Be missionaries everyone....

August 25, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,
    I love receiving your letters and packages considering that this week I got like 6 packages including one for my companion (oh mom) he thought we were crazy but I told him my family was like I am and he soon understood. I got a letter today and, to tell you the truth, feeling those and being able to read them and touch them over and over brings a special and intimate feeling of support from home. I have gotten over the bits of homesickness that they give me and embrace the fact I truly have those who won't forget me while I am out here and still care and it makes me so very happy thank you!

Selfie being silly :-)

    I have been sick this week, but as I push through and serve with all my heart, Satan cannot stop the positivity and happiness I have within from learning the glorious gospel in it's entirety and for the ability to share it to souls who are down trodden and need their burdens lifted. I am doing phenomenally well for the first 3 months and today is my 2 months of being gone from you all. For being the hardest part of the mission I feel so much Godly strength and even as trials appear and as investigators continue not to show up for churc,h the blessings willingly flow as I remember the Savior. 

    Nikki hasn't got a date yet because she still didn't make it with her family to church this week, we aren't sure why, due to the fact they got a new car. The car has needed fixes so hopefully that's their good excuse for not showing up, otherwise I will be in utter despair for the Kingdom of God isn't worth anything this earth has to offer. We actually have another appointment with them tonight which will be sweet and they always have the best food. Hopefully, this time around we can continue the Spirit and teach what is needed.

    We met a new investigator late the other day as we were biking. We knew he was living with the mother of one of the bishopric in Hammond Ward (not our ward) and that he was also the half brother of this member, brother Garland, and so he let us in. He took the first lesson, fed us and invited us back, and is coming to church this next week. We don't know how it happened but he just was so kind and so loving, his heart was so very open and ready to accept the Gospel, so hopefully he will be able to be baptized sometimes soon as well

    Joe Gachetti (I always spell his name freaking wrong) came to church by himself with his two sons yesterday. Even though his wife was sick he still wanted to make it to sacrament. I will just let that one sink in on how amazing that is!

    We continue to work with many less-active members and we work closely with our only ward missionary, Joe Ribando, who is one of the most amazing people I have ever met, even in his older age and with all the struggles physically he has and all the pain he has, he takes us out every week to go to these people who live so far away who we normally can't reach due to mile limitations and it has blessed this work.

Elder Ribando, the ward missionary,

drove them by some southern mansions

     Be missionaries everyone. That is what I ask for you all to do this week and continually, I actually am speaking in church this last Sunday all about Hastening the Work so my mind has been racing at the thought of this Gospel and how absolutely perfectly crucial it is. We should be searching all the time in a desperate way full of love and, of course, never in an overbearing way, to teach this gospel. We just don't want to appear before the Savior in the Judgement and say that we only half-heartedly tried to share His Message with the world. That we just got too busy in this life to give our time and resource to the work. This life is nothing in the eternities! The Savior didn't die to save some of us who just happened to be born to a wonderful family under the covenant, NO! We came down in that circumstance to fill the world with the word without hesitation without fear without restraint. Our Father needs us now, our Savior needs us now, our Brothers and Sisters need us this very moment to share with them the true meaning of this life. Keep that in mind, my dearest comrades in truth. I love you all so much. so very very much I cannot explain it in words alone. Peace unto you all in Jesus name Amen.

-Love always,

Elder Joshua Dean Rush

Elder Brown boringly writing letters

This is P-day before transfers (I let Elder Hillam take pictures of us playing a game called "werewolf" and he got carried away.) 

p.s. this is some extra he wrote to us this week from the "mom" letter :-)

 I have been sick for 3 days and two of those I biked but we got 22 lessons this week and a new investigator to pay off so I don't even care, and I try not to complain. 

Also if you can find any christian music at all it's like all okay but hard for me to download or buy/get down here, including a rapper named LeCrae totally christian and appropriate he is like my favorite I have found down here (next to frozen soundtrack lol