christmas!

It was so good to see you yesterday [via Skype]!

I really don't have much to say but I love you all so bad. It's crazy that I can be so excited to go serve in Siena with Sorella Nilson and at the same time feel like my heart is being ripped out and eat by some large carnivorous animal. I keep telling myself it's better to love people and leave bits of me with them and cry my face off when I leave than to be a cold unfeeling monster that cares abot nobody. Ha.

You're beautiful. Be good and take care of yourselves.

xoxo

sorella bush

p.s. We watched A Muppet Christmas Carol yesterday morning. So good. And then started it again in Italian while we waited for Luca to pick us up. Tooo funny.

forgiven

Hi family,

Forgiveness granted, your emails were lovely. And mom, I'm trying to send you a shiz ton of pics too so everyone should be happy.

First off, Christmas day. We're eating lunch at the Omer's. Our rough plan is for Sorella Beutler to call her fam around 3:30 our time and the tocca a me, so at the latest it will be 4:30 here or 9:30 for you guys. I would have everything on at least by 9:00, maybe earlier if you can wake yourselves up so I can call whenever the moment arrives. O mamma, Christmas?! How is it freaky Christmas!

Second item of business, Prez Wolfgramm didn't respond to my email, even though I threatened to throw up everywhere. Maybe I should have been more specific and said I'd throw up all over him. But we have zone conference tomorrow so I'll talk to him and figure it all out. My permesso di soggiorno doesn't even need to be renewed, so I'm legal here until the 29th of June I think. Not going anywhere.

Thanks for the present, not sure it will get here before I leave though. Word on the street is we have a sorella conference coming up, in some way or another Sorella Beutler will get it to me.

Guys, I'm just so happy these days. Seriously, I feel kind of like I'm in mid-stride, like I've figured out what I'm supposed to be doing and I know the Book of Mormon and I understand Italian and I freaky love these people. I love that I really do just feel like myself, but a much better version of me. I don't get the missionaries that lose who they are, and there are so many of them. Or they start teaching people and all of a sudden switch into missionary mode. Who wants to learn the gospel from them? I mean, it's not like jokes all of a sudden aren't funny now that we're missionaries. laughing isn't necessarily equal to irreverence.

In district meeting Monday this Anziano was talking about how when Christ was on the Earth it was still the Holy Ghost that ha colpito le persone, non Gesu' and before I knew what was happening, I said "Si, ma Gesu' non ha mai colpito nessuno, meno male." The native Anziani laughed. Ha.

I remember in Bergamo in my first two transfers with Sorella Jacobson, lamenting how I didn't feel like I had a personality in Italian. Don't worry folks, adesso basta e avanza. In missionary news Herlina is incredible! I taught her on scambio with Sorella Gomez two weeks ago and it was a beautiful first lesson, poi, last Thursday siamo tornate con Michele e abbiamo insegnato il piano di salvezza e era troppo bellllllo! This woman is elect.  How do we know?

Sign Number 1: When we were talking about this life on earth, and the 5 steps Christ showed us we need to do, she said "hang on, what are they again, aspetta, voglio scrivere questo, and she went and grabbed a notebook to write the 5 steps down.

Sign Number 2: She started asking about her family members that are already dead and didn't get the chance to accept all this in this life. Told her not to worry, talked about missionary work in the spirit world and said we would explain more in the future. Basically I'm obsessed with her.

We went back last night with Luca and just read the BOM together and applied it. At the end she was telling us this great story about one of the old lady she works with who's anti anything not catholic and she was like guarda, soon enough you're going to have a Mormon in this house. Ha!

I also really love how when she talks about the things we've learned so far together she says it all makes her feel more sicura, best word choice. It breaks my heart a little bit that the first Sunday she'll be able to come to church will be the first Sunday I'm probs not here. I'll just have to visit her when I get back and then we can kick it in the celestial kingdom. We were talking last night about how crazy it is we met, because we were at a bus stop we hardly ever wait at and it was late at night, and she said that she never leaves the house at night, but she decided to run and grab some stuff from the store so we were waiting together. I get scared thinking about what if I hadn't started talking to her. O madonna. God is great.

My other new best friend is Onofrio, originally from Sicily, maybe I can tell you about him Christmas. Love that there's a cheese CSA!!! Guys, what if I just spend the rest of my days making cheese, I can't think of a happier life, ha.

Did you guys do a family Christmas card guy this year? send me one if you did, I carry last years in my scriptures for when peeps ask to see my family. Random thing, my Patagonia boats are awesome, kinda wearing down but have held up so well considering I wear them constantly in all weather. Could someone look and see if the Addie Riding Boot still exists, in a size 9, because I would love another pair, black or brown. They're the greatest.

Okay, well, see you Tuesday!! Have a lovely Christmas Eve, hope there's snow, salute the Andrew family for me. And the cool peeps in the university ward and obvioudly Sarah. I wish she wasn't heading west for the holidays like I assume she is so she could be part of the family skype, ha.

love yooooou!!!!!

sorella bush!

okay, you guys are all grounded

I feel like it's been ages since I've gotten a real email from you jokers, so this will be short. Also because we're about to catch the train to Milano to see the Last Supper and then scambi with the Milano 3 sorelle.

It's actually been kind of a slow week. Sorella Beutler has been sick again so lots of time at home, I've read the first 200 pages of the Old Testament (how do people get by without the Book of Mormon? No idea.)

I did have one super amazing lesson on scambi last Wednesday night. We taught this woman we had found named Herlinda and it went so well. She accepted the baptismal invite, said the prayer at the end, there was just an incredible spirit and teaching with Sorella Gomez I felt like I was back with Sorella Simkins, because all we did was teach those main preach my gospel lessons all the time. We haven't had tons of progressing investigators here in Varese so it just felt good to feel like I was really working.

I love Sorella Beutler and I had a baby moment of revelation Monday that helping her grow was a big chunk of what I was supposed to do here in Varese. And back to Herlinda we realized that she's the cousin of a less active Ermila that we work with. Small world.

But someone has got to tell me your Christmas day plans so we can figure out when I need to call. Can't wait to see you pretty faces.

Also I'm talking with prez to get my release date sorted out. May 3rd means I don't go over the 18 months and June I go over 17 days or something. He has the power to extend people 30 days past so I'm hoping we'll get it sorted out. I told him the idea of having just three transfers left makes me want to throw up. Exact quote. Ha.

So excited about Ian's papers!!!!!! sos os os os os os sosooososososososossssssssooooooo 

Okay...off to catch the train.

Love you all, be good!

xoxo

sorella bush

i went to italy because i wished to live deliberately

Hi guys! Happy December! When did that happen, shoooooot. Time is getting faster all the freaky time and I don't know how it's possible. We had branch conference on Sunday and the stake prez and everybody important was there. Varese is the only branch in the stake now and the prez spoke specifically about how to make Varese into a ward, what everyone has to do to make it happen, because it can and will happen.

He then talked about us. He told everyone that they have two great sorelle here and they need to take care of us. He said "they won't be here forever and when they leave you will sorely miss them, so take care of them now, love them and work with them." It all made me wonder if I've really done enough for this place. I know I've worked hard but we can always work harder. My time here is coming to a close and pretty quickly, and I just hope that I've done at least part of what the Lord expected of me here, found some of the people he had been preparing.

I really do feel like I've been planting seeds like crazy. Talking to lots of people, building relationships with the members, and being an example to their friends and peeps we just meet in the street of what a member of the church is and does. Speriamo bene! Sorella Beutler is always quick to remind me of everything I've done here when I maybe start to wonder. Sometimes I hate when people say that if you only have one convert on your mission and it's you then you've succeeded, just sounds like a cop-out to me. But I also really feel like I've had great success in that department. I feel like I finally love and know the scriptures, I know how to talk to my Heavenly Father, how to go to Him always and be honest, how to try and be guided my the spirit in everything I do, how to love love love love love. I don't just believe that the restoration happened but I understand why and how it makes PERFECT sense, same with the plan of salvation. Oh, how I love the plan of salvation! Seriously.

This transfer had been really beautiful with Sorella Beutler. I have to be honest: I was pretty stressed for awhile training her.  I knew she was struggling and questioning her capabilities and if she even thought she could make it, so I never wanted to add to her stress trying to master the language and get used to being away from her family so I just took everything else on, and tried to do it by myself.

As a result I was just worries about everyone all the time, about her, about our peeps, our members, people we had met once on the street, people we hadn't met but maybe were supposed to, who I needed to call, how to get lessons organized and members there and people in church. It was kind of suffocating. But now that I've gotten better at asking for help and Sorella Beutler is finding her place in Italy there's just a lot more harmony in what we're doing. She's taken the lead in more of our lessons lately and it's been beautiful. Other people have started telling her how much she's improved, so even though she won't ever believe me when I tell her she's starting to have patience with herself.

We had a really beautiful lesson Monday with Gina. We brought a member that's 24, served a mission in London and is the daughter of our branch prez, and her fiance and we just talked about the atonement, it was so beautiful. I love that I feel like I've got the ability to just always be myself, even as a missionary, that it's totally normal that I'm here, with my friend Gina, telling her about what it means that Christ suffered for her and how much God loves her.

We also started teaching this cool 50 year-old Italian lady, Laura. It's really interesting because she's Catholic, doesn't totally agree with the church but still feels Catholic because she doesn't know what else she would be. She was really excited to get the Book of Mormon after our first lesson with her Monday night. I'm praying that she'll just read and read and open her heart and the spirit will help her not be confused.

Side note, I was trying to explain to her how Mary isn't our mother and she was having a hard time grasping that, but guys, I don't get it? how does that make any sense???? Boh.

Anyway, we're still meeting cool peeps all the time. We've been teaching a lot more these days, thank heavens because it is freaky cold! The cool lady Giulia that I talked to at Thanksgiving came to church with her compagno on Sunday. I don't hardly know than but I love them! Mostly her. I'm hoping we can get ourselves organized to see them soon because she is super cool, has tons of questions and wants to see us to.

I can't believe Christmas is so close! We're being taken care of, no worries, people love us, even without the threatenings of the stake prez. Christmas eve will be with Gabriele's family and company, Christmas with the Omer's who bought us shoes last week. Sorella Betuler's boots broke, plus she's always cold and John, who's American, told us to take to his wife, Giuliana, and she took us to a good place to get boots. We picked out some good ones for Sorella Beutler, and then she said, "Sorella Bush, your turn, and I was like "No I'm good with these (love my Patagonia boots so bad, I'm praying they last the next few months, I've worn them hard).

She said "No, we decided it's a Christmas present."  I didn't find any boots that felt as good as my Patagonia ones so I got these cute lace up green shoes I've been wearing everyday this week. Moral of the story, we're being taken care of. It really does scare me a bit how fast time goes, I'm just trying to love each day and come home satisfied and not totally frozen every night.

Love you all!! Any mission news and let Luca/Gabri know subito!!! I can't wait. Prez Wolfgramm thinks maybe Ian will go to Rome.... vediamo! How about Iceland? I've always wanted to go there and you could be my personal guide, va bene? Vi voglio un mondo di bene! Fate il bravo! 

la vostra contenta missionaria,

sorella bush

focus!

Okay, I just got distracted playing on Familysearch.org and looking at our family tree. Refocus!

I can't believe it's Wednesday, or that it's pretty much December, shooooot.

Thanksgiving was great, we went and ate such good pizza with Luca. Mine had tomato sauce then a pistacchio sauce and fresh stracciatella that came on the side in this little glass: Yum. Then Saturday we had a real life Thanksgiving dinner and I got my fill of sweet potatoes. It was pretty cool because there were 20 of in total, maybe half members of the church. I got to chat up with this rad lady from Sicily next to me and across from me where these two dudes probably in their later twenties that didn't really talk because I don't think they knew what to do with me, even though one of them is studying pretty much the exact same thing I did.

Anyway, we leave at 9:00 and as soon as I do I guess these dudes say, "Hold on, are they nuns?" It  was perfect, because it spurred a conversation about the Church that lasted into 1:00 am with these peeps asking everything, from what's the Book of Mormon down to anything else you can think of about the church. So Augusta and Michele, plus Luca and another girl named Michela got to lay it all out, which is what Augusta has been hoping would happen.

The rest of Saturday and then Sunday we spent doing a mostra which is basically where we get a permit from the city to set up a little display thing and then try and stop everybody and their dog to talk about the gospel. We had a handful of members come out, passed out so many pass along cards and pamphlets and got a handful of good potentials. This is why you have to work with the ward and above all the bishop. If he loves you, he helps you and organizes mostras for you and then the members come help because they love you too.

Another finding story for you. Friday night we're waiting for the bus to head up and see one of our less active families and this guy walks past. I say buona sera, he stops and asks me if ci conosciamo. I tell him no, I was just saying buona sera and we start talking. His name is Paolo, he teaches music and he's been to the states just once to play the clarinet in Chicago. I'm trying to write down is phone number as the bus pulls up and then the bus doesn't stop and keeps going. So we talk to him while we wait the 20 minutes for the next bus. We should be teaching him tonight, speriamo bene, his phone was off when I tried to call and confirm. Because it has been raining nonstop since Monday, I don't want to be outside and wet tonight.

I'm pleased with the [Christmas] tree name, well done, it feels sort of impossible that you guys had real Thanksgiving and we have a tree and Christmas is coming. They're stringing tons of lights up all over the place here but it still doesn't quite feel like Christmas, pian piano.

Well, enough for now, I'm hoping to hear really good news very soon about a certain little brother of mine. You guys are great. Love you lots. What are your Christmas Day plans? Christmas and Christmas Eve are going to be beautiful and nutzo, we're just so popular :)

xoxo

sorella bush

*It's the stupidest question ever that we get all the time. Do I look like a nun? Pretty sure the answer is no.

aldo

Well here we are again.

I wrote like ten letters last night so I'm kind of lettered out, but I love you all dearly. Sorella Beutler is a little sicky again so it's not been the most normal week, but we had a beautiflu miracle/adventure I will tell you about last Thursday/Sunday. His name is Aldo.

There is a city called Angera in our area, and according to Gabriele the missionaries hadn't been there for at least ten years, so we've been wanting to go for awhile. We finally got ourselves organized last Thursday at we're waiting at the bus stop. This 55 year-old man starts talking with us. We just sort of chat about how he hasn't taken the bus in 40 some years but drove into town with his sister to get his hand checked at the doctor because a rock fell and crushed it (yes Italians will tell you their life story if you just listen).

We then tell him a bit about who we are and what we do. Get on the bus. We head toward the back where there are more seats and hope he comes too. But he's hanging out at the front of the bus for awhile and we're worried. Then he suddenly runs off the bus, goes and buys a ticket, comes back and sits by us.

So we keep chatting it up. About his mother who died six months ago, about the home they have in Taranto, where they're from, about his four year-old daughter. We tell him about the Book of Mormon and how there's life after this one. Then he pulls out of this funny little plastic briefcase an invitation to his daughter's birthday party that Sunday. We give him a plan of salvation pamphlet. He gets off the bus, we head on to Angera.

Sunday, we obviously go to the birthday party. We get to his town, where I've never set foot. We head to the only open place, a bar/tabaccaria and ask how to get to Via San Michele. And no one knows. So they ask what we're looking for, and I said, "Um...a family, his name is Aldo."

This bad a guy in a wheel chair tries to pull up a map on his phone but can't get to the internet, all eight people in the bar are trying to figure out if any of them know the via and the people that work there look for their map of the area.

Meanwhile wheelchair man heads over to the adjoining room and comes back and asks if we're looking for Aldo the mechanic. I tell him I think so, and he tells us to go down the next street, down a hill, up another hill, past a cemetery and then we'll take the road that runs off to the left and that's where Aldo lives.

We go, we make it, and we spend a few hours with a handfull of 5 year-olds from preschool but mostly Aldo's 7,000 siblings and nieces. He is one of 11 children! I got to talk to a few of them about what we do as missionaries a bit about what we believe. I didn't get any numbers becuase we had to race off to catch the bus but when we left Aldo said "If you need anything let me know. Give me a call and we'll do Sunday lunch sometime and talk with more calma, and I have a truck if you need to move anything, if you need a hair cut Rosa lives in Varese and cuts hair." His youngest sister who I think would be down with talking to us a bit, and I am in dire need of a haircut.

So the work of the Lord is great, moral of the story. We had an absolutely beautiful conference yesterday and had interviews with President Wolfgramm. So great. Love that man and I love how he makes me think. I feel like I've learned so freaky much about the gospel this year. I don't know what I was doing before. And it makes me excited to be able to someday have a family that I'll be able to teach the gospel to, for reals. It's like Carrie always talked aboout both how everything she had done or learned she felt prepared her to be a mother and how serving a mission just prepared her for everything.

Well, I love you all. The babiest bad I wont be around the table with you today, or sleeping in front of the fireplace with Alice after, but we have time still. I'll make do with the great pizza I plan on eating at 1:30

xoxo

sorella bush

unthinkable

Guys, the almost unthinkable is happening and I get one more transfer in Varese with Sorella Beutler. I was pretty sure I was staying but I was just really nervous. I couldn't imagine anyone else being right for Varese or Sorella Beutler right now. So here's the simple answer—we stay! Ha! Sorella Beutler is still super hard on herself and has a hard time not comparing herself with everybody else Italian-wise and I really do worry about her and what will happen when we're not companions. Pian piano.

It's been kind of a nutso week. Here are some highlights for you:

GINA! We finally saw beautiful Gina! We used the excuse that one of us might be leaving and she said, "Sorry I haven't responded in ages I've been soooo bust with exams and school I haven't even seen my best friend!"  So we met up and read the 2nd half of 2nd Nefi 4 together and had a beautiful lesson talking about hearts and temptation and relying on the Lord. There was a nice little pause and we were all sitting there and she said, "Can I ask you guys a question"

"What do you do to feel God when you pray? Because I don't think it's ever happened for like it has for you, I mean sometimes I think I feel something, but sometimes I feel like I'm just talking..'"

We had a beautiful discussion on prayer, and she told us that she thinks it's destiny we met, because she wasn't even supposed to go out the day we stopped her per strada and how she feels like her life really has changed and she feels best when we're with her and she reads the bom. Srsly, this is what I live for! If only we could see her more regularly! Really, she's so wonderful. (and in the closing prayer asked that we would both stay in Varese a bit longer..:)) Now Yeimy (Jaime). Our other beautiful 21 year old who has been so hard to see lately. But Friday morning before weekly planning Sorella Beutler was like let's go do a giro by the old house, get out and talk to some peeps and check the mail. SO we go and after we check the mail I was like I should go make sure there's no air building up in the radiators so the heat isn't blocked on the lower floors, blah blah, we go and decide to carry home this funny end table that we needed to put our microwave on. We we're carrying this table between us and I'm holding it behind my back and I look across the street and see Jaime, so I yell to her, she comes over, we chat, set up an appointment for Saturday, went and saw her, it was beautiful, and at the end I asked if we could do anything for her, or at least pray for for her and she starts crying and tells us no one ever asks her that. we're hoping to see her again Saturday because she freaky needs the gospel. Found some cool potentials in my efforts to be better at talking to people between appointments and plans and stuff, speriamo bene, people here just work way too much.

And did I tell you about Giuseppe? Who's from Sicily and showed up in church last Sunday? He's been studying with the Sorelle there for 8 months and works all the time up here in Lombardia so he missed a baptismal date in September and then was always like, well, we'll talk about in when I come back, and then he's back for maybe trhee days and comes north again.... SO We've taught him twice, took him to stake conference in Milano ands set a tentative baptismal date for the 22 of December. He's kind of a funny guy but I think he's sincere about the church and LOVES how family is central to everything, I think he's maybe mid 40s and really wants a family, refocus his priorities. Moments like Giuseppe walking into church make me feel like maybe heavenly father really is ok with the work I'm doing and throws me a little bonus.

I don't know why but I've been feeling a little discouraged lately, I don't know, something's just off and I'm not super happy with my work but I feel too weak to change too fast, I don't know how to explain myself, I'm happy I just feel like I could be doing more and I don't really know what I need to do. I think I need to spend more time on my knees because HF knows exactly what this area leaves.

We had gelato with Luca on Monday night when he finished work and before we headed to our appointment in church. We had already texted him that we were both staying and we were talking to him and he was like but this means they'll probably send you off right before Christmas.  I said "NO, subito DOPO," and he said "What," and I told him when transfers were next and he was like "SO YOU'LL BE HERE FOR CHRISTMAS?!"

He was so excited, made me feel great.  They like me! They really really like me!  Branch President Carnieletto was super contento, he even said so twice. I guess he hasn't always loved the missionaries but somehow we've won him over and HE'S started thinking a lot more about missionary work and organized everything for us to do a mostra in centro with members a week from Sunday with some sort of message about Christmas.

The weather is beautiful these days, all of a sudden kind of warm and the trees are still in peak color, if only I still had my bike...

BTW—one year on Friday? Whaaa??  I've been putting a name tag on everyday for a year, whoa, how strange and beautiful.

Did I tell you about Giudi? The girl we teach english to? 22 from como and wonderful. We've had some really beautiful lessons with her about the gospel too, and she came to church on fast and testimony meeting with her friend and she might come this week to see what it's like when it's not open mic Sunday. She's super smart and we already have really interesting conversations and we can see her heart opening little by little. We're planning on a heading to Como together for a p-day this transfer.

You all sound busy and happy, I heard the new James Bond was awesome, a little jealous, maybe. Luca played us the Adele single from it, man she's good. Mom you're almost a master! Are you guys doing the turkey trot this year?

We have to go to Milano next Wednesday, so I don't know when we'll p-day next week, and Saturday we're having Thanksgiving with Augusta and her fam and Luca obviously and who knows who else will be there. The food will be much better than last year fo sho. love you all!

I'll try and send pics next week,

be good! be happy!

xoxo sorella cespuglio

illegal email!

I'M STAYING IN VARESE FOR CHRISTMAS!!! Hip hip! Sorella Beutler and I are starting transfer three together next week...

love love

sor.cespuglio

halloween!

Hey guyz, happy Halloween! Where the freak did October go????

Ok well, my little collega got sick end of last week so we've been kind of on a pausa again, but pian piano we're moving forward nonetheless. I feel like every time we leave the house we find someone cool. Like yesterday we were taking the bus up to see Luca in Luino and I started talking to the lady across from us on the bus. Katia. She's originally from Morocco but has lived here more than 20 years. Is married to an Italian with two kids. When I told her about the Book of Mormon she was like and you've read it? And believe it? And I was like I sure do lady. We're going to her house on Friday.

Saturday we got to see our friend Robin, who we met through Gabriele and is about 65 from London. It's funny how most of our encounters he starts off kind of closed and almost heavy. You can just see the weights of regret and loneliness he's carrying around with him. But by the end he's always so happy and optimistic. He needs the church like whoa. Healing from the past, a sense of community and purpose and belonging and hope for the future. We got it all dude. I hope he really does start reading the Book of Mormon because that is the key to it all. Did I tell you how finished the Book of Mormon in Italian for the first time last week?

Starting over again. Purtroppo the Ortiz family is kind of dropping off BUT her other son made it from the DR and he and his brother came to church with Sander, who's 11. The sorelle reactivated his mom and baptized him right before I came and we hooked their two families up and it was the best thing we could have done. I'm hoping that as the kids learn Italian they'll be able to really get the gospel and it will at least help them out. Senia's super busy with work right now but she loves the book of mormon and everything about our message. Alfonso peaced out after decima.

Other people I love these days, one Giudi. We're teaching her English and then we talk about the gospel at the end. She had met the missionaries in Como, where she's from, and knows a fair amount about the Book of Normon. There is such a beautiful spirit every time we're with her and last night she brought us chocolate, ha. She's turning 23 next week and is just so cool, super real.

Thursday we're off to see some new peeps that we found last week in the most random way, but obvi nothing is too per caso in missionary work. We're excited. Life goes on, we're moving on Saturday. I'll finally have a shower that's taller than me again. Hip hip!

I'm eating too much good food these days, but what can you do. Life is hard. Here's hoping for everyone's health to return so our morning runs can also make a come back...ho bisogno. Vi voglio bene! Vi manerò le foto di questi giorni settimana prossima. Abbiamo fatto biscotti come i diti de una strega con la nostra amica Claudia. Siamo brave. 

xoxoxo

s. cespug.

so life is great

Hey guys, So life is great.

This weekend was absolutely incredible. Luca's baptism was beautiful. Kind of rainy chilly but the rain stopped for the 30 minutes, and there were beautiful low clouds hanging around the green hills on the other side of the lake. He bore an incredible testimony after and then we all went back to his house where he made lunch for everyone and there was a fire in the fireplace and I felt like I was just at home with my second family.

Sunday...Oh mamma! His confirmation was incredible. The spirit was just thick in the room and stayed for the rest of testimony meeting. All last week I would look over at Sorella Beutler and say, "Remember how Luca is getting baptized Saturday?  SATURDAY?!

And now I keep looking at Sorella Beutler and saying, "Remember how Luca is a member of the church?!" I remember when I was in Bergamo thinking Ana and Samuel were so ready to be baptized, and they were, but Luca is just a whole new level of prepared. I literally can't wait to see where life is going to take him because it's clear God has beautiful plans awaiting.

Then Sunday I got sick. I've been feeling like I've been running on empty for awhile and thought about calling Sorella Wolfgramm to get permission to just take a day and sleep it off. Looks like I waited too long. We've been doing kind of half days of work this week because even though Sorella Wolfgramm told me to keep warm and sleep as much as possible I get bored staying home all day. So I sleep, we go work, I come home sleep, we go work and come home and sleep. I'm feeling better but just really drained still and my temperature's been kind of low. More broth and tea this afternoon.

Last night after my afternoon nap we went and saw this beautiful new convert Claudia. She was baptized in Genova and lives here now because she got married this summer. We had a beautiful night with her talking about how she came to Italy (she's 25 and from Capo Verde and beautiful) how she joined the church and then talked about the 5 steps of the gospel. She lives in Porto Ceresio and is kind of alone a lot because of when her husband works. So we made dinner with her after the lesson and while everything was cooking she showed us her wedding video. It was just a beautiful night where I really felt like I was right where I should be doing my job. We're planning on going back for a P-day and making lunch Capo Verde style and walking down by the lake and hanging out. She was like vi invito ogni giorno!

Tomorrow we're off to Milano for zone conference and I'm hoping that Friday and Saturday I won't be a zombie so we can go out and do some good finding. I love Varese, you guys should pray with me that I get to stay here a 4th transfer and be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas  And I really feel like I'm part of the branch. And the Branch Prez loves us, which I guess wasn't always the case. Now he calls us the 3rd and 4th counselors in the bishopric. Ha!

I love you alllllll. How do you feel about moving to Italy so I can just have all the people I love in one place? And mozzarella di bufala?

Vi voglio beeeeeeene!

xoxo

sorella cespuglio

sick week OVER!

Thank heavens.

We had a stellar zone conference last Thursday at which Sorella Wolfgramm commanded me to stay in all day Friday. So I slept for an eternity and we're back at it. None of our investigators are really progressing so we've been doing tons of finding and it's been super fun. We've talked to some super cool peeps. One lady was waiting for the bus and started off super closed saying that the world was brutto and we should leave her alone, so I told her how the hand of God is everywhere if we look, and she started listening and we're going to her house Thursday afternoon. I love watching the Spirit work on the peeps that he's preparing and to see the change that can happen in a short conversation.

Then there was a lady working in a bakey I really wanted to talk to, so I bought some bread and then asked her if she had seen missionaries like us before and then we started talking about the gospel for a good 20 minutes. Left a pamphlet on the restoration that she said she'd read and we'll be stopping by soon. You can tell which people are more ready a lot of times by the kind of questions they ask and how well they listen to the answers and she was asking such good questions and really trying to understand.

So our days are filled with lots of strada, talking to peeps everywhere and I'm hopefully that there are people that really are ready for us and that's why it's been so hard to see the investigators we have that are mostly stuck.

Dad, there's an Anziano in my district from Palermo, did you know any Boscias? He thinks his parents were baptized maybe 30ish years ago. Also, Gabriele's mom asked me the other day if you had any peeps you baptized that are still active. I told her I had no idea. Do you?

Amanuensis: Yes, I do remember the Boscia family from Monreale.  As far as the second question, I have no idea.

Things sound nice and normal at home. Someone needs to kiss Sarah on the forehead for me. I got part two of her postcards yesterday and part one today, which I haven't read yet but looks promising. I'm working on a Sorella Bush podcast for her, special addition.

Life is good. We had to hop a super tall fence the other day when we got stuck outside a building and inside a fence, at dusk, in skirts. It was pretty great. I'm just cultivating sooo many talents these days.

President talked all about real intent and desire at conference and it was awesome. I feel like one of the most crucial things I could learn now is how to do everything with real intent. I feel like my life would just be full and purposeful and beautiful for evs. Also after teaching Luca last night I've been mulling over this idea of our weaknesses coming from God or the Adversary (I say God) and my district leader suggested from the fall, but then I said we probs had the same weaknesses before this life and then went on a spiel about how I'm so pro the fall and how Eve totally knew what she was doing choosing knowledge and family and life) weaknesses that we inherited from the first estate, and all things preexistence. Like how we must have known people that chose to follow Satan and then we fought against them in a war, and now they've never gone through the veil, and they still remember that eternity we lived before. Man, the preexistence, I have SO many questions...so interesting.

Also I've been reading Doctrine and Covenants and I want your thoughts. I don't super love reading it cover to cover, I feel like Christ is portrayed more severe than I imagine, and I got confused about how it says we can't be forgiven for murder, but then there are peeps like Alma the Younger that murdered before the angel came and had his talk with him. But since in church history they had also introduced things like the law of consecration were the just trying to live a higher law in general, that then we realized we're too imperfect for? OH and I finished the BOM in Italian for the first time. Started right back at it again, and now I'm reading Jesus the Christ in Italian.

Dad, is it okay if we only speak in Italian when I get home? I'm going to miss it like a motherless child. Love you allllll....off to eat pizza (still haven't had a decent pizza in Varese so I'm hopeful) in Laveno with Gabriele and Luca, then hit up Santa Caterina del Sasso.

XOOXXXOOOooxoxoxoxo

sorella cespuglio

conferenza

Guys, there are too many highs school students in Varese and they take over the buses and make me want to shoot myself in the face. Aiuto.

But other than that I have no complaints, just that I am freaky tired alllll the time! We planned a chill P-day today so that we can just sleep and catch up and be ready to get to work again tomorrow.

First off, Conference!!!!!!! Oh mommmmmma. So good. I feel like Prezzes Uchtdorf and Erying have been reading my journal. It was so cool to here them talk about the things that have been rolling around my brain these months, fulfilling our potential and aligning our will with God and then Holland came in and just sealed the deal. Does the Lord know that I love him? What do I need to do to make sure there is no doubt?

Saturday night we watched the morning session at Agusta and Michele's house with Luca. It was so perfect and felt like home, sitting in the couch with the laptop on a coffee table, and after we ate lots of delicious squash and prickly pears. Sunday we headed to Como to watch the Saturday afternoon session and Sunday morning sessions in the church. We brought Tati and Eddie and Alice in the morning, and Luca was there obvi. Just a beautiful weekend.

Then Monday morning we had a zone training meeting here in Varese. Since they split the Milano stake the rearranged the Como and Milano zones into Milano Ovest and Milano Est according to the stake boundaries and now being part of the Milano Ovest zone, Varese is the more central city to meet in. Anyway Sorella Forbes was there (hip hip) and some of my fav anziani and it was just a really good meeting.

We've had this push to teach 20 lessons every week since last conference but the standard had been set before, so when I got here and finished my first transfer Sorella Jacobson said that we've taught 20 lessons every week, you can decide now to teach 20 lessons every week for your whole mission. So I did. It's been a little stressful a few times this past transfer but we planned and prayed and did it. Then this past week, with appointments in the Questura and conference in Como and what not we got 19. And to be honest I felt kind of awful, even thought I knew it wasn't true I just felt like it meant I had done something wrong, even though plenty of peeps don't teach 20 lessons.

Anyway, they announced Monday morning that they're getting rid of 20 lessons. It helped lots of people talk to to more people and step up the work, but it also caused lots of people to teach sub-par lessons trying to get 20 lessons. And when the zone leaders told us and the assistants explained a bit how they came to this point I felt soooo good. So relieved. We're still going to try and teach as much as possible, because that's what where here to do, but it means I can relax a little and enjoy the rest of my work. I think it's just really going to help everything. Anyway, kind of long winded to explain a simple thing, but know I am really excited for this transfer.

BTW, Luca is getting baptized Saturday. SATURDAY!! My heart is exploding. There's nothing more to be said.

Cool thing from last week: We met this rad girl named Sole doing strada in centro last Tuesday night. She's 18 and so so cool. We had saw her last Friday and were kind of rushed and unprepared and taught her about the Book of Mormon, gave her a copy and made plans to meet Tuesday and she said she would bring her sister, who's 16, who's a little more practicing but feels like God hasn't been listening to her prayers.

So yesterday we meet in the park to teach Sole, her sister Angelica, and Angelica's bf Francesco. Such a cool restoration lesson. Francesco told us he believes in Darwin's evolution not God, and I was like "uh, dude, they go right together." Sole said she had read in the Book of Mormon and really liked it and she had explained it a bit to her mom who had also started reading it. Francesco asked tons of questions that were really interesting. At the end I offered him a Book of Mormon and he was like I'm not really interested in conversion just discussion but I'll for sure be here whenever you meet with Sole and Angelica.... Little does he know everyone says that at the beginning...vediamo.

The future of the church here is totally in the hands of the youth and young single adults and they have become my favorite people to teach. Sole really likes everything we've taught her. We can't see them next week but we made an appointment for the beginning of the week after. I'm excited.

Beautiful things are happening. I ate my first cachi yesterday, yum.

Love you all, praying for you. Did you send that baby package? If not send it asap because we need to move apartments the beginning of November and even if we forward our mail I just want to limit the steps in which it could be lost. Excited for Ian to try out the mission life. It is the hardest but most beautiful thing evs. Appunto!

BTW in case you didn't know pretty sure I fly home next June 14th.

Send me more pics when you can. I'll take a soft bear pic this week. White bear is still at home alive and well.

Lots of loooooove,

sorella wsb

hello beautifuls

Happy Wednesday!

Dad I'm so excited to be in the same time zone! I vote you buy a cool folding bike even if it is stupid expensive, I love them. There are so many cool old bikes here that I always want to buy and take home with me. Not logical/feasable/possible. Purtroppo.

It's been another beautiful week, surprise surprise. We've been listening to the Italian EFY CD all week and there's this line that says Io mai avrei potuto immaginare che avrei vissuto gironi cosi stupendi and I thought "Hey! that's me." I really have been blown away at how with every new person or expereince the Lord grows my capacity to love and find joy in every moment... which I thought were my strengths before.  Now it's out of control. I love Varese more than I ever thought I could/would/would want to.

A few beautiful things that have happened. Itala is progressing nicely. She's 44, Italian, has had a hard life and needs the gospel (like everyone really, but yeah) She came to church for the second time on Sunday, is reading the Book of Mormon and loves being with us and in church. We had a beautiful lesson about the plan of salvation with her yesterday morning with a member Agusta and it was perfect. Itala is pretty chatty (surprising for an Italian, I know) but everytime she listens better and is more focused. She calls me Boosh and it always makes me laugh.

Funny side note, the first time she came to church she brought her friend Giuseppe with her. The next week when I was chatting on the phone with her setting up an appointment, she said "Oh, hey you remember my friend Giuseppe? We were talking after church and he said Ma che carina quella Boosh, and was wondering if you could go have dinner with him sometime." I explained that being a missionary limits one's social life but thanks anyway. Ha.

This week we've set some really specific goals to improve our finding, quantitative and qualitative. We kept track of how many people we talked to last week and are going to talk to a third more and then everyday we have a person that we have to talk to when we see them. Yesterday we had to talk to every girl in her 20s with brown hair and glasses. I'll skip over the complicated series of events leading up to us getting on a bus and just say that on this bus there were maybe three people, one of which was our girl. So I pulled the awkward missionary and we sat by her and started talking. Turns out she works by the church and as chatted with the missionaries before but never heard of the Book of Mormon. So we're meeting with her Saturday night before she works to give her a copy and offer her a more beautiful life.

We've had so many baby miracles these days just when I need them, just when I need to be reminded that God is guiding us or listening to my prayers of pleased with my work. It's rad. I feel like I'm not doing anything drastically different but I feel more full of the spirit these days. I feel like I'm being more honest when I speak, not saying the same things and it's lovely. Gina is another rad girl we're teaching. I think I told you about her, 21, from Albania, lived here since she was 4. Wanted to know more about the purpose of life. We brought a member to her lesson on Monday and it went so well. I was kind of a rambling monster but she wants to see us again anyway, with the same member, 23 year old Diletta, our go to YSA, who's working on her mission papes.

We had a funny conversation about tu and lei, because we're asked to always use formal with peeps unless the ask us to use informal, in which case it's more respectful to do as they ask. They said "Yeah, no one ever uses lei with us, it makes me feel old." And I was like meno male! I'm so sick of feeling so formal and lontana to these people that I love.

Sunday (after church where we had 5 investigators and 4 less actives we're working with come (it's fun to fill up the back rows with our peeps in a branch of maybe 36 people)), we had a beautiful lunch at our Branch President's house with Luca. I ate lots of cheese, improved my chit chat abilities and had a lovely time. Less than a month til Luca takes the plunge! I literally can.not.wait for him to start over and get the Holy Ghost. GAH!

We went up to his house (which is pretty much a dream up almost in Switzerland on Lago Maggiore) last P-day to just hang and eat good food and it was the first chill P-day I've had in ages. It felt so nice to just be chopping away at things in the kitchen with Norah Jones in the background—mamma mia, troppo bello.  Then risotto with gorgonzola and pears.

Today we're off to Milano to see the Duomo and eat pizza with the sorelle there. Random thoughts of the week (some of them aren't too new, just what's stewing in my brain these days): What have I inherited from my first estate? To abandon sins, vs. leave of any other verb...Cleave to covenants Damned= stopped progression, subtle damnation in immediate blessings from good actions and immediate punishment from sin...we would obey out of ease and therefore not progress? Prayer is literally how we can conquer Satan...the phrase lift up your heart...Diligence is an expression of love for the Lord...

Sorella Beutler is incredible. The most frustrating thing is when she refuses to believe me when I tell her she's improving and that she really is doing so well for being here only three weeks. Plus it's beautiful to see how her imperfect Italian brings such a strong spirit and people listen when she tells them what she knows. Maybe she'll believe me in six months or so...

Vi voglio beneeeeeeee! Fate il bravo!

Happy working and schooling and kiss Alice on top of the head for me.

xoxo

sorella bush

carabinieri

Hey dudes, So our sketchy internet cafe just got raided by the police trying to find illegal immigrants. Ha. My documents are currently being checked to see if Italy really has given me permission to be here.

It's been a beautiful week. Probs the coolest thing was that we had six rad investigators in church on Sunday, which is pretty noticeable in a branch of 36 peeps. The woman Tati who we found doing casa a few weeks ago came for the first time with her Albanian compagno and the really liked it. After sacrament meeting I said, "Sooo, how was it?" and she started telling me how peaceful and good she felt and I was like hello? It was the spirit! She's been kind of caught up on Saturday vs. Sunday being the Sabbath because in Santo Domingo she used to go to the 7th day adventist church, is that what it's called in English?

Anyway I studied up a bit and we had a beautiful lesson with her yesterday where we watched the restoration film and then talked about all the questions she still had and I talked about when the shift to Sunday happened in the New Testament and it's kind of connected with the move from the Law of Moses to Christ, and at the end she laughed and was like "okay, I get it."

And you can see it in her eyes, that she really is in that 'I get it' phase. She's super into reading Nephi right now and we gave her a BOM in Italian yesterday so she could read it out loud to Eddie, her partner, because he doesn't know how to read. Basically she's beautiful and I love everything about her.

Sorella Beutler is learning to be patient with herself and getting better everyday. It really is beautiful to watch, because you never really notice when it's happening to you. The Ortiz family is as beautiful as ever. We taught the word of wisdom this week and it went really well. Alfonso already had decided he wanted to quit smoking and has cut back form 2 to 1 packs a day. Senia was a little iffy about wine, they don't drink very much she just wasn't convinced, and the member we brought was like I felt the same way, I had already decided I wanted to stop smoking and drinking coffee before I met the missionaries and wine just didn't make sense to me, but I tried it and now I get it, and that's the only way you can gain a testimony. So they were like why not. Alfonso, said a beautiful prayer at the end and thanked God for the things he was learning and asked for help to continue trying to be better everyday than he was the day before. That's what the gospel is about people. Awesome.

Since I've been without a companion that really speaks Italian it's really pushed me to talk to way more peeps everywhere we go. It's still something I have to decide to try and want to do everyday, but it's getting better and easier. And I know that it makes me happier. Even when people aren't super interested we've had some really great conversations with really interesting people and I have to just hope that now they're a little closer to being ready someday for the gospel.

And I have to tell you every time we 'teach' Luca there is the most incredible spirit. The Lord has big plans for that man. One of the most beautiful things about being a missionary is the moments where you look at someone and are flooded with the love Heavenly Father has for them and you just get a glimpse of every good thing He wants for them. I literally can't wait for Luca to have the Spirit, the priesthood  to go to the temple, to just keep progressing his whole life, to have that joy that comes when we live the plan heavenly father has for us and get continually closer to our potential.

One of our other cool dudes is the Nigerian Kevin. It was super weird to teach in English but we had the most beautfiul plan of salvation lesson. I love listening to peoples questions and being able to gauge how much they understand. Kevin totally gets it. He asks the best questions. Now let's hope he'll just start answering the phone again.

Some unrelated thoughts I've been pondering over:

•  by changing the inner attitudes of our minds we can change the outer aspect of our lives what we inherit from our first estate, I'm excited to someday remember who I was and what I did before this life. I was reading my patriarchal blessing the other day and I don't know how to explain it but I felt closer to who I was before.
• Someone told me in Bergamo that the things that we experience in life happen because we deserve them, like they're a consequence to an action, or we need them, to grow and continue on becoming better, and I've been pondering over this idea of decisions we made in the premortal life being connected to consequences we live here. 
• The idea of being blessed to live the challenges of this life testimony vs conversion repentance as a returning to god, a literally turning away from ourselves, following Christ's example of turning out the humility required to learn and change. when it's not important to be right.

Okay, well I love you lots and lots, thanks for your prayers, they mean the world to me. I'm assuming you're all alive and happy and well. sorry my thoughts are all over the place. welcome to the mess that I live in inside my head these days.

Vi voglio bene!

sorella bush

corrispondenza settimanale

Guys, life is crazy. I have a baby.

A teeny baby missionary that speaks almost no Italian and is kind of lost all the time because I am manic and drag her all over the place. But somehow she loves me, and feels the luckies to have me as her trainer. Not sure how I tricked her into that mentality. BUT life is so good. It was a rough start. To be honest her Italian was worse than I expected and I was so overwhelmed not knowing how to help her. I talked to the capi zona Saturday morning and then we had a nice little chat and got on the same page and things are going so much better. She's ready to work; it's just going to take us a while.

I was so sad when Sorella McNamara left. I transfer is TOO short to be with someone. I didn't really want to imagine being in Varese without her. But Sorella Beutler really needs me so I transitioned faster than I ever have. For the record I'm just making my way along the Wasatch front. All my comps so far are from Springville (Beutler) Provo (McNamara) Orem (Bunker) SLC (Jacobson) and Bountiful (Simkins) holy smokes. There was a sister from Minnesota that just went home, so now I'm holding down the whole midwest on my own.

Ha. I think so far the coolest thing about training is I've seen so clearly how much I've grown since I got to Italy. My abilities to just talk to people and express myself in Italian, to know how to small talk, to teach the gospel simply, to look at everyone around me in giro and see them first off as children of God who need what I have. My main goal this transfer is to really work on my finding work. To not be scared to talk to people for all the irrational reasons that pop into my head but to let the love that I have for these peeps thanks to Heavenly Father cast out my fears. I just want to be busy all the time. All of a sudden I love making calls because it keeps me focused on my purpose and filling up my time.

I really don't want to waste any of my time here. This is transfer 6! Can you believe it? After this only 6 more... aiuto! I was sitting in the Milano 2 chapel with all the trainers on the left side of the room and looked over at the right, where all the babies sit and I thought, "Wasn't I just there!?"

We went to Milano for a sister conference yesterday and I was being all pensive on the train (after talking to this super rad girl, Elisa) about how quickly the present becomes the past. Bergamo is my past now. Jacobson, Simkins, McNamara, all the past. And before I know it, Varese and everything and here that I love so much will be the past. So I need to live it up. Talk to everyone, love them tell them why these things are so important to me.

At the end of our conference yesterday we had time for a baby testimony meeting and I literally felt like I was going to explode. It felt so good to bare my testimony for reals. It felt like ages since I had been able to really express everything that I was feeling and learning and living and I felt like words were just flowing out of my mouth and I could have talked forever about how much I love the gospel, how real it is, how logical. God is my Father, what could be more beautiful. Even if I've never felt more raw and imperfect as I have as a missionary how incredible to know that it's all because to Him I'm worth changing, I'm worth making better.

And how so many things in the world that seem so important, aren't. How I don't care about hardly anything besides my peeps here. I care about how Senia feels when she reads the Book of Mormon and how Nishta knows that God listens to her prayers and the light that is growing in Luca and the joy that he radiates. There is nothing more beautiful than watching people change, continue on the process of becoming who they have the potnetial to be, all through the doctrine of Christ. Gah! It's too good.

Sorella McNamara and I would always joke that we were living in an 80s computer game, our life is not real, sometimes you have a glitch and end up waking in place for a minute, and you have to wade through the peeps/lemmings that won't give you the time of day (or that fall and splat when your ladder is too short...remember lemmings!!? Best game ever!). Everyday I'm amazed at how beautiful life is, at how guided we can be when we look for the Spirit. How God truly wants each of His children to be happy. A punto! We are all eternal beings. Love that.

Okay, I'm scared to reread this totally missionary email, ha, so I'll just send it off. We're off to go hike with Gabriele, Luca and another member. I'll send some pics when we finish up email when we get back.

Love to err'body!!

xoxo

sorella bush

ferragosto

Hey guys, sorry for the delay. Yesterday was ferragosto and the city was basically shut down and everyone went to the lake. Internet cafes are once again open and the universe is in balance.

Beautiful beatiful things are happening in Varese! Seriously, I couldn't be happier. We are finding amazing people literally everyday and the people we have I love and want to be friends with forever and are coming to church. What more could I ask for?

First la famiglia Ortiz. We taught the most incredible law of chasity lesson Tuesday night. At the end I just told them how much I voglio them bene and how living the comandments will davero bring them a lasting happiness they can't imagine.* We invited them to get married and baptized and they're thinking about it.  At the end we were drinking some aranciata chatting it up and Alfonso just says to himself  "sposarsi" as if he had never thought about it before.

During the lesson Senia said "Okay...so if someone wants to be Mormon they have to per forza be married." I said "If you live together, yes." She made jokes about her sleeping on the couch. Anyway...I'm praying my face off for this family.

Then there's Luca. I don't really know what to say. He's so great and I just feel lucky to be one of the missionaries to teach him/just talk to him because I don't feel like I teach him much of anything.

Next is Barbara. The sorelle found her daughter Giulia on the bus right before I got here and we finally got to go teach them last week. Super rad Italian family who are just interested in everything. But Barbara is straight-up elect. There house already has a beautiful spirit because they are such good people. We taught the restoration and came back this week to eat lunch and teach the plan of salvation. Barbara is ready to come to church and read the Book of Mormon and check out the website because she wants to be informed. But the more we teach her the more she expresses all the things about catholocism that she's never really jived with. We're going back when Giulia gets home from France so we can see them together in about a week.

Then we have these two Albanian girls we found this week. First, Gina. Sorella McNamara stopped her in front of the post office talking about the family, and we ended up talking about the purpose of life and she said "In fact I've been kind of confused lately, all the trials we live and what it's all for," I summed up the premortal existence, our goal to return to heavenly father in three sentences and she said Ma che bello! non ho mai pensato cosi! It was one of those moments where I felt like the spirit just put the right words in my mouth because it was something I had never said before and just came out for her.

Then a few hours later we met Suarda, also from Albania, who told us she was an atheist and we had an awesome discussion about prayer and God. She's totally open to the idea, just doesn't really know anything. We'll see her again tomorrow.

That night we were off to do casa and long story short, I felt like I had to talk to this lady at the bus stop and she royally blew me off. The other lady nearby started laughing because it was so absurd.  So we laughed and started talking, she took us home to meet her 13 year-old daughter.  They're Hindu and the mother wants the daughter to come to English class. We taught them the restoration and the daughter walked us to the bus stop. On the way she tells us that her Mom doesn't know, but she believes in Christ. We're giving her a Book of Mormon Tuesday.

Then we got off to our casa spot and Sorella McNamara rang the citofono and this little 4 year-old girl was talking to her and finally opened up. We find their door and the mom answers. I tell her how God always answers prayers and ask if God has ever answered her prayers and she lets us in. We teach the Joseph Smith story and we're going back tomorrow to give her a Book of Mormon.

Another favorite is the lady Fransisca (from the Domenican Republic) we met walking by the lake in Gavirate. When we had our follow up appointment she took us to the house she works at and we taught the Italian lady she works for too. Then we went back tonight to find 4 other dudes from the DR who are friends of the son of Fransisca who had been doing some house work and taught them about the Book of Mormon. Two of them were super interested and gave us their numbers to track them down because they had to scapare. All from little Fransisca, the very last person we talked to two weeks ago. Enough miracles for now? What say you?

Basically I feel like I'm finally back into my stride that I reached in Bergamo. I feel like the Lord is guiding us to find the right people, I feel like I'm getting better as a missionary and a human. I love this place and all the people here, davvero. I had a great chat with President today at interviews about hell being when you die meeting the person you had the potential to be if you didn't follow through and we talked about that for the mission too. I told him today was my 9 month mark and I was in shock and I've been thinking about what I need to do make sure I'm the best missionary I can be when I finish. And he more or less told me he was proud of my work, I just need to keep on doing what I'm doing and get better every day.

I'm reading Talmadge's Jesus the Christ these days and it's been really beautiful to study the example of Christ as a teacher and just focus on my work being to love these peeps, because when you do everything else falls into place.

Vi voglio troppo bene,

sorella cespuglio

ferragosto - an August holiday where everyone chills.
I voglio them bene - Proof that Whitney is forgetting how to speak English.  Basically this sentence says she loves them and knows that they'll truly be happy.
aranciata - really good orange soda
sposarsi - to get married
per forza - a must-do
ma che bello - How beautiful, I never thought of it that way.
to do casa - go talk to people door-to-door
citofono - intercom outside a flat of apartments
scapare - take off
davvero - truly

lugano

I really don't have tons new to report on.

This morning we went to Lugano. Hello Switzerland! I now have a few useless franks jingling in my pocket.

We just have baby miracles everyday. I'm working on my issues that I have with talking to strangers. We need new investigators so I'm trying to start talking to everyone again. I'm pretty sure it's going to be hard for me for the next year, but so it goes.

One cool story, we were tracking down some less active members and walking by some nice houses, and we heard something rustling. Turns out it was a turtle hanging out in this yard. Sorella McNamara said we need to tell these peeps their turtle has escaped!  I said I bet they have the situation under control, and then thought about how we really should take any oportunity to talk to peeps. We circled the house looking for the door bell.

Finally found it and this lady comes out, informs us it's her pet and he hangs out all day in the yard.

We tell her we're missionaries and that God loves her.  Find out her grandparents were members of the church and she has a Book of Mormon she found in their bookshelf. Set up a return appointment. Went and taught her the restoration. It was actually pretty sad because she went to a super tradtional catholic funeral the day before and almost didn't let us in because she said she already had her religion and she was comfortable with that. I get us in so we can at least give her some basic info. She opened up a lot about trials in her life and it broke my heart how confused she was. Thinking God is a God who likes to be hidden and not respond to us when we have need because we might not be worthy of his love and how we have to go through other people to repent and it was just way sad. There was a nice spirit at the end as we tesitified of the true nature of God and she said that sometime we could come back.

Basically everyone peaces out for the month of August. We keep getting numbers from people who tell us to call in September. In the mean time we're on the hunt everyday for the peeps God is preparing for us.

Oh.  We went to a chocolate factory in Svizzera.

Well, I love you. Getting ready for Milano 3 to blitz us tonight, get to see Sorella Forbes again, hip hip!

xoxoxoxo

sorella cespuglio

campo dei fiori

Dear famiglia,

Okay, my email has to be shorty shorty because we got back from our hike up on Campo dei Fiori with Gabriele, whom Dad now knows, and his bestie Luca who is one of our investigators. Things are great right now but I have to tell you last week was hell. So many creepy men in giro giving me a hard time. And always me, never my comp. I ended up calling Sorella Wolfgramm at the pinnacle of it all for a bit of a motherly pick-me-up and it did wonders. I also asked a ward member for a blessing and between the two of them I was reminded that all of this was coming from the devil, that I have a work to do in Varese and he's doing everything he can to make me feel down.

 

 Now I never felt unsafe, but it was so frustrating because I just felt empty and unable to do my job. But now I'm loving Varese more than ever. The creepy dudes are still all over, I guess they love red hair, but I've decided to not let in bother me and there you go, it doesn't bother me. Our Albanian capo distretto called the Albanian creepy dude that had given me trouble and had him apologize to me on the phone. So great.

 

I skinned my knee.

Glad you guys made it to Utah, I'm excited to hear about your adventures!

Our beautiful family came to church for the first time on Sunday and I was beyond happy. Then we spent the afternoon with the Bulgarian family we're working to reactive who are such wonderful people. Good things are happening here and were starting to explore other cities in our area besides Varese.

Okay, I have to run and thrown on my skirt again and head to our evening appointments, maybs I'll have time to write more later.

But I love you all!!!!!!!

ciao tutti!

I write to you from Laveno at a member's home. We decided to make lunch for a sorella here to surprise her for when she gets home from work. So her son, who teaches with us a lot, has been hanging outside while I cooked moroccan stew and now we're waiting to surprise her and eat lunch.

I'm slowly getting more used to being here. Since I last wrote we've done a ton of finding work. I'm a little tired of it to be honest. Had some good days and some not so good days. But we decided it's time to leave Varese and work the surrounding towns. The Anziani knocked this place dead so we feel really good about doing work outside of the main city. August will be interesting because everyone is leaving for vacation. We keep finding people and they're like call me in September when I get home again.

I also finally got to teach Luca Sunday night, a solid investigator the Sorelle have been teaching for a while. He's been pretty much taught everything but is still working on understanding better the atonement, the priesthood and a couple other things. So we just get together and talk about his different questions. He's super rad and I'm sure teaching him will be one of the highlights of every week.

Okay...love you guysss! be good!

salve tutti!

OK, so I am stealing a quick 20 minutes to email you a real letter that is not wallowing in depression. After a week of trying to love being here it all of a sudden worked. Varese really is beautiful. These lakes and mountains are not what I imagine when I think of Italy but it keeps the weather cool and reminds me of my green home. Yesterday we also had a really great zone conference that was exactly what I needed and I'm ready to work. I know tons is waiting to happen in Varese and that there's a reason I'm here. I know what my weaknesses are and what I need to change and I'm ready to do everything I can to change the work here so that when it's time for me to leave I'll be leaving the same amount of work I left for the sorelle in Bergamo.

We're teaching a beautiful family. Dad is Italian, mom is from Santo Domingo and her son who's 11 just got here two weeks ago, so doesn't really speak Italian yet. Last night we taught the plan of salvation and talked about how families can be together forever and there was a beautiful spirit. He understands everything we teach so well and she's starting to as well. They both are happy to have us there whenever we come and this week we're planning on bringing some members and I feel like that will help them a ton, see the gospel being lived by real people. He's read the begining of the Book of Mormon and told us he would try and start praying more, that it probs would be a good idea. I told him it would.

Other beautiful peeps we started teaching this week. A half moroccan half egyptian muslim we stopped on the street and a Congo refugee who speaks decent italian and has been here for 5 months. Both of them came to their second appointments having written down all the things they understood about what they read and all their questions. It was so rad. I invited our muslim to get baptized when he knew it was all true and he was like you know, maybe I'll get there, we'll see, pian piano. But he prayed and it was beautiful. 

Right now we're focusing a ton on finding new people because really they have one awesome investigator who should get baptized soon and another young kid from El Salvador, but we need people to teach. It's funny because I feel so comfortable teaching whoever wherever whenever and Sorella McNamara feels so awkward teaching, but she's great at just walking up to people and telling them God is their father of the family brings us more happiness than anything else, which is something I have to fight with myself a bit more to do. I know all my fears are unrational because who cares what any of these peeps that I'll never see again think about this funny american talking about God, but I still find it to be a bit tricky. But I'm getting better! And that's what it's all about.  

At the end of Zone Conference we watched Eryings talk from conference called mountains to climb and at the end Sorella Wolfgramm talked about the part where he talks about his mother's battle with cancer, and if a woman that good needed that much polishing what was in store for him. And Sorella Wolfgramm said isn't it beautiful that the Lord thinks you are worth polishing. And I like that. Obviously I've heard a thousand times that trials are what later bring the blessings, but it felt more real yesterday. There is a reason for all of this. All the mountains I'm climbing in Varese are tailor-made for me, which is beautiful thought. I'm ready to climb, espesh since it's likely I'll be training here next transfer. I'm ready to get my feet planted firmly and do some growing so that the work only gets better every transfer.

Last night we came home and did 10 minutes of yoga on the roof before planning. We live on the 10th floor and there's a sneaky door out to the roof. The sky here is beautiful, usually with fatty clouds sitting over Como. It felt good to stand still and be, let me feet stand firm and get ready for everything that awaits me here. I'm ready to really love my comp, this city, the members and all the people we meet everyday and that's the only way to cast out my fears. Love!

Hope you are having a happy Saturday, maybs a bit of farmer's market?

Love you all!

sorella bush

no time for email this week...

I had to go back to Bergamo today to get my permesso card saying I can legally be here so today is a lot of trains and waiting in hot rooms full of foreigners. I'm hoping tomorrow to have time to email you. Varese is beautiful. I'm in love with the mountains and lakes and our baby branch.

Not so in love with the work yet but I'm trying. Turns out I'm bad at transitioning, and not much is happening so we've got a lot to do. I love you all and will try and write you a real letter tomorrow. New address is:

Via Rainoldi 19
Box number 56
21100 Varese
Italia

I saw Sorella Simkins and all my Bergamo peeps are happy and well and Lulu is getting baptized Friday.

Keep praying for me, these next few weeks are going to be interesting...

xoxoxo

sorella bush

varese!

Okay, famiglia, I have a weird P-day tomorrow and we're not sure we're going to have time to do all our email, so here's a baby letter for you. Thursday morning I head to Varese.

I don't know my comps name yet becuase she's new, she just is finishing her second transfer so I'll be her first comp that's not her trainer. Going senior companion.

I'll start another email that I'll finish and send off tomorrow hopefully, but I love you both! Pray that I have an easy transition into city number two. I'm nervous but excited and I know I'm going where I should be because this is God's work.

 P.S. This picture is dedicated to Larry Hewett (Director of Specialty Sales for Thule USA). Ignore my crazy hair.

hi ho!

Hey guys, happy 4th! I told Sorella Simkins we needed to buy trashy flag shirts, eat a whole cow and shoot guns. I'm pretty sure all that's going to happen is a nice hamburger and a rootbeer float at our little BBQ with the Anziani and the Petersons, a senior missionary couple. But I'm content. 


Had a nice sleep this morning and reloading on my energy for one more week in Bergamo. Hooray for Ian's new job! For lots of wood! For Ian being a rock star and bringing peeps to church! for mom's bucket of new keens! for summer living in general. All your pics made me the babiest bit home\summer sick, but I know it'll all be there when I get home next year. 

Bergamo is still an oven. So glad I'm not a pizza maker, madonna, fa troppo caldo. But we have some awesome new people that we're working with. One Bolivian lady is the friend of a member, had come to church in the past before going home to Bolivia for a few months. Came back and is totally on board, loves everything we say, feels so peaceful and picked her own date to be baptized July 28 and she keeps telling us just how good she feels about her decision and says she knows it will bless her life as well as her children in Bolivia. Then we started teaching three new peeps this week.

First there's Leonardo, 21, Italian, studying to be a lawyer. Has a few funny ideas but is down for meeting with us and totally understands that the key is reading the Book of Mormon. He said a prayer at the end of our lesson asking God for help to find time to read a bit because he's really interested. Cool stuff.

Then we have Mauricio, 17 Bolivian, mom and sisters are members and just decided to come to our church with them for the second time in his life and agreed to meet with us. We had a beautiful simple restoration lesson with his sister who's 14 and has a really sweet testimony and he was really glad we came and wants to learn more and was excited when we gave him his own BOM.

Then we have Lulu who is hilarious. She's Mexican, but has lived in Canada most of her adult life. She's here on vacation and the lady she's staying with basically fed her a bunch of lies about what the situation would be like with us. She's pretty lonely but randomly met one of our reactivated members we've been working with who works at the airport and found Lulu when she first got her because her flacky friend didn't even come get her from the airport. Any way, she came to church, met with us yesterday and when I called her last night she was just hanging out reading the book of mormon and loving it. She is so hungry to learn and keeps asking us questions about things that have never felt right to her doctrinly, like original sin, and is so relieved when we tell her how it really is. We can't teach her fast enough. She's coming to our BBQ today and I'll take some pics, she is just the coolest old lady. Sorella Simkins and I are invited to her beach house in Mexico whenever we like. Totally hitting that up in the future.

The last few days really have been beautiful. We felt like things wern't making much sense, we're teaching tons of lessons, at least tons for our mission, finding new people but all these people that seem elect keep dropping off, and then the Lord handed us three beautiful people working through the ward.

Lauren asked in her last letter if she could email me pics and I forgot to tell her that yes, she can. Thanks for all the prayers, thoughts and letters. You all sound happy and that makes me happy! Salute the Sorella Noteware for me, I did a scambio with her baby Sorella Walton last week who finishes her mission next week. Time is a funny thing.

Much love!

xoxo,

sorella bush

blindingly white running shoes!

Ciao cara famiglia,

Il mio pacco è arrivato, non dovete preoccuparvi. Grazie!! Love the shoes, love my PENS love it all... and Ian, that necklace is beautiful! I put it right on and we went to teach a lesson where our lovely Rocio came to teach with us and she was telling me how cool it was and I was like mio fratello l'ha fatto per me, so she told me, puo dire a lui, se vuole che c'è anche una brava sorella che si chiama Rocio e a lei piacerebbe tanto... moral of the story you're a hit over here, little bro.

Birthday ended up pretty normal. A nice day that at the end didn't feel like my birthday, but I made a DELICOUS cake, nice and moist and sweet, very unitalian. We ate everything fresh you can think of at our Capelli dinner and Sorella Capelli gave me some pretty rad, slightly ridiculous monster earrings. They're the size of my face but green so I love them. We were both crazing hamburgers so bad but didn't plan well enough and were dying of hunger so ended up eating kebab, but then a new convert heard and made us hamburgers on Friday for lunch!

Thursday we headed to Verona, I can never get sick of riding on trains, even when it is blazing. Training with Prez Wolfgramm was really awesome. He talked a lot about the gospel of Christ in connection with the plan of salvation and the tools we've been given as children of God, to recognize the truth so we can return to Him, and how we as missionaries can utilize these tools, aka help peeps feel the spirit. But he connected it back to the Natural (wo)man vs. the spiritual and our mission of fighting off the natural man and graphed our spiritual vs. natural selves in different stages of the plan of salvation, which I really loved. Have I told you guys that I'm obsessed with this idea of fighting the natural man? I just love the idea of being stronger than our natural selves and really crushing our weaknesses to become the peeps God knows we can become. So good. Which reminds me, I did some examining of the Christlike attributes in Preach my Gospel and totally am lacking in the patience still, well shoot. Studying back up on that. One thing I really loved was a phrase that said waiting for the blessings the Lord has promised. Sometimes I feel out of control of too many things, but I need to remember that God can't lie. The scriptures, and my life, are full of His promises, so if I do my part I know He will do his, we just don't know when.

Last week was really just a magical week, and ended with our first baby branch meeting. We were in 36 (there were 36 people at the meeting). I said the first official prayer in the Bergamo 3rd Branch. Pretty cool. We're starting to work on tons of reactivation along with our normal finding, teaching shiz. Things are happening here in Bergamo. We met with our Branch Prez and he told me I have to stay here longer, there's too much for me to do. Didn't really now how to tell him that I'm for sure leaving in two weeks. But I'll do my part up until I'm on the train heading out. It was kind of great to work all morning and then go to church. We did some casa, helped these people move who told us they would come to English class and want to buy us gelato for our help. Then we found a cool Brazilian dude with lots of crazy piercings that is trying to find time when he doesn't work light years away that he can meet with us. There was one funny moment when Sorella Simkins was mid testimony bearing and he looks up at me, over at her and says, ma che belle voi siete...ha.

A couple highlights. Our El Salvadorian cousins, Deysi and Fatima. I love them! We found Deysi one day after we had been doing casa and I was unlocking our bikes. She was on the other side of the road and we kept looking at each other and finally we crossed over to talk to her. Chatted for a few minutes, got her info, turns out she lives in a palazzo we had just knocked, told us when we could come back. We try calling a few times but nothing (she tells us later she lost her phone) stop by once and she's not there but her cousin comes down to talks to us because Deysi had told her about is. Got Fatima's number, tries to see them for a week and a half and finally went last Monday. I already told you how they inderstood so well. Well we went back Thursday, even though both our trains from Verona were late. We got back at about 9, when we should be getting home, but instead raced up (literally uphill all the way) to where they live and had a great lesson on the Book of Mormon. They asked good questions, which is always refreshing. We called them on the train to tell them in would probably be too late to come and they were like no, fa niente! Venite pure! So we went. We can't see them this week because of crazy work schedule but we've dropped notes in their post a few times and they love it. Then we decided to do a bit of parco before an appoitment we had with Rosemary and her fam and found this beautiful little family, he's Bolivian and she's from El Salvador. Turns out she's cousins to Deysi and Fatima too. They have a beautiful little girl and our conversation turned to families and temples at the end and she loved looking at the different pictures we had. They're in the middle of crazy moving so they can't really see is for a week and a bit, but we biked by them yesterday, stopped and said hi. I love how many times we see people again and again after meeting them once, like God is saying, Hey listen to these sorelle, what have you got to lose?

Monday night we got to see our beautfiul inactive return missionary Patrizia. We've left her some different General Conference talks in her mail. She's working like crazy right now because her sister is home in Bolivia so she has to stay with the old peeps they work for pretty much 24-7. But we had a nice little lesson with her and Rocio becuase they're besties. She made us eat RIDICULOUS amounts of Haagen Dazs, it's her fav ice cream. And it made me think about Grandma Sandi. I told them about how it was my Grandma's favorite too. Patrizia's getting closer and she promised us this week she would read the Book of Mormon. We're going to eat Bolivian food with them tomorrow night. Pian piano. I'm still confident she'll come back. Not the normal just me trying to be optimistic about everyone, but I have this feeling and I am positive. 

Both of our huge Bolivian families are coming along nicely. We had lunch with Lilianna's family on Sunday with Elcia Calvachi, Samuel's mom. Lilianna was a referral from Elcia and we had a family home evening type thing together months ago. When they first got to Elcia's they were almost cold and told us firmly that they were catholic, but by the end they wanted us to come do something with their kids too. We finally did a week and a half ago and had a really great restoration lesson. Went back Sunday and talked about the Book of Mormon. They seem really well prepared to listen and learn. The oldest daughter is finishing up her crazy end of high school exams and her friend who's Chinese and Buddhist is always there studying with her and this time they both were part of the lesson and were both really engaged and said they would start reading the Book of Mormon after exams finish. 

There are little miracles happening constantly, I just need to keep keeping my eyes open for them. Saturday night there was an activity in the Church for folk dancing. Super funny. And Bishop Botta told us we could do this kind of dancing, which usually included everyone standing in a circle and taking certain steps in different directions. Bishop actually insisted that we dance. It was so so fun. The elders brought their investigator who is an African refugee and doesn't speak Italian yet who is so nice. One of the elders was like, "Sorella Bush, feel free to ask Jonathan to dance."  I told him I wasn't sure that was really allowed but I would anyways. So I got Jonathan to dance towards the end, poor kid when we had to change dance partners kept trying to go the other directions and didn't get what the Italians were explaining to him, but he finally got it all figured out and enjoyed himself. After this funny line dance we used the same music to teach everyone the Cotton-Eyed Joe, too funny. Someone recorded it on his phone and said he was putting it right up on Facebook. Yikes. Ha. 

Okay, love you all, time for some breakfast. I would kill a man to go stand up boarding today, it is still blazing here and I'm coming to terms with the fact that I will not be submerged in water for another year. Oh well. Take advantage of the gym Ian, tell me how you like Inner Fire mom, I've always wanted to try it out.

Love love love love love

sorella bush