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.

Music & Goodbyes! - Feb 22, 2011

Well, this one's gonna be really short, becuase we're heading to the travel office in less than an hour, but my companion wanted to stop here, so I figured I 'd write a little.

Some highlights of the week-

I got the applesauce spice cake, and it felt like I was opening my mission call again, it was awesome!!!! thank you so much!!!! I ate a ton, but I also made sure all the italians tried a piece of it, and every single person loved it, and wanted me to make sure you knew just how awesome you are!!

Sorella Swensen (our teacher) was shocked to make the connection that I sounded just like a sicillian (i guess my accent) so that was pretty awesome. Not exactly Northern Italy, but better than an American accent!

Chris Igleski (from AYSO) came in this week, so we made sure to take a picture (at the big map) and it was wayy fun to see him. He's going stateside somewhere spanish speaking.

We had a zone conference saturday, where we taught little miny lessons to the entire zone, and it felt very different teaching in english (because there are still 23 new anziani/sorelle) Anziano Webb, Parrish, Terry and I sang "Sempre Vicino a Te" (nearer my god to thee) at the conference, and it was pretty awesome, not gonna lie. then we ended with the two districts that are leaving singing the inno di Milano (because we're all going to Milan). It's not in the hymn book, but you can try looking it up online I guess. It starts with "Non ci stancheremo mai di servire il Signor" (we will never tire to serve the Lord). I'm pretty sure everysingle sister in the room was balling by that time, and I even heard Sorella Buma say that hearing that song made her want to go to Milan (instead of Rome)!

There were a lot of goodbyes, and Fratello Calder read to us from his missionary journals for a good hour, and it was wayy awesome to hear just how each day went! (he did get pretty chubby in the face during his mission though lol, but he looks fine now, so i don't think i'm worried about the weight thing).

ALSO firday morning we met with this guy who was the Italian Vice consul or something, but he was about 60yrs old (Giovanni Maschero) and he was Italian, and he told us some cool stories, prepared us a bit for entering into Italy and what the people are going to be like, and even spoke some italian to us, so that was way fun.

Sunday, the two districts that are departing and the 8 sorelle in our zone sang the EFY medley in italian for the departure devotional (probably 500 ppl) and it was pretty epic.

Well, i've got to go get my luggage now, so i will probably call from the SLC airport and denver, Ci vediamo!!

-Anz Bushman

Christ Igleski (AYSO) and I

Flight Plans! - Feb 15, 2011

Martedi- Well, the highlight of today was when Anziano Webb and I split up to teach the new districts how to hold a district review- and it was awesome. The district I taught had 4 sorelle and 8 anziani, and every single one of them and some amazing things to share! What made it more awesome, is district reviews are way easy to conduct, so I just got to sit back and listen to everyone talk and share their experiences. Oh, and just one example of why it is so amazing to have sorelle in the district/zone: The meeting was just about over, and nearly every single one of them had shared something, but one of the sorelle noticed that there was an elder that hadnt spoken yet, so she asked him if he had anything he wanted to say- and that sister was definitely inspired when she asked that. This particular elder had been having a rough time, and was being seriously uplifted by the meeting we were having, and was really enjoying listening to all the testimonies, so he told us that, and then he bore his own testimony, and I honestly can't remember what was said, but I remember feeling absolutely certain that we were all exactly where we needed to be, doing the exact thing God would have us do, and it was awesome!

Mercoledi- So, our district had decided this week to seriously step it up in the italian/SYL-ing and it has helped me A LOT. Just a little background for this experience- Anziano Portellano is from France, came in the same time as us, and is learning english and italian right now. Currently, his italian is better than his english. And just today (and several time since) some joke was told in english, and Anziano Portellano couldn't understand it. They would repeat it several times, but he still just wasnt understanding. So I explained it to him in italian (idk why i thought i could do it) and he understood it. So, ya. Awesome.

Giovedi- I'm loving the language; I am able to say nearly everything I want to say to express myself. It gets hard at times because there are only about 7-8 anziani/sorelle in our entire zone that have a good grasp on the language, but it's wayy awesome when I'm talking with one of them, because we can both understand eachother perfectly! Also today, we got our flight plans! And you should have seen the mail room, when our district leaders pulled that mail out and we all saw what it was, we freaked- and the rest of the elders in the mailroom stared at us like we were insane. It was awesome. We fly out  a week from today, Feb 22, and arrive in Milan Feb 23 around 4:50 pm. FYI, Milan is 8 hours ahead of Arizona. Oh, and also, (i'm guessing because Bushman comes before the other anziani's last names in the alphabet) I am the travel leader for the italians, so i've got to make sure no one gets lost and all kinds of fun stuff like that. [mom, i sent you a copy of the flight plans on saturday morning, so you should be getting them soon- I needed some help deciphering what exactly we are allowed to take as far as luggage goes and so forth- thanks!] Anziano Parrish's mom sent some homemade salsa again, and i think I have been converted. Once that salsa was gone i started eating regular salsa, and still liked it! I guess that's what happens when non ci sono buon cibo.

Venerdi- I got the valentine's day package you sent today (See's chocolates), and it is delicious! I'm still working on trying to finish it, and have even had to share a  bunch of it, but thank you so much!! It's perfect! Interviews today were kind of crazy. Anziano Jeter took forever for his interviews again (just because he loves to talk) but that meant that he was interviewing until 10:20pm, and then I had to interview him during breakfast the next day (zone leaders have to get a report from the district leaders and then interview the district leaders as well) So other than that, things went alright today. I had my weekly interview with Fratello Calder today, and long stoyry short- without him telling me anything- I learned that I am completely full of myself. ANd while it's not immediately apparent, it affects how I see others, and thus how I treat others, and prevents me from being able to see my companion as God sees him, which I think is why we've been having so many problems.... So i am definitely focusing on that now

Sabato- I got the shoes you sent me! and they are perfect! I love the pictures and sunglasses (lol) as well - I dont think Anziano Webb likes the sunshades at all, but he'll get over it lol. And the earplugs-what for? Well, anyways today I spent my language study time with Anziano Jeter helping out the new districts with their language study, and I found out the next day that they were really worried about their language skills, and that that little "tutoring session" put them at ease a lot, so that was awesome to be able to help them like that. Also- today we had a lot of italian activities- we first built a mostra (poster thing) with a message about the church and a picture or two to attract people one of them said "Crede che c'e una vita dopo la morte? il Signore dice di si." and it was kinda epic. So the teachers and both new districts walked around the hall acting like it was a street in italy, and we would ask them about the messages on the mostre and what they thought about them, and set up return appointments- it was ALOT of talking. We also did a door to door activity to help show the new districts what to do, and then they tried- and they are already way good at the language- it's awesome. We also set up a date for Giorgio's baptismal interview, so that should be good!

and i am out of time so i will send the rest in a letter! ciao ciao!

un’altra cosa ch’é succeso a sabato-

I was up visiting the new Italians in the residence hall that night, and they were way bummed about the language, so I tried cheering them up because they have already learned a ton, but that didn’t work. And then D&C 88:49 came to my mind (well, it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out the reference) and I read to them “...the day shall come when you shall comprehend even God...” and then verse 68 can be tacked on to that: “...and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will.” So that was really awesome to see those scriptures lift their spirits.

Domenica – Well, this morning we were released as zone leaders, so that was kinda way sad... I really didn’t want to give up that position I had that made it so easy to help others, but I guess it’s for the best because now we can help the new ZL’s through their first week. The temple walk was way awesome, everyone was wanting pictures w/Anziano Webb and I because we were the first ZL’s and all that, so we were basically celebrities.

Lunedi – We watched the new district’s TRC today since we couldn’t have our own, and so we could help them out, but the companionship I watched did the entire lesson in Italian, after less than 2 weeks in the MTC. It was legit.... and humbling. But every time I would come up with something that they could improve on, they did it almost immediately (I was at a monitor watching them through observation cameras). It was awesome. We forgot to teach Giorgio about the Law of Chastity until our appointment, 30 minutes before his baptismal interview, so that was a little awkward. But he forgave us and still committed to follow it. Then, because the interview was held in a room with a one-way mirror, we were able to watch/listen to the interview, and it was relatively comical. Anziano Jeter (our district leader) conducted the interview, and when he asked the question “Do you believe Thomas S. Monson is a true Prophet?” Giorgio’s response was “chi é Thomas S. Monson?” And Anz Ellsworth (Anz Jeter’s comp. who was watching with us) busted out laughing on the floor, while Anz. Webb and I started praying our hearts out as we realized we hadn’t mentioned the current prophet... But, Anz Jeter was able to pull himself together, and he asked Giorgio if he could see his Book of Mormon. Anz Jeter flipped through a couple pages and pulled out a picture that Fratello Calder (Giorgio) kept in his Book of Mormon, of him shaking the prophet’s hand! So that was hilarious as Giorgio started saying that that must have been a bank conference, and then asked Anz Jeter how he knew that it was in there, and said it must have been revelation, so that was awesome. After that was a health and safety meeting where the guy ended every tip with, “But if you’re going to Western Europe, don’t worry about it.”

Tonight was awesome though, everyone was all sad that we aren’t zone leaders anymore, and Anz Wilkey said that I’ll always be his ZL, lol, so that was nice to feel all that love. Even the Portuguese half of our branch loved us, because they didn’t have a ZL for 2 weeks, so we filled in, so that was fun. Also, there’s a very shy elder (he was home schooled) in one of the Portuguese districts and he never talks to anyone, but he came up to me and wanted to get my picture before I left.

            
I have gained such a strong testimony of the Atonement in all this. I truly feel that when I have done all I can do, and have exhausted all my options, I can turn to the Atonement and know that Christ has been in my shoes and can help me if I just ask with faith. Vi voglio un sacco di bene!  –il vostro missionario preferito

            -Anziano Bushman

Anz McMullen and Me

Me and Portugal elders

Me, Anz Scheurn and Anz Smith

Italian Zone

Our 2 districts

Me and Anz Scheurn

24 New Italian Missionaries!!! - Feb 8, 2011

Allora, questa settimana era GRANDISSIMO!!!!

Mercoledi- The new missionaries came in today!!!!! Wow- it's kinda hard to believe that was a week ago... I feel like I've really gotten to know a lot of them already! Anyways, Anziano Ellsworth and I went to host for the new missionaries (where we meet their family at the curb and give them a brief tour and get them started at the mtc) in hopes of getting to host one of the new Itailians, and we figured out that we had something like 1 in 8 chances that one of us would get to host an italian at some point during the day, and sure enough, the first one that came up to us was a 7ft elder goin to milan! So, I went with him (si chiama Anz Guest) and showed him around and it was way awesome. I also found out though, that I have no arm muscles... The hosts are supposed to carry around their luggage for them, and I almost died. It was a little embarrassing, but I made it. Afterwards I hosted an elder that had come from england and was heading to Idaho. Later in the day our two districts sang Mandate Voci di Gioia l'Eterna to them, and it was awesome! At about 8pm, Anziano Webb and I went into their classroom and gave them a brief overview of some of the rules they needed to know before the next day, and we answered a ton of questions that they had, oh, and turns out one of the anziani arrived late because of an ice storm in texas, so we helped him get settled in, and then when we got back into the residence hall, the portuguese zone leaders (theyre in our branch, but theyre still kinda new, and arent very serious at all) thought it would be a good prank to act like one of the rooms that the new anziani were staying in was already full... I didnt get it, but whateva, everything worked out.

Giovedi- Well, I'm getting to know them a lot better already, it's pretty awesome, because we're so involved with the new districts right from the start, so they get to know us just as well as they know eachother. We found out today that one of the sorelle (there are now 8 sorelle in our zone! and we didnt have any before!) Sorella Simkins, is leaving in 3 weeks with us, becuase she spent 11months on an exchange in Italy, and already is fluent in the language! She's supposed to be switching to our district sometime soon, so that's gonna be awesome! Tonight they met with our branch presidency and while they were being individually interviewed (24 interview= a long time) we taught them all about companionship unity, and planning time, and study time, and got to answer even more questions, and make them even more stressed out lol

Venerdi- Two of the new Anziani rolled their ankles today in gym (first Anziano Guest then Anziano Telaroli) but they are doing a lot better now. Except Anziano Telaroli damaged some tendons or something, so he will be participating in a physical therapy during gym for the next 9 weeks... Today was kind of a sad day. One of the the new anziani had seemed kinda distraught, and I could tell that he really did not want to be here since the first night, and he has since met with our branch, district, and mission presidents.... He went home this afternoon... They told us he had an anxiety issue.... But i'm not so sure I believe it. That's why I haven't mentioned his name... The worst part was watching it happen for three days and not being able to do anything about it, or not being able to make him realize how much he would regret this decision for the rest of his life....

Sabato- Well today I directed a small choir. We now have 37 Italians in our zone, and we taught them the parts to "Mandate Voci..." and it was pretty dang awesome. It sounds so much better with sisters!!! I now officially know every new missionary's name (all 23 of them- that's right!) ANd today was especially hard trying to keep morale up (in both the old and new districts) and at the same time keep it relatively quiet in the residence halls and the classrooms during study time. We're still learning a lot as zone leaders. I'm kinda not sure what i'm supposed to do with one of the anziani.... I'll tell you more in the letter that i'm gonna send, but ya

Domenica- Was kinda of interesting.... I loved it because we got to fast and feel the blessings from that, and because it was fast sunday we had a mission conference and got to hear from our mission presidency and we got to bear out testimonies during sacrament meeting, so that was wayyy fun! But we also forgot about some of our responsibilities as zone leaders because of how crazy the week was with the new missionaries entering and everything... For example we have a leadership meeting each sunday mornign, and it's right next to our classroom, and since we're the italian zone leaders, everything is our responsibilty, and this week we forgot to clean it up..... and it's not like we ever remembered- not untill the sunday morning and Bro Lamoreux (sp?) came to us and said "guess where I was for the past 15 min" and then he continued to tell us that he had spent the last 15 min on his hands and knees cleaning up the room we were to meet in because it was atrocious. I almost peed my pants. It was very much embarrassing... oh well. The rest of the day was awesome, we saved 37 seats for the fireside and film that night and all the new missionaries loved sitting with all of us, so it was way awesome!

Allora, no ho tempo piu, ma scrivero una lettura

Ciao ciao!

Oh, I realize I didn't write anything about Monday and thats because I ran out of time, and not much happened. Still loving it here, and still trying to combat the feelings of other missionaries that feel that they don't need to be here...

I truly feel blessed to be in this district - although we don't have any sisters, we have all long sing gotten over our differences with each other and we all love each other! And more over, I haven't once heard any of us complain, or express a desire to not be exactly where we are, doing exactly what we're doing. It's kind of way sad when I hear elders that don't feel that way; that feel like they know better...

I'm not sure what I would do without the scriptures; without the knowledge that prophets have gone before me experiencing my exact "pains". Alma 8:15 has helped me a lot in this situation, and helps me just keep a positive in hopes of bringing those others here unto Christ. And now I feel like I'm preaching, so I;m going to mi chiudo la boca.

Allor, come sempre, vi amo tutti! E mi piacciomo molte le vostre letture che mi avete spedito! Grazie!

Grazie mille! - Anziano Bushman

My District, left to right Anz Jeter, Frat. Calder, Anziani Terry, Parrish, Me, Webb and Ellsworth - -
I love them all!!!

Ether 2 & Being truly happy!!! - Feb 1, 2011

Ciao tutti!

Mama mia, questa settimana era buonissima!

Martedi scorsa- The temple was great! AND i'm getting better at staying awake =D For the devotional, we sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer (the same version we sang in ward choir a couple of months ago, with the men's quartet in the middle) and it was AMAZING!!!!

Mercoledi- So, Anziano Webb had an appt to go to, so I had like 45min of free time, and during that 45 minutes I attempted to write a harmony part to Come Thou Fount using just solfej and awesomeness like that, and when I sang it with the piano there were only 5-6 notes that sounded bad =D so that was pretty awesome. I definitely did not have that ability before my mission! Well, today we needed to start teaching Giorgio the rest of the Gospel, and he accepted everything wayy faster than we were ready for, so we got to where we were talking to him about the commandments, and we never even had a chance to study those principles in Italian, so once again, the Gift of Tongues is awesome! Oh, and in my Book of Mormon reading today, I was reading in Ether 2, and by the time I got to the end of the chapter, I was kind of really bummed... I felt like I didn't get anything out of that chapter, and that it was just superficial story-stuff. But, right as soon as I thought that, I remembered the talk given tuesday night. The speaker was a close friend of President Monson's, so he was telling us a lot of cool stories about President Monson that no one's heard, so that was awesome. But what I'm getting at, is he also talked about President Monson's tendency to use "folky" stories to teach doctrines, and how a lot of people looked down on that. Well, in our devotional review (the 6 of us in our district discuss the devotional for the 45min after the devotional) we talked about that, and then someone brought up that that's how Christ taught, was through stories, so that was an awesome comparison. ANYWAYS, back to Ether 2, I remembered that idea about teaching through stories, so I re-read the last verse, Ether 2: 25, and realized that the whole chapter, and the entire concept of building the barges, and the preparation is talking about our lives. And the "great deep" they had to cross is our life, and we can't get across it without God's help, and there are more symbolisms in it related to that, but i'm running out of time already lol so read it- Ether 2

Giovedi- Nothin too exciting. I saw Elder Montierith (sp?) and so that was an awesome little reunion! Our district is being extremely lazy with SYL-ing, so that's definitely not good.... I am leaning a lot of different Italian hand signals (Italians speak with their hands A LOT) so that's pretty fun. ALSO I found out my birthday is a national holiday in Italy. And in France, but no none knows why. All the teachers just say that no one does ANYTHING on that day, and Anziano Portellano said the same thing about France, so someone should check that out and let me know, cause I think I may be famous.

Venerdi- We had a HUGE improvement with SYL today, The only time I spoke any english was when my teacher made me becasue we had to have our weekly progress review, and apparently that's supposed to be in english (lame, i know). Well, I won't give any details, but suffice it to say Anz Webb and I had a confrontation with one of the Disrict Leaders, and it was kind of a huge learning lesson.... so, ya. Not fun.

Sabato- Well, Giorgio's car broke down today, so we didn't get to teach him , BUT we did do an activity later in the day where we taught the other district the Plan of Salvation, and I got to use that fun little puzzle you sent me, and they loved it! thanks! Also, I have been learing a lot from D&C 121 about leadership, and I kind of wish I had read this before, because it's amazing. And very informative. So any of you that are in a leadership position, read D&C section 121.

Domenica- Was great! I'm still learning a lot of things that as zone leaders we are supposed to be doing and not doing, so that can get frustrating (but only a little) I am super excited for the new Italian districts that are coming in on Wednesday! Anziano Webb and I get to be the first ones to really talk to them and help them get setttled in, so that's going to be awesome! Also, I'm not sure what caused it, but today I felt more surely than I ever have before, and I think it just seems completely real, and more of a fact now then ever, but I KNOW that Christ is coming, and that this time, he is coming in all his glory, and I know that we will be resurrected just as he was, and that we will live with our Father in Heaven. I also know now more than ever that this is the time for men to prepare to meet God. And that means a lot of preparation... It's not exactly something we can just sit back and relax about, so I am so thankful I have this opportunity to devote 2 entire years to preparing myself and others to meet God. I know it won't be in vain.

Lunedi- The Gift of Tongues is VERY real. I experience it every single day here. Nothing particularly exciting happened today, but for some reason, I just felt good. Just happy. Just like everything was right, I like it.

Allora, Non ho tempo piu, ma scrivero ancora martedi prossima! Vi amo tutti! Non dimenticatevi scrivere! Dont forget to write!