Excerpt from Letter to Parents 5/30/2017

I am doing great! This week we have MLC (Mission Leadership Conference) up at Zion's Camp which should be super fun! And we will be getting everything ready for next week when the whole mission goes up for Zion's Camp! I am way excited for it. It should be a blast! 

This last week went by super fast! We got an awesome referral for this guy named C who is from the Congo. He is way cool and we had a ton of fun this last week going to the YSA events going on! Funny story, we were all riding with the Braunbergers, a senior couple in the ward, and at the end they asked if we were hungry and would like some Round Table pizza. Both Elder Sutton and I, feeling too shy to take them up on the offer, said that we weren't. Right then C sighed humorously and said, "C'mon guys, don't be shy. Let's take them up on it. Let's get some pizza!" Hahaha! To which the Braunbergers laughed and took us out to eat at Round Table Pizza. Elder Sutton and I have had a blast teaching C about the gospel and he is on date to be baptized on June 11th!! (In case you're wondering, C speaks English super well!)

Love you all and have a great week!
Elder Bullough 

Numbered as the Sand of the Sea 5/22/2017

What a great week!! As you can see we had a baptism for T. A few years ago T got into a motorcycle accident. He was a very successful man and due to the accident he now has a lot of brain damage. His family moved in with him not too long ago to live and take care of him. They are members of the church and when a couple of missionaries knocked on their door a few months ago they were excited to have T take the lessons and be baptized. After a few weeks of him coming to church, talking with the bishop and us teaching all of the lessons he was baptized last week! 

This experience taught me that God loves all of his children! Of course I already knew that but it was a good reminder to see the influence that the Holy Ghost had on him to prompt him to take the lessons and to get baptized. It was not an easy step for T to get baptized but with the help of Heavenly Father he did it! 

Well have a wonderful sunny week and love you all!!

Elder Bullough

The Suters, T, Elder Sutton, & Elder Bullough

Happy Mother's Day 5/15/2017

Hey everyone!! I hope you all had a great week! Elder Sutton and I had a ton of fun this past week. We spent most the week proselyting. It has been pretty good weather here in Tacoma except for a couple days of off and on rain showers. I had a chance yesterday to give a talk in Sacrament meeting in my new ward and lucky for me my topic was on mothers, so that was pretty easy to talk about! I had fun preparing it and got a lot out of it. I'll share with you all some of my highlights. 

1. In the Book of Mormon story of the 2000 stripling warriors it says that their great courage and faith in the Lord came from their valiant mothers!

2. In the Bible we learn of one of the greatest mothers, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Think of her example: She is called by the Angel Gabriel to bear a son who would become the Savior of the World. Then while growing up she sees at many times first hand the miracles that He preformed. She expressed her faith in Jesus Christ and her love and support for His purpose throughout His entire life and ministry. And in Christ's final events when he is on the cross who does He think of but His loving mother Mary. I can only imagine His thoughts were: "who will watch after her? Or who will take care of my mother when I am gone?" When on the cross in agony Jesus says to his "beloved" disciple: "Behold Thy Mother!" Jesus Christ was the ultimate example, especially in His expression of love to his Mother.

Love you Mom!!  Hope that you all have a wonderful day and week!! 

With Love,
Elder Bullough

Very Busy Week! 5/8/2017

It's me again! This week has been soooo busy.  Probably the busiest week of my mish.  Here is what we had:

• Monday- I went to the "Mansion" (a way nice house the mission owns by the Puget Sound) a day early to learn some new responsibilities.  We get a new car (Toyota Rav4). It's awesome! That night we meet with president to figure out what we will train on for the meetings this week. Sister Blatter makes us some good soup.
• Tuesday- Drive to seattle, pick up the new missionaries, feed them, take pics of them, interview them, and introduce them to their trainers. Then we had to take the departing missionaries knocking, bring them to the cheesecake factory for dinna (definitely a blessing), bring them to the Blatter's house for going away dessert and things, and then take the elders to our house to spend the night. 
• Wednesday- Wake up and have the departing missionaries at the Blatter's house by 9 so that they can drive to the airport. Come home and study as fast as we can for the two trainings that we have Thursday and Friday. Go to district meetings and afterwards finally have some time to work for the rest of the day. The last 30 minutes of the night Elder Sutton worked on a piano medley for this week's fireside.
• Thursday- We have the New District Leader training from 9-2. Afterwards we use the two hours before dinner to figure out our Mission Leadership Counsel training, and we work the rest of the night. That night, we get home and we use the rest of the time before bed to figure out more of our training.  
• Friday- Wake up at 5:30 and finish the training. We go to MLC (Mission Leadership Conference) from 9-2. We come home, plan for next week, and have time to work the rest of the day and see people.  
• Saturday- We finally have a free day, so we knock and see the people we need to. We found some way cool people. One might get baptized the 16th. Then there was a little drama with two missionaries going home this week, but it's all good now. We figured it out.
• Sunday- We have church meetings from 7:15am-2:00.  We have a "break the fast" meal with the YSA ward--basically just a party where we get to eat and chill with college students and people that are our age in the army and talk about life and get them to tell us about their friends that we can teach lol. Then we go to Sister White's house in Lakewood for a second meal. We then immediately head to the fireside where we meet for practice. We herd up the missionaries and practice the songs for the missionary choir, and we prep for the fireside at 7:00. The fireside goes great!! Sutton played a dope song on the piano, the ladies love him.:)  We rush to the office at 8:30, collect numbers, make the WaTac facts for the week, talk to president about next week's goals, do a conference call with the mission, and get home at 11pm.  
• Monday- Wake up at 5:30 and start again :)  

This week should be less busy. We have a training for all the new missionaries and their trainers tomorrow. Friday we will have exchanges. We will split knock a couple nights this week, and Sunday is Mother's Day!! I LOVE YOU MOM! I love being busy. It feels so productive. Life is great. I love the WaTac and all the missionaries. They are such good people, and it is amazing how much you grow to love them when you work so closely with them. Peace out!

Here are some pics that we took today and throughout the week. Hope you enjoy! 

Love, 

Elder Bullough

Elder Bullough with his new companion (Elder Sutton)

God's Not Dead! 5/1/2017

This week was Sweeeeet!!! So we had transfer calls and tomorrow I will be heading out of Lakewood and over to Tacoma to serve in the YSA ward and in Skyline! This week was definitely the cherry on top as we had 3 baptisms of the people that we were working with! 

S and J- They are a way cool family and actually have been a part of the church for awhile but their records were not in the church. So we had to re-teach and baptize them. They were so cool and it was fun to work with them and to see their testimony grow as they learned the lessons basically for the first time again. We could see the change almost immediately! They began to live the gospel more in their lives and change some of the things that they were doing that was contrary to the gospel. God also helped them gain a greater faith as we taught them the principles again. J, who was originally baptized years ago to please his wife, now was doing it for the right reasons which made all the difference. Anyway long story short they were baptized and confirmed yesterday! When I think of this family I think of a talk by Todd Parker: "True Doctrine Understood, Changes, Attitudes and Behavior." -- In essence the title summarizes the talk.

R was also baptized on Sunday. Such an elect person! We found her like 3 weeks ago and I invited her to be baptized and watch conference and left. Well, when we were on exchange Elder Anderson and another elder knocked back into her and she had watched conference and wanted to come to church the next week. We went over almost every day for these past two weeks and she was baptized yesterday as well! --Good thing God knows who is ready and who is not! 

This whole transfer we had been fasting for miracles and it was such a neat experience to see everyone who was baptized this transfer. God worked some great miracles in our area and we had 6 people get baptized this month, 3 of which came right at the last day of the month—ironically, the last day of the fast! 

Love you all and have a great week! 
Elder Bullough

Elder Anderson, Elder Fuentes, S & J, Elder Schmidt, & Elder Bullough

R's baptism

Elders Bullough, Anderson, Schmidt, & Fuentes