Servus, Passau!

So missions are weird because you're living your life with your dear friend in some city and life is normal and you're just meeting with your investigators and eating with member families and then BAM all of a sudden you live with somebody different in a completely different city with a different ward and you have no proof really that that other life ever really existed.

It's super trippy.

Flipping through this camera seeing Stuttgart photos, I was just kinda like, "was that THIS week?" because it feels like this weird dream that's so far away. I think leaving Stuttgart was the closest I have ever felt to heartbreak in my entire life. It was like my heart was being ripped into a bazillion tiny little pieces that were stomped on on the ground (when people asked about how I felt about being transferred, I acted that out.) But honestly I'm glad that it was so hard, because I think it would have been worse if I had spent 7 months in a city and it wasn't hard and painful. SO I'm glad I have reasons to miss it. I just feel so passionately that Familie Bushman WE MUST VISIT. I want to show you the Opera house and our favorite hipster burger place, and 3 different families even said we could stay with them if we visited... :)

Contacting in her favorite place in Stuttgart one last time

Saying goodbye to Sister Bishop at the Bahnhof

But now I'm in Passau! When we were walking around the Innenstadt today, a lot of people greeted us/said goodbye to us using "Servus" which made me happy since it's super Austrian/Bayerisch, and I haven't really heard it since I was in Austria. It was nice. Passau is BEAUTIFUL. It's referred to as the "Dreiflüssstadt" ("City of Three Rivers") because 3 rivers come together and there's a huge castle on a hill and it's the home to the biggest church organ in all of Europe (I figure Cade is drooling by now,) and since it wasn't really bombed out during the war it's ACTUALLY old. It's pretty touristy, especially right now. There's a lot of tourist shops...anyone who knows me knows how dangerous that is. (I LOVE tourist shops, they're my weakness.) Also, in some parts of the city, you can see mountains that are WAAAAAAAY far away...but they're there! I can hear the music of them hills! There are only busses here, it's that small. But they run on the quarter hour at least, so there's that. Weirdly enough, Passau probably reminds me of Wien more than any of my other areas. Like a tiny, green, river-y Vienna. Who'da thought?

In the Old Town of Passau

The Passau countryside and mountains

I'm working with SIster Berry, who came in with Sister Bishop! Sister Berry is incredible because she re-opened this area for sisters only 3 months ago. And she's from Alaska! So that's cool in itself. And she plays basketball and loves caramel and is all-in-all a really cool person who I like and mellows me out. (She's pretty chill - thank heavens.)

Sisters Bushman and Berry

Probably the biggest miracle we've experienced in Passau to date is that the Passau Elders carried my ri-DICULOUSLY heavy suitcases (I should have downsized better...yikes) up THREE flights of stairs to our apartment. I owe them bread or something. We work with Elder Gibbs and Elder Faux. Elder Faux just came from Wien 1 where he was trained (we bonded about that - and I got to hear about everyone from my first area!) and Elder Gibbs is one transfer younger than me. They're both from Utah. Elder Faux was able to convince us for a good 10 minutes that his first name was LeBron. We actually believed him. I trust him a little less now, but they're both still pretty cool.

This area is certainly different than my other areas. In the last two areas I have been able to travel to district meeting in 20 minutes - and I saw other missionaries all the time. We have to take an 1 1/2 hour train ride to Landshut for district meeting - and the other area in our district, Neuötting, is 2 1/2 hours! And there's no Ehepaar (senior missionaries) here. I am certainly grateful for all the Ehepaars that have blessed my districts over the past year - Elder and Sister Parker, Zaugg, and Bos. I miss you all!

Saturday we had a really unique opportunity which ended up being slightly odd for me. We got to go to München (2 1/2 hours away by train) for a musical fireside! They had this missionary choir that we sang in, and Sister Cherrington got assigned this duet she didn't want and I did it for her last minute (you're welcome girl.) :) It was simple - some music, some quotes and other script-type stuff read aloud, a missionary choir, some video clips. These firesides have become a big deal in this mission - starting in Winterthur, Switzerland, where the Elders put on these incredibly beautiful and professional firesides which tons of members ended up inviting their friends to, and tons of investigators came out of it. As I was sitting there listening to the spoken word and other musical numbers, I had a super distinct thought that either A. I should organize one of these things one day in my normal life, or that B. I need  to organize one of these things one day. And my mind thought back to how Dad would organize whole orchestras for Stake events and how Mom organized tons of Cinnamon-Swirl Pudding Cakes for one of those firesides, and how she and I spent what felt like hours cutting strawberries into fans to put on top of said cakes. And how surely that was SUCH a blessing to the missionaries - to have such a wonderful event to invite their friends to. Before I knew it, I was trying to decide whether a Christmas or Easter-themed fireside would be better, if it should be on a ward or stake level, and what the first step was to organizing such a thing. WHOA. SLOW down, Sister Bushman! It was really odd. But I wrote the thought down so I could come back to it later.

With Sister Cherrington at the Munich fireside

Anyway. I got to meet the Passau branch yesterday! I. LOVE. IT. The entire ward was together in one room for Sunday School, and the lesson was lovely - the way everyone interacted with each other reminded me of the quasi-testimony meeting we always have as part of the Bushman family reunion each year. (P.S. My heart is breaking that I can't go this year - one of the first times I'm actually kinda bummed about missing something at home.) But the way everyone just bantered and laughed and felt the Spirit together made me feel very at-home at once. It's lovely. It was exhausting, though, since I was fresh blood I got lots to do, of course...and literally lead the music, prayed, translated, lead, partook of the sacrament, translated, lead, translated, lead, and listened to the closing prayer. Phew! It was a lot. BUT it was good. 

It is a thing, though, that this is a small city. And many doors have already been knocked. We're content with knocking a few, but would rather not do it every day for the next few months. We're trying to think of some different and interesting and fun finding ideas. We're already thought of a few, but if you have any creativity flowing through your veins, send them my way!

Also, if anyone has ideas of fun P-day things to do here besides the organ and the church, let me know. :)

Oh, mensch! How could I forget this? We've been involved in a very unique situation in the past few days. The Sisters were involved for a week and a half, and I just barely got involved since I got here. There was a sad situation where the husband of an American member passed away on Saturday. They were on a river cruise and her husband got sick. When they stopped in Passau they went to the hospital, and his wife contacted the mission who contacted the Sisters, so that we could help her get around the city, since she doesn't speak any German. Her husband passed on Saturday. We've just come to love Sister L - she came and did laundry at our house and ate with us on Sunday, and we came with her to all of her meetings with the mortuary people, because they couldn't speak English. We hung out with Sister L and ate ice cream and looked at Passau until the mortuary people called us and asked if we could come into the office so she could sign some stuff. It's complicated because they have to coordinate with the embassy and the country to have his body flown back to the States. We were there when she picked up the coffin. It was interesting, because it was so sad - and also not. Sister L is incredible and so strong and has such strong faith. We ended up having an incredible experience with the man that was helping make all the arrangements. We were sitting in his office translating, and the church ended up coming up, and we got to share a lot with him about the Plan of Salvation. We gave him one of the little booklets about it, and she said: "Tell him the reason that I'm at peace with all of this is the teachings from that book." It was super cool, and he ended up giving us a ride back to her hotel, which was super kind of him. We got talking and he talked about how his job was somehow hard - but also kind of beautiful, because he felt like he could help people. He said it was technically a business, but never really felt like a "business" to him. It was just helping people. He also said he would never forget us - this unique situation where some Mormon missionaries came to try and help this wonderful woman in a predicament. It was certainly memorable.

I love you all a lot - sorry this email is 10 miles along. I would really appreciate it if you could pray for Sister L and her family. :)

Muah!

Sister B

I have confidence

So a lot of things happened this week, some fairly important, and some fairly trivial. We taught a cool 17-year-old white girl with a weave about why we have trials on this earth, got invited for drinks at a kind-of-creepy-guy's house (we didn't go,) and a really, really wonderful lady accepted the invitation to be baptized. A lady we work with taught us to crochet (my potholder is coming...slowly,) and even though it was freaking hot like a week ago, we spent half of this week in a coat and tights. What duh heck, Germany?

We also got to do one of my favorite/least favorite forms of contacting this week, which I like to refer to as "Romeo and Juliet contacting." Basically, when you go dooring and it's not set up so they can answer the klingel...so they literally just open the window and yell out and ask who you are, and it literally feels like Romeo yelling up to Juliet's balcony. Fun, but hurts your neck after a while.

A scene from "Romeo and Juliet"

But we've been busy this week...random people keep popping out of the woodworks and all of a sudden we're super busy which is wonderful, and I hope it continues on like that for Sisters Bishop and Earnshaw, because I'm leaving Stuttgart!

Friday night, the night before transfer calls I was actually pretty calm - I think Sister Bishop and I were in denial about them happening, or maybe we just forgot that they were actually going to be a thing because of the 5 week transfer...no idea. But we woke up and the Zone Leaders called while I was in the shower (obviously, that always seems to happen,) and they told us our calls. Sister Earnshaw is coming from Freiburg to be with Sister Bishop, and I'm going to....

PASSAU!

Have you heard of it? Didn't think so. 

Passau is a little town on the border of Austria, in München zone. When I went to Wien, I associated it with the waltz and with Mozart. When I went to Stuttgart, I knew that's where all the cars come from. I knew nothing about the city itself, but I did know that Passau has the reputation of being the hardest Sister area in the mission. Since so few sisters are here, they mainly are in the big cities - Stuttgart, Wien, Salzburg, Linz, Graz, etc. Passau is a little branch in a little town, and I had just heard that it was hard. I have to admit, the natural man inside of me wasn't incredibly thrilled when I first found out. I have 4 transfers left, and could picture myself losing steam in finding and not being the missionary I wanted to be at the end of my mission. When Sister Bishop was in the shower I was kind of groaning to myself a little about how hard it was going to be - and how I was in no way capable of strengthening the Branch adequately there like I would want to. I went to go eat my knock-off Cinnamon Toast Crunch (that tastes like Homer's Cinnamon Donuts that we ate when I was a kid,) and suddenly a scripture came to my mind - I ran over to my quad in the other room and opened up to 1 Nephi 3 and read this:

4 Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy
 brothers should go unto the house of Laban, and seek the 
records, and bring them down hither into the wilderness.

 5 And now, behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not 
required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord.

 6 Therefore go, my son, and thou shalt be favored of the 
Lord, because thou hast not murmured.

 7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, 
for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the 
children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they 
may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

...Welp. Verse 5 was pretty humbling, since I had literally just been talking about how "hard" it would be to do that. But then I read 7, and felt a lot better. I'm going to Passau. And then once the surprise wore off, I started to get really stoked. These are all the reasons that I'm stoked to go to Passau:

- I haven't even mentioned my comp yet - Sister BERRY! I've talked to her a couple times; she's from Alaska and super cute and cool, and I kind of secretly hoped I could be comps with her. And now I will be!

- All of my areas were bombed out during WWII. Passau is small enough that I don't think it was bombed - so it will actually be super old! Sweet!

- I think Passau is to München zone, as Graz is to Wien zone. Graz is hours away by train from the rest of the zone in Wien. Sister Bishop said that that was really fun, because it's just you and the Elders against the world in your corner of the mission, and that was really cool. I've always been in the hub of the zone, full of missionaries, and Passau is 2- 2 1/2 hours away from München (so I've heard,) so it will be fun to have my own corner of the mission to care for.

-I actually dreamed of serving in a little quaint town, but I didn't think it would happen because all the Sisters are in the big cities. Ha!

- It will be an all-around different experience. I started out in a medium-sized ward in a huge city, and then went to a huge ward in a medium-sized city. Relatively equal. There are a lot of members I adore in each of the wards I've served in, but I will literally know each member of that branch well, and I am stoked about that. 

- I'm going to Bayern, which everyone, ever is obsessed with.

-Do you know what the above statement means? DIRNDLS, (probably.)

-There's a cool American family in Stuttgart ward, and the Dad of the family actually served in Southern Germany on his mission. He said Passau was his favorite area, which is cool.

- When I was at church on Sunday saying goodbye to people, 80% of the time when I told them I was off to Passau, the first thing they said is "Passau ist eine schöne Stadt!" Or, that Passau was a super pretty city. Apparently 3 rivers come together and there's mountains.

So I'm excited. But speaking of all those conversations we had, my heart is literally breaking. I actually don't think I've ever felt heartbreak so severe in my entire life. I now know that I needed this last transfer here with Sister Bishop in Stuttgart. I guess what makes this good-bye so hard is that it's an actual possibility that I won't see all of these wonderful people and families I've come to love again. And, if I did, it would never be the same - I wouldn't be wearing a tag, and that makes a difference. I honestly don't know if I can say more than that without crying at my computer or something. I just got a lot of hugs and well wishes and told lots of people how wonderful they are. There have been ups and downs or what not like every area and just life in general, but at the end I wouldn't give any of these 7 months in Stuttgart back. UGH I just love it so much. Tears may or may not be shed on Thursday; I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and we have iPads? It's so funny - we had literally like a year of build up for these things, and it's already just kind of like a casual thing that we have them. Ha. Using little video clips REALLY engage kids. We tell them to look for certain things and they get super into it. Way fun. You need WiFi for like, most of it, but still. Good stuff.

A sleeping Sister Bishop on the train to Munich to pick up iPads

I feel a lot like Maria from Sound of Music. I've decided that "I have Confidence" is like, exactly what transfers look like. You know your new location and your new comp (Captain Von Trapp, Salzburg,) but that's like it. And you just go. But I'm excited.

Love ya, Stuttgart!

Love,

Sister Bushman

Sister Bushman's Mom here -- other pictures from the week:

"We were randomly approached on Konigstrasse,and they asked us to write or draw something in chalk about love.  We wrote "Jesus loves you, mormon. org"

Sister Bishop at the chalk scene

"On the way home from München, we had a 30 minute stop in Ulm, and the Ulm Elders showed us the Münster, which has the highest church steeple in the world. Cool."

(Change) is in the air

Sister Bishop and I just finished up eating a little carton of freshly picked strawberries we bought on the way to the church. We've been going exploring in the past few weeks during Frühsport (exercise early in the morning,) because if we stay inside it's really easy to not really move. We found beautiful fields of corn and wheat and strawberries. This morning we saw about 4 people kneeling in the strawberry fields, at work. We think that these came straight from there!

This was a good week, although, to be frank, I'm feeling a little lazy to write much. I guess I'm starting to feel how long I've been out here. Missions are wonderful and I've learned so much in the past year (it will be a whole year this week, da heck?) but I guess I'm losing energy for the superfluous things that aren't the actual missionary work. But a lot of changes are in store. First of all, we're headed to München on Wednesday because it's 100% officially happening: iPads. I can't decide if I'm incredibly super stoked, or almost don't want them. I'm excited because we'll have easier access to videos and scriptures and other resources which will REALLY enhance our teaching, and we'll have more tools to use for our German study, but I kind of like living like a caveman with no more technology than a hair straightener and a brick phone. But it's part of moving the work forward, and for that I'm excited.

I'm starting to try and mentally prepare myself for leaving Stuttgart. It's always a possibility that I could stay, but considering I've been here for 5 transfers (longer than normal,) I think I'm definitely out. I just have no idea where. It seems like most Sister areas that should be changing this next transfer already house Sisters who will probably train, or I've already served there, or something random like that. It seems like Singen, (shout-out for Sister Freimann!) or Graz, or Passau. But I learned early on that it's dumb and worthless trying to guess transfers, so that is the extent that I'm going to think about it until Saturday when we find out. But sheeeeeesh! I just love this ward. I feel like I'm leaving my homeward again; I just have like a knot in my stomach about it. I want to keep working with the cool people we found and get free fries from our investigator with a Döner shop and keep befriending the Italians with the Gelato shop around the corner from us who keep speaking to us in Italian even though we still cannot speak Italian.

Sister Bushman near the Stuttgart church building

Sidenote, German cheesecake is much better than American cheesecake, and I was craving it this week. So good.

But the work in Stuttgart is good. I wish I could sleep for 2 weeks to super-charge myself so that I could power forward like a robot, but that's not really a thing. I guess God always uses imperfect and tired people to accomplish His purposes, and it's worked so far. 

"I can't go on! I'm going on."

Vorwärts, Christi Jünger!  (Onward,Christina Soldiers!)

LG,  (Liebe Gruse . . . best wishes)

Sister B

Kirchentag: Party of the Year

Germany can't decide what season it wants to be.

This whole week it was UNBEARABLY hot - and this morning we awoke to terrifying loud thunder, and it has been pouring ever since. Every European says that that is normal, though.

So, for the past while something abnormal has been happening to us mishanrys.

People have been talking to us.

It all started a few weeks ago, when sitting on the Bahn. One or two people asked me or Sister Bishop or both, "Sind Sie zum Kirchentag hier?" Or whether we were there for "Kirchentag." Neither of us really knew what that meant, so we brushed it off for a while. But then it happened more and more - on the Bahns, when we talked to people on the street, etc., and then we noticed advertisements for the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag...hmm.

So after a while, through talking to some people, we figured it out. Every two years, the Evangelisch (Protestant) church of Germany hosts this giant conference in some city in Germany, where literally thousands and thousands of people (last time it was apparently around 100,000) come together to worship God, attend classes and workshops about Christ and the Bible, listen to music, and meet other people. And this year, it was in Stuttgart.

Thousands and thousands of Christians together to learn about Christ and meet new people.

IT'S LIKE MISSIONARY CHRISTMAS.

But seriously, we hadn't realized how big of a deal it was until we were on Schlossplatz, which was right in the middle of town, and we saw them setting up. Holy. Cow. We then changed some plans so we could spend as much time there as possible. In my whole Stuttgart career, I've never seen so many people. Also, a lot of people who were in Stuttgart for Kirchentag were wearing these red scarves, and so it was super fun and easy and non-threatening to walk up to those people and be like "Hey, are you here for Kirchentag?" and then we would strike up a conversation about their faith in Christ and how it has strengthened them, and we would get to share our testimonies with them as well. It was super cool. A lot of people would even stop us and ask us who we were and why we were there. We gave out SO many pamphlets, and it was just super fun. Also, just incredible. The fact that there were SO many people gathered together to talk about Christ just blew me away and warmed my heart. There were also a lot of people who would be like, "I don't know much about the Mormons!" And then we would explain stuff and everyone would just leave the conversation a little happier. Definitely a building-bridges event, I think. Sister Bishop and I decided it was kind of like a really huge German Women's Conference. We also planned tausch for that week, so I got to go on Sister Price's first tausch with her, who is from Utah. Way fun.

The crowd at Kirchentag

Making a Bible page on a printing press at Kirchentag

Sister Price and Sister Bushman

The last day of Kirchentag, we thought ahead and just prepped TONS of cards we could just hand out. We have these kind of larger pass-along cards that are great because they have pictures and words on them (Like "faith brings hope" with a picture of Christ or "Separated forever, or will we meet again?" with a woman at the grave) - since pass-along cards don't really say much. There were SO many Christian groups of various sorts who were just handing out stuff to everyone, so Sister Bishop and I took some time to join the fun. :) We gave out SO MUCH, and most people I saw reading the card as they walked away. Many even stopped and were like, "Well, who are you?"

With the "fancy cards" we passed out

Sunday was really crazy. And fun. And self reflecting-y yesterday. It all started in Relief Society (the order of meetings is backward here, so that is the first one,) when I was just sitting in the meeting minding my own business. And then, the door opening...and Grace and Suzanna Stephenson walked in (I grew up with Sue, and Grace is her older sister) and I just freaked out and ran to the back of the room and hugged them, even though the lesson had started. (Oops.) They are traveling through Germany and Austria right now, and planned a stop in Stuttgart on Sunday. So crazy! It was so surreal to have my real world and my real-er world somehow collide together. That, and a couple of other things that day, kind of helped me refocus perspective on who I am and why I am here, though. I got to translate for Suzanna and although it wasn't perfect, somehow blending my current world with my old one just made me regroup in my appreciation about where I am right now. Does that make sense? I got to honestly tell her how much I loved being there and how wonderful the work and the ward was - and that just felt good.

It was also testimony meeting, and a couple really wonderful things were shared. There was a sister who had served in this ward who visited with her whole family. She bore her testimony so beautifully of the gospel and her appreciation of her mission and the ward, and a family member of hers shared something that really stuck with me. He said that when you're a missionary, you start off by thinking that you are going to leave your stamp or mark or whatever on every area where you are. But as you spend longer in the field, you realize that you don't stamp the place, the place stamps you. It sounds super corny, but I feel like I'm never going to have my whole heart together again. Some of it is in the States, and some of it is in Austria, and now some is in Stuttgart, and I'm already in love with my next city full of the wonderful people I haven't even met yet, and I feel like wherever I am - back in the States or here (if I get the opportunity to come back,) my heart will always be splintered. It's sad, but at the same time, I feel really grateful to have been able to have my heart splintered.

There was another member of the ward who shared his testimony, and something he said really stuck with me and I hope I can re-articulate it decently enough. He talked about how when one tries to learn a new language, they have to practice a word like, 20 times to get it into their vocabulary. He then talked about how every year in Sunday school we study The Book of Mormon, New Testament, Old Testament, or D&C. We may feel like we've studied them so much that we should have it down and not keep studying it, but if someone starts going to normal Sunday School at age 20 and lives to be 80, then they have studied each book 20 times - enough times to get it down - just like learning a language. And then he added, "I think the language we're learning is love."

Just food for thought.

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Bushman

Dinge wofür ich dankbar bin

Guten Morgen liebe Sorgen, seid ihr auch schon alle da? 

Naja, Guten Morgen! Can somebody google that line of that song for me? It's apparently a song that came out while Präsident Kohler was on his mission. He references it sometimes. Anyway. As for more important things...

JUNE IS BUSTING OUT ALL OVERRRRRRRRRRRRR

Sister Bishop always laughs because she says I have a song for everything. Not really. But it's only June 1st once a year, right?

Heute wollte ich ein Paar dinge mit euch teilen, wofür ich sehr dankbar bin. In other words, today I want to share with y'all a couple things for which I'm really, super grateful. 

1. The really wonderful missionaries around me.

I have no doubt that many of the people I have the privilege of being around every day are going to be in my life for a really, really, long time. At least, I will do absolutely everything within my power to make that happen. I've felt so much support from other missionaries when I've struggled, and want to do absolutely anything I can to support the people around me. There's just so much love. And nobody else quite understands what your mission during your 18 months to 2 years was like...except for the people who were there. 

Also, I got kinda sick this week. I woke up Thursday morning feeling completely fine, but after I got out of the shower kinda felt like I was going to faint. So I went and laid down on the floor where Sister Bishop found me - and then spent most of the morning freezing and shaking and super nauseous. Woooooohoo. But Sister Bishop just showed me nothing but charity and did absolutely everything imaginable to make me feel better. And then, one of the Ehepaars (senior couples), when they heard of our homebound plight, brought us soda and muffins and an Elder Holland book to read - and when one of the sets of Elders heard, they offered to go out of their way to bring us some Church movies we didn't have to watch. Like, what? Why is everyone so kind?

I love how systematically the church is set up. On missions we have companionships and districts and zones and missions, and in life we have families and wards and stakes and young mens/womens/quorum/relief society organizations and visiting teaching and home teaching and it's all just set up so that there's always people to help each other. And it's inspired.

With Elder Hunt, who was in the same MTC group as
Sister Bushman, and is now Zone Leader in Stuttgart 

2. The Grace of Christ

So, grace is something that I've never understood very well. This week Sister Bishop and I listened to one of her favorite devotionals e-ver, given by Brad Wilcox who is both the dean of her college at school, and Sister Gassin's uncle. (Shout out!) It just explains the Latter-Day Saint perspective on grace so beautifully and clearly and I wish it was scripture. (Is that blasphemous?) It's titled "His Grace is Sufficient," is beautifully and concisely written, and will even make you laugh once or twice.

Either way, if you do nothing else today, please read it. It will inspire you to be a better person.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/brad-wilcox_his-grace-is-sufficient/

3. Berries

So, you know Haribo. Like, the gummi bears company. Haribo makes a lot of stuff that never made it to America. And there's one called. Berries. And I'm addicted and it's non-arguably the best Haribo out there and if you disagree you're wrong.

Sorry, I'm like super passionate about these things. Also, it's "summer fruit season," and Sister Bishop and I are rejoicing. Especially Sister Bishop. We've got big containers of Peaches, Nectarines, and Apricots at home. We just eat yummy fruit all the time. And there is a strawberry field a 5-minute walk from our house that we discovered last week...so we're going to try and go there and buy some real berries too.

4. Sister Bishop's Showtime CD

Sister Bishop has this CD called "Showtime!" which is MoTab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) singing a bunch of songs from musicals, and one or two from movies. We started listening to it last week. I've been missing theatre just so much, but somehow it's not making me trunky. It just feels like coming home to a warm fire or something. (Anyone get that District quote?) And Sister Bishop asks me about all the shows where the songs are from, and I feel all special giving her the deets on Secret Garden and Carousel and stuff. 

5. Stuttgart Ward

I am just really, really grateful that they let me, twerpy little missionary Sister Bushman come and serve in one of the most wonderful wards on the planet. 

Sending love to Japan, Taiwan, Kuwait, England, Ireland, Canada, America, the DR, Chile, and everywhere else in-between that currently houses people I love.

Life is hard. But the Gospel is real.

Make good choices. ;)

Love,

Sister Bushman

P.S.  Title translation:  "Things I'm Grateful For"