What's Up

Hello Everyone!

Sorry I feel like my letter last week was weird but hopefully the one for this week will be better.

So first off, we had conference this week and I met a white family here from Salt Lake that are all members and they, more specifically the father, are the coolest people in the world. He started an orphanage here and is living like a real Liberian honestly. They treat missionaries very well. These people have limited power, no running water and are constantly taking care of little children with no parents. They say they also share the gospel and have baptized some people. They are not in my area but I wish they were. We have gas stoves but until last week they were just using coal. But now they have one gas stove thing I guess. Crazy. I talked to them at the Conference. Their children also go to school here which I think is nuts. Apparently they just got a big donation which should help them. They're really cool people.

This week we finally got to meet with the parents of some of the children we were teaching and that was super cool. They seem somewhat interested and I'm really happy and ready to start teaching them. This Monday was also transfer day and nothing happened. My companion and I are still in the same area and are going to continue to work hard.

There is one woman in our branch who was recently baptized that we saw this week with some major issues. We saw her when it was getting dark so I couldn't see her face too well, but I could tell something was wrong. So I asked her what was wrong right away. She kind of looked to her friend sitting by her and said, "This boy smart!" I feel like I've developed a talent for knowing when something is wrong with a person. But anyways, she turned her face and said something like, "Ain't you seen the bruise the returned missionary gave me?" Her husband served a mission in Nigeria and is a police officer. Sadly, he now often gets drunk and then beats her. She's taken him to the police, but they are all his friends so they don't do anything about it. So yeah, Africa is sweet sometimes. Doesn't mean all returned missionaries are like that obviously, but it's just sad to hear about because that just sucks. We talked to Mission President so hopefully he can help to do something about it.

Today we went back to my old area to visit few people. It was good to see those few but I also need to stay focused on my area. Things are good here in this area and we are trying our best. I think our companionship is improving and everything is okay. The only problem is the snoring that my companion can do. I don't get too much sleep but maybe when I get home I can rest small. Sweet is the work, hot is the sun.

Love you all,

Elder Bush

These are some questions from my mom, and answers from me:

Your last couple of letters have not been very informative. Even though your day seems ordinary to you, we would love to hear how it goes. What do you eat for breakfast lunch and dinner? Who are you teaching? What are you studying and learning about? What do you have a testimony of? How do you get to the mission office? These are the things we wonder about because we want to know every little detail about your crazy life or your ordinary life in Liberia. Do you have running water and flushing toilets in your new area? No well? I wish I could just be a fly on the wall and see everything! How did you get to Conference and how many sessions did you see?


Okay so this area really is really making my last look a lot worse, at least the apartment. Like I can't complain about anything. We have current in the apartment every night from about 7 at night to 6 in the morning. There is always running water so we haven't had to draw from a well at all. There is a local supermarket that has expensive cereal that I buy and eat for breakfast. There is this like sterilized and very processed milk called Uht milk that I drink that isn't that bad. My companion often tells me that he is feeling hot and I tell him that I'm feeling cold, or at least not sweating super bad. Dry season is coming again soon and I'm actually kind of excited. We're teaching a lot of people who are not married but this week we got some great new investigators that we're excited about. A lot of times smaller children want to be taught, but if you teach them and ask for their parents then usually you can teach families which is cool. We get to the mission office by these small three wheeled vehicles called keke which are sweet and then also by being packed into a car which isn't that fun but not hard to find. Right now I'm studying the Old Testament and the Bible. Why am I studying the Old Testament you might ask? Well, come to Africa and you will see. Basically it is to have more knowledge of the Bible, have a good knowledge when I take the class at BYU and to confound more pastors in their extremely flawed view of the Bible and religion. But I'm learning a lot and I really enjoy studying now. I've read the New Testament and the Book of Mormon so that's what I'm doing now. We watched conference this week, just the Saturday afternoon session and it was really great. I listened really intently to the messages and loved every minute of it. We also got to watch the Priesthood session. Apparently some other chapels had a hard time viewing it, but I really enjoyed it.