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