Hello from the Far East!
Well, I don't know that I have a whole lot of new stuff to tell you all. This week was full of important stuff like transfers and a huge Korea trip (a group of 15 missionaries was there at the temple; that's approximately a third of our mission). And we received two new outstanding missionaries, Elders Furhiman (pronounced just like Furman) and Browning. I wonder if we're related to him. We had the chance to work with Elder Browning while his companion was on visa, and it was great because we had some neat lessons we taught and he helped out a ton. I was blown away at how many words he knew that I didn't learn for several transfers into my mission! I did recognize though how difficult it was for him to understand. That's honestly the hardest part of the beginning. Besides being in a new place with new people trying to follow many new rules and be something you've been preparing for all your life, you can't understand hardly anything and it's just simply hard. But, I know he's going to do a great job.
This past weekend, we went with President Pratt to Ussurisk. It was a really rewarding trip, at least for me because I was able to recognize some fruits of the work I've been a part of. It's really neat to see people who have accepted the restored gospel of Jesus Christ because they are changed people. The light of Christ shines in their eyes and you know that there's something different about them. I unfortunately also saw a member that joined the church while I was serving in Ussurisk that completely avoided us and acted as though he didn't know us. We had some great meetings while in Ussurisk however and some great changes were made. I always love being in that branch. I love the members so much! The senior couple there will be going home this next month. So, a new branch president had to be called in the place of Elder Rahi. While we were there, Elder Johnson (the son of my former bishop at BYU) was called to serve as branch president and I'm sure he'll do a great job. It's cool to see yourself grow on your mission because you often forget to even look for that growth but it's also really awesome to see the growth of the missionaries serving around you.
We also did a street drawing activity (yeah despite my best efforts to stay warm, my feet and legs froze while we were out there for several hours) while we were in Ussurisk. Elder Winkler (the other elder in the group with Elder Zamora and I) is an outstanding artist as you may remember and he does fantastic street drawings on the back side of wallpaper. I talked with one really really nice guy named Boris who was really interested in reading the Book of Mormon. He was so interested, he came back twice after taking the book to double check and make sure he had written down our number correctly and then to tell us that we were doing a great thing. I hope and pray he reads that book because it's true.
I guess that's my week in a nutshell. Nothing too crazy. Hope you're all doing well. It's great to hear from you each week. Can't wait to tell you more stories! Love you!
Love,
Well, I don't know that I have a whole lot of new stuff to tell you all. This week was full of important stuff like transfers and a huge Korea trip (a group of 15 missionaries was there at the temple; that's approximately a third of our mission). And we received two new outstanding missionaries, Elders Furhiman (pronounced just like Furman) and Browning. I wonder if we're related to him. We had the chance to work with Elder Browning while his companion was on visa, and it was great because we had some neat lessons we taught and he helped out a ton. I was blown away at how many words he knew that I didn't learn for several transfers into my mission! I did recognize though how difficult it was for him to understand. That's honestly the hardest part of the beginning. Besides being in a new place with new people trying to follow many new rules and be something you've been preparing for all your life, you can't understand hardly anything and it's just simply hard. But, I know he's going to do a great job.
This past weekend, we went with President Pratt to Ussurisk. It was a really rewarding trip, at least for me because I was able to recognize some fruits of the work I've been a part of. It's really neat to see people who have accepted the restored gospel of Jesus Christ because they are changed people. The light of Christ shines in their eyes and you know that there's something different about them. I unfortunately also saw a member that joined the church while I was serving in Ussurisk that completely avoided us and acted as though he didn't know us. We had some great meetings while in Ussurisk however and some great changes were made. I always love being in that branch. I love the members so much! The senior couple there will be going home this next month. So, a new branch president had to be called in the place of Elder Rahi. While we were there, Elder Johnson (the son of my former bishop at BYU) was called to serve as branch president and I'm sure he'll do a great job. It's cool to see yourself grow on your mission because you often forget to even look for that growth but it's also really awesome to see the growth of the missionaries serving around you.
We also did a street drawing activity (yeah despite my best efforts to stay warm, my feet and legs froze while we were out there for several hours) while we were in Ussurisk. Elder Winkler (the other elder in the group with Elder Zamora and I) is an outstanding artist as you may remember and he does fantastic street drawings on the back side of wallpaper. I talked with one really really nice guy named Boris who was really interested in reading the Book of Mormon. He was so interested, he came back twice after taking the book to double check and make sure he had written down our number correctly and then to tell us that we were doing a great thing. I hope and pray he reads that book because it's true.
I guess that's my week in a nutshell. Nothing too crazy. Hope you're all doing well. It's great to hear from you each week. Can't wait to tell you more stories! Love you!
Love,
Элдер Буш
