July 25, 2016

Missionary work is the best. Seeing people change their lives and
experience the joy of the gospel is probably the best thing I've ever
been a part of. Our lives are meant to have joy, and a loving Heavenly
Father has given us the gospel to bless us with that joy. I am so
grateful for it.

This week, one aspect of the gospel that brought me great joy was the
sacrament. I prepared throughout the week for the sacrament, and I
absolutely loved it this week. I left so spiritually filled, it was
amazing. If you get the chance this week, read the sacramental prayers
before Sunday, and ponder them throughout the week. It will change
your sacrament experience, and it was awesome for me. :)

The temple open house is helping us see so many miracles! One this
week that was awesome was we were headed to dinner and decided to
knock the door across the street since we had about 10 minutes. It
turned out to be an elderly couple who were super nice and very
interested in the temple! It was a great experience to talk to them,
and we are going back on Sunday to teach them about more about why the
temple is so important to us. Miracles are sweeeeeeet!


Hope you all have a great week!

Appropriate love!
Elder Bush





(To Mom)

...as far as snakes go, the smiths ask us to kill them because rattlesnakes are of the devil, and we feel righteous when we do it xD 

And we don't get close enough for them to strike at us, we just run them over multiple times in our car hahaha and then cut the head off with a shovel. 

That chapter (Alma 29) is something that I relate to really well also. A lot of times after my studies in the morning, I just want to go tell absolutely everyone about the gospel, and I often catch myself wishing to be able to just have a spirit megaphone or something to shout at people and have them feel the Spirit and then be converted. But then I think, well, if that was the best way to do it,  then Spirit megaphones would be standard issue to every member of the church at baptism. Heavenly Father knows what He is doing. 

That is super cool that you are learning so much about the Savior and His Atonement. It really does make the Sacrament so much more meaningful. When I have had the sacrament recently, it has been super meaningful to me because I've prepared for it throughout the week. It is so awesome to just go to church and be spiritually fed. I take notes in sacrament meeting and Sunday school and priesthood, and learned things in all three hours. You might be like "well duh that's how it's supposed to go" but that has pretty much never been the case for me, so it was super cool. 

Also, I'm trying to get better about making sure I only email for 2 hours, so unfortunately I will probably have to keep my emails shorter :/ 

But hopefully I'll just learn to type faster, although that is hard to do on an iPad. Dumb. 

That sounds like a super awesome trip to Houston, with lots of fun at the zoo and the beach. I bet Gideon absolutely loved that. Mom, those dorsal fins were probably dolphins or something and you just deprived the kids of having the awesome experience of swimming with dolphins lol jk I can't remember the last time I got too to the beach. As missionaries, we aren't allowed to swim either so we kinda miss that too haha 

I think that is super true! When we obey, we can see clearer. It's not blind obedience, or at least it never should be. We may obey without knowing all of the reasons why we have been asked to do something, but we know that God loves us (1 Nephi 11:17) and we know this is His church, and those are the most important things to know. Everything else becomes clearer over time, after we obey. There is no witness after the trial of our faith- and because faith is an action word, basically, what that scripture says is that there is no witness until after we do something that is hard! Therefore, our Heavenly Father gives us hard things to do so we can understand eventually. I learned that in sacrament meeting yesterday too. Pretty cool. 

This week has been really good. I gave my first training at a district meeting, and i thought it went pretty well... Here are the notes from it:

*******District Meeting*********

OH How Great Thou Art

OP Sister Pattillo

REC E. HATCH

WHB S. FRANCOM

SAFE S. HILDER

Prayers for those on date in the district

Baptism rules reinforced. Do not come without an investigator. That's to avoid gatherings of missionaries

TRAINING

D&C 11

PMG 2

Who here thinks they have effective study? Why or why not?

What does effective study do for us?

What does effective study do for our investigators?

How can we have effective study?

Why is it a commandment to have effective study? 

We Invite, They commit, we follow up

D&C 11:21

Who has faith in these promises?

Does anyone have any examples of that promise being fulfilled in their lives?

D&C 11: 8-9

Open your mouths and they shall be filled! *if you have studied effectively*

effective studies change you, and effective studies will change your investigators.

ROLE PLAY/ACTIVITY PMG page 197

CLOSING INVITATION/ GOAL

Remember to read chapter 1 

CH hope of Israel 

CP Sister Robinson

***********

President McMurray decided to come to that so that was fun lol

We have seen lots of miracles this week with the temple open house. Lots of people want took see it, and many are open to us teaching them about it! Yesterday it was cool because we went to dinner and just decided to go to talk to the people across the street. They were super nice and pretty interested, which was awesome. 

Amanda and Spencer are just so awesome. They brought Amanda's best friend to church yesterday and introduced her to the gospel, which is so awesome. Her friend, Lea- Ellen, is kinda interested, which is also pretty awesome. Great things are happening here. 

I love you so much Mom!

Elder Bush