Note from Sandra:
I did not get any of McCoy's letters posted in December...very busy month for some reason. HA
However, we did speak with him on Monday of this week for his Christmas phone call home. He is doing well and loving the mission. He is still in a poor area outside of Managua...he really likes this area. He is still a trainer to his new companion from Wyoming and he is still a district leader. He has four companionships in his district. They are doing well with teaching...lots of contacts and investigators but problems getting them worthy for baptism. They had one baptism this past week.
His health is better than it has been for a while...still have to be careful of the water and foods. The mission had a big mission party for Christmas with a banquet of meat, potatoes and foods that the missionaries from the states hadn't had for many months. He bought himself a violin for Christmas...I guess they are pretty cheap down there. He had a sister at a ward party show him how to play it...he picked it up quickly.
He said his clothes are getting pretty threadbare...the washer woman scrubs with a metal brush and wears holes in the material of his white shirts. He said he will make everything last until March. He has a tenative release date of March 16th.
He is in good spirits and loves the Lord, the mission and the experiences he is having. He wants all family and friends to know he love you and appreciates your prayers and emails to him.
He is excited to come home and hold all this neices and nephews...especially new baby Rulon.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Awesomest Week!
Hello Family!
I had the most awewsomest week! We worked so dang hard this week!
Well I don’t remember much as far as day by day but we have a goal to baptize 27 people 7 families and 9 priesthood holders. They all accepted to be baptized we just got to help prepare them for the 11th of Dec that’s when we will be baptizing them.
So we have been working really hard. Everyday was a miracle we were able to have a member with us in almost every lesson and that is very hard to do. So right now my investigators all have friends in the church.
This Sunday or yesterday we had 10 people in church (not exactly 27) We had one family of 8 plus 2 other people that we are preparing. This is the name of some of the families that we are preparing for baptism and how many are in each family.
Family Flores (8)
Family Garcia (4)
Family Juan (2)
Family Miguel (2)
Family Cesar (2)
Family Obando (2)
Family Hyman (6)
We are working so hard to pass by them everyday so that we follow up to see how there doing and making sure that they aren’t discouraged or been told rumors by their neighbors. It's hard work but the Lord is blessing us so much.
This week we have one baptism, it is the bishop’s son’s girl-friend. We are also having discussions with her mom and brothers, they are pretty positive so the mom already gave us permission to baptize her daughter this week.
I love the mission! It’s full of so many experiences good and bad... ha-ha. But I love being able to help other people!
My district is doing pretty good, the sisters are struggling quite a bit I offered to go to their area to help them out, but they didn’t like that idea.
Danget I wished I brought my agenda today so I could write what happened this week day by day.
Ha-ha Kendall what a CUTIE, just chimning in and saying the Thanksgiving prayer by herself! It’s good to hear that everyone is doing so good including Carver and the family... CARVER WROTE ME!!! I WAS SO EXCITED!
I will try to share a spiritual experience that I had with the Flores Family.
They are such a cool family. But struggled to understand the gospel messages that we share, but now they are our most positive family.
On Tuesday we stopped by there house and it was just the dad that was home. So we started talking to him a little bit about what his questions and doubts are. Then we answered all them. But the coolest part was, is we left the book of Mormon with him so that he can read it and HE DID. Cause right afterwards he brought a huge new book of scriptures and things that he liked.
Then yesterday we had a lesson with the whole family. It is so hard to have them all together. When we got there it was Angelica and her neighbor outside and like always her neighbor was talking crap about our church. But we were cool about it then asked the neighbor what are her questions and doubts. She started asking me really weird stuff like "is it true that you offer up human sacrifices to the devil" I was thinking "ha-ha ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" I almost wanted to say "YES SILLY LADY" but I wouldn’t know how to defend myself afterwards. So we talk about the Book of Mormon. Much easier subject.
After talking with that crazy lady we went in the house and started teaching the family about the Book of Mormon. First we watched a short video clip giving a brief explanation of the Book. Then most of the family wasn’t in the first discussion and several were asking "who is this Joseph Smith?" Then I was like ah....got to explain it all again so everyone in the family hears it this time.
Then we answered one of the questions that the crazy neighbor lady had. It was actually a good question "Where is it that we rest after death?" so we read Alma 40 and Alma 11. It was just so awesome to see all of them reading Moroni promise and all reading the Book of Mormon together.
Well I'm out of time and got to go.
Adios I love you all!
ELDER BUCK
I had the most awewsomest week! We worked so dang hard this week!
Well I don’t remember much as far as day by day but we have a goal to baptize 27 people 7 families and 9 priesthood holders. They all accepted to be baptized we just got to help prepare them for the 11th of Dec that’s when we will be baptizing them.
So we have been working really hard. Everyday was a miracle we were able to have a member with us in almost every lesson and that is very hard to do. So right now my investigators all have friends in the church.
This Sunday or yesterday we had 10 people in church (not exactly 27) We had one family of 8 plus 2 other people that we are preparing. This is the name of some of the families that we are preparing for baptism and how many are in each family.
Family Flores (8)
Family Garcia (4)
Family Juan (2)
Family Miguel (2)
Family Cesar (2)
Family Obando (2)
Family Hyman (6)
We are working so hard to pass by them everyday so that we follow up to see how there doing and making sure that they aren’t discouraged or been told rumors by their neighbors. It's hard work but the Lord is blessing us so much.
This week we have one baptism, it is the bishop’s son’s girl-friend. We are also having discussions with her mom and brothers, they are pretty positive so the mom already gave us permission to baptize her daughter this week.
I love the mission! It’s full of so many experiences good and bad... ha-ha. But I love being able to help other people!
My district is doing pretty good, the sisters are struggling quite a bit I offered to go to their area to help them out, but they didn’t like that idea.
Danget I wished I brought my agenda today so I could write what happened this week day by day.
Ha-ha Kendall what a CUTIE, just chimning in and saying the Thanksgiving prayer by herself! It’s good to hear that everyone is doing so good including Carver and the family... CARVER WROTE ME!!! I WAS SO EXCITED!
I will try to share a spiritual experience that I had with the Flores Family.
They are such a cool family. But struggled to understand the gospel messages that we share, but now they are our most positive family.
On Tuesday we stopped by there house and it was just the dad that was home. So we started talking to him a little bit about what his questions and doubts are. Then we answered all them. But the coolest part was, is we left the book of Mormon with him so that he can read it and HE DID. Cause right afterwards he brought a huge new book of scriptures and things that he liked.
Then yesterday we had a lesson with the whole family. It is so hard to have them all together. When we got there it was Angelica and her neighbor outside and like always her neighbor was talking crap about our church. But we were cool about it then asked the neighbor what are her questions and doubts. She started asking me really weird stuff like "is it true that you offer up human sacrifices to the devil" I was thinking "ha-ha ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" I almost wanted to say "YES SILLY LADY" but I wouldn’t know how to defend myself afterwards. So we talk about the Book of Mormon. Much easier subject.
After talking with that crazy lady we went in the house and started teaching the family about the Book of Mormon. First we watched a short video clip giving a brief explanation of the Book. Then most of the family wasn’t in the first discussion and several were asking "who is this Joseph Smith?" Then I was like ah....got to explain it all again so everyone in the family hears it this time.
Then we answered one of the questions that the crazy neighbor lady had. It was actually a good question "Where is it that we rest after death?" so we read Alma 40 and Alma 11. It was just so awesome to see all of them reading Moroni promise and all reading the Book of Mormon together.
Well I'm out of time and got to go.
Adios I love you all!
ELDER BUCK
Monday, November 15, 2010
Hard, but Good Week
Hey Family!
I think I will keep the gifts till march. Idk...I’m still trying to figure that out. Thank you for sending me a Christmas package even when I told you not too! ha-ha. Yeah, as far as i know we get the packages before Christmas.
How is Carver and the family doing I still haven’t got a letter back or anything from them....
CARLY DONT WORRY YOU WILL DEFINATLEY BE ACCEPTED FOR BYU! Your too smart for them to reject you! Now you better buckle down and complete your last year with flying colors (dad quote).
Really SWEET I WOULD LOVE TO WORK IN ALASKA! I’m so excited to be able to travel IM AN ADULY NOW! i remember before i was just afraid of doing things alone. ha-ha School in 2011 - For sure i need to get started on a career. I’m just trying to think what i will be doing....Dentist, web page designer, graphic design, architecture....those are just a bunch of ideas i got for the moment.
Teaching this week....ha-ha Its been one good and very hard week...
We had Karina’s baptism...but this week no baptisms its stake conference on Saturday and Sunday. I will start with...
MONDAY after writing home we went and did Family Home Evening with some families we have, and i taught the lesson. I had my Gospel principles book and i wanted to do my lesson on the gift of the holy ghost and using the book as like a guide but it was really hard because the section was the "holy ghost" and i meant to do "the gift of the holy ghost" so that was fun. ha-ha.
TUESDAY: They chose our zone to take the new Elders that just arrived into Managua on their first day to experience Nicaragua. I was assigned with a really cool Elder named Elder Yates from St. George, Utah. That was a neat experience, took me back (memories) to my first day here in Nicaragua, but he said he had a really good experience. My poor full time companion, the Elder he was assigned to for the day was super nervous and wanted to pray all the time. Ha-ha
WEDNESDAY: It was a really good day, we worked hard by starting in the morning looking for new people to teach cause we pretty much baptized all the people we had been teaching. We were going to this new part of our area that we haven’t contacted before and we met Jorge, he seemed kind of interested. Then we went to this family named Family Rodriguez and we taught the restoration. They were so awesome and happy that they could know and feel that what we taught is true. They were just really positive.
Then we met up with all ward organization leaders, we are trying to work real close with the members cause we always seem to get more help that way. It is way different here as far as relationships between member to missionary. Its almost like they hate missionaries ha-ha.
Then we met Jaxon and his mom Emilina he is 24 and she is 48 and they were so cool and positive and both accepted to be baptized.
Then the worst part of the day....we found this awesome family the week before named Freddi and Maria José. They are a young couple but the parents live with them and they are 7th day Evangelists. When we were there teaching them they were all positive. When we went back and we talked with the mom, a sweet little old lady and she is like "I’m sorry our pastor said we shouldn’t be meeting with you, we have already sowed our seeds in the church".
We came back three days later and the dad just starts flipping out and saying how he didn’t want his kids to meet with us and just totally ticked off. Then their other brother comes and starts yelling at us... I was working to keep my cool. Then we hear, “GET OUT OF HERE STUPID LITTLE KIDS!?" and i was thinking "what the heck?!" Because the voice that told us we were stupid was that sweet little old lady. and i was like "hermana?? What happened to you, you were nice”?
After we left that family we found 8 new investigators and set two baptismal dates.
THURSDAY: Was an AWESOME DAY! All the investigators that we had just found and started teaching we started setting baptismal dates like crazy. We have the Family Rodriguez, which was a family of 4, and then a reference that we received named Gabriel who is the last member of his family to get baptized!
IT IM OUT OF TIME!!!
Well i got to make like a plunger and get the crap out of here...LOL jk
I LOVE YOU ALL
ELDER BUCK
I think I will keep the gifts till march. Idk...I’m still trying to figure that out. Thank you for sending me a Christmas package even when I told you not too! ha-ha. Yeah, as far as i know we get the packages before Christmas.
How is Carver and the family doing I still haven’t got a letter back or anything from them....
CARLY DONT WORRY YOU WILL DEFINATLEY BE ACCEPTED FOR BYU! Your too smart for them to reject you! Now you better buckle down and complete your last year with flying colors (dad quote).
Really SWEET I WOULD LOVE TO WORK IN ALASKA! I’m so excited to be able to travel IM AN ADULY NOW! i remember before i was just afraid of doing things alone. ha-ha School in 2011 - For sure i need to get started on a career. I’m just trying to think what i will be doing....Dentist, web page designer, graphic design, architecture....those are just a bunch of ideas i got for the moment.
Teaching this week....ha-ha Its been one good and very hard week...
We had Karina’s baptism...but this week no baptisms its stake conference on Saturday and Sunday. I will start with...
MONDAY after writing home we went and did Family Home Evening with some families we have, and i taught the lesson. I had my Gospel principles book and i wanted to do my lesson on the gift of the holy ghost and using the book as like a guide but it was really hard because the section was the "holy ghost" and i meant to do "the gift of the holy ghost" so that was fun. ha-ha.
TUESDAY: They chose our zone to take the new Elders that just arrived into Managua on their first day to experience Nicaragua. I was assigned with a really cool Elder named Elder Yates from St. George, Utah. That was a neat experience, took me back (memories) to my first day here in Nicaragua, but he said he had a really good experience. My poor full time companion, the Elder he was assigned to for the day was super nervous and wanted to pray all the time. Ha-ha
WEDNESDAY: It was a really good day, we worked hard by starting in the morning looking for new people to teach cause we pretty much baptized all the people we had been teaching. We were going to this new part of our area that we haven’t contacted before and we met Jorge, he seemed kind of interested. Then we went to this family named Family Rodriguez and we taught the restoration. They were so awesome and happy that they could know and feel that what we taught is true. They were just really positive.
Then we met up with all ward organization leaders, we are trying to work real close with the members cause we always seem to get more help that way. It is way different here as far as relationships between member to missionary. Its almost like they hate missionaries ha-ha.
Then we met Jaxon and his mom Emilina he is 24 and she is 48 and they were so cool and positive and both accepted to be baptized.
Then the worst part of the day....we found this awesome family the week before named Freddi and Maria José. They are a young couple but the parents live with them and they are 7th day Evangelists. When we were there teaching them they were all positive. When we went back and we talked with the mom, a sweet little old lady and she is like "I’m sorry our pastor said we shouldn’t be meeting with you, we have already sowed our seeds in the church".
We came back three days later and the dad just starts flipping out and saying how he didn’t want his kids to meet with us and just totally ticked off. Then their other brother comes and starts yelling at us... I was working to keep my cool. Then we hear, “GET OUT OF HERE STUPID LITTLE KIDS!?" and i was thinking "what the heck?!" Because the voice that told us we were stupid was that sweet little old lady. and i was like "hermana?? What happened to you, you were nice”?
After we left that family we found 8 new investigators and set two baptismal dates.
THURSDAY: Was an AWESOME DAY! All the investigators that we had just found and started teaching we started setting baptismal dates like crazy. We have the Family Rodriguez, which was a family of 4, and then a reference that we received named Gabriel who is the last member of his family to get baptized!
IT IM OUT OF TIME!!!
Well i got to make like a plunger and get the crap out of here...LOL jk
I LOVE YOU ALL
ELDER BUCK
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Visiting An Old Area and Converts
Hello Family!
RULON IS SO CUUUUUUUUUUUTE!! Thank you for writing up the birthdays! Now I know who has having whose birthday, sorry I have done a pretty bad job at not even sending anyone anything but I think I made up for it for the gifts that I bought for all of you I only have to buy something for Tanner and then I have everyone.
This week was awesome! This week has not exactly gone by quickly ha-ha but it has been a really good week! I love the mission!! And the new president. There is a totally new change and the most awesome part is Preach My Gospel has new doctrine that we are applying in the mission.
That’s awesome dad! GOOD LUCK! With the computer program. Do you want to know something really good, I have been able to discipline myself so well I might be able to help you out with computer programming. How was the dance Carly? You seem to be a little more adventurous then me.
On Tuesday we had a District meeting in the church in Reparto Shick and then after I had the opportunity to go and visit my converts when I was in that same area several months ago. Sadly....almost all of them are INACTIVE!?! WHAT THE HECK?!! First I visited the place were I ate my meals and they are happy and doing well.
Then I went to go visit my Convert Karla and her daughter and they went to church the week before but before they couldn’t because her mom was in the hospital almost dying.
Then I went to go visit another convert who were my first ones Alex, Marieth, and Flavia. Alex is active and faithful but Marieth is going to her grandma’s church and Flavia is studying on Sunda’s. But when I asked them if they still "believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God?" They felt the spirit and said that they feel badly that they always knew it was true but just didn’t have much support from ward members.
Then on Thursday my companion and I visited our ward secretary (Victor) at his house. He is the only member of his family who is a member of the church. We were a little lost and didn’t know how to get to his house, and the place that we were in, every time we contacted someone they told us that we shouldn’t be there that its a dangerous place, "you could get killed"...etc.
We kept looking for his house, we ran into our ward young men president and his family and they needed to drop stuff off to Victor so we followed then. When we got there Victor introduced us to his dad who was watching T.V. and left. We were like uh.....then the spirit took over and helped us out after saying a quick prayer.
The man was real nice his name is Javier (victor’s dad) and told us to sit down. We talked a little bit about his doubts that he had about the church but there was way too much distraction. When the young men president and his family were leaving and they were saying good bye and as the YM president shook hands with Javier he said pointing at the T.V: "turn that off and listen to the message these missionaries have to say". I thought Javier was going to be offended but he turned the T.V. off and sat down to listen to us. His son accompanied us and was at his father’s side the whole time.
We started with a prayer asking that Javier could feel the spirit. We started asking questions then I had the impression that his son should shares his experiences with his dad about how he became a convert and the only member of his family to join the Mormon Church. After Victor shared his experiences, the dad said that he felt a beautiful feeling and wanted us to come back and wanted to come to church on Sunday. Awesome!
I have more experiences to tell you but Im out of time!
I LOVE YOU ALL
ELDER BUCK
RULON IS SO CUUUUUUUUUUUTE!! Thank you for writing up the birthdays! Now I know who has having whose birthday, sorry I have done a pretty bad job at not even sending anyone anything but I think I made up for it for the gifts that I bought for all of you I only have to buy something for Tanner and then I have everyone.
This week was awesome! This week has not exactly gone by quickly ha-ha but it has been a really good week! I love the mission!! And the new president. There is a totally new change and the most awesome part is Preach My Gospel has new doctrine that we are applying in the mission.
That’s awesome dad! GOOD LUCK! With the computer program. Do you want to know something really good, I have been able to discipline myself so well I might be able to help you out with computer programming. How was the dance Carly? You seem to be a little more adventurous then me.
On Tuesday we had a District meeting in the church in Reparto Shick and then after I had the opportunity to go and visit my converts when I was in that same area several months ago. Sadly....almost all of them are INACTIVE!?! WHAT THE HECK?!! First I visited the place were I ate my meals and they are happy and doing well.
Then I went to go visit my Convert Karla and her daughter and they went to church the week before but before they couldn’t because her mom was in the hospital almost dying.
Then I went to go visit another convert who were my first ones Alex, Marieth, and Flavia. Alex is active and faithful but Marieth is going to her grandma’s church and Flavia is studying on Sunda’s. But when I asked them if they still "believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God?" They felt the spirit and said that they feel badly that they always knew it was true but just didn’t have much support from ward members.
Then on Thursday my companion and I visited our ward secretary (Victor) at his house. He is the only member of his family who is a member of the church. We were a little lost and didn’t know how to get to his house, and the place that we were in, every time we contacted someone they told us that we shouldn’t be there that its a dangerous place, "you could get killed"...etc.
We kept looking for his house, we ran into our ward young men president and his family and they needed to drop stuff off to Victor so we followed then. When we got there Victor introduced us to his dad who was watching T.V. and left. We were like uh.....then the spirit took over and helped us out after saying a quick prayer.
The man was real nice his name is Javier (victor’s dad) and told us to sit down. We talked a little bit about his doubts that he had about the church but there was way too much distraction. When the young men president and his family were leaving and they were saying good bye and as the YM president shook hands with Javier he said pointing at the T.V: "turn that off and listen to the message these missionaries have to say". I thought Javier was going to be offended but he turned the T.V. off and sat down to listen to us. His son accompanied us and was at his father’s side the whole time.
We started with a prayer asking that Javier could feel the spirit. We started asking questions then I had the impression that his son should shares his experiences with his dad about how he became a convert and the only member of his family to join the Mormon Church. After Victor shared his experiences, the dad said that he felt a beautiful feeling and wanted us to come back and wanted to come to church on Sunday. Awesome!
I have more experiences to tell you but Im out of time!
I LOVE YOU ALL
ELDER BUCK
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Only Four More Months
Happy November! I will be coming home in March!
I really do not need anything for Christmas...you could put a little more money in my account so I can pick up some souvenir's to bring home. I was able to get my shoes patched so they should last me until I get back.
I picked up some cute little Nica dresses for the nieces but I still need a new list of everyones birthdays.
We had two more baptisms this week. I love my new mission President...he is awesome and I love being a DL. It is great when everyone in my district is on the same page and want to achieve the same goals and we work hard together. My companion Elder Smith and I get along great too...he is great.
I don't have much news this week but everything is good here and I am healthy and happy.
I love all of you and send my love to everyone. Send me some more pictures!
Bye,
Elder Buck
I really do not need anything for Christmas...you could put a little more money in my account so I can pick up some souvenir's to bring home. I was able to get my shoes patched so they should last me until I get back.
I picked up some cute little Nica dresses for the nieces but I still need a new list of everyones birthdays.
We had two more baptisms this week. I love my new mission President...he is awesome and I love being a DL. It is great when everyone in my district is on the same page and want to achieve the same goals and we work hard together. My companion Elder Smith and I get along great too...he is great.
I don't have much news this week but everything is good here and I am healthy and happy.
I love all of you and send my love to everyone. Send me some more pictures!
Bye,
Elder Buck
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
One Baptism This Week
Hey Family!
I decided to come home in....March and yes 3 weeks does seem like a lot when you are longing to have hot showers and eat normal food and be healthy again. haha.
My toe is fine I’m always cleaning and putting new bandages on it daily so everything is all good.
That’s so awesome a new baby and nephew! He will still be kind of new when i get back! SEND ME PICTURES!!
That’s cool the trunk or treat wow I can’t believe its almost Halloween and Christmas. Halloween is not celebrated here the people think it is of the Devil. haha.
Yeah I got my package probably like 2-3 weeks after it had been in the mission office. Yes everything was in it. 4 shirts, 2 candies, 4 ties and thank you those ties are SICK! I will start thinking of a list of things I will need to finish my mission and you can send them before Christmas. I will try and have it list ready by next week.
This week was a good week. We had 1 baptism this week his name is Fernando, he is the last person in his family to be baptized a member. He is 16 years old.
This past Sunday we had a really cool experience where all of the missionaries first met up in the stake center then we all left to go contact passengers on buses. (5 buses to contact for each missionary) I was a little nervous at first but being the leader of my district I had to show an example so I went first. There were 5 of us in the group so we contacted 20 buses, it was a really neat experience. Its funny cuz when the bus comes by you just say to the bus driver “Can We Preach the Word of God?” and then they let you on without paying. Then you just stand at the front of the bus and preach to the people.
We are teaching with a new technique. There is a new program that the church is releasing for the missionaries called the Doctrine of Christ where it introduces new teaching methods. One focuses on the spirit a lot, its awesome, because we ask the investigators inspiring questions, and then listen to the response and just keep asking them more and more questions so they do most of the talking and practically teach themselves. I really like it. It helps me to focus more with the spirit.
I got to go I’m almost out of time.
I love you all!
Elder Buck
I decided to come home in....March and yes 3 weeks does seem like a lot when you are longing to have hot showers and eat normal food and be healthy again. haha.
My toe is fine I’m always cleaning and putting new bandages on it daily so everything is all good.
That’s so awesome a new baby and nephew! He will still be kind of new when i get back! SEND ME PICTURES!!
That’s cool the trunk or treat wow I can’t believe its almost Halloween and Christmas. Halloween is not celebrated here the people think it is of the Devil. haha.
Yeah I got my package probably like 2-3 weeks after it had been in the mission office. Yes everything was in it. 4 shirts, 2 candies, 4 ties and thank you those ties are SICK! I will start thinking of a list of things I will need to finish my mission and you can send them before Christmas. I will try and have it list ready by next week.
This week was a good week. We had 1 baptism this week his name is Fernando, he is the last person in his family to be baptized a member. He is 16 years old.
This past Sunday we had a really cool experience where all of the missionaries first met up in the stake center then we all left to go contact passengers on buses. (5 buses to contact for each missionary) I was a little nervous at first but being the leader of my district I had to show an example so I went first. There were 5 of us in the group so we contacted 20 buses, it was a really neat experience. Its funny cuz when the bus comes by you just say to the bus driver “Can We Preach the Word of God?” and then they let you on without paying. Then you just stand at the front of the bus and preach to the people.
We are teaching with a new technique. There is a new program that the church is releasing for the missionaries called the Doctrine of Christ where it introduces new teaching methods. One focuses on the spirit a lot, its awesome, because we ask the investigators inspiring questions, and then listen to the response and just keep asking them more and more questions so they do most of the talking and practically teach themselves. I really like it. It helps me to focus more with the spirit.
I got to go I’m almost out of time.
I love you all!
Elder Buck
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Two Letters to Post
Hello Family! (October4)
It was a good conference, I am glad to hear it was awesome! I wasn’t able to see some parts of it...dang Im going to download conference though on my iPod so I can listen to it. I love conference, most the time I was listening to it in Spanish and also seeing how many investigators and recent converts were present and watching it. There was a huge storm going through on Saturday and through the night and it kept on cutting in and out with the satellite feed...so I missed a lot of the speakers.
My favorite talk that I can remember and understood was the one by D. Todd Kristofferson talking about the steps on how to have a consecrated life I really liked that one. But yes in parts I did fall asleep too....LIKE ALWAYS!! What can I say? Im a hard worker and I get sleepy.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I hope you had an awesome b-day! It sounds like you did!
Sweet, Im glad Carver and everyone got my letters! Im glad the kids liked them too!
I did get transferred this past week and here is the story:
Tuesday it was a rather difficult day for my companion and I, we were both trying to work but were also anxious to who would be changing...we went back to the house after we were done eating dinner for the night and waited in the house and planned until our DL came back from working and tell us of who was leaving.
We waited and when he came back he told us that none of us have changes. I was happy to be able to stay, but discouraged that I would be with someone for six more weeks who absolutely does not like me or have any interests in what I do..Well so I thought SWEET you know what this is going to be an even better change.
However, the next morning I woke up to my companion slapping my feet saying "move your feet they are in my way". He was trying to get to his suitcase but my feet were hanging over the bed so it blocked his suitcase flap to open up his suitcase. In that exact moment I was thinking in my head "well I can either tell him to shut up and ask nicely or I can tell him sorry and move my feet". It was hard but I chose option B. Later that morning he was talking crap to me but I just ignored him and it helped me.
We finally went out and started working and our discussions we had set up were falling through. So I said lets go back to the house were we eat and teach Rosa’s daughter who still isn’t baptized. We went back and when we found out she wasn’t there we were leaving the house then my district leader runs up all out of breath and said " we were looking all over for you guys you both have changes!" and I was like "what?!" " I'm sorry they just told me, but you guys got to get your stuff packed and go at 2:00pm". I had a bad feeling in my stomach while packing like I was leaving a part of me behind or my family.
We got to the bus station at 1pm. Our district leader told us that my companion would be going to Chinadega and I go back to my old zone to Villa Flor, La fuente, outside of Managua. I was getting on the bus and my leader told me "Hey your new companion will be a white boy that you will be training" and I was like "NOOOOOOOoooo!" and he said "You are also the District Leader" idk why but when he told me that I felt AWESOME! Finally!! RESPONSIBILITY! LEADERSHIP! and it is awesome!
The bus ride back to Managua was about 2 hours long and the whole way back there was a TV right in front of my face playing Prince of Persia and I feel ashamed to say but I watched like 10 minutes in total for the whole way back. When I got to the bus station in Managua no one was there to pick me up so I waited 2 1/2 hours and still no one picked me up so I called my zone leaders and they said to just take a taxi to the church. I did and when I got there I met my companion ELDER SMITH!!! HE IS SO COOL! I am so happy. He is from Wyoming and is a newbie he has 1 month in Nicaragua so I am a trainer again and a District Leader.
My district is a district of 4 for now, my companion and I and the hermanas. I have sister missionaries in my district and they are hard workers so we are doing AWESOME! Im real excited for this change. This Wednesday I will be doing my first baptismal interview as District Leader and am excited about that. I heard from others be a district leader is way better then any other thing so I am happy for this opportunity.
I have been in my new area for 5 days now and we are doing awesome. My area is dangerous like Reparto Shick but it is awesome! The people are so much more receptive here then the people in Matagalpa.
We have 1 baptism planned for this week and 1 for next week and 3 for the next week after that. The one that will be baptized this weeks name is Karen she is 9 years old and she will be baptized by us because her parents are members but inactive and didnt get her baptized at the age of 8. We are activating her parents too.
One of our investigators name is Nelson. The missionaries have been visiting him for about 8 months and he has read the BofM 10 times, been to church 11 times and has read the principles of the gospel, but will not commit to baptism. When I went yesterday and met him for the first time, I talked with him about the baptismal challenge and he did not accept. I asked him what was holding him back and he told me it was because he was afraid of failing after his baptism. We talked about failing, atonement and forgiveness and he seems to have a greater desire to be baptised now.
Im out of time but love you all!
Elder Buck
Hello Family! (October 11)
Thank you for the congrats...I was transferred to a new area. I am back in Managua in an area called La Fuente. It is close by my old area Reparto Shick.
This week has been one crazy week, Im loving it though..
On Monday I don’t remember if I wrote you this but someone called me on my phone while we were in the house and asked my companion and I to go to the nearest hospital and give this sister a blessing. The guy that called me was the Branch President to the Diriamba branch in Jinotepe and he said he would come by and picked us up and take us to the hospital. On the way he explained the details about the sister.
The sister was a mom of a returned missionary sister. She has some type of infection in her body I don’t remember what he called it...but she was dying. The hospital was packed like usual and we had to wait for the returned sister missionary to come find us so we could get entrance because it was the part of the hospital that is for females only. It was gross, cuz when we got access we were passing by rooms where woman were having babies and I about threw up.
When we got to the room the lady was sitting up in her bed with her eyes closed but still conscious and with a hole cute in her throat and a tube going into it so she could breathe. She was in really bad shape and the daughter and whole family was there crying and I didn’t really know what to do. We waiting till a doctor came in and gave us permission to put our hands on her head to give her a blessing.
When we got permission my companion did the anointing and I sealed the blessing. I don’t remember at all what I said but I felt the power of the spirit very strongly. It was a unique moment. After the blessing the family still had tears in their eyes but where a lot calmer. Then the family thanked us and we left.
Later that night we received a call again to give her a blessing and I told them "she already received one, it’s not necessary that she receives another". Then they told me that it was a blessing of comfort, so I agreed and went to the hospital again, it was pretty late like 8:45pm. When we got to the hospital the guard at the door had a bad experience with Mormon's so he wouldn't let us in no matter what. While we were waiting another man came up and it was the 2nd counselor of the South Mission here in Nicaragua. He was also informed to come. We finally got permission to go in but we went another direction to the sister who had been moved to intensive care.
When we got to the room of intensive care, I did not like that at all. I felt sick looking at all the people in bed with thousands of tubes in their bodies to help them survive. They were mostly old people that were there. The doctor was mad that there was more then one person there to give the blessing and would only permit one of us to go in the room to give the blessing. The 2nd counselor went in and gave the blessing. We waited out side with the other family members. You could tell this poor family had gone through a lot that day... all worn out, with bags another there eyes, unkempt hair and tears. My companion and I said a prayer with them as we waited. When the counselor came out he said he gave the blessing and we silently said goodbye to everyone with a smile and drove back home. That was my first spiritual experience of something like that and not one that I will forget...
Tuesday was my first time to direct my own district meeting. They wanted us to come half an hour early to tell us what goals we have as a district and how to be better leaders. Then I taught my district the Doctrines of Christ which is a new really cool missionary program.
Wednesday I went and did my first baptismal interviews for my zone leaders. That was a really neat experience, I interviewed two sisters that were in there late 20s. The first I could feel the spirit with in the first 2-3 minutes of the interview telling me she is ready. But the other one I didn’t feel the same because she had quite a serious problem with the Law of Chastity. I told her not to tell me the details but she continued to talk in great detail...thank goodness it was in Spanish cuz there were a lot of words she used that I didn’t know and I didn't understand what she was telling me. Later that night I did another interview with another investigator for the sister missionaries in my district. That was also really cool!
Thursday: I wasn’t able to do much....I have had an ingrown toe nail on my big toe for a while and the pain is getting unbearable. During the morning we met up with an investigator named Raul who is from Miami. We met him a day earlier, he is probably like 23 years old, and was positive the day before. We gave him the lesson 1 pamphlet and told him we would come back today. The first thing he says to us in English is "Im not feeling it". I asked, " Not feeling what?" He said, I don't feel the message of the restoration is true." I told him he was not going to feel it unless he prayed and ask God if it’s true". He said other stuff, so we tried teaching him the importance of the preisthood authority and why it’s necessary that it was and is on the earth today. Then he told us what other religions say about priesthood authority and that anyone can get this authority if they have faith in God. I told him about the laying on of hands by those with the authority, but he shut down and didn’t listen, so we left him with the invitation to pray or "you’re never going to feel it" (the truth).
Friday was a good day, we worked hard trying to get to know our area better by trying to find the 28 out of 33 recent converts we don’t know. We dedicated the whole afternoon to finding where these recent converts live, well we didn’t find any recent converts but we did find 6 new investigators so that was really cool.
Saturday was the first baptism I had in this new area. The name of the girl is Karen who is 9 but her parents didn’t baptize her cuz they are INACTIVE. The baptism was horrible though...I really do not like the baptisms here in Nicaragua. I was leading the baptism and her cousin was the one that was going to baptize her. The cousin forgot his baptismal shirt so we had to delay the baptism and wait for his dad to go and buy a new one. All the people we invited on Friday didn’t come to the baptism, neither did the bishop or any of the counselors. When the cousin did the baptism itself, the cousin wasn’t too experienced and almost drowned her so Karen came up bawling. Then after the baptism was done...nobody congratulated her besides my companion and I. WOW
Later that day I got my ingrown toenail pulled out. The specialist put anesthesia (shot) in my toe which hurt like heck. He said there will be a slight tingling and Im afraid it was a little more then that. I tried to stuff my fat wrapped toe in my shoe so after that I didn’t work much the rest of the day.
Sunday we spent all morning walking and trying to get our investigators to church from 6am - 9am and had 2 investigators there. I couldn’t walk very well and I my toe is still hurting like crazy! I got chewed out by my zone leaders for not working cuz of my toe but it was a good week.
Still haven’t got my package yet, the zone leaders are going to go pick it up from the mission office tomorrow.
Glad everyone had fun in Utah. I need a favor if you could send me the dates of everyone’s birthdays!
AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THOSE THAT HAVE BIRTHDAYS IN OCTOBER. I HOPE I REMEBER ALL OF THEM. MOM, KADE, CARLY, AND EMILY! THAT’S WHY I NEED A LIST OF BIRTHDAY DATES!
Love Elder Buck
It was a good conference, I am glad to hear it was awesome! I wasn’t able to see some parts of it...dang Im going to download conference though on my iPod so I can listen to it. I love conference, most the time I was listening to it in Spanish and also seeing how many investigators and recent converts were present and watching it. There was a huge storm going through on Saturday and through the night and it kept on cutting in and out with the satellite feed...so I missed a lot of the speakers.
My favorite talk that I can remember and understood was the one by D. Todd Kristofferson talking about the steps on how to have a consecrated life I really liked that one. But yes in parts I did fall asleep too....LIKE ALWAYS!! What can I say? Im a hard worker and I get sleepy.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I hope you had an awesome b-day! It sounds like you did!
Sweet, Im glad Carver and everyone got my letters! Im glad the kids liked them too!
I did get transferred this past week and here is the story:
Tuesday it was a rather difficult day for my companion and I, we were both trying to work but were also anxious to who would be changing...we went back to the house after we were done eating dinner for the night and waited in the house and planned until our DL came back from working and tell us of who was leaving.
We waited and when he came back he told us that none of us have changes. I was happy to be able to stay, but discouraged that I would be with someone for six more weeks who absolutely does not like me or have any interests in what I do..Well so I thought SWEET you know what this is going to be an even better change.
However, the next morning I woke up to my companion slapping my feet saying "move your feet they are in my way". He was trying to get to his suitcase but my feet were hanging over the bed so it blocked his suitcase flap to open up his suitcase. In that exact moment I was thinking in my head "well I can either tell him to shut up and ask nicely or I can tell him sorry and move my feet". It was hard but I chose option B. Later that morning he was talking crap to me but I just ignored him and it helped me.
We finally went out and started working and our discussions we had set up were falling through. So I said lets go back to the house were we eat and teach Rosa’s daughter who still isn’t baptized. We went back and when we found out she wasn’t there we were leaving the house then my district leader runs up all out of breath and said " we were looking all over for you guys you both have changes!" and I was like "what?!" " I'm sorry they just told me, but you guys got to get your stuff packed and go at 2:00pm". I had a bad feeling in my stomach while packing like I was leaving a part of me behind or my family.
We got to the bus station at 1pm. Our district leader told us that my companion would be going to Chinadega and I go back to my old zone to Villa Flor, La fuente, outside of Managua. I was getting on the bus and my leader told me "Hey your new companion will be a white boy that you will be training" and I was like "NOOOOOOOoooo!" and he said "You are also the District Leader" idk why but when he told me that I felt AWESOME! Finally!! RESPONSIBILITY! LEADERSHIP! and it is awesome!
The bus ride back to Managua was about 2 hours long and the whole way back there was a TV right in front of my face playing Prince of Persia and I feel ashamed to say but I watched like 10 minutes in total for the whole way back. When I got to the bus station in Managua no one was there to pick me up so I waited 2 1/2 hours and still no one picked me up so I called my zone leaders and they said to just take a taxi to the church. I did and when I got there I met my companion ELDER SMITH!!! HE IS SO COOL! I am so happy. He is from Wyoming and is a newbie he has 1 month in Nicaragua so I am a trainer again and a District Leader.
My district is a district of 4 for now, my companion and I and the hermanas. I have sister missionaries in my district and they are hard workers so we are doing AWESOME! Im real excited for this change. This Wednesday I will be doing my first baptismal interview as District Leader and am excited about that. I heard from others be a district leader is way better then any other thing so I am happy for this opportunity.
I have been in my new area for 5 days now and we are doing awesome. My area is dangerous like Reparto Shick but it is awesome! The people are so much more receptive here then the people in Matagalpa.
We have 1 baptism planned for this week and 1 for next week and 3 for the next week after that. The one that will be baptized this weeks name is Karen she is 9 years old and she will be baptized by us because her parents are members but inactive and didnt get her baptized at the age of 8. We are activating her parents too.
One of our investigators name is Nelson. The missionaries have been visiting him for about 8 months and he has read the BofM 10 times, been to church 11 times and has read the principles of the gospel, but will not commit to baptism. When I went yesterday and met him for the first time, I talked with him about the baptismal challenge and he did not accept. I asked him what was holding him back and he told me it was because he was afraid of failing after his baptism. We talked about failing, atonement and forgiveness and he seems to have a greater desire to be baptised now.
Im out of time but love you all!
Elder Buck
Hello Family! (October 11)
Thank you for the congrats...I was transferred to a new area. I am back in Managua in an area called La Fuente. It is close by my old area Reparto Shick.
This week has been one crazy week, Im loving it though..
On Monday I don’t remember if I wrote you this but someone called me on my phone while we were in the house and asked my companion and I to go to the nearest hospital and give this sister a blessing. The guy that called me was the Branch President to the Diriamba branch in Jinotepe and he said he would come by and picked us up and take us to the hospital. On the way he explained the details about the sister.
The sister was a mom of a returned missionary sister. She has some type of infection in her body I don’t remember what he called it...but she was dying. The hospital was packed like usual and we had to wait for the returned sister missionary to come find us so we could get entrance because it was the part of the hospital that is for females only. It was gross, cuz when we got access we were passing by rooms where woman were having babies and I about threw up.
When we got to the room the lady was sitting up in her bed with her eyes closed but still conscious and with a hole cute in her throat and a tube going into it so she could breathe. She was in really bad shape and the daughter and whole family was there crying and I didn’t really know what to do. We waiting till a doctor came in and gave us permission to put our hands on her head to give her a blessing.
When we got permission my companion did the anointing and I sealed the blessing. I don’t remember at all what I said but I felt the power of the spirit very strongly. It was a unique moment. After the blessing the family still had tears in their eyes but where a lot calmer. Then the family thanked us and we left.
Later that night we received a call again to give her a blessing and I told them "she already received one, it’s not necessary that she receives another". Then they told me that it was a blessing of comfort, so I agreed and went to the hospital again, it was pretty late like 8:45pm. When we got to the hospital the guard at the door had a bad experience with Mormon's so he wouldn't let us in no matter what. While we were waiting another man came up and it was the 2nd counselor of the South Mission here in Nicaragua. He was also informed to come. We finally got permission to go in but we went another direction to the sister who had been moved to intensive care.
When we got to the room of intensive care, I did not like that at all. I felt sick looking at all the people in bed with thousands of tubes in their bodies to help them survive. They were mostly old people that were there. The doctor was mad that there was more then one person there to give the blessing and would only permit one of us to go in the room to give the blessing. The 2nd counselor went in and gave the blessing. We waited out side with the other family members. You could tell this poor family had gone through a lot that day... all worn out, with bags another there eyes, unkempt hair and tears. My companion and I said a prayer with them as we waited. When the counselor came out he said he gave the blessing and we silently said goodbye to everyone with a smile and drove back home. That was my first spiritual experience of something like that and not one that I will forget...
Tuesday was my first time to direct my own district meeting. They wanted us to come half an hour early to tell us what goals we have as a district and how to be better leaders. Then I taught my district the Doctrines of Christ which is a new really cool missionary program.
Wednesday I went and did my first baptismal interviews for my zone leaders. That was a really neat experience, I interviewed two sisters that were in there late 20s. The first I could feel the spirit with in the first 2-3 minutes of the interview telling me she is ready. But the other one I didn’t feel the same because she had quite a serious problem with the Law of Chastity. I told her not to tell me the details but she continued to talk in great detail...thank goodness it was in Spanish cuz there were a lot of words she used that I didn’t know and I didn't understand what she was telling me. Later that night I did another interview with another investigator for the sister missionaries in my district. That was also really cool!
Thursday: I wasn’t able to do much....I have had an ingrown toe nail on my big toe for a while and the pain is getting unbearable. During the morning we met up with an investigator named Raul who is from Miami. We met him a day earlier, he is probably like 23 years old, and was positive the day before. We gave him the lesson 1 pamphlet and told him we would come back today. The first thing he says to us in English is "Im not feeling it". I asked, " Not feeling what?" He said, I don't feel the message of the restoration is true." I told him he was not going to feel it unless he prayed and ask God if it’s true". He said other stuff, so we tried teaching him the importance of the preisthood authority and why it’s necessary that it was and is on the earth today. Then he told us what other religions say about priesthood authority and that anyone can get this authority if they have faith in God. I told him about the laying on of hands by those with the authority, but he shut down and didn’t listen, so we left him with the invitation to pray or "you’re never going to feel it" (the truth).
Friday was a good day, we worked hard trying to get to know our area better by trying to find the 28 out of 33 recent converts we don’t know. We dedicated the whole afternoon to finding where these recent converts live, well we didn’t find any recent converts but we did find 6 new investigators so that was really cool.
Saturday was the first baptism I had in this new area. The name of the girl is Karen who is 9 but her parents didn’t baptize her cuz they are INACTIVE. The baptism was horrible though...I really do not like the baptisms here in Nicaragua. I was leading the baptism and her cousin was the one that was going to baptize her. The cousin forgot his baptismal shirt so we had to delay the baptism and wait for his dad to go and buy a new one. All the people we invited on Friday didn’t come to the baptism, neither did the bishop or any of the counselors. When the cousin did the baptism itself, the cousin wasn’t too experienced and almost drowned her so Karen came up bawling. Then after the baptism was done...nobody congratulated her besides my companion and I. WOW
Later that day I got my ingrown toenail pulled out. The specialist put anesthesia (shot) in my toe which hurt like heck. He said there will be a slight tingling and Im afraid it was a little more then that. I tried to stuff my fat wrapped toe in my shoe so after that I didn’t work much the rest of the day.
Sunday we spent all morning walking and trying to get our investigators to church from 6am - 9am and had 2 investigators there. I couldn’t walk very well and I my toe is still hurting like crazy! I got chewed out by my zone leaders for not working cuz of my toe but it was a good week.
Still haven’t got my package yet, the zone leaders are going to go pick it up from the mission office tomorrow.
Glad everyone had fun in Utah. I need a favor if you could send me the dates of everyone’s birthdays!
AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THOSE THAT HAVE BIRTHDAYS IN OCTOBER. I HOPE I REMEBER ALL OF THEM. MOM, KADE, CARLY, AND EMILY! THAT’S WHY I NEED A LIST OF BIRTHDAY DATES!
Love Elder Buck
Monday, September 27, 2010
Good Week with More Rain
Hey Family!
I got your letter! Ha-ha no worries. I hope everything goes well with Kali and her baby, that’s crazy everyone is pregnant right now ha-ha. That’s good to hear the Thomsons stopped by… how is Walker doing??
I am also looking forward to the general conference this week. I LOVE HEARING THE PROPHETS TALK! I have almost all of the general conference talks on my iPod and listen to them every time I get the chance. That is a really good talk about judging others, I will apply it.
I, pretty much judge myself and sometimes my confidence could be a lot better. But its alright...This week was a good week. It seemed really long this time. But that’s alright.
I tried putting a lot of the things that Elder Clark talked about in practice but, the members here still don’t want too work with us or my companion. Ha-ha He is a very stubborn person but I love him and we work hard. Teaching went good I have no problem teaching anymore I have learned a lot of scriptures. My favorite thing to do though is teaching Gospel Principles class. I taught in Sacrament and I also taught the Elders Quorum I talked about how the Church of Jesus Christ was when Jesus Christ was on the earth. There is a lot more participation from the members as far as the classes.
We weren’t affected by the hurricane itself this past week but there is a lot of rain, it just rains and rains and rains. And then when there is a bunch of rain there are also a lot of mosquitos. Puerto Cabezas (where I was about a year ago) got hit hard but no serious damage was done.
I took your advice dad about totally just changing my attitude and filling with my mind with good thoughts.
I have always carried around a notebook and usually use it to study more Spanish words but haven’t been using it lately and just had it in my pocket because by habit it’s what I take with me everyday. But here are some thoughts and experiences I wrote down.
September 21, 2010
"Today at 3:15pm we were leaving a lesson with Tatiana and Dariam which went really awesome today. I’m on divisions with my zone leader and we passed by this drunk guy we always see and he says "Hey hermanito tiene un poca de comida alli??" (hey brother do you have a little food you can give me) but 2-3 days before I gave him a pamphlet for the word of wisdom and asked if he "read the pamphlet" and he said "oooooooh, SI GRACIAS POR LA PAGINA!, y Dios le bendiga" (ooooh, yes thank you for the page and let God bless you) lol I thought it was funny because he is a really crazy drunk guy.
My newest convert Juan Pablo is going to be conferred the Aaronic Priesthood this next week and ordained as our WARD MISSION LEADER!! He is so excited and so am I! He will also be teaching the gospel principles class next week.
4:00 pm We just had an awesome member lesson with Manuel and Rosa. THEY ARE SO COOL! We just set a baptismal date with Fransisca (good friend of Rosa) Fransisca is born and raised catholic but we are going to try and baptize her with the help of Manuel and Rosa WE WILL DO IT!"
September 22, 2010
We were coming back from noche de hermanamiento from the church, and my companion wanted to hitch-hike back so he goes over to a truck that’s waiting to turn on to the main street. The driver rolls down his window and my companion asks him if he could give us a ride. I told my companion we are not going to the house yet, so my companion told him never mind and waved him off. As we kept walking the same truck pulls over and the guy driving asks in English (because he was an American) "Where are you guys headed??" and I was the closest to the truck so I responded "over there no more, no more then there" and I couldn’t talk in English! I couldn’t make a full sentence in English that made any sense ha-ha, so I said, “ Sorry we are fine IM JUST FORGETTING ENGLISH!" and then he laughed and said "okay" and drove off."
September 24, 2010
"We taught an awesome lesson on the plan of salvation to an investigator Wilfredo and he took no interest, I don’t understand that? I just found a scripture that can help me Alma 17:11.....
And that was about it as far as what I wrote in my note book this week.
I did work hard in studying my patriartical blessing but only got the first 4 paragraphs memorized I get distracted so easily. I am in good health and I need to buy new shoes… the ones I have have holes in them so my feet are always cold and wet.
I went and did some shopping and bought a lot of cool stuff from Nicaragua. Im sorry mom that I wont be able to mail you a package with your birthday present. There have been a lot of robbing from packages that missionaries send back to the states (supposedly).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I still haven’t gotten the package you sent and im not sure if I have changes this week or not.
I love you all
Elder Buck
Missed a Post Home
I did not write last week because we had meetings with Elder Clark. They were so awesome!! He is so funny, I thought he was going to be super strict (cause that’s what they say). It was really cool though, he talked about a lot of mission stuff most I don’t remember but I have it written down. The main thing I learned the most was how to use the ward members more effectively. Which is awesome… but my branch right now has just simply given up. We did have a good attendance at church with 81 people, so it’s starting to improve here in Totolate.
It is still raining, it rains every day of the week so that is pretty cool (NOT!!!) Chech out my YouTube video. I haven’t received my package yet or I won’t get it until changes which are next week. We have 3 months now between interviews or multi-zone events…so idk when I will get my package.
My companion is doing well. We set some goals but so far no good. It’s alright as long as he likes to work I’m happy because he actually does work hard…But I love him.
The teaching is always good we are always finding people but they drop like flies because the members here don’t fellowship and don’t give us references.
Tanner and Emily are going to have another baby?! WOW.....that’s cool cuz at least I will be there before the baby is born. If he starts working in the air force does that mean he would be living on or near the base?? or how does that work??
Im looking forward to general conference too that will be really cool to watch and listen too. Im going to try and mail of a package it’s kind of cheap and hope it gets to the states before moms birthday.
That’s awesome that Grandma is doing all that genealogy work… it sounds interesting. I have been doing a lot of studying with the gospel principles book and it talks a lot about that. Thank you grandma for your letters!
I really thank you guys for your letter this week. That’s actually something that can help me out is telling you what my weekly goals are. My personal goals for this week are first not to become discouraged when everything drops and we lose investigators. I could do more service for my companion and work at completing more of my daily goals. Not complaining (I have kind of developed a Laman and Lemuel attitude since I have been here). Talk more and help members, especially the organization leaders. My goals for my companion and I are try and get along better. Um....get on his good side (which is by not talking to him). Um loving him more.
I want to be a better MISSIONARY! But there are some days im not going to lie, where I just don’t have anymore fight in me. It is trying to help people understand when they have doubts and once we clear the doubts they will listen. But idk....I haven’t lowered my standards or anything like that but I have been discouraged a lot more lately. Another challenge to help me grow? But I love the mission im sad that it’s coming to a close. I will never be able to do what im doing again.
This week was a pretty good week though. Our area here is getting pretty dangerous, one night we were coming out of our food visit. And a couple houses down they were having a party so there were a whole bunch of drunks outside. One comes up to my companion and has two huge rocks in his hands (cause they fight with rocks here) and he is talking to my companion like he knows him then when my companion wasn’t looking he tried reaching into his pocket to steal his money but my companion caught him.
The drunk left and went down the road to another house and then out of no where a police truck drives up with some bad guys already in the back they picked up for fighting. They got out of the truck and found the guy with the two rocks and he starts fighting the cops and so one of the cops picks him up and throws him in the back of the truck. The drunk guy stands up and is like "you guys got the wrong guy, your wrong"! Then the cops get in the back of the truck and just start beating him and then they drove off. After that my companion and I had to wait for another half an hour because right after the police left two gangs show up and start fighting each other. It was pretty crazy, but Im safe.
My health is good! What a MIRACLE! And Im having fun!
Love you all!
Elder Buck
P.S. Who ever read my letters I would like it if they could send me an letter or email or something I hardly ever get anything expect from my parents.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Rainy Days
Hello Family!
We had our first baptism here in Matagalpa, the converts name is Juan Pablo. He was so scared to get confirmed in sacrament meeting though. We explained before what we were going to do but he was stilled scared to do it, but at least we had a baptism.
There were a lot of drunks down here this week too. Right now, as I'm typing, there is a weird religion guy from the states talking to me about theology... calling out, " The Mormon's go back to the dead sea scrolls and all that fun stuff that doesn't make any sense. "
Thank you for sending off that package. I will be waiting to receive that...
As far a money to live on monthly, we receive less in this mission than any other missions in Central America. We do eat almost all meals at the house-fast food place every day, besides breakfast. When we have a chance we can usually go into town and get some bread and other foods. Really, the living conditions here in Matagalpa are better than any place I have lived so far on my mission.
Right now my companion and I have colds, head ache, low fever, cough and a sore throat. As long as my companion is not being a jerk i will be alright. I think we caught cold from all this rain, my rain jacket doesn't work as good as i though it would so i will need to get a new one. It rains here every day so i am never dry and then when i need to go take a shower the water is freezing cold so that stinks...
At church yesterday, a brother from the branch said i needed to go rest that i don't look good. Later that night i wasn't feeling good at all when we left the house to go eat. Then i asked my companion if he was feeling better and he fakes it by saying, "Yeah I'm feeling great, i have the same thing you have"! We walk outside and I have my jacket on and its still raining. He is walking outside with no jacket on, getting all wet and coughing up his lungs. (I swear this kid is so stubborn, he doesn't take pills cause he says his faith will heal him) I couldn't help myself so I said, "Wow, your kind of dumb did you not listen at all to Dallin H. Oaks talk about what Brigham Young said "FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD". We still need to use cold medicines and take care of our health along with our faith." He just called me a baby, I'm weak and all that....)
I decided I wasn't that hungry and said I was going back to the house and he yells "NO YOUR NOT" and keeps yelling crap at me. When we get back to the house he walks up and holds his hands over the lock and is like "your not getting in..." I said "whatever" and just sat down on the steps. He then starts telling me that I will regret everything I do and that I'm not a missionary; that a real missionary would make sacrifices. Then he starts doing little kicks at me and saying, "ELDER BUCK, ELDER BUCK GET UP!, IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE A BABY THEN WE WILL GO INSIDE!" I got up, went inside, got in bed and fell asleep. Today I am feeling about the same but i am happy to hear from you guys.
This area is the hardest area. Our attendance in church this week was 55 people and the normal here is about 110, so we are doing horrible at getting members and investigators to come to church. None of the members here are even worthy for a temple recommend and we are doing the best we can to increase the attendance but nothing has worked so far.
We have no investigators progressing since last week but we did have the one baptism. Out of 17 converts who have been baptised the past year only 5 are still coming to church. None of the members are fellow shipping our investigators when we introduce them to the members, so all our new investigators are dropping like flies.
BUT....I CAN DO HARD THINGS!
I love you all and thank you for all your support
Elder Buck
We had our first baptism here in Matagalpa, the converts name is Juan Pablo. He was so scared to get confirmed in sacrament meeting though. We explained before what we were going to do but he was stilled scared to do it, but at least we had a baptism.
There were a lot of drunks down here this week too. Right now, as I'm typing, there is a weird religion guy from the states talking to me about theology... calling out, " The Mormon's go back to the dead sea scrolls and all that fun stuff that doesn't make any sense. "
Thank you for sending off that package. I will be waiting to receive that...
As far a money to live on monthly, we receive less in this mission than any other missions in Central America. We do eat almost all meals at the house-fast food place every day, besides breakfast. When we have a chance we can usually go into town and get some bread and other foods. Really, the living conditions here in Matagalpa are better than any place I have lived so far on my mission.
Right now my companion and I have colds, head ache, low fever, cough and a sore throat. As long as my companion is not being a jerk i will be alright. I think we caught cold from all this rain, my rain jacket doesn't work as good as i though it would so i will need to get a new one. It rains here every day so i am never dry and then when i need to go take a shower the water is freezing cold so that stinks...
At church yesterday, a brother from the branch said i needed to go rest that i don't look good. Later that night i wasn't feeling good at all when we left the house to go eat. Then i asked my companion if he was feeling better and he fakes it by saying, "Yeah I'm feeling great, i have the same thing you have"! We walk outside and I have my jacket on and its still raining. He is walking outside with no jacket on, getting all wet and coughing up his lungs. (I swear this kid is so stubborn, he doesn't take pills cause he says his faith will heal him) I couldn't help myself so I said, "Wow, your kind of dumb did you not listen at all to Dallin H. Oaks talk about what Brigham Young said "FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD". We still need to use cold medicines and take care of our health along with our faith." He just called me a baby, I'm weak and all that....)
I decided I wasn't that hungry and said I was going back to the house and he yells "NO YOUR NOT" and keeps yelling crap at me. When we get back to the house he walks up and holds his hands over the lock and is like "your not getting in..." I said "whatever" and just sat down on the steps. He then starts telling me that I will regret everything I do and that I'm not a missionary; that a real missionary would make sacrifices. Then he starts doing little kicks at me and saying, "ELDER BUCK, ELDER BUCK GET UP!, IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE A BABY THEN WE WILL GO INSIDE!" I got up, went inside, got in bed and fell asleep. Today I am feeling about the same but i am happy to hear from you guys.
This area is the hardest area. Our attendance in church this week was 55 people and the normal here is about 110, so we are doing horrible at getting members and investigators to come to church. None of the members here are even worthy for a temple recommend and we are doing the best we can to increase the attendance but nothing has worked so far.
We have no investigators progressing since last week but we did have the one baptism. Out of 17 converts who have been baptised the past year only 5 are still coming to church. None of the members are fellow shipping our investigators when we introduce them to the members, so all our new investigators are dropping like flies.
BUT....I CAN DO HARD THINGS!
I love you all and thank you for all your support
Elder Buck
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A Good Week
Hello Family!
I’m glad you enjoyed my pictures and video! I won’t be able to download more photos or videos because I don’t have my camera today but I will try to get some for next week. This week it has been raining every day....I don’t like the rain ha-ha. Only in Arizona I like the rain. Here when it rains it gets so cold and wet!
This week I have some pretty good stories ha-ha.
First I want to apologize for sending crappy letters home for a while, I have been pretty discouraged, but now I have my focus back and I’m probably working harder now then I ever had (or trying to at least).
Well last Monday was pretty good. We are suppose to have Family Home Evenings with other people but no one wanted the missionaries over, so my companion and I did tracking… trying to look for new people to teach and we found five.
Tuesday was one of those mas o menos kind of days. It was good just a hard day. We went to all the members’ house that are in our area and visited them to see how they are doing. Lots, for right now...have the normal problems, but for the majority of them it has to do with member obedience. No one is trying. They are giving up. The leaders of the church, down to the mission presidents, and us as missionaries are their only examples for right now. We passed by every single member and taught them some really good lessons to encourage them to give us a reference and out of the 28 members we taught we didn’t get one reference. So for Tuesday we spent it looking all day for new people to teach.
Wednesday My District Leader and I went on divisions together to go encourage and help out members because he has more time here than I do and he knows them better. While we were doing that the assistants called us and told him he has emergency changes, so we went back to the house and packed up all of his stuff because he had to be in his new area in Managua in less then 3 hours. Then his companion, who is new (but a hard worker), was with me and my companion for the rest of the day until 7 pm that night when his companion (Elder Lebaron) came. Now that we have E. Lebaron we are also doing a lot better as a district. He is a really good kid and was in my last zone in Bello Horizante.
Thursday During the morning from 10am -Noon we do our weekly planning. The water has been out for two days in our area and the zone leaders called us and told us that the sisters were going to come to our house to take showers cuz we have a water reservoir that collects the rain we shower in. (freezing cold ice water) So we had to leave the house. During that time my companion and I went to teach some people until lunch time. After lunch we went tracking in a part of our area that we have never been before and we found a cool family that had a little bit of knowledge about the Mormons (unfortunately, the bad knowledge of Mormons, multiple wives, etc) So we answered all of their questions and doubts. Then they wanted to know why we are called Mormons and I explained it’s a nick name that we received from the Book of Mormon. Then the guy (Gudiel) posed an awesome question. "What were our ancestors doing here in the America’s when the bible was being written?" I loved that question and then it lead me to talk a bit about the Book of Mormon and were it comes from and of whom it testifies. Then we left them with the invitation to pray to God and ask if it is true and a baptismal date.
After that we went to Rudy’s house who is going to be baptized this week along with his brother Erwin and they seem to be doing really well right now. They are really cool kids.
Then after that we went to one of our most positive investigators named Juan Pablo and taught him more about the Book of Mormon and he HAS ALREADY PRAYED AND KNOWS THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE!!!! He will be baptized this Tuesday.
Friday we went to Rudy’s house at 11am. He twisted his ankle in soccer and has it wrapped up but won’t let it stop him from being baptized he says. We taught him tithing and Word of Wisdom. Then after lunch we went to town because I had to go to the bank and take some money out of my account… I have no money. My companion and I went super far to visit some people. We taught a woman a powerful lesson on the restoration, that could’ve converted this ‘until death to us part catholic’ but her brother came home late in the lesson and persuaded her that we are a false church. so......
Saturday was just a pretty slow day not much happening. Our Best investigator Franklin introduced his friend Franklin to the gospel and invited him over for the next discussion with us so that was really cool cuz his friend was really excited and accepted baptism too.
Sunday We were suppose to have what’s called a Mormon Battalion where all the young men and women help us find inactive members, but that wasn’t very successful. Out of all the 28 kids that said they would come there were only 2 so we worked our butts off for the rest of that day trying to get all our Recent Converts and investigators to church. None of our Recent Converts have a friend in the church because all the church members have problems and don’t want to fellowship the converts. So that was a bummer...At church we had an attendance of 83 members and last week was 65, so it was a little bit better. I had one member I was depending on to bring one of our investigators who is a really good friend with this person, but the freaking member didn’t even feel like going to church that day so neither came.
After church we had a district counsel and the leaders of the district came and just chewed out the branch so it was pretty useless. My companion and I left church and it started pouring rain. We got soaked to the bone, but we had a visit that we had to go to so off we went in the rain. We got to visit only (Jessica) her husband (Levi) was on an errand. We visited with them two days before and they were really interested in the church. Levi is a pastor of a church so when we got to their house the second time they just had a bunch of crap to say to us. I asked them if they prayed to know if our previous message was true? I taught them a very powerful spiritual lesson about the restoration that left me almost in tears and them with guilt. I taught him everything he needs to know about the Priesthood and now he knows he doesn’t have the priesthood authority to baptize. He was mad at first but then I think he opened his heart and he told me he will "think about praying to know if it’s true" I only hope he does.
Later that night, we went to eat at a comedor which is pretty much like a hole-in-the-wall fast food restaurant. While we were eating inside the little house, a car drove up with really loud music playing and the guy that was driving was drunk. While he was ordering food he looked in the door and saw us sitting there. He yelled something at me but I just ignored him. Then about 5 seconds later my companion said he went back to his car and pulled out a baseball bat. When I turned around to look at him, he (the drunk) waved me over to him, soI got up and walked over to him. He was all mad and and fuming (breathing deeply with anger ha-ha) and stinky with beer breathe. He came up to my chin and was a pretty big guy probably in his thirties.
Then he said, "You like baseball?"
I was like "Yeah?"
Then he said, "You want to play?"
I said, "Yeah, where are we going to play at?"
"Right here!" he said, and raised up the bat.
I asked him, "You got a ball?"
That kind of made him mad but it also distract him enough so I had time to pick up the bar stool behind me to defend myself…incase he starts swinging. Then two strangers came up and broke us up.
He was yelling a everyone, "Get away from me, keep your space from me!" He then got in his car and skid away.
My companion told me after he left in his car, that when he first looked at us eating he was sizing us up and that’s when he went and got his bat out of his car. I talked about it with the other Elders who later came to our house to see what happened and we had a good laugh about it. Just a drunk looking to pick a fight with someone! That is about it for my adventures here in Nicaragua for the week.
I’m glad to hear everyone is doing well and Carly is working hard on pointless math out lines. I love you all and am doing a lot better as far as health and spiritually. I KNOW I CAN DO HARD THINGS!!!
Love
Elder Buck
I’m glad you enjoyed my pictures and video! I won’t be able to download more photos or videos because I don’t have my camera today but I will try to get some for next week. This week it has been raining every day....I don’t like the rain ha-ha. Only in Arizona I like the rain. Here when it rains it gets so cold and wet!
This week I have some pretty good stories ha-ha.
First I want to apologize for sending crappy letters home for a while, I have been pretty discouraged, but now I have my focus back and I’m probably working harder now then I ever had (or trying to at least).
Well last Monday was pretty good. We are suppose to have Family Home Evenings with other people but no one wanted the missionaries over, so my companion and I did tracking… trying to look for new people to teach and we found five.
Tuesday was one of those mas o menos kind of days. It was good just a hard day. We went to all the members’ house that are in our area and visited them to see how they are doing. Lots, for right now...have the normal problems, but for the majority of them it has to do with member obedience. No one is trying. They are giving up. The leaders of the church, down to the mission presidents, and us as missionaries are their only examples for right now. We passed by every single member and taught them some really good lessons to encourage them to give us a reference and out of the 28 members we taught we didn’t get one reference. So for Tuesday we spent it looking all day for new people to teach.
Wednesday My District Leader and I went on divisions together to go encourage and help out members because he has more time here than I do and he knows them better. While we were doing that the assistants called us and told him he has emergency changes, so we went back to the house and packed up all of his stuff because he had to be in his new area in Managua in less then 3 hours. Then his companion, who is new (but a hard worker), was with me and my companion for the rest of the day until 7 pm that night when his companion (Elder Lebaron) came. Now that we have E. Lebaron we are also doing a lot better as a district. He is a really good kid and was in my last zone in Bello Horizante.
Thursday During the morning from 10am -Noon we do our weekly planning. The water has been out for two days in our area and the zone leaders called us and told us that the sisters were going to come to our house to take showers cuz we have a water reservoir that collects the rain we shower in. (freezing cold ice water) So we had to leave the house. During that time my companion and I went to teach some people until lunch time. After lunch we went tracking in a part of our area that we have never been before and we found a cool family that had a little bit of knowledge about the Mormons (unfortunately, the bad knowledge of Mormons, multiple wives, etc) So we answered all of their questions and doubts. Then they wanted to know why we are called Mormons and I explained it’s a nick name that we received from the Book of Mormon. Then the guy (Gudiel) posed an awesome question. "What were our ancestors doing here in the America’s when the bible was being written?" I loved that question and then it lead me to talk a bit about the Book of Mormon and were it comes from and of whom it testifies. Then we left them with the invitation to pray to God and ask if it is true and a baptismal date.
After that we went to Rudy’s house who is going to be baptized this week along with his brother Erwin and they seem to be doing really well right now. They are really cool kids.
Then after that we went to one of our most positive investigators named Juan Pablo and taught him more about the Book of Mormon and he HAS ALREADY PRAYED AND KNOWS THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE!!!! He will be baptized this Tuesday.
Friday we went to Rudy’s house at 11am. He twisted his ankle in soccer and has it wrapped up but won’t let it stop him from being baptized he says. We taught him tithing and Word of Wisdom. Then after lunch we went to town because I had to go to the bank and take some money out of my account… I have no money. My companion and I went super far to visit some people. We taught a woman a powerful lesson on the restoration, that could’ve converted this ‘until death to us part catholic’ but her brother came home late in the lesson and persuaded her that we are a false church. so......
Saturday was just a pretty slow day not much happening. Our Best investigator Franklin introduced his friend Franklin to the gospel and invited him over for the next discussion with us so that was really cool cuz his friend was really excited and accepted baptism too.
Sunday We were suppose to have what’s called a Mormon Battalion where all the young men and women help us find inactive members, but that wasn’t very successful. Out of all the 28 kids that said they would come there were only 2 so we worked our butts off for the rest of that day trying to get all our Recent Converts and investigators to church. None of our Recent Converts have a friend in the church because all the church members have problems and don’t want to fellowship the converts. So that was a bummer...At church we had an attendance of 83 members and last week was 65, so it was a little bit better. I had one member I was depending on to bring one of our investigators who is a really good friend with this person, but the freaking member didn’t even feel like going to church that day so neither came.
After church we had a district counsel and the leaders of the district came and just chewed out the branch so it was pretty useless. My companion and I left church and it started pouring rain. We got soaked to the bone, but we had a visit that we had to go to so off we went in the rain. We got to visit only (Jessica) her husband (Levi) was on an errand. We visited with them two days before and they were really interested in the church. Levi is a pastor of a church so when we got to their house the second time they just had a bunch of crap to say to us. I asked them if they prayed to know if our previous message was true? I taught them a very powerful spiritual lesson about the restoration that left me almost in tears and them with guilt. I taught him everything he needs to know about the Priesthood and now he knows he doesn’t have the priesthood authority to baptize. He was mad at first but then I think he opened his heart and he told me he will "think about praying to know if it’s true" I only hope he does.
Later that night, we went to eat at a comedor which is pretty much like a hole-in-the-wall fast food restaurant. While we were eating inside the little house, a car drove up with really loud music playing and the guy that was driving was drunk. While he was ordering food he looked in the door and saw us sitting there. He yelled something at me but I just ignored him. Then about 5 seconds later my companion said he went back to his car and pulled out a baseball bat. When I turned around to look at him, he (the drunk) waved me over to him, soI got up and walked over to him. He was all mad and and fuming (breathing deeply with anger ha-ha) and stinky with beer breathe. He came up to my chin and was a pretty big guy probably in his thirties.
Then he said, "You like baseball?"
I was like "Yeah?"
Then he said, "You want to play?"
I said, "Yeah, where are we going to play at?"
"Right here!" he said, and raised up the bat.
I asked him, "You got a ball?"
That kind of made him mad but it also distract him enough so I had time to pick up the bar stool behind me to defend myself…incase he starts swinging. Then two strangers came up and broke us up.
He was yelling a everyone, "Get away from me, keep your space from me!" He then got in his car and skid away.
My companion told me after he left in his car, that when he first looked at us eating he was sizing us up and that’s when he went and got his bat out of his car. I talked about it with the other Elders who later came to our house to see what happened and we had a good laugh about it. Just a drunk looking to pick a fight with someone! That is about it for my adventures here in Nicaragua for the week.
I’m glad to hear everyone is doing well and Carly is working hard on pointless math out lines. I love you all and am doing a lot better as far as health and spiritually. I KNOW I CAN DO HARD THINGS!!!
Love
Elder Buck
Monday, August 23, 2010
Hike up Apante Mountain
More Pictures of Matagalpa: Click Here
Dear Family,
I am doing well and have felt good for a couple of weeks now. The teaching this week was a little discouraging for us...I had some Scotland experiences like you had Dad...lots of rejection. My companion and I were not able to do much teaching this week. The mission has high goals for us to reach each week: We should have 30 contacts a day. Make teaching appointments with 4 people each day. Commit 3 people to baptism each week. It is hard to reach those goals every week in this area, when people do not want to talk to us.
My companion and I are getting along better....he is trying to stop making smart alec remarks about me and everything he sees or experiences. I will start to look for unique items to buy and bring home from my mission. I have seen Nica things for so long nothing is really unique to me anymore but I will start to buy things I would never see in the states.
We went sight seeing again today...we went on a cool hike up a hill called “Apante's”. There were a lot of cool plants that I took pictures and video's off. We did get flooded out...we had a huge storm come out of nowhere and rained us off the mountain. It was so cold! I slipped in mud and fell down a hillside but I lived...it was kind of scary. Ha-ha I took a video of a plant that looks like a fern but when you touch the leaves it curls up and dies. I will try to down load the videos of the plants and rain storm...it takes forever to download videos from the simple computers here.
Thanks for the information about Matagalpa and the area around me. All I know is what I can see, teach or missionary work. I actually don't know much about Nicaragua, that is why I would like to come back after my mission as a tourist and visit the places I lived and visit the converts and follow up on them. I have realized that I'm not as intelligent as I thought I was coming out on my mission or I don't have a wide knowledge of a lot of things. School is really important! Ha-ha One good thing for me is I have learned a lot about the gospel on my mission and I love it.
Wow, Carly is already a senior...that is crazy...I hope she has a good year.
I am doing well and loving the mission. I hope everyone is happy and safe at home.
Love,
Elder Buck
Dear Family,
I am doing well and have felt good for a couple of weeks now. The teaching this week was a little discouraging for us...I had some Scotland experiences like you had Dad...lots of rejection. My companion and I were not able to do much teaching this week. The mission has high goals for us to reach each week: We should have 30 contacts a day. Make teaching appointments with 4 people each day. Commit 3 people to baptism each week. It is hard to reach those goals every week in this area, when people do not want to talk to us.
My companion and I are getting along better....he is trying to stop making smart alec remarks about me and everything he sees or experiences. I will start to look for unique items to buy and bring home from my mission. I have seen Nica things for so long nothing is really unique to me anymore but I will start to buy things I would never see in the states.
We went sight seeing again today...we went on a cool hike up a hill called “Apante's”. There were a lot of cool plants that I took pictures and video's off. We did get flooded out...we had a huge storm come out of nowhere and rained us off the mountain. It was so cold! I slipped in mud and fell down a hillside but I lived...it was kind of scary. Ha-ha I took a video of a plant that looks like a fern but when you touch the leaves it curls up and dies. I will try to down load the videos of the plants and rain storm...it takes forever to download videos from the simple computers here.
Thanks for the information about Matagalpa and the area around me. All I know is what I can see, teach or missionary work. I actually don't know much about Nicaragua, that is why I would like to come back after my mission as a tourist and visit the places I lived and visit the converts and follow up on them. I have realized that I'm not as intelligent as I thought I was coming out on my mission or I don't have a wide knowledge of a lot of things. School is really important! Ha-ha One good thing for me is I have learned a lot about the gospel on my mission and I love it.
Wow, Carly is already a senior...that is crazy...I hope she has a good year.
I am doing well and loving the mission. I hope everyone is happy and safe at home.
Love,
Elder Buck
Monday, August 16, 2010
Good Week!
HEY FAMILY!
This week was a lot better....you want to know why!? I DIDN'T GET SICK!! Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I got my results back and miraculously I do not have parasites but that doesn’t mean much to me IF MY STOMACH STILL HURTS ALL THE TIME! haha
It sounds like you will be having a cool weekend going to the lake. Take lots of pictures for me. Haha
I have about 6 months left, I love my mission, and if I work hard enough the time will be going by even faster. I’m doing my best to get all my work done for sure. My companion told me I am a hard worker…when I am not sick… ;o. I like this area, it is a really hard area, probably my hardest one yet. We have had 25 positive investigators who accepted baptism and almost all of them dropped but we have been working so hard....and its okay there will be success.
Yeah my greenie and I are doing good. He never wants my help with anything he wants to do it all himself.... Just a basic greenie, I felt the same way when I came out. Now I feel like I am the good old mother bear but at least my greenie cub doesn’t rebel against me.
The food is good here, everything is mostly fried food that our cook makes...so it’s not exactly healthy but it is yummy haha. I know I will get some souvenirs but not till the close of my mission. It doesn’t get to cold here but when it is cold I do have a jacket. I don’t know if I told you but someone stole my ETNIES HOODIE!? huh......trials make you stronger.
I pretty much everything I need here but you can send the few items you have for me.
Carly?! Are you starting your senior year??
I love you all too! Happy Birthday Dad!
Love,
Elder Buck
This week was a lot better....you want to know why!? I DIDN'T GET SICK!! Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I got my results back and miraculously I do not have parasites but that doesn’t mean much to me IF MY STOMACH STILL HURTS ALL THE TIME! haha
It sounds like you will be having a cool weekend going to the lake. Take lots of pictures for me. Haha
I have about 6 months left, I love my mission, and if I work hard enough the time will be going by even faster. I’m doing my best to get all my work done for sure. My companion told me I am a hard worker…when I am not sick… ;o. I like this area, it is a really hard area, probably my hardest one yet. We have had 25 positive investigators who accepted baptism and almost all of them dropped but we have been working so hard....and its okay there will be success.
Yeah my greenie and I are doing good. He never wants my help with anything he wants to do it all himself.... Just a basic greenie, I felt the same way when I came out. Now I feel like I am the good old mother bear but at least my greenie cub doesn’t rebel against me.
The food is good here, everything is mostly fried food that our cook makes...so it’s not exactly healthy but it is yummy haha. I know I will get some souvenirs but not till the close of my mission. It doesn’t get to cold here but when it is cold I do have a jacket. I don’t know if I told you but someone stole my ETNIES HOODIE!? huh......trials make you stronger.
I pretty much everything I need here but you can send the few items you have for me.
Carly?! Are you starting your senior year??
I love you all too! Happy Birthday Dad!
Love,
Elder Buck
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Life and Pictures from Matagalpa
Click here to see: Leon Pictures
Click here to see: Matagalpa Pictures
Hello Family!
I just want to report back to let you know that I am feeling better....I called the mission nurse and I have had another parasite test. I will probably get the medicine to take sent to me sometime this week. All the missionaries are infested with parasites (even the sisters) so they just give us medicine to take.
I have also found a little rest helps me to feel better...and take a bottle full of pure electrolytes and water with lemon (that’s the nica indian medicine) and it worked!
My new greenie companion from North Carolina is a handful. He is a awesome kid, works hard, tries to do everything that he is suppose to do, and tries hard to learn Spanish. When I told him I was sick and needed to rest a little he got so mad at me. While I was sick, he was so mad and told me to stop thinking about myself and get to work. Then he tells me "You know what I have enough faith that I could be healed”…..blah blah blah. We will see what he thinks the first time he has to make a mad dash for home to the toilet with diarrhea. Stomach issues are just a part of life down here! I told him about some of my past sicknesses here in Nicaragua and now he is a little (not much) more understanding. haha
I just uploaded a bunch of pictures for Leon (previous location) and Matagalpa where I am now. So please post the link on my blog.
Love
Elder Buck
Click here to see: Matagalpa Pictures
Hello Family!
I just want to report back to let you know that I am feeling better....I called the mission nurse and I have had another parasite test. I will probably get the medicine to take sent to me sometime this week. All the missionaries are infested with parasites (even the sisters) so they just give us medicine to take.
I have also found a little rest helps me to feel better...and take a bottle full of pure electrolytes and water with lemon (that’s the nica indian medicine) and it worked!
My new greenie companion from North Carolina is a handful. He is a awesome kid, works hard, tries to do everything that he is suppose to do, and tries hard to learn Spanish. When I told him I was sick and needed to rest a little he got so mad at me. While I was sick, he was so mad and told me to stop thinking about myself and get to work. Then he tells me "You know what I have enough faith that I could be healed”…..blah blah blah. We will see what he thinks the first time he has to make a mad dash for home to the toilet with diarrhea. Stomach issues are just a part of life down here! I told him about some of my past sicknesses here in Nicaragua and now he is a little (not much) more understanding. haha
I just uploaded a bunch of pictures for Leon (previous location) and Matagalpa where I am now. So please post the link on my blog.
Love
Elder Buck
Monday, August 2, 2010
New Area, New American Companion
Dear Family,
As I wrote in my last letter...while I was sick and not able to leave the apartment for a couple of days, my companion would leave our house and go off with other members and supposedly work during the day. He came back around 7-8 p.m. each night and would then chill with whatever members were in the house. They would buy pizza and start to play poker. When I was feeling better we were suppose to start working again but my companion did not want to work with me...he still wanted to do splits with the members. When I would come home at 9-10 pm each night with my member companion, he would already be back at the house eating pizza and playing poker. When I asked about his teaching for the day he always had lots of visits and people he taught and he always completed the mission goals for the day.
I knew he was not being truthful and had not been working all day so it made me kind of irritated with him. I can't get him to plan, pray, study, contact or do any work with me on a daily basis.
While I was on splits with a member we were able to teach a family and set a date for baptisms. I was really excited because this area has not had a baptism for 6 months. The family is currently living with some members that my companion does not like. So on one day when my real companion had to work with me...he refuse to go to the members house to teach the investigators! He said, I DO NOT LIKE THAT MEMBER AND I'M NOT GOING! I told him he had to forget about himself and his feelings (pride) so we can teach this family. He still refused to go so we went back to our place. I was mad because I don't know what to do with this guy? In the morning when we got up...there was no water for showers...and this made me more frustrated...
To make a long story short...I contacted the mission home and they made some quick changes. I was transferred to Matagalpa about 3-4 hours from Leon. I have been given a new greenie to train...my second American companion in 18 months. He is from North Carolina. This new area is really pretty...it is in a mountain area, higher elevation so it is not so hot but still humid with all the rain and vegetation. The town is built on the side of a hill so it seems like we are always walking up hill.
We have been teaching a man named Engel that has been interested in what we have to say....we taught him a discussion and knelt for a prayer with him. We asked him to pray and ask if the things we have taught him are true. He prayed and after the pray he said he felt beautiful. I asked him how he was feeling...he said joy, happiness. I told him those are feelings of the Holy Ghost and the things we have told him are true and this is the true church of Jesus Christ. He said NO, I have felt those same feelings at the Catholic church. Anyway, we will keep working with him.
Before you send off another package I will make a list of things I need...
Love you all,
Elder Buck
As I wrote in my last letter...while I was sick and not able to leave the apartment for a couple of days, my companion would leave our house and go off with other members and supposedly work during the day. He came back around 7-8 p.m. each night and would then chill with whatever members were in the house. They would buy pizza and start to play poker. When I was feeling better we were suppose to start working again but my companion did not want to work with me...he still wanted to do splits with the members. When I would come home at 9-10 pm each night with my member companion, he would already be back at the house eating pizza and playing poker. When I asked about his teaching for the day he always had lots of visits and people he taught and he always completed the mission goals for the day.
I knew he was not being truthful and had not been working all day so it made me kind of irritated with him. I can't get him to plan, pray, study, contact or do any work with me on a daily basis.
While I was on splits with a member we were able to teach a family and set a date for baptisms. I was really excited because this area has not had a baptism for 6 months. The family is currently living with some members that my companion does not like. So on one day when my real companion had to work with me...he refuse to go to the members house to teach the investigators! He said, I DO NOT LIKE THAT MEMBER AND I'M NOT GOING! I told him he had to forget about himself and his feelings (pride) so we can teach this family. He still refused to go so we went back to our place. I was mad because I don't know what to do with this guy? In the morning when we got up...there was no water for showers...and this made me more frustrated...
To make a long story short...I contacted the mission home and they made some quick changes. I was transferred to Matagalpa about 3-4 hours from Leon. I have been given a new greenie to train...my second American companion in 18 months. He is from North Carolina. This new area is really pretty...it is in a mountain area, higher elevation so it is not so hot but still humid with all the rain and vegetation. The town is built on the side of a hill so it seems like we are always walking up hill.
We have been teaching a man named Engel that has been interested in what we have to say....we taught him a discussion and knelt for a prayer with him. We asked him to pray and ask if the things we have taught him are true. He prayed and after the pray he said he felt beautiful. I asked him how he was feeling...he said joy, happiness. I told him those are feelings of the Holy Ghost and the things we have told him are true and this is the true church of Jesus Christ. He said NO, I have felt those same feelings at the Catholic church. Anyway, we will keep working with him.
Before you send off another package I will make a list of things I need...
Love you all,
Elder Buck
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Challenges....
Hello Family!
Yes, last week sure was challenging...and so was this one.
After our little fight last week, I apologized and we made up for it by working harder then ever. Then our President came to visit the zone because there were other problems besides us that needed taken care of. MY NEW PRESIDENT IS SO COOL!! I’m so happy he is our president.
When I went in for my interview, I sit down and first thing he asks me is if I’m a District Leader and I told him no and then he said I should be. Ha-ha finally someone recognizes me. Then he asked me how much time I have left and guess what?! I HAVE been out almost 18 MONTHS- HOLY CRAP!!!!
Then he asked me to work as hard as I can and then asked me if there is anything that I need that he could help me with so I told him about my companion. He just suggested reading the scriptures every night and doing companionship prayer. Well it worked. I love my companion I know he is a good guy and all but I don’t understand why we disagree so much. I’m trying to do everything to keep sane and put up with all the stuff that goes on. He knows it, last week we had a companionship inventory after planning for the week and he tells me...I want to apologize for how I have been acting. You are one of the most patient caring companions I have had. You’re always right, you know what we are suppose to do and you do it. I wish I would have listened to you before....
After that we hugged and I told him "I’m always here buddy to help you out"...
Well we got in another mess; I have rarely been sick here in Leon. It has been raining like crazy and when it rains here it is cold, we get wet out walking and stay cold all the time so has made me sick again. Yesterday I tried doing everything I could to contact and work and it didn’t help me to feel any better. Last night our plans and visits were falling through and so were our backup plans. I was trying to find new people we could visit and teach but my companion wasn’t doing anything. I asked him "Why don’t you try finding investigators, it would help me out a lot"....and then he just flipped outs, has his bad attitude and started bossing me around telling me what to do. I obeyed and just took his crap LIKE ALWAYS until I couldn’t do it anymore.
We were walking and I told him "Man we can’t continue like this" and sat down on the sidewalk and he gave me an "I don’t give a dang" response and kept on walking. Well this time I didn’t get up and follow him....I just sat there. Then about 5 minutes later he came back and asked me why I didn’t follow him. I said "I’m sorry man I can’t be playing these stupid little games of yours". He got even madder so I said, “Just calm down, sit down for a minute”. He finally calmed down and I tried talking to him and it helped.....for a moment.
We got back to the house and he was still blowing steam but I remembered a scripture I read in Alma the other day and wanted to read that scripture with him. Well, he didn’t want to but he was already sitting down so I sat down next him and started to read Alma 31 about Alma and his brothers. If it didn’t help him, it helped me.....I was angry just cause he hadn’t apologized for flipping out, and I am trying to make this companionship work.
This morning (P-day) I woke up feeling sick at 6:30 am so I went back to bed. About an hour later he wakes me up and tells me to get out of bed that we are going to play soccer (I am so sick of soccer its the only sport we play down here) Then he says, “If you don’t feel good you can just sit there and watch me while I play and I was like "ha-ha - No". I fell back asleep so he left the apartment while I was asleep, in his mind he thinks it was okay because members live nearby. After he comes back and he starts saying, “I WANT to do this and this and this today".... but I told him "I’m sorry I don’t feel good today" then he got mad and stormed off again.
Later, I was feeling a little better so I asked him if he wanted to go and get our hair cut and he grabbed the keys to the house and just left without saying anything. We went and got our hair cut and came back to the house to take a shower (which made me feel even worse cuz the shower water is so cold). We got dressed in our mission clothes and got ready to leave again (I thought to go eat lunch) but then he takes off a different direction. I asked "Where are we going?" and he tells me we are going to the bank, which is far away. And I was like DUDE YOU DONT GET IT I AM SICK, I FEEL NAUCEOUS ALREADY! He just replied "I am going to the bank you can stay if you like". I was so mad I wanted to....to....walk away so that is what I did… I walked about 20 feet from him and sat down. SO WHAT DOES HE DO NEXT!? CALLS THE MISSION PRESIDENT AND TELLS HIM I RAN AWAY. grr......
Everything is okay for this moment, we at least walked with each other to the cyber place where we write our emails!
But I thank you for your letter and sorry for mine ha-ha. I love you all!
Elder Buck
Yes, last week sure was challenging...and so was this one.
After our little fight last week, I apologized and we made up for it by working harder then ever. Then our President came to visit the zone because there were other problems besides us that needed taken care of. MY NEW PRESIDENT IS SO COOL!! I’m so happy he is our president.
When I went in for my interview, I sit down and first thing he asks me is if I’m a District Leader and I told him no and then he said I should be. Ha-ha finally someone recognizes me. Then he asked me how much time I have left and guess what?! I HAVE been out almost 18 MONTHS- HOLY CRAP!!!!
Then he asked me to work as hard as I can and then asked me if there is anything that I need that he could help me with so I told him about my companion. He just suggested reading the scriptures every night and doing companionship prayer. Well it worked. I love my companion I know he is a good guy and all but I don’t understand why we disagree so much. I’m trying to do everything to keep sane and put up with all the stuff that goes on. He knows it, last week we had a companionship inventory after planning for the week and he tells me...I want to apologize for how I have been acting. You are one of the most patient caring companions I have had. You’re always right, you know what we are suppose to do and you do it. I wish I would have listened to you before....
After that we hugged and I told him "I’m always here buddy to help you out"...
Well we got in another mess; I have rarely been sick here in Leon. It has been raining like crazy and when it rains here it is cold, we get wet out walking and stay cold all the time so has made me sick again. Yesterday I tried doing everything I could to contact and work and it didn’t help me to feel any better. Last night our plans and visits were falling through and so were our backup plans. I was trying to find new people we could visit and teach but my companion wasn’t doing anything. I asked him "Why don’t you try finding investigators, it would help me out a lot"....and then he just flipped outs, has his bad attitude and started bossing me around telling me what to do. I obeyed and just took his crap LIKE ALWAYS until I couldn’t do it anymore.
We were walking and I told him "Man we can’t continue like this" and sat down on the sidewalk and he gave me an "I don’t give a dang" response and kept on walking. Well this time I didn’t get up and follow him....I just sat there. Then about 5 minutes later he came back and asked me why I didn’t follow him. I said "I’m sorry man I can’t be playing these stupid little games of yours". He got even madder so I said, “Just calm down, sit down for a minute”. He finally calmed down and I tried talking to him and it helped.....for a moment.
We got back to the house and he was still blowing steam but I remembered a scripture I read in Alma the other day and wanted to read that scripture with him. Well, he didn’t want to but he was already sitting down so I sat down next him and started to read Alma 31 about Alma and his brothers. If it didn’t help him, it helped me.....I was angry just cause he hadn’t apologized for flipping out, and I am trying to make this companionship work.
This morning (P-day) I woke up feeling sick at 6:30 am so I went back to bed. About an hour later he wakes me up and tells me to get out of bed that we are going to play soccer (I am so sick of soccer its the only sport we play down here) Then he says, “If you don’t feel good you can just sit there and watch me while I play and I was like "ha-ha - No". I fell back asleep so he left the apartment while I was asleep, in his mind he thinks it was okay because members live nearby. After he comes back and he starts saying, “I WANT to do this and this and this today".... but I told him "I’m sorry I don’t feel good today" then he got mad and stormed off again.
Later, I was feeling a little better so I asked him if he wanted to go and get our hair cut and he grabbed the keys to the house and just left without saying anything. We went and got our hair cut and came back to the house to take a shower (which made me feel even worse cuz the shower water is so cold). We got dressed in our mission clothes and got ready to leave again (I thought to go eat lunch) but then he takes off a different direction. I asked "Where are we going?" and he tells me we are going to the bank, which is far away. And I was like DUDE YOU DONT GET IT I AM SICK, I FEEL NAUCEOUS ALREADY! He just replied "I am going to the bank you can stay if you like". I was so mad I wanted to....to....walk away so that is what I did… I walked about 20 feet from him and sat down. SO WHAT DOES HE DO NEXT!? CALLS THE MISSION PRESIDENT AND TELLS HIM I RAN AWAY. grr......
Everything is okay for this moment, we at least walked with each other to the cyber place where we write our emails!
But I thank you for your letter and sorry for mine ha-ha. I love you all!
Elder Buck
Monday, July 12, 2010
New Pres, New Companion, New Fun
Hello Family!
This week has probably been one of the hardest weeks as far as a companionship.
First, I got to know the new president, President Arredondo. He is a really cool guy, I can tell he loves the missionaries and so does his wife. I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to have him as our President.
I feel bad for him, because even though this is the highest baptizing mission (almost in the world) there are a lot of crappy missionaries that fornicate, have girl friends, flirt and it makes me mad that someone could do that IN THE MISSION FIELD! We had a missionary go AWOL last week, so his first week as president has been pretty hard for him....
In a way, I contributed this week, as one of the reports of misbehaving missionaries.
Here is the story:
As missionaries we receive a certain amount of money for each month from the mission home. But this month we did not receive any money…new president…mix ups…who knows. We are living in an apartment that we pay for monthly and we have a dead line of when we need to pay which is on the 28th of each month. If we haven’t paid by the 3rd they start charging us interest. Its 90$ for the month and that is with out paying for electricity and water. The water and electricity bill usually adds up to about 10-12$ per month which is not too bad.
It is bad when you don’t have the money and the mission doesn’t send anything. The other problem is the bank is really far and we can’t afford to get some way of transportation to take us there so we have to walk.
Anyway our land lady came and told us if we don’t have the money for rent that they are going to cut the lights and water. So I decided to pay all that I had, from my personal money, which was around 98$. I had this personal money tucked away in case of an emergency. We only needed 2 dollars more to pay rent so I ask my companion for two dollars. He says NO, because he only has two dollars left, so I was like "look, we have to pay the money or they are going to shut the water and lights off". He’s said, "Im sorry but im not giving my money" (he was being a little stubborn). This kind of made me mad because the land lady was right there and also was telling us that she would kick us out if we didn’t pay. I didn’t know what to do.
The whole time my companion is staring at me from his bed, looking at me like im an idiot. I then did something that I regret now and it was pretty much out of desperation. I yanked the top mattress out from where he was laying (cause its a bunk bed) took him out of his bed and told him "YOU ARE GOING TO PAY THE MONEY". He told me "no" again, so I took the wallet out of his pocket and took out the two dollars to give it to our land lady. My companion then runs up and grabs the 98$ out of her hands and walks back into the bed room.
I follow him and try to grab the money out from his hands, then he grabs my neck and kind of starts choking me. (He is shorter than me but he is a buff little kid, I will send a picture of him ASAP and other photos). I got him into a headlock to calm him down but he broke free and starts swinging at me. All I could think was, "OH YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!?!" The Land lady is yelling at us to stop and then we finally stop. He ends up giving her the money back and she ends up telling us that we are not servants of God! She wasn’t even a member so I felt pretty bad.
After the land lady leaves my companion starts to lock all the doors and windows so I can’t escape because he said he was going to punch my teeth out or something stupid like that....My companion he was just super mad (he gets mad real easy, always wants to fight, and his whole family is in the army even his mom). He made a lot of threats to me but nothing else happened.
I repented for what I did and called my zone leaders as soon as possible to tell them what just happened. I just went back to doing what I was doing before which was studying the book of Mormon and that calmed me down pretty quick. That fight was something I totally regret but I got to say if that hadn’t happened our relationship would probably be worse off. When I talked to the zone leaders I arranged for them to come over so could have a companionship inventory and talk about things and what we are going to do better and how. After that we set some new goals as companions so now we are doing AWESOME!
But I just feel bad because now the whole mission knows what happened and even the president. I wanted to show a good reputation for the new president…
Hmmm...Im not sure but I think Elder Buck will have a few dental problems when he gets back because some days there isn’t even water to brush our teeth let alone toothpaste. I was thinking about becoming a Dentist....
That’s about it for now we had one baptism this week but I didn’t even know the guy...I hope this is a better week.
I love you all!
Elder Buck
This week has probably been one of the hardest weeks as far as a companionship.
First, I got to know the new president, President Arredondo. He is a really cool guy, I can tell he loves the missionaries and so does his wife. I’m really excited to be able to have the opportunity to have him as our President.
I feel bad for him, because even though this is the highest baptizing mission (almost in the world) there are a lot of crappy missionaries that fornicate, have girl friends, flirt and it makes me mad that someone could do that IN THE MISSION FIELD! We had a missionary go AWOL last week, so his first week as president has been pretty hard for him....
In a way, I contributed this week, as one of the reports of misbehaving missionaries.
Here is the story:
As missionaries we receive a certain amount of money for each month from the mission home. But this month we did not receive any money…new president…mix ups…who knows. We are living in an apartment that we pay for monthly and we have a dead line of when we need to pay which is on the 28th of each month. If we haven’t paid by the 3rd they start charging us interest. Its 90$ for the month and that is with out paying for electricity and water. The water and electricity bill usually adds up to about 10-12$ per month which is not too bad.
It is bad when you don’t have the money and the mission doesn’t send anything. The other problem is the bank is really far and we can’t afford to get some way of transportation to take us there so we have to walk.
Anyway our land lady came and told us if we don’t have the money for rent that they are going to cut the lights and water. So I decided to pay all that I had, from my personal money, which was around 98$. I had this personal money tucked away in case of an emergency. We only needed 2 dollars more to pay rent so I ask my companion for two dollars. He says NO, because he only has two dollars left, so I was like "look, we have to pay the money or they are going to shut the water and lights off". He’s said, "Im sorry but im not giving my money" (he was being a little stubborn). This kind of made me mad because the land lady was right there and also was telling us that she would kick us out if we didn’t pay. I didn’t know what to do.
The whole time my companion is staring at me from his bed, looking at me like im an idiot. I then did something that I regret now and it was pretty much out of desperation. I yanked the top mattress out from where he was laying (cause its a bunk bed) took him out of his bed and told him "YOU ARE GOING TO PAY THE MONEY". He told me "no" again, so I took the wallet out of his pocket and took out the two dollars to give it to our land lady. My companion then runs up and grabs the 98$ out of her hands and walks back into the bed room.
I follow him and try to grab the money out from his hands, then he grabs my neck and kind of starts choking me. (He is shorter than me but he is a buff little kid, I will send a picture of him ASAP and other photos). I got him into a headlock to calm him down but he broke free and starts swinging at me. All I could think was, "OH YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!?!" The Land lady is yelling at us to stop and then we finally stop. He ends up giving her the money back and she ends up telling us that we are not servants of God! She wasn’t even a member so I felt pretty bad.
After the land lady leaves my companion starts to lock all the doors and windows so I can’t escape because he said he was going to punch my teeth out or something stupid like that....My companion he was just super mad (he gets mad real easy, always wants to fight, and his whole family is in the army even his mom). He made a lot of threats to me but nothing else happened.
I repented for what I did and called my zone leaders as soon as possible to tell them what just happened. I just went back to doing what I was doing before which was studying the book of Mormon and that calmed me down pretty quick. That fight was something I totally regret but I got to say if that hadn’t happened our relationship would probably be worse off. When I talked to the zone leaders I arranged for them to come over so could have a companionship inventory and talk about things and what we are going to do better and how. After that we set some new goals as companions so now we are doing AWESOME!
But I just feel bad because now the whole mission knows what happened and even the president. I wanted to show a good reputation for the new president…
Hmmm...Im not sure but I think Elder Buck will have a few dental problems when he gets back because some days there isn’t even water to brush our teeth let alone toothpaste. I was thinking about becoming a Dentist....
That’s about it for now we had one baptism this week but I didn’t even know the guy...I hope this is a better week.
I love you all!
Elder Buck
Monday, July 5, 2010
Monday, July 5th
Hey Family!
So it’s hot in Arizona....that’s new. It’s hot here in Leon also. Yeah it sounds like Tanner and Emily had a good time. HAPPY 29th ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!! I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!
Sounds like every one had fun with the 4th of July stuff!
I AM SO GLAD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!!!
I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ that he established and was later established by a true prophet of God. I know that we have the fullness of the gospel, because we have the Book of Mormon. I know that Jesus Christ lives because he guides and directs his saints in these latter days through our loving Prophets and apostles.
And if you want to feel HIS love LIVE AND APPLY THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST
• Share your testimony (as a family)
• read the scriptures (as a family)
• pray together (as a family)
• have real family home evenings (as a family)
"When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as Disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father (and our family) becomes more profound. Obedience becomes a joy rather than a burden"
Dad....one of the things I cant wait to do when I get back is talk about the gospel with you and learn about it and all the things you know.
Mom....one of the things that I want to do when I get back with you is learn to cook ha-ha and talk with you.
Carly...one of the things that I want to do with you is just talk, really get to know my sister, what she likes or doesn’t like or who she likes....im sorry for being such a butt head and for picking on you. You can thank also your older brothers for that.
Love Elder Buck
So it’s hot in Arizona....that’s new. It’s hot here in Leon also. Yeah it sounds like Tanner and Emily had a good time. HAPPY 29th ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!! I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!
Sounds like every one had fun with the 4th of July stuff!
I AM SO GLAD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!!!
I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ that he established and was later established by a true prophet of God. I know that we have the fullness of the gospel, because we have the Book of Mormon. I know that Jesus Christ lives because he guides and directs his saints in these latter days through our loving Prophets and apostles.
And if you want to feel HIS love LIVE AND APPLY THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST
• Share your testimony (as a family)
• read the scriptures (as a family)
• pray together (as a family)
• have real family home evenings (as a family)
"When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as Disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father (and our family) becomes more profound. Obedience becomes a joy rather than a burden"
Dad....one of the things I cant wait to do when I get back is talk about the gospel with you and learn about it and all the things you know.
Mom....one of the things that I want to do when I get back with you is learn to cook ha-ha and talk with you.
Carly...one of the things that I want to do with you is just talk, really get to know my sister, what she likes or doesn’t like or who she likes....im sorry for being such a butt head and for picking on you. You can thank also your older brothers for that.
Love Elder Buck
Monday, June 28th
Hey Family!
I still have a little bit of a cough that comes and goes every now and then, but for the most part I am healed from the sickness crap!!
Leon is AWESOME!!! I love this place it reminds me a lot of Jinotepe! The People are SO NICE!!! Im so happy because I hate dealing with angry people. It’s a pretty big place my area LAS VILLAS is very huge the other day we walked out to the edge of my area and it almost took two hours to walk there.
It has its rich and poor parts like always but the buildings here are so cool it’s really similar to Jinotepe but like where I live is literally an apartment and we live on the second floor it’s so cool!
It’s really hot here it’s even hotter then it was in Managua, but I LOVE TEACHING!! I thought I would just say that I have found so many new people here and I am able to help EVERY SINGLE ONE! I LOVE IT! I finally know how to talk to people with being shy or afraid or feel stupid like I did before the mission. MCCOY HAS COME OUT OF HIS SHELL FINALLY!!
Like on Sundays I teach the class, and I got people coming to my class that aren’t suppose cause they say "Elder Bucks class isn’t boring" ha-ha that made me laugh. But I have a really effective way of helping people. Practically every person I have met after I finish teaching and we clear up all the doubts they have I ask them "will you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in the restored Gospel and be baptized AND THEY ALL SAY YES!! And do you know why? Because they know its true!! Because I ask them and they say they know it is true, they can feel it!
I also memorized a scripture to help me not be boastful and to remember who it is that makes these miracles happen . Alma 62:12
12 Yea, I know that I am anothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will bnot boast of myself, but I will cboast of my God, for in his dstrength I can do all ethings; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
My area has a ward but we have some difficulties with the Bishop. He is a really cool guy but a total slacker he comes to church at 8:30am when church starts at 8am so we almost have barely enough time to listen to one speaker. Oh, I also played the piano in sacrament meeting ha-ha that needed someone desperately.
I’m sorry that’s all I got the time for now!
Tell Carver and Rachelle I got their messages and thank them for them.
I love you all
Elder Buck
I still have a little bit of a cough that comes and goes every now and then, but for the most part I am healed from the sickness crap!!
Leon is AWESOME!!! I love this place it reminds me a lot of Jinotepe! The People are SO NICE!!! Im so happy because I hate dealing with angry people. It’s a pretty big place my area LAS VILLAS is very huge the other day we walked out to the edge of my area and it almost took two hours to walk there.
It has its rich and poor parts like always but the buildings here are so cool it’s really similar to Jinotepe but like where I live is literally an apartment and we live on the second floor it’s so cool!
It’s really hot here it’s even hotter then it was in Managua, but I LOVE TEACHING!! I thought I would just say that I have found so many new people here and I am able to help EVERY SINGLE ONE! I LOVE IT! I finally know how to talk to people with being shy or afraid or feel stupid like I did before the mission. MCCOY HAS COME OUT OF HIS SHELL FINALLY!!
Like on Sundays I teach the class, and I got people coming to my class that aren’t suppose cause they say "Elder Bucks class isn’t boring" ha-ha that made me laugh. But I have a really effective way of helping people. Practically every person I have met after I finish teaching and we clear up all the doubts they have I ask them "will you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in the restored Gospel and be baptized AND THEY ALL SAY YES!! And do you know why? Because they know its true!! Because I ask them and they say they know it is true, they can feel it!
I also memorized a scripture to help me not be boastful and to remember who it is that makes these miracles happen . Alma 62:12
12 Yea, I know that I am anothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will bnot boast of myself, but I will cboast of my God, for in his dstrength I can do all ethings; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
My area has a ward but we have some difficulties with the Bishop. He is a really cool guy but a total slacker he comes to church at 8:30am when church starts at 8am so we almost have barely enough time to listen to one speaker. Oh, I also played the piano in sacrament meeting ha-ha that needed someone desperately.
I’m sorry that’s all I got the time for now!
Tell Carver and Rachelle I got their messages and thank them for them.
I love you all
Elder Buck
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Monday, June 21st
Hello Family!
I am doing very GOOD! Except, there is a virus that is passing here in Nicaragua and just about everyone has it right now....I got it and have had a fever and bad cough this past week.
Hey dad....HAPPY FATHERS DAY!! I LOVE YOU!! They don’t really celebrate father’s day here...
I have looked at the Picasa account recently that is really cool! That looks like you had a fun camping trip LUCKIES!! I want to go camping so badly. Has Carly picked the school that she wants to go to?? and what grade is she in this year??
Answers to questions:
A: The new mission president takes over in the beginning of the month of July.
A: I have been the senior companion for a while now.
A: I have not had any other responsibilities :( I would like more so hopefully I will be recognized by my new mission president :)
A: My personal studies for the moment are okay...we hardly get time to study and I have been sick all week so I have been in bed half the time. BUT I have been reading and learning a ton about the Book of Mormon ...it is AWESOME!
A: Am I doing what im suppose to do.... ?
• As far as waking up on time....Usually I get up 15 min earlier then im supposed to.
• I have almost always started working when im suppose too, if im not able to it’s usually because my companion doesn't want to get out and work.
• As far as getting along with my companions I do everything that I can so that we can work hard and effectively and with out any problems. But yes of course there are a few occasional arguments.
Well as far as this week....I have been changed/transferred....I am no longer in Managua!!! I will miss Reparto Shick we did a lot of good there. Now I am in.......LEON! With my companion Elder Alvarez he is from Guatemala! He is a really cool guy! We both arrived in Nicaragua on the same day.
This area is really cool I still haven't got to know my area to well yet because I have been sick almost all week. But it is AWESOME the people here are really friendly and the buildings here are really cool....don't worry I will take a lot of pictures. I'm not afraid of getting robbed here. My zone is really cool and there is an Elder named Elder Stratton from Snow Flake and I got a feeling we are going to be good friends, we get along well, he is a really cool kid. Tomorrow we are going back to Managua to say goodbye to president and sister Fraatz...it is supposedly their last day.
Well not to much has happened...I did get the package! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! Interesting selection of ties but the people here love them and are always asking me what the writing says. Dang Customs took a box of that drink mix and opened the bag of mints and ate some of them...its so weird lol people here love mints. I guy in my ward the other day was offering me candy and when I put it in my mouth I spit it back out and was like "WHAT THE HECK THAT'S A COUGH DROP?!" ha ha They eat cough drops like candy....gross.
What else... here in Leon, to travel around, we take little trucks. I can hardly fit in these but its pretty much a pick up truck with a tarp covering the top and you just chill in the back of the bed with 15 other people ha-ha.
Well that’s about all the time I got for now...
I love you all
Elder Buck
I am doing very GOOD! Except, there is a virus that is passing here in Nicaragua and just about everyone has it right now....I got it and have had a fever and bad cough this past week.
Hey dad....HAPPY FATHERS DAY!! I LOVE YOU!! They don’t really celebrate father’s day here...
I have looked at the Picasa account recently that is really cool! That looks like you had a fun camping trip LUCKIES!! I want to go camping so badly. Has Carly picked the school that she wants to go to?? and what grade is she in this year??
Answers to questions:
A: The new mission president takes over in the beginning of the month of July.
A: I have been the senior companion for a while now.
A: I have not had any other responsibilities :( I would like more so hopefully I will be recognized by my new mission president :)
A: My personal studies for the moment are okay...we hardly get time to study and I have been sick all week so I have been in bed half the time. BUT I have been reading and learning a ton about the Book of Mormon ...it is AWESOME!
A: Am I doing what im suppose to do.... ?
• As far as waking up on time....Usually I get up 15 min earlier then im supposed to.
• I have almost always started working when im suppose too, if im not able to it’s usually because my companion doesn't want to get out and work.
• As far as getting along with my companions I do everything that I can so that we can work hard and effectively and with out any problems. But yes of course there are a few occasional arguments.
Well as far as this week....I have been changed/transferred....I am no longer in Managua!!! I will miss Reparto Shick we did a lot of good there. Now I am in.......LEON! With my companion Elder Alvarez he is from Guatemala! He is a really cool guy! We both arrived in Nicaragua on the same day.
This area is really cool I still haven't got to know my area to well yet because I have been sick almost all week. But it is AWESOME the people here are really friendly and the buildings here are really cool....don't worry I will take a lot of pictures. I'm not afraid of getting robbed here. My zone is really cool and there is an Elder named Elder Stratton from Snow Flake and I got a feeling we are going to be good friends, we get along well, he is a really cool kid. Tomorrow we are going back to Managua to say goodbye to president and sister Fraatz...it is supposedly their last day.
Well not to much has happened...I did get the package! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! Interesting selection of ties but the people here love them and are always asking me what the writing says. Dang Customs took a box of that drink mix and opened the bag of mints and ate some of them...its so weird lol people here love mints. I guy in my ward the other day was offering me candy and when I put it in my mouth I spit it back out and was like "WHAT THE HECK THAT'S A COUGH DROP?!" ha ha They eat cough drops like candy....gross.
What else... here in Leon, to travel around, we take little trucks. I can hardly fit in these but its pretty much a pick up truck with a tarp covering the top and you just chill in the back of the bed with 15 other people ha-ha.
Well that’s about all the time I got for now...
I love you all
Elder Buck
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Two Missed Letters with Pictures
Click here: New Pictures of Volcano and Baptisms
Monday, May 7th
Hey thanks for not writing me!? Ha-ha what happened??
Today was an awesome day! We got to go see a volcano...I have sent lots of pics.
On Thursday I can say I served two missions!! I WENT TO HONDURAS!! It was pretty cool, just a little (like 5 kil) passed the border because my companion had to go back to be able to renew his residence or identity for Nicaragua because there was come kind of error. My companion was a little trunky when we got to Hondura's ha-ha. While I was there we met and talked to 3 awesome people that almost right away wanted to get baptized. The sad thing is where they live there are no missionaries. Other then that, it was a lot of fun it was like over all 10 hours of travel time.
Click above to go to my album to see the pictures of the volcano and the recent baptisms.
We also had a baptism of a girl a couple of Saturday’s ago but she did not come to church to be confirmed the next day because she got a lung infection and ended up going into the hospital. When she got out of the hospital she went to her mothers to stay so we were told to go find her and get her to a church so we could get her confirmed. We took a member of the bishopric with us and got directions from her boyfriend to where she was staying at her mother’s house. Well the directions were not correct and we ended up out of our teaching area. After a phone call we found were she really was and were told by leaders to go find her so she could be confirmed. After a bus ride and a lot of walking we finally found her and got her to a church to be confirmed. It was a crazy day.
Monday, May 14th
Hello Family!
I am doing well! Health is doing pretty good...I'm sorry your letter from email did not come through last week.
I still haven’t got my package yet....I won’t get it until probably this Wednesday we we have changes in our area. Last week was interesting and even though my mission says we don't baptize for numbers... we really do. We have our leaders and they have theirs and we just have to obey the higher ranked guy pretty much ha-ha.
Another thing that is crazy but normal here is for people to get married even though they are 20 years apart in age. I have seen some really crazy stuff. I saw on the T.V news a 6 year old boy that was smoking a cigarette here. Sad.....you should look some stuff up on the news links on the internet. Nicaragua has a couple news internet sites so you can see all the crazy stuff that happens here and how many deaths/murders there are.
I have been a little discouraged this change because im not being/acting like a missionary of Preach my Gospel. I really am losing my respect for other churches especially a religion called Evangelicals....We have been trying so long to prepare a family for baptism and someone from this other church talked to them and with the help of Satan are bringing there souls down to hell.
We went to the investigators house the other day. It’s was around 7 pm and I can hardly see because it was dusk. There were two ladies outside so I asked for the woman investigator. One of the women responded, "May God bless you, how are you?" I was like "uh....I'm good, is so-and-so here?" This same lady replies "No she is not, no one is home, let God protect you". I'm like okay and was about to say good bye but I take a better look at the other lady standing silent and realized it was the investigator so I said, "Hi! "Why didn’t you say you where here?" The other lady responds for her, "Oh she is busy she can't talk right now, may God bless you". I asked, "Well we will come back some other day" and the same lady replies "No that’s fine you don’t need to come back she is going to be going to my church". I can't help it...it makes me sad but still a little mad.
A good thing we did have a baptism this week. His name is Christian he is a really awesome kid. He used to be a bum kid like into drugs and girls and all that. But one of the members in our ward invited him to seminary and he LOVES IT!! So that was really cool. The only set back is he has schooling and study on Sundays so we are not able to get him to church on Sunday but our bishop wants him to be baptized and so did Christian himself. We taught him all the discussions had him take out his piercings and got him baptized. He is an awesome kid! He says he’s going to drop one of his school classes to be able to go to church.
My new Nicaragua North mission president comes on the 1st of July. I don’t think the mission address will change so far it’s still the same. I don’t know yet but I will let you know if it changes. The new mission president is President Rotanda (I think...). I have said a couple negative things arobout my current mission president that I take back now, Prez. Fraatz he’s a good guy but difficult to understand his decisions.
I'm glad you got to go camping and fishing on the Rim. I love the pics that you sent!
Felicidades!! CARLY IS DONE WITH SCHOOL!! Will you be a junior or senior??
Cool....glad to hear Chad Mayberry is serving a mission in Mexico!
Well I think that is it for now if I forget something I will write it next time!
I love you ALL!!
ELDER BUCK
Monday, May 7th
Hey thanks for not writing me!? Ha-ha what happened??
Today was an awesome day! We got to go see a volcano...I have sent lots of pics.
On Thursday I can say I served two missions!! I WENT TO HONDURAS!! It was pretty cool, just a little (like 5 kil) passed the border because my companion had to go back to be able to renew his residence or identity for Nicaragua because there was come kind of error. My companion was a little trunky when we got to Hondura's ha-ha. While I was there we met and talked to 3 awesome people that almost right away wanted to get baptized. The sad thing is where they live there are no missionaries. Other then that, it was a lot of fun it was like over all 10 hours of travel time.
Click above to go to my album to see the pictures of the volcano and the recent baptisms.
We also had a baptism of a girl a couple of Saturday’s ago but she did not come to church to be confirmed the next day because she got a lung infection and ended up going into the hospital. When she got out of the hospital she went to her mothers to stay so we were told to go find her and get her to a church so we could get her confirmed. We took a member of the bishopric with us and got directions from her boyfriend to where she was staying at her mother’s house. Well the directions were not correct and we ended up out of our teaching area. After a phone call we found were she really was and were told by leaders to go find her so she could be confirmed. After a bus ride and a lot of walking we finally found her and got her to a church to be confirmed. It was a crazy day.
Monday, May 14th
Hello Family!
I am doing well! Health is doing pretty good...I'm sorry your letter from email did not come through last week.
I still haven’t got my package yet....I won’t get it until probably this Wednesday we we have changes in our area. Last week was interesting and even though my mission says we don't baptize for numbers... we really do. We have our leaders and they have theirs and we just have to obey the higher ranked guy pretty much ha-ha.
Another thing that is crazy but normal here is for people to get married even though they are 20 years apart in age. I have seen some really crazy stuff. I saw on the T.V news a 6 year old boy that was smoking a cigarette here. Sad.....you should look some stuff up on the news links on the internet. Nicaragua has a couple news internet sites so you can see all the crazy stuff that happens here and how many deaths/murders there are.
I have been a little discouraged this change because im not being/acting like a missionary of Preach my Gospel. I really am losing my respect for other churches especially a religion called Evangelicals....We have been trying so long to prepare a family for baptism and someone from this other church talked to them and with the help of Satan are bringing there souls down to hell.
We went to the investigators house the other day. It’s was around 7 pm and I can hardly see because it was dusk. There were two ladies outside so I asked for the woman investigator. One of the women responded, "May God bless you, how are you?" I was like "uh....I'm good, is so-and-so here?" This same lady replies "No she is not, no one is home, let God protect you". I'm like okay and was about to say good bye but I take a better look at the other lady standing silent and realized it was the investigator so I said, "Hi! "Why didn’t you say you where here?" The other lady responds for her, "Oh she is busy she can't talk right now, may God bless you". I asked, "Well we will come back some other day" and the same lady replies "No that’s fine you don’t need to come back she is going to be going to my church". I can't help it...it makes me sad but still a little mad.
A good thing we did have a baptism this week. His name is Christian he is a really awesome kid. He used to be a bum kid like into drugs and girls and all that. But one of the members in our ward invited him to seminary and he LOVES IT!! So that was really cool. The only set back is he has schooling and study on Sundays so we are not able to get him to church on Sunday but our bishop wants him to be baptized and so did Christian himself. We taught him all the discussions had him take out his piercings and got him baptized. He is an awesome kid! He says he’s going to drop one of his school classes to be able to go to church.
My new Nicaragua North mission president comes on the 1st of July. I don’t think the mission address will change so far it’s still the same. I don’t know yet but I will let you know if it changes. The new mission president is President Rotanda (I think...). I have said a couple negative things arobout my current mission president that I take back now, Prez. Fraatz he’s a good guy but difficult to understand his decisions.
I'm glad you got to go camping and fishing on the Rim. I love the pics that you sent!
Felicidades!! CARLY IS DONE WITH SCHOOL!! Will you be a junior or senior??
Cool....glad to hear Chad Mayberry is serving a mission in Mexico!
Well I think that is it for now if I forget something I will write it next time!
I love you ALL!!
ELDER BUCK
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 25th
Note from Sandra: This letter is a little more graphic then I usually edit and post but I am leaving it as McCoy wrote it so we can all get a better understanding of the sacrifices our little missionaries make in some of these poor countries.
Hey Family, today is Tuesday!
The mission is so awesome ... really it teaches me so much and helps me prepare for the most important things in life. President just made a new rule. The new rule is we, as missionaries, don't make enough sacrifices, so the sacrifice is, every day we have to wake up at 5 a.m. That is so hard to do. It makes the day so much longer¨. Other then that I haven't been able to work as effectively cause I'm so freaking tired. But today was P-day so I woke up at 7 am this morning ha-ha.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to study Spanish after the mission. I'm going to be a master! My new companion is defiantly the best companion I have had. He does remind me a lot of Tanner though (he likes being the center of attention) ha-ha. So sometimes he will do what my favorite brother did, make me look like an idiot and bring up things that happened last week in front of people. But other then that I LOVE THIS KID.
Two weeks ago we had 4 baptisms planned but only did three because one fell through. The baptism was awesome and it has a crazy story.
Okay so we baptized 3 people:
Alex 15 years old
Flavia 16 years old
Marieth 13 years old
They were all ready for baptisms, but a little nervous. First off their mom has been in active for 8 years and is not at all interested. But that's before Elder Buck worked his magic. ha-ha. No i pretty much talked to her to get to know her, revive her interested in the gospel and she gave us permission to baptize her kids. The mom her name is Dorca she is actually really cool. She was baptized with her husband and other son but now is divorced, but we have no record of her being a member so I'm going to try and baptize her too.
Two Saturday's ago, we had their baptism planned at 6 pm in the afternoon. We get to the church at 5:30 pm to fill up the font AND THERE WAS NO WATER!!! Our only option is to go to another chapel to do the baptisms. SO we get to their house to tell them that we are going to have to do the baptisms in another church house and they did not like that idea and wanted to know of other options. I was like "okay, well we can do it Sunday morning early before church starts" and i told them what they need to bring and that we will be at their house at 6:30am on Sunday morning take them to the church for baptisms at 7am.
Sunday we stopped by a little bit earlier than 6:30am just in case they weren't ready and just as i thought they weren't. Alex was outside washing his school clothes and and was just wearing sandals and shorts. No one else was ready, so i told Alex to go get ready and that i would finish washing his clothes. So while i was washing Alex´s clothes his mom comes out and she was all dressed up ready to go, so was his other sister (Marieth) who wasn't to positive for her baptism. I'm talking to them, while washing the clothes, trying to encourage Marieth for her baptism. Then i finish and we all walked back into the house together to wait for the others to get ready. Then Alex (almost ready) grabs something out of the fridge and the whole rack broke. It was holding coca cola, huge glass bottles. Hermana sells them for her work, so she was mad, then she tells Marieth "come with me we are going to your grandmas house" or in other words "I'm too mad to let you get baptized today."
The poor kid Alex was shocked, he was super excited and ready to be baptized. While we were helping him clean up the spilt coca cola and broken glass bottles. I asked, "hey where is Flavia?" He said she is in her room, she doesn't want to go". It is a two room house, just separated by a wall, so i call her from where i was standing and she didn't answer, I call again and she said "what??" I asked "Are you ready for your baptism" and she said "No I'm busy". I asked, "Can you come out just for a few minutes so we can talk to you". She explained that when we came early she was not ready and hurried to jump in the shower and she was scared. We told her not to worry we can wait for everyone to get ready and we will be right back. I asked Alex were his grandma lived because we were going to go find his mom and Marieth. He was a little unsure....but i said a prayer in my heart and told myself that all three will be baptized today.
The grandma lived quite a way off and by the time we found her house, the mom and Marieth had already left. While we were walking back to Alex and Flavia I was thinking we are going to have to buy phone minutes so we can call the mom and find out what is going on. (Break the Sabbath, I already washed clothes now I have to buy mobile phone minutes) I got hold of the Marieth by mobile phone and she said they would be going back to their home soon, so we went to the house and waited. After a few minutes the mom and Marieth came home. I WAS SO HAPPY!!!! We got them all to the church and baptized at 8:45am, 15 minutes before sacrament meeting ended.! It was sure crazy but it did happen.
This week has been another awesome week here in Reparto Shick!!! Teaching has been going good, we just baptized another man this Saturday. Well, more like completed a family baptism. Luz and her son Andy where the ones that were already baptized, but we were able to get Roberto (dad) and Luz married and then get Roberto baptized after the wedding ...they where happy.
Our companionship is still good...this is probably the best companionship that i have had here in the mission field. We get along so well!! He can be a little prideful but i love that kid! It is actually really cool living in the same house together as one district (4 missionaries). "We are the DRAGONS!!" That is the name of our district. We are having the most success in all our zone. We have been doing awesome and we get along really well. Who woulda thunk it! Being in the most dangerous neighborhood is pretty cool, still nothing bad has happened to our companionship and i am always alert and watching my surroundings.
And as far as my health.....i got food poisoning again. It has been really bad. On Sunday, after church we went to eat at our assigned place and it was fine, but she gave us a lot of food. Then we had a investigator to go visit afterwards who also gave us a lot of food. She gave me some meat that I could hardly swallow and i didn't know what it was but it was all the food they had so I had to eat it so I would not offend them. Later i found out it was cow liver. I started to feel sick but we still had more visits to do.
We stopped back by our recent converts Alex, Marieth, and Flavia. During the lesson i was not feeling good then i was like "i got to throw up!" but then i didn't want to do it in at their house but there was nowhere else to go! It was THE NASIEST!!! I hate life after throwing up. I went back and we tried to finish teaching but i told my companion " we gotta go!" We booked it back to our house and my stomach was feeling horrible by this point! I stumbled into the bathroom barely making it and had the worst diarrhea of my life. I'm sorry for being so descriptive but it was almost like i was peeing out of my butt and to make it worse I started to throw up too! I was in the bathroom for 2 hours straight. After going through that i had to take a shower but the water was super cold cuz it was raining that day and that didn't help me feel any better and I started running a fever. I lost all my strength and I felt like i was going to die. Just when I finally get into bed I have to run back to the bathroom and start the whole sick thing over again! I was kind of hating my life at this moment. I went back to bed but suddenly it felt like every muscle in my body was cramping up, that was the worst muscle pain i have ever felt. At one point I think I was throwing up blood...I could taste it. I was so tired but could not sleep because I still had to get up every 30 minutes to use the bathroom. GRRRR
I didn't email yesterday even though it was P-day, i was still feeling horrible and still had the same worse diarrhea. Tuesday, today I'm in the mission office, just had my interview with president and it went really well. He gave me a blessing and i plan on working till my body physically wont let me. I will be fine... i have medicine and everything necessary so i will do all i can to get better. I just cant eat for the moment everything that i eat comes back up. I am down to 180 lbs if not less. When i put on my pants and belt i had to tighten my belt two holes tighter then normal and my pants don't stay on my hips. So I'm just a little worried about that. But i will be fine.
I love you all,
ELDER BUCK
Hey Family, today is Tuesday!
The mission is so awesome ... really it teaches me so much and helps me prepare for the most important things in life. President just made a new rule. The new rule is we, as missionaries, don't make enough sacrifices, so the sacrifice is, every day we have to wake up at 5 a.m. That is so hard to do. It makes the day so much longer¨. Other then that I haven't been able to work as effectively cause I'm so freaking tired. But today was P-day so I woke up at 7 am this morning ha-ha.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to study Spanish after the mission. I'm going to be a master! My new companion is defiantly the best companion I have had. He does remind me a lot of Tanner though (he likes being the center of attention) ha-ha. So sometimes he will do what my favorite brother did, make me look like an idiot and bring up things that happened last week in front of people. But other then that I LOVE THIS KID.
Two weeks ago we had 4 baptisms planned but only did three because one fell through. The baptism was awesome and it has a crazy story.
Okay so we baptized 3 people:
Alex 15 years old
Flavia 16 years old
Marieth 13 years old
They were all ready for baptisms, but a little nervous. First off their mom has been in active for 8 years and is not at all interested. But that's before Elder Buck worked his magic. ha-ha. No i pretty much talked to her to get to know her, revive her interested in the gospel and she gave us permission to baptize her kids. The mom her name is Dorca she is actually really cool. She was baptized with her husband and other son but now is divorced, but we have no record of her being a member so I'm going to try and baptize her too.
Two Saturday's ago, we had their baptism planned at 6 pm in the afternoon. We get to the church at 5:30 pm to fill up the font AND THERE WAS NO WATER!!! Our only option is to go to another chapel to do the baptisms. SO we get to their house to tell them that we are going to have to do the baptisms in another church house and they did not like that idea and wanted to know of other options. I was like "okay, well we can do it Sunday morning early before church starts" and i told them what they need to bring and that we will be at their house at 6:30am on Sunday morning take them to the church for baptisms at 7am.
Sunday we stopped by a little bit earlier than 6:30am just in case they weren't ready and just as i thought they weren't. Alex was outside washing his school clothes and and was just wearing sandals and shorts. No one else was ready, so i told Alex to go get ready and that i would finish washing his clothes. So while i was washing Alex´s clothes his mom comes out and she was all dressed up ready to go, so was his other sister (Marieth) who wasn't to positive for her baptism. I'm talking to them, while washing the clothes, trying to encourage Marieth for her baptism. Then i finish and we all walked back into the house together to wait for the others to get ready. Then Alex (almost ready) grabs something out of the fridge and the whole rack broke. It was holding coca cola, huge glass bottles. Hermana sells them for her work, so she was mad, then she tells Marieth "come with me we are going to your grandmas house" or in other words "I'm too mad to let you get baptized today."
The poor kid Alex was shocked, he was super excited and ready to be baptized. While we were helping him clean up the spilt coca cola and broken glass bottles. I asked, "hey where is Flavia?" He said she is in her room, she doesn't want to go". It is a two room house, just separated by a wall, so i call her from where i was standing and she didn't answer, I call again and she said "what??" I asked "Are you ready for your baptism" and she said "No I'm busy". I asked, "Can you come out just for a few minutes so we can talk to you". She explained that when we came early she was not ready and hurried to jump in the shower and she was scared. We told her not to worry we can wait for everyone to get ready and we will be right back. I asked Alex were his grandma lived because we were going to go find his mom and Marieth. He was a little unsure....but i said a prayer in my heart and told myself that all three will be baptized today.
The grandma lived quite a way off and by the time we found her house, the mom and Marieth had already left. While we were walking back to Alex and Flavia I was thinking we are going to have to buy phone minutes so we can call the mom and find out what is going on. (Break the Sabbath, I already washed clothes now I have to buy mobile phone minutes) I got hold of the Marieth by mobile phone and she said they would be going back to their home soon, so we went to the house and waited. After a few minutes the mom and Marieth came home. I WAS SO HAPPY!!!! We got them all to the church and baptized at 8:45am, 15 minutes before sacrament meeting ended.! It was sure crazy but it did happen.
This week has been another awesome week here in Reparto Shick!!! Teaching has been going good, we just baptized another man this Saturday. Well, more like completed a family baptism. Luz and her son Andy where the ones that were already baptized, but we were able to get Roberto (dad) and Luz married and then get Roberto baptized after the wedding ...they where happy.
Our companionship is still good...this is probably the best companionship that i have had here in the mission field. We get along so well!! He can be a little prideful but i love that kid! It is actually really cool living in the same house together as one district (4 missionaries). "We are the DRAGONS!!" That is the name of our district. We are having the most success in all our zone. We have been doing awesome and we get along really well. Who woulda thunk it! Being in the most dangerous neighborhood is pretty cool, still nothing bad has happened to our companionship and i am always alert and watching my surroundings.
And as far as my health.....i got food poisoning again. It has been really bad. On Sunday, after church we went to eat at our assigned place and it was fine, but she gave us a lot of food. Then we had a investigator to go visit afterwards who also gave us a lot of food. She gave me some meat that I could hardly swallow and i didn't know what it was but it was all the food they had so I had to eat it so I would not offend them. Later i found out it was cow liver. I started to feel sick but we still had more visits to do.
We stopped back by our recent converts Alex, Marieth, and Flavia. During the lesson i was not feeling good then i was like "i got to throw up!" but then i didn't want to do it in at their house but there was nowhere else to go! It was THE NASIEST!!! I hate life after throwing up. I went back and we tried to finish teaching but i told my companion " we gotta go!" We booked it back to our house and my stomach was feeling horrible by this point! I stumbled into the bathroom barely making it and had the worst diarrhea of my life. I'm sorry for being so descriptive but it was almost like i was peeing out of my butt and to make it worse I started to throw up too! I was in the bathroom for 2 hours straight. After going through that i had to take a shower but the water was super cold cuz it was raining that day and that didn't help me feel any better and I started running a fever. I lost all my strength and I felt like i was going to die. Just when I finally get into bed I have to run back to the bathroom and start the whole sick thing over again! I was kind of hating my life at this moment. I went back to bed but suddenly it felt like every muscle in my body was cramping up, that was the worst muscle pain i have ever felt. At one point I think I was throwing up blood...I could taste it. I was so tired but could not sleep because I still had to get up every 30 minutes to use the bathroom. GRRRR
I didn't email yesterday even though it was P-day, i was still feeling horrible and still had the same worse diarrhea. Tuesday, today I'm in the mission office, just had my interview with president and it went really well. He gave me a blessing and i plan on working till my body physically wont let me. I will be fine... i have medicine and everything necessary so i will do all i can to get better. I just cant eat for the moment everything that i eat comes back up. I am down to 180 lbs if not less. When i put on my pants and belt i had to tighten my belt two holes tighter then normal and my pants don't stay on my hips. So I'm just a little worried about that. But i will be fine.
I love you all,
ELDER BUCK
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