This is the Day...

Dearest Fan Club.
This is it.
This is the day that my Mother has been looking forward to, and the day that I've been trying to run from :)
It is here.
And there's no hiding.

I, Zuster Bush am no longer in denial. The mission has come to an end and I like what the mission has made me.

I like that my perspective of life is centered around gospel principles.
I like that I've made lasting friendships including members, investigators, and missionaries.
I like that I took the step of faith and made possible what once seemed impossible.

Most importantly,
I love that I know who to go to in times of need.
I love that relationship I've strengthened with my Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ.
I love the change I've seen in myself, and I love the change I've seen in others.
I know that true change into a better person is only possible as we follow the example of Jesus Christ.

I have 16 minutes and 31 seconds left on this library computer (church wifi was down) and it is sooo hard to sum up all my feelings of this whole mission into one email. Ahhhh.

I have learned so many life lessons that I would have never imagined to learn on a mission,
and I've been shaped into more of who Heavenly Father believes I can be.

But I think my most valued knowledge is that God is my Heavenly Father who has a beautiful plan for me. My Savior Jesus Christ is included in his plan to help me to change. I have come to love the Savior, and following that love brings the desire and motivation to be more like him. It can be simple knowledge, but we can have our own personal experiences to decorate our testimonies and make them ours.

It's really amazing how much you can learn on a mission. But one thing I did learn is that you can make progress and grow without going on a mission as well. But I needed this mission to learn to love the gospel more, and learn to love the simple daily habits of prayer, scripture study, and serving others, and going to church. Now that I have these habits my plan is to go home and continue building up the kingdom of God.

This is my last email, but the work is not over!
We still have appointments every hour until Wednesday morning. haha.
If I'm lucky I'll get time to pack :)

I dare you to do one thing this week to strengthen your testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ. I promise you that if you do that and keep your testimony of the Savior "on your lips," you'll get a chance to share it somehow.

Ik hou van jullie! Tot straaks!

Zuster Bushi

p.s. Sorry you get no pics once again. Library computers..

(Sighhhh... from the mother. Her words are worth a thousand pics. :) )

Sprint to the Finish with My Torch Still Lit

Grand total of last week...

One birthday celebrated on the farm with Wouter and the Cows

Two dying testimonies given at Zone Training (one of them being mine)

Two cookie and brownie-making appointments with amazing teenagers.

One seminary lesson with the English ward

and lotssssss of hours spent working with Heavenly Fathers children.

We worked HARD this week and great results came because of it. Our 17 year old investigator Amnon was given permission by his parents to get baptized after we had a great appointment with them. Ton is still preparing for baptism on 6 Feb and Zuster Maughan and I are having too much fun laughing and creating friendships with everyone here.

I would say the theme for this transfer is Sprint to the finish with my torch still lit. One of my favorite talks that I came across in Breda was given by Elder Uchtdorf and it is sooooo good.

You can read it on this link:

Finish with Your Torch Still Lit

Doesn't matter how fast you run the race,

but it does matter if your light is still burning 

when you get to the end.

Of course I relate that to my mission and the fact that I want to still be a shining light to others by the time I'm done. I don't want to be burnt out zeg maar. But I think it's also possible to relate it to life in general. Read the talk! It's super good. I'd tell you more but then you wouldn't read it, and also I literally have 5 minutes before this computer library in Den Haag shuts down and blows up because it wants more money.

I went to the Temple last week! There was a random couple from Suriname who showed up in Amsterdam and wanted the missionaries to come to their wedding and we were with Zuster Ramirez that day because her companion needed to go to MLC. So we went to the sealing! It was wonderful to be there again and really understand the perspective that we can only truly feel in the temple.

Well... this is my last week. We have been planning for this week for a while and working on making it the most packed and miraculous week yet.

veel liefs!
literally 23 seconds left on this computer. haha

Zuster Bush

A Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!

Happy New Year

The End of a Perfect Day

No words for this blog from our Sweet Zuster today.

She's Busy Busy Busy!

So I, the Mother, will share a thought or two...

♥ ♥ ♥

This wonderful journey as a disciple of Jesus Christ will soon be over for Zuster Bush.

How we have loved sharing our daughter with the wonderful people in Belgium and Nederland!

Through her words and pictures 

we have grown to love those she has served and those she has served with.

What joy to sense the growth that has come to her soul through her experiences!

And while we are so excited to have her come home to us...

we will always cherish her time as a missionary.

Just a few more posts...

Het leven is goed,.. zo goed
(Life is good... so good.)

.

De Heiland is Geboren... The Savior is Born

My week was fully centered on love and service and Jesus Christ
which is what made it so lovely.
We were able to meet with so many wonderful people this week...
I'll try to give you a good little overview.

Christmas Day was magical... 

The Christmas program at the church...

Celebrating at this member's house with her and her daughter. 

This lady is from South Africa and has the coolest accent. 

We ate something called Gourmet which is basically lots of different meats and veggies

 with a grill right on the table, 

You choose what you want and grill it yourself. 

It is apparently a Dutch Tradition, but it was our first time ever having it! 

Then we skyped and that made me just a little bit trunky :) 

Glad to see that you're all doing well!

After skyping we hopped on our bikes and rode to Zuster Van der Scheer's house 

to eat more food, 

(we're stuffed but oh so thankful) 

Then we played a board game in Dutch. 

Can you guess who the winner is?

We also went over to good ol' Waasenaar a few times this week

 to be with ward members from the English speaking ward, 

and play soccer in the Refugee camp.

Soccer at the Refugee camp was soooooo fun. It was a Zone Service project and we got there and instantly started helping pour chocolate milk with whipped cream and handing it out to the men as they picked up the rest of their food. It was a humbling experience to look into their eyes and see the patience and hardship they've had to go through. It was probably one of my favorite service projects on my mission, because we were able to work directly with the people we were giving service to. Afterwards we got to play soccer with a bunch of them, and even though only a couple spoke English, lots of friendships were made and hilarious moments happened. We also taught them how to play American Football, and they were going hard throwing that football. One of them even hit Zuster Maughan in the face on accident and felt really bad.haha

Mom Edit: Zuster Bush also sent these pics this week, though no words describe the activity... 

definitely service and oh what fun she must have had... the smile tells it all!

We sang Christmas carols in a house full of friends and different family members, and played with lots of cute little kids this week. Made me really miss my nieces and nephews! I've really enjoyed working with all of the kids here and I am amazed at how great these parents are at teaching their kids about gospel truths.

Ton our investigator is doing great. Really excited to be baptized on Feb. 6. He is so grateful for all of the missionaries that have helped to teach him, and he is diligent at coming to church every week and every church activity we have. He comes early a lot of the time which is really funny because no one else is here yet, but he's just so excited!

We visited a less active named Gay from the Phillipeans and she has a 9 year old daughter that blew my mind with how much she knew about Jesus Christ. It was a really cool visit to be there and look at pictures of Jesus with this little girl while she told us all she knew about him. This girl has a few limitations and is a bit slower than most kids her age, but it was incredible to feel her spirit and love for the Savior Jesus Christ. I have really loved working with kids similar to her on my mission, and it has helped me to have a love for God's Children no matter what.

Something that was on my mind all week was how important it is to follow the example of Jesus Christ, and by doing that we need to acquire the attributes that he has. I might have already shared this with you.... buuuut go check this video out with an open mind and the desire to take action and be who Heavenly Father would like you to be. I know that sometimes we feel inadequate and have the feeling that we need to change something, but we're not always sure what we need to start with, and sometimes we are to hard hearted to accepted feedback from other people. I've come to know that Heavenly Father will gladly help us and he will tell us places we can improve on in our lives if we are open to his guidance. This video has a whole list of Christlike attributes and I can promise you that one of them will stick out to you to work on as you watch this video.



Christ-like Attributes...which one will you work on first?

Veel liefs!
Z. Bush

Prettige Kerstdagen!

Merry Christmas!

Dearest Family and Friends and blog stalkers...

I forgot my planner today. Which means I will have to muster up a few things that happened this week because I am becoming so forgetful. Here we go...

Here We Go Down the Ro-dee-o... Gotta Catch up to Zuster Maughan

Yes. I am here in Zoetermeer which translates to Sweet Lake. The temple is in our city. It's fantastic. Also the church building here is so big and beautiful. It is sooooo good. It felt really right to come here and I'm trying to discover everyday the reason that Heavenly Father would want me to come to this lovely place for the last 6 weeks of my mission.

Zuster Bush and Zuster Maughan

Z. Maughan is a gem with the loveliest singing voice and she plays ukulele and guitar and she sings to me when we're stressed. She's also from Highland Utah which is super cool. She's been here for Zoetermeer for just one transfer but it amazes me how fast she connects with people and learns to love them.

Before I left Apeldoorn last week I shared the "Christ-like Attribute" in District meeting. I chose to work on being Selfless, full of Love and Kind. It is a very long process, especially for someone like me that LOVES sarcasm and joking around, but it was really cool to come to Zoetermeer and realize we both wanted to improve in the same thing. We actually got to listen to a talk by Elder Uchtdorf last night called "The Love of God" while at an investigators house. We listened to the talk and then helped this man to choose a date to be baptized. He is this really awesome man in a wheelchair who is so diligent about coming to church, and has so much appreciation for how the people in the church have helped him. This talk really touched me and helped me to realize the motivation behind loving other people, and why God loves us. Super good one... I'm gonna study more this week if you want to join :)

The ward here is reaaaally great and I've already met a lot of great people. We have 4 hours of Church every Sunday because there is an international English speaking ward and a Dutch ward. It was super funny because the first time I met the ward(s) was at a Christmas party a couple days before Sunday so I had no idea who spoke Dutch and who spoke English because it was a combined party. I love both of the wards though, and it was really really strange to be singing hymns in English again. It's a bit of a blessing though because it's slowly easing me back into how it will be at home. I love Dutch though! All of us missionaries decided it is so much easier to talk to Dutch people than English. So that's awkward.

Also it was hilarious because I was sitting by this Dutch lady at the Kerst Feestje [Christmas Party] and we were singing a hymn in Dutch and then the 2nd verse was English. She stopped singing when we got to the English verse, and my natural reaction was to stop as well. The lady started laughing and was really confused because English is my "moeder taal"- [mother language] I just kind of forgot though....

Last thing of the week... That I can remember right now...
We worked on a members farm on Tuesday and I got to scoop up cow poop and wear rubber boots and throw hay at the cow and say all my cow jokes the whole morning. It was super fun and I topped off the morning with sinking into a good ol' pile of mud which might have actually been cow poop?

The best part was one of the cow jokes I shared with the Dutch Member Wouter. I'll share with you...

"What do you call a cow with no legs?"

Ground Beef

I told him this joke in English and he laughed and thought I was super weird at the same time. Then like 30 min later he came up and said this joke in Dutch.

"What do you call a dog with no legs?"

A Hot Dog

Best joke.

But on a more serious note. Because I am learning to be more serious...

The work is doing great here in Zoetermeer. We are working with some really elect people who are ready to be baptized. They just need the confirmation. I'm enjoying my time here and learning how to become more like Christ.
I hope you all have a beautiful Christmas Season and remember the reason for the Season. Now go to Christmas.Mormon.org and share it with your friends!

Prettige Kerstdagen! [Merry Christmas!]

Veel liefs, [Lots of Love,]

Z. Bush

Mom's Note:

Emilee added these images to the pics she downloaded this week. I'm guessing they may be from her time in Apeldoorn. I love these images... it's obvious from the light in her eyes that she loves these dear people, The first two are possibly investigators or ward members. The third, Zuster Robbins, who began this wonderful journey with her in the MTC.