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