Brás Cubas - Week 3

6-4-2012

Family, Friends, and other Readers,

This week was...eye opening.  Not in a bad way, just factually.  I will explain by talking about
specific events that occurred.

First, Friday was Elder Todd's birthday on the mission.  We had a cake and we made our own burgers.  We mixed garlic and onions into the meat and spiced it to taste.  Elder Todd is a flavor junkie, so they were strongly flavored.  It was delicious and a lot of fun to take some time to just relax and celebrate for a couple of hours.  Today marks my 2 month mark and I've already completed 1/12 of my mission.  The time is truly flying.  I thought it would feel like so much longer, but in reality, each day takes forever to pass, but the weeks just become a glaze.  I will not get trunky while thinking about this.  I have 2 more years to be focused.

The second realization that occurred is that we have an investigator that has been coming to church for more than a month, but this last week his son became sick and has been in the hospital.  His wife hasn't been home and he sold the shutters to his house to pay for a bus ticket to visit them in the hospital.  They have no food left in their house and he can't work because he has 2 small children at home to take care of.  He's heard the members of the church talk about love, charity, the relief society helping people out, and yet no one has come to help them.  Several members know about their situation, but the only people who have come to visit him are Elder Todd and me.  He even quit drinking for a couple days in the hopes of a miracle and nothing came.  He was very angry with us, with God, and with the ward when we talked to him yesterday.  Where is his help?  Where is his love?  Where is his miracle?  That opened our eyes.  Have we been doing all that we could to help... I don't know, but after we left his house we went directly to the bishop's house and then to the house of the ward mission leader.  The help will now begin to pour out, but it took longer than it should have.  Elder Todd and I committed to be more strictly obedient because things like this should not happen, we should have caught this sooner.  In the future we will.

The third thing and the one that has grown close to my heart is about Family History.  I have never done family history in my life.  I've filled out a 4 generation pedigree chart, but that is it.  It had always struck me as wildly uninteresting.  I have been told that one day my deep love for the temple would lead to a love affair with Family History.  I never believed it before, but on Thursday one of the assignments for our study was to go learn about Family History.  As I was watching the instructional videos I fell in love with the process and now I want to do Family History.  I want to find and fill out my ancestors.  They need the saving ordinances completed, and within me, at my fingertips at this very moment, is all that I need to find my ancestors.  I'm on a mission so I don't currently have time to do family history, but I will hold onto this deep love for 2 years and become a Family History junkie after my mission.  I love this gospel and the programs that are in place to bring us closer to our family, our ancestors, our friends, and our Savior.  Families truly are the focus of everything we do because families are our greatest source of joy in this life and eternity.

The quote of the day is from Elder Russell M. Nelson.  He said "If you really want a certain blessing, you'd better find out what laws govern that blessing and then work on becoming obedient to those laws."  We have the potential to do almost anything, including moving mountains and changing lives, but to do so we must be obedient to the laws of God and submit ourselves to the will of the Father because the only thing in this life that we can give Him that is not already His is our will and our agency.  When we turn over our will to Heavenly Father there is nothing we can't do.

Love,

Elder Tyler Andrew Bushman