Big Moves, Big News

Alright this week we got a lot of things going on so let's get right to it.

This week comes with a lot of changes. First of all, Let me explain a little about missionary things. For Missionaries, we spend six weeks in one area and then you can be moved to another area, or you can stay where you are depending on what the Mission President decides to do. So this week was the end of my second transfer, or the first 12 weeks in Liberia. During the first 12 weeks you are being trained by an older missionary (My trainer has now been out for 9 months). So this week my training ended which meant a lot of things. First, because Liberia is a pretty new mission, the missionaries are very young and still don't have a ton of experience. This means they need young missionaries to take on leadership roles early. So even though I just finished my training on Sunday, on Wednesday I will begin to train a new missionary who is coming from the MTC. We had a training meeting on Friday at the Mission Office. So I will be getting a new companion, but I will be staying in the same are for the next 12 weeks while I do his training which is good and bad of course. I love the area, but it may have been nice to go somewhere else, especially since my room and apartment is so small. Really I'm excited and I'm hoping for the best. I don't know who my new companion is yet, but I know he's American because it's just 10 Americans that are coming this time so that's exciting!

In other news, we had 2 more baptisms this week! It was supposed to be 3, but something happened to the third and we're still not really sure what that reason is yet, but we will find out and I'll let you know. The baptisms of the two were super sweet as they always are, and I appreciate each and every one of the people that we baptize and I love them so much.

On Saturday we had

an activity with the branch and we went out to less active members and recent converts in an attempt to invite them back to church. This activity was great for a lot of reasons. First of all, I think 4 of the people that we've recently baptized were there doing the missionary work to invite others to come to the church. This strengthened their own testimony and helped them to find more friends in the church. It also helped the missionaries to know where the less actives live because that has been a problem. People don't really have addresses, you just need to know where their house is because there are no street names or anything so you just have to find it or have someone show it to you. After the activity, one of our recent converts bore his testimony and that was wonderful to hear as well. So thankful we had that activity and I hope we continue to do it. Especially since afterwards they gave us fufu which I love now. Look up fufu on the internet it looks weird but now it's super good.

Sunday, my companion bore his testimony at church because he's going to a different area and he just says how he's enjoyed the people before he goes. One of the people we taught and baptized was really sad because she loves him a bunch, but she loves both of us really. She told us how the gospel has changed her life. How she used to drink a lot before and now she doesn't even have a desire to drink because of just how much she has changed. That's really just strengthened my own testimony to know that what I'm doing is so true and so significant. I love the work that I'm doing. 

Unfortunately, that same day a fight broke out on the football field right next to where we were eating dinner. It was a little scary because they came over right to our area and people went into their houses and everything, but it ended up to be okay. The people wanted to kill the ref because he said that it was a goal and they didn't think it was a goal... Africa is crazy.

I'm truly grateful for this gospel and the chance I have to be in Liberia. I know my email was long this week, but it's crazy that I'm going to train and so much is happening and has happened in the past 3 months. I feel so blessed and look forward to this coming week!

I love to hear from all of you so don't be shy to shoot me an email.

Love you all,

Eldah Bush

The children are the most beautiful things I've ever seen and I think I will miss them more than anything when I go home.

Watah Watah

Hey Everyone!

Sorry about last week, I wasn't able to email because I was too busy having tons of fun so don't worry about me. We went and played basketball in town at an indoor court and it was sweet. It was just a concrete floor and the hoops were kind of crumby, but I was just so happy to play that it really didn't matter. Later that day we went to one of the nice beaches (Some of the beaches are used as bathrooms and garbage cans :/ ). I just relaxed and it was supah sweet. 

Anyways! Happy Birthday last Monday to my best bud Brandon Dizon! Hope you had a great day my man :)

This week went by fast. One of the first weeks where I felt like the days really just flew by. Each one of the missionaries is getting interviewed by Mission President for some good reason that I can't seem to remember, and ours was on Thursday. Our Mission President is super sweet and the interview was nice, I enjoy talking with him. 

We had 3 baptisms this week! This week included Brother Wah, the guy who lives really far away in Jacob's town and is at church every week. I really loved seeing him get baptized. He gave his testimony after and I could really see how much the church has changed his life. It made me so happy to realize the difference that I can truly make in someone's life if I just give the Lord part of mine. He talked about how he was before the church and now how much better his life is now that he has accepted Christ in his life and knows that the church is true. I won't be surprised if he becomes a leader in the church soon, at least in Liberia. He's fairly intelligent and reads plenty of things so I believe that they will need him to lead quickly. We also baptized two young boys named Cephus and Meashel. They're both great kids who always come to church.

In every aspect it's crazy to be here. This week at church I was feeling disappointed because we only had 9 of the people that we're teaching come to church. I was thinking, wow we should have like 20 every week why were there only 9 that sucks... But then I thought how in most missions having 9 of the people you're teaching come to church is nuts! Unless maybe you're teaching a whole family, but these are 9 separate people. Nevertheless, we still feel that we can improve greatly so we're going to try really hard again this week to get more people to come. 

In other news, I was able to get a hold of some clippers this week so that I could cut my hair. Yeah, I cut my own hair and honestly, it's really not that bad. The cool part was that one of the other missionaries in the apartment asked me to cut his too... And he's African. Yeah I'm legit. I'm already planning how I'm going to start my barber shop when I get home because I figure by that time I'll be a pro so get in line to get your hair cut. $100 LD a person (Like $1 US). 

Besides that, life is pretty good and the rain is starting to fall. It's not as crazy yet as I know that it will be, but just wait small and it will be here soon.

Another thing that is cool is that I'm really starting to understand almost everything the people are saying now. A lot of people have told me that I'm speaking Liberian English now too which is cool. I can recognize them saying words now that I wasn't able to hear before so I'm feeling good about that.

This upcoming week a lot of things are going to happen because my training is going to end so look forward to my email next week! And I'll try to send pictures then too.

One more thing, please keep my mother in your prayers, she got in a little trouble this past week while cutting with a saw so just remember her when you pray please.

Love you all!

Elder Bush

Mother's Day

This week was sweeto!

So another great week from the happiest place on earth! Liberia is still wonderful and this week I even got to call home on Skype to see my family. It was really great to see them and talk to them so now I can refocus and get back to work. Because I talked to them a lot I think I'll make this letter shorter and just try to send some pictures for you guys.

This week we had a zone training and we were pretty busy, I honestly don't remember much from this week which is weird. I am pretty excited because one guy that we've talked to a bunch of times finally came to church and apparently even has desires to be baptized!

We had one baptism this week and her name is Tenneh. She is 25 years old and in the tenth grade. Yes, in high school... Liberia is sweet. But she's really great and my companion and I love her of course.

That's about all for now but I will share some pictures hopefully! 

Okay I lied they say it's like 40 cents for each picture I want to send so I'm still having trouble with the pictures... I'll try again next week sorry!!

Oh lied again I might get to send some!! Or maybe just one...

Love you all!

Elder Bush

This one is me and my companion at church! Hope it comes through and I hope you enjoy :)

The Results Are In

Alright this week was full of surprises and sweet sweet things so buckle up. 

First of all Happy Birthday to my beautiful little niece who turned 1 yesterday! Miss that cute chubby little thing.

Okay so lets start with Tuesday. Tuesday we went to the mission office because one of the people that we're teaching needed a special interview with mission president. A few things happened while we were there. First off, I got to weigh myself. Now, before I left I had gained a little weight since I knew that I was going to Africa so I got up to about 205 maybe even 210 pounds. Yeah, fatty right? Well on Tuesday I found out that after two months in Africa I now weigh 180 pounds. Sweet right? They should make a Biggest Loser Africa Edition. The only problem would be that they would need to take Doxy so they wouldn't get malaria, sleep under mosquito nets, and probably die of heat exhaustion but besides that it's a really god idea honestly. Next, I got a package from my sweet sweet mother who sent me some treats and I even got a little surprise thing that has been great and I will use on Mother's Day!

So that was really cool and then on Wednesday we had Zone Conference. There were only two zones at zone conference because the mission is expanding but it was still fun and of course I enjoyed it and they have some nice food and drinks for us. 

After that I think it was a pretty normal week until today when we went to a place called Red Light to buy some things. Red Light is just a place where a bunch of people come to sell all kinds of things from food to watches to jerseys to really anything that you can think of. If you look hard enough, you can find pretty much anything there and its usually pretty cheap if you bargain and make them realize you've been in Liberia for a little while and won't pay too much for some stuff. Today I found G2 Pilot pens which made me super surprised but also really happy because I was running out and they're my favorite pen so I bought a bunch. There is a kinds of cool stuff there.

Another thing I keep meaning to mention is the jerseys that I see, mainly the basketball jerseys is what I find interesting. I've seen people wearing Allen Iverson, Kevin Love, Kevin Durant on the SuperSonics, Steve Kerr, and plenty more. Just super weird and random jerseys that I really wish that I could find. 

Anyways, we didn't get to teach as many lessons this week because we had a lot of things going on but I'm actually really happy with the progress we're making. We had a lot of people come to church this week and there were two particular people that we just started talking to that I'm really excited about. 

I'm sorry that I didn't share many spiritual experiences this week but I promise we had some and we taught a good amount of people. 

There is one thing that I wanted to share though from a lesson we taught the other day to get an idea of how some people in Liberia are. We were teaching a man and talking about God. We asked if God and Jesus Christ are the same person (we believe that they are two separate beings; see Matthew 3:16-17 and plenty other verses in the Bible). He answered that he thought they were one person. My companion began to say that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are actually two very different beings, but before he could finish the man said, "Okay correction, no problem." I don't know why but it was just so funny to me. They are very accepting of the gospel at times which is really sweet. 

So plenty of things to share and say but that's all for this week! Hope you are enjoying the month of May because April went by fast!

Oh, also I'll be videoing home with my family on Mother's Day probably around 6 or 7 in the morning California time so if you want to talk to me I'm sure you could go there early in the morning and see me! 

Love you all, talk to you soon!

I guess no pictures again this week but I'm going to try next week!

Elder Bush

             This was taken at Zone Conference by another Elder. Sweet matching ties!