Christmas

Oh what a Christmas in Liberia! These past few days have been really fun and really crazy. I think I've gained about 500 pounds in the course of 3 days. Gonna have to do some serious dieting and exercise after the New Year is finished. Can you believe that the year is almost finished? Weird.

We actually had some good success in our missionary work this week despite all of the activities. We found a couple that is married and who seem fairly interested and have also received some new people to teach so I'm really excited about that. Hopefully a couple that we are teaching will get their marriage certificate soon. 

Besides that we had a pretty sweet Christmas party for all the missionaries on Saturday which was actually a lot of fun. We exchanged gifts and things and had a good time.

I was super excited to talk to my family on Christmas! Everything at home sounds like its great. Can't wait to go back in 4 years! 

I really enjoyed Christmas this year and I'm so grateful for all the wonderful support and love that I feel from all of you guys! I wish you all the best and hope you have the best holiday season. I'll make sure to share some of the warmth from Liberia with all of you real soon because its starting to get really hot here. Somehow I'm still getting a cold but whatever. 

Love you all talk to you soon! 

Elder Bush(right side near edge)

Warning to Full-time Missionaries

Please. If you are serving your mission right now stop reading this email. It will only leave you feeling sad I promise you. ;)

Liberia I tell you...

This week was really great and also crazy hectic. I felt like we had absolutely no time to relax or do anything. Whenever it's like that though time seems to go by really fast which is great. 

The reason I said that Full-Time missionaries should not read this email is because on Saturday we had a baptism for only our companionship. Elder Obasohan and myself baptized 9 people on Saturday and then confirmed all 9 on Sunday. In all honestly it was supposed to be 12 but then we had some small issues with a couple of the people and decided that they weren't ready yet so hopefully we'll get to baptize those ones later. But yeah, 9 people!! Isn't that awesome?! We have been working with these people for so long and I was so happy that they finally made the decision to be baptized that I wanted to be the one to perform the ordinance. There was one small boy who came to be baptized and then started crying and saying that his dad would cuss him and his sister so he didn't want to be baptized in that church.... We'll try and work with him and the father, but he didn't end up being baptized. Other than that the baptism was a great success and there were even a lot of members there to support and welcome them to the church. What a beautiful 2 days!!

That was mostly what I remember from this week. There were some other things too but I always seem to forget you know. 

We asked one small child this week who God was and he said, "the son of God... I don't know".

One woman that we are teaching this week said that Americans were really lazy because they don't even wash their own dishes they just put them in a machine. She even went as far as to say that they are lazy in their education because they only do a few subjects or something like that. I just laughed because Liberians are sometimes the laziest people that I've ever met and their educational system is so poor it's not even funny. Americans are a lot of things, but one thing they are not is lazy. Well, most of them at least. 

I still love Liberia though. I am so grateful to serve here. I truly love the people.

I love all of you and wish you a very Merry Christmas. My Christmas on you! (Meaning you are supposed to get me a gift for Christmas... A lot of people say that to us.)

Much love,

Elder Bush

Tell Your Ma Say I Here

Hello all of my wonderful friends,

This week was good and very busy. So busy in fact that I don't really have time to write to you guys because we were doing lots of stuff yesterday.

There's this song that they play here all the time now called Tell Your Ma Say I Here and it's kind of funny but I guess it's also a really bad song so don't look it up... Actually you wouldn't understand it anyways so go ahead. It just makes me laugh that's all. 

Lots of good stuff from this week but you'll just have to wait till next week to hear about it. For now just know that I love you and things are going well. Talk to you soon.

Love,

Elder Bush

Christmas is coming o!!!!

December 2016

Hello all how the day? I guess I could say morning since it's early in Sac Town and other parts of the states.

This week was cool. My companion and I are getting along pretty well and working well with one another. Things are really going well and I'm really happy with the progress that we are making in our area and as companions. We can fight but it's all friendly of course :)

We had the opportunity to go out with the Senior couples this week on Tuesday to proselyte. Elder Obasohan and I went with Elder and Sister Barker mainly to visit with some less active members of the church because that's mostly what they wanted to do. It was a really great experience and I learned a lot from them. They always highlighted a truth of the gospel in whatever we were teaching that really helped to focus on the true purpose of our message. I'm not sure how well the people that we were talking to understood them, but maybe their words were meant for me more than they were for the investigators that day. Sister Barker was funny and reminded me of my mom a little bit which made me happy.

Besides that this week was pretty normal. I cooked fried rice today and it's pretty good actually so I guess I'll come home a full blown cook and barber so there's that.

We also saw two guys start to fight and that was really funny for some reason to me. They both were too scared to take the first hit so neither swung for a while until one of the guys pulled out his knife. After that they both started to look for something to hit the other with. One tried to grab a chair that someone was selling but they said no. These old women were clapping and doing some chant encouraging them. I think after they couldn't find anything they just kind of gave up on the whole thing. Probably fighting over 5 or 10 Liberian dollars I don't know. Cool stuff always happens in Africa you know. 

I am really grateful to be in Africa this Christmas. Let me tell you why. Every Christmas I always try to focus on the Christ in Christmas like everyone says right? But amidst the holiday season I always seem to get lost in the presents, decorations and general season for reasons other than Christ. However, this year I am in Africa and although I will not be with my family there will be no presents. There will be no concern about anything but our Savior Jesus Christ and my family and friends and family at home. I can't imagine children here will get many presents but they are the happiest people on the earth regardless. My goal this year is that I don't worry about anything for myself but only things for others. Sharing the gospel and putting a smile on others faces is all I need this year. It may sound cheesy but I really feel so blessed to be in such humble circumstances this year. I hope you can feel some of that too. 

I'm so happy to be serving the Lord for two years and I'm so blessed to be doing it an a country with such wonderful and humble people. I hope one day I can be as loving and compassionate and kind and charitable as they are. 

Happy Holidays!

Elder Bush