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