hahahahahaha. Like a camper shell! It was hilarious! I don’t know if it was supposed to be a safety measure, or if he was trying to carry stuff on his scooter, but it looked ridiculous.

And thus I have decided to carry my camera everywhere I go from this day forth.

With Bruno we should hopefully be seeing him again today to invite him to church for pasqua (easter). But yeah, all of those little pastries were pretty dang delicious. Especially the one that looked like a seashell....

I am becoming quite the cook, out of necessity! Homemade brownies!

Of course, the best part is licking the bowl clean!

And I am learning to love it!

Azayra's baptism went great! it was right after church so there were still a lot of members there, and it took Fratello Merenda (her uncle) 3 tries to get her completely under the water, so that was kinda comical. And Claudio is making great progress! However, he just realized that we've been telling him that we have living prophets today...even though he came to general conference...lol he's great. He should be having a baptism around the 7° of May though.

This is Azayra on her baptism day. Her Uncle performed the baptism.

Before we could have the baptism, the font had to be cleaned....

Personal study time, area map in the background, motivational quotes on the walls, etc.

Another view outside our apartment window. My mom was actually able to see our apartment using the church's map tool on their website. She went to street view and there we were:)

From our balcony!

New Prospects - April 14, 2011

Ok, so me and my companion had both heard vague rumors about this guy that gave out free ice cream to missionaries, and I knew which place it would be, but I had never been there, or met the guy, so yesterday we decided to check it out during p-day. We got there on our bikes, and it's a fairly large gelateria, and some guy comes out to greet us, which NEVER happens. No one comes up to missionaries, lol. But he asked us how we were doing, and we asked him his name and he said <<Bruno>> and then pointed to the huge sign on the building (this is like, a building easily visible from the freeway) that says <<Gelateria Cortinovis>> and then he said <<Bruno Cortinovis>>. So the owner was now talking to us, and then without saying anything else he waited for us to lock up our bikes and escorted us in. So we started looking around, because gelato was sounding really good. After about 30 seconds (he was on the phone) he comes over to us and takes us to the counter where he tells his worker to give us some ice cream. So we were like ok, sweet! Free ice cream! It is true! And then he just walked off again. Before we had a chance to finish that gelato though, he came over to us again and told his worker to give us some of these delicious pastry treat things. Immediately after she finished and we were about to talk to this guy to see what the deal was, he takes us over to these 40-80 euro cakes (the euro is like 1.4 dollars right now) and tells us to choose one to take home, and then starts describing how to store them and such. So finally at the end of all this, we were able to gather our wits and ask him why he was giving us all this stuff. He didn’t give us a straight answer however, and just told us he had been doing this for the missionaries for 25 yrs now. (the rumor among the missionaries is that his mother's dying wish was that he gave the missionaries free stuff, but idk the real story). So I felt a huge responsibility to get him to church or something, do something to serve him if only because he has been serving the missionaries for so long! So when I started to bring up religion he said sadly that he was an atheist, and when I tried to find out why he said that he never talks religion with anyone... Then he told us that his workers are always here, and they know to give us free stuff, and he encouraged us to come back soon. So I decided that next week I’m going to get his phone number, and then set up an appt. to talk with this mysterious Bruno Cortinovis about the gospel. To be continued . . .

Also, the little pastries that look like shells are ridiculous! Theyre so good! And like as crunchy as i imagine a shellfish thing would be.... coincidence?? nahh. Also the two next to the shell fish pastries look like they could be bugs that Timon and Pumba would eat. And they're way good.

My new companions name is David VanAucker, and he's pretty cool. Everyone in the mission loves him, and speaks way highly of him (as did everyone about Anz Jenson). All in all, we'll get along pretty well. He's convincing me to put meat and what-not in with the pasta I make, which reminds me, do you have any tips on cooking meat? I feel pretty comfortable about cooking ground hamburger, but there's stuff like horsemeat here that I really want to try, and I still know nothing about spices. Just like for seasoning meat to go with pasta or something. ALSO! They have fish, everywhere. Like in the grocery store just lying there, not skinned or anything, for all to see. Weird.

So, i bought a calzone, and tried to use the fork they gave me, and the fork was in the calzone for no more than 0,5 seconds. And it got murdered. AND I made easy candy. Success!

Claudio is doing great! He's learning so much better now, and with the word of wisdom, he has this coffee substitute called <<orzo>> that he said tastes different, but works just fine, and the grape juice we got him to replace his wine he said was way good, and he was going to go buy more!

Azayra had personal issues on Sunday, but she is going to get baptized this Sunday, and I will confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ on the Sunday after that.

And I can honestly say I have not counted the members that attend church, but I'd say more than a hundred, and less than two hundred. Every missionary that has seen our ward says it's huge, so yeah it's huge. But not quite as big as 9th ward.

vi voglio bene

-Anziano Bushman

My first battle wound! April 6, 2011

So, we went in the Monza park yesterday to look for people to talk to, and because it is ridiculously large, and apparently one of the most beautiful parks in all of Italy. So we got there, and it looked a lot like a miniature forest to me, but then it had little paths everywhere made out of pebbles, and benches, and what not like a park would have. BUT, one of the first things that happened there, is we saw a goose. And this goose just climbed through this little fence that was about 20m in front of us and walked across our path to where a lady was waiting for it with a piece of lettuce or qualcosa, and it almost looked like it was her pet or that she does this regularly. So I thought that was a little strange, but we ignored it. Our path was going to take us within like 3-4 meters of this woman and her <<pet>>, and as we got closer, this goose saw us. I don't know if the goose felt threatened, but when we drew nearer, it lowered it's neck to like 4cm above the ground and fixed it beady little eyes on us and started waddling towards us like it meant business. I thought that was a little strange, and for a second thought it might be angry, but when it passed by Anz Jenson fine I wasn't too worried. But immediately after Anziano Jenson walked by it, it turned to me, and bit me! A goose... bit me! And I wasn't so sure what I was allowed to do, there were people watching, and in my suit it was very obvious who I was representing, and people everywhere recognized that, so I couldn't very well kick the goose, but I also couldn’t very well let it bite me again! Luckily, the lady called back her little monster and I did not have to punt it across the park. But it almost came to that. It didn’t hurt, but I did receive a battle wound:

You can barely see the tiny little red mark on the back of his leg.
No broken skin, more important no tear in the suit!!!

I have also been seeing huge changes in our lives here when we set goals, and do everything we can to achieve them. There's a quote hanging up in our study room that says something to that affect, like we need to set goals that aren’t only wishes, but covenants with God. I think it was by Henry B Eyring... But it's awesome. And I've just kinda been grabbing a conference issue, and reading it until I’ve read everything that catches my eye.... But supposedly we won't get this conference issue for 2-3 months. But yeah, conference was awesome. I heard the first and second sessions in English, but the priesthood and Sunday morning session I heard in Italian, and it was way hard to get anything out of them... It was kind of depressing, because I was so excited, and so ready to listen to conference and absorb everything the prophets and apostles had to tell me, and then right when I was comfortable, we had investigators walk in that really needed us to sit with them, in the Italian room. I was able to understand everything, but I just got so caught up in the fact that it wasn’t in English, and that it wasn’t their voices, so I missed out on a lot...

Another sad part about Sunday was we had the Baptismal interviews for Claudio and Azayrah, and Claudio wasn't ready, so we have to postpone his baptism... We think it's just because he has a hard time remembering things, because we've taught him everything, and every commandment at least twice, but every time we have to recommit him. And he commits willingly, but he also still had a word of wisdom issue with drinking coffee in the morning to wake him up, and drinking wine after he eats lunch. So, we decided we were going to take it in baby steps, and teach him like we teach primary. So we went over the word of wisdom again yesterday, using the story of Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and he understood more than he ever has before, and at the end we asked him if we could help him by removing the temptation, and taking the wine and coffee. And first he thought that we wanted to drink some with him, but once he understood that we wanted to take it, he agreed, and realized that it was for the best. He even gave us his new pack of coffee that he just bought. We had a member at this lesson thankfully, and he brought up a good coffee replacement, so we're going to bring Claudio some fruit juice and this coffee replacement on Friday, and so everything's looking good so far! Although I am interested to see how his week will go until then.... because he really relied on that coffee to get moving each morning.... oh well. The Lord blesses us when we keep His commandments. I just hope Claudio doesn’t hate us lol.

We've got several other investigators that are on the track to baptism, so we're way excited about them, but I’ve got to respond to the other emails, so I'll talk about them next week.

Anziano Jenson is getting transferred to Torino tomorrow to become a zone leader. They probably realized that if Anz Jenson could put up with me for 6 weeks, he can handle anything lol. And I can't remember the name of my companion that I will get, but Anz Jenson describes him as the easiest person to get along with in the mission, and also a teddy bear. So it should be fun!

There's one congregation in the Monza area (our area includes a ton of cities, including Cinisello Balsamo, Lainate, Cesano Maderno, Saronno, and everything in between, and also some more that's north, and some more that's west) and the chapel is a full size chapel in Muggiò. I'll probably take pictures eventually and send them to you. And yes, we're the only missionaries.

This seems a lot bolder than I normally am, but for some reason I wasn't able to focus enough to write anything else... must be the Spirit. This week I have been trying to make my studies more effective, and have planned out ahead of time what I need to do each day. As the week is going on I have noticed huge changes in my ability to speak the language, and teach the lessons. It seems like that's all God was waiting for me to do: plan my studies out (like I’ve been told to do a million times) and now he's letting me be an effective missionary and teacher like I’ve been trying to be. It's really helped me come to realize that my ways are never better than God's ways. And it has confirmed to me that this is most definitely what he wants me to be doing. We met an atheist yesterday, and he said that there wasn't any evidence that God existed. Well, I know without a doubt that if God didn't exist, I would not be able to speak Italian. And that seems really trivial, but it's true. He has given us so many things in this world, and to say that they have all come because of our own personal talent, or because of mere chance is improbable and ridiculous. I know that God lives. I know that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us and more importantly to live for us. I know that we have apostles and prophets here on the Earth today, and that through them, and through our prayers, God still talks to His children. And if these things are not true, than I don't know anything.

Ti voglio un sacco di bene!

Anziano Bushman

The Will of God & Living Prophets! March 30, 2011

This first part is a copy of the email I send to our mission president. Each week he asks us to send him a miracle story, or something that has increased our awareness that God is directing our work. This doesn’t really sound like a miracle, but it definitely increased my awareness that God is directing our work: So we had set the transfer goal of 7 baptisms. And we knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that that is what God wanted us to do. And time went on, and although we know with all our hearts that it is still possible for God to give us 5 more baptisms for April 9th, last night, we both got a strong feeling that that probably is not what God wants for us this time. We both know that there are things that we could have, and should have, done better and that we could have without a doubt already had 7 baptisms by now. This then led us to wonder why we would set a goal that wasn't going to be met. -Now this does not mean at all that we are going to try any less to find God's children that are waiting to be baptized 10 days from now- But we feel that this goal was to push us; to see this seemingly impossible task, and to see that it is possible. But we were not ready this time around. And still we are about to have an amazing baptism with two of God's beloved children coming again into his fold. And still there are 5 others that we know of that are ready for baptism, they just need to take one more step. But I felt a great assurance last night that even if this goal we set is not reached, it was still the will of God, and it still has helped us grow immensely.

We've been fed maybe 6ish times by members, and for the most part it's been good. I think God has miraculously blessed me with the absence of a gag reflex during these two years... because I have eaten more things that, had I been at home in the states, or anywhere else, I probably would have thrown up. And not only that, but after the first bite I’ve had to continue to finish the entire plate, and hope that they don't try and give me a second plate... Anz Jenson always makes fun of me and says that I'm too picky with food, but I disagree. I just have strong opinions as to what should be eaten by humans and what should not.

We will watch the Saturday morning session at 6pm here (I think we're going to trade off listening in Italian with our investigators and listening in English), Priesthood session at 11am Sunday, Saturday afternoon on Sunday at 2pm, and Sunday morning on Sunday at 6pm. But we do not get to see the Sunday afternoon session, unfortunately... I have not done the general conference personal question thing yet, but I just now wrote that down for tomorrow's personal study, thanks for the reminder!

And I think I've been feeling the same way about the companion I have and had, I definitely don't get along easily with them, even though they’re great guys, but I know that the more patient I am, and the more accepting I am of all the things they do that bother me, I can become a better future husband for my future wife... weird, but oh well. 

AND just because it's on my mind and you mentioned it at the beginning, I am WAY stoked for conference like I have never been before! I don't know why, but I like it. And I feel like I've been missing out for the past 19 yrs on the fact that we have LIVING apostles and prophets on the earth today. I've started developing a habit of reading an article from a conference ensign each morning while I eat breakfast, and it is a great motivation for me to get up on time every morning!

ti voglio un sacco di bene!!

-tuo figlio, Anziano Bushman