Monday, February 15th This is my HUMP week!

Hey Family!


Ha-ha really I forgot that it was Valentine’s Day! (I never celebrated it much before anyway ha-ha) BUT I LOVE YOU ALL!!! This is my hump week…meaning I have been on my mission for one year now!

This week was one heck of a roller coaster. Monday and Tuesday, I was on divisions working in other areas with other Elders and we got a lot done in their areas, but in our area were my companion was, we hardly got anything done, so when I got back Tuesday night in my area (the night before changes) I tried going out and teaching as many people as I could, but we didn’t have much success. My companion wanted to go to a missionary’s farewell that’s in our ward and I told him “no” not till after we are done working.

He didn’t work because he wanted to be at the party more. At 9:35 that night we stopped working and went to report our numbers. When we got there the zone leaders told my companion that he has changes and needs to be ready to leave at 8 in the morning the next day. (He looked like he was going to cry) After they told us my companion he had to say goodbye to everyone, so we were out till 10:15 at night which is a BIG NO NO.

We finally we got back in the house and he was complaining while he was packing, so I couldn’t sleep. Then I sat down and I talked serious with him. I told him that he needs to do a better job then what he’s doing, that he needs to try harder and stop being so lazy and whiney. Then I told him that I love him and say what I say to help him. For once he understood and didn’t complain about what I said. Then I told him from all of my companions I learned at least one Christ like attribute from all of them but I told him I didn’t learn anything from him and that I don’t want that to happen anymore, because he can be an example. Then he told me “Thanks, actually you were a great example and then he told me the Christ-like attribute that I have is “Charity”. I was taken back a little bit, but I hope the best for him.

So now my new companion is (drum roll……………….) ELDER GOMEZ and he has 4 and a half months in the mission. He is from El Salvador, quiet kid but awesome companion. We haven’t had any problems and he just a good missionary that’s learning how to serve. I hope I am a good companion too, like the story that dad told me. When he practically found a perfect match and they set records in Scotland. I hope the same too for this companionship.

Yeah this week was so hard we had one baptism planned, Martha. So here is her story….
Martha is a mom of 4, and she had a husband, but the men here in Nicaragua are messed up. When the wife gets sick or too old and ugly then they kick them out of the house and marry another lady. That happened with her, she has those spider vein things on her legs and it ruptured…..gross….they didn’t have a way to fix it at the moment so he just kicked her out. Now she lives in this one room house that’s probably the size of the shed in front of your house and for work she irons and washes clothes. She stands up all day on this bad leg. Well I gave her a blessing and she said it got a little bit better, but also we had her planned for her baptism this Saturday. Because I had been on divisions earlier that week I didn’t know how she was doing so when I got back to my area and asked my companion how she was doing, if he passed by her house, he didn’t want to talk to me.

I was like “okay”….and that was the same day he had changes so he transferred from the area without telling me anything about her. My new companion (who also has an ingrown toe nail and can hardly walk for the moment) went with me to her house but she wasn’t home and she lives far away (she almost lives on the boundary of our area). She lives like 3 miles outside of where we normally work. We went to her house 6 times and finally we found her at 7 pm just getting back from a members house. She was mad and so when I asked her what happened she told me she had been waiting for us 3 hours at a member’s house. I asked, Did my companion make an appointment with you?? And she said “yes on Tuesday afternoon” I was like “oh my gosh”, cuz my companion didn’t tell me anything or about the appointment. She had to walk a great distance to the member house to wait for us to come! I apologized and we then talked about her baptism and she told me that it was tomorrow but that she doesn’t want to get baptized. I said “Okay its fine, just rest tomorrow and we will pass by in the afternoon.”

The next day we passed by and we talked with her again and she agreed to be baptized. She then talked to my zone leader and he told her that we would do the baptism Sunday morning before church starts. So Sunday morning I woke up at 5 am and got everything ready, went with a member in a car to picked her up and she got baptized right before sacrament meeting started. She then thanked me a ton and said, “At first she didn’t feel ready but that I helped her to feel ready. “

Well other then that I am having my normal struggles. I don’t know why but right now I have the hardest time wanting to obey my district and zone leaders. I have that “you can’t tell me what to do attitude” but at the same time I feel like I don’t want to listen to them. They tell us not to do something then they turn around and do it. What the heck kind of leader is that??

Now we have a new rule that when we are late to a meeting we have to pay one dollar. And when we talk English we have to pay $20 and they say I owe $80 right now. I don’t care….ha-ha, I know it’s bad but that’s my attitude right now because sometimes they are late and talk in English too… I don’t have any respect for them ; o

But I love you all,

Elder Buck