Note from Sandra:
Elder Buck arrived home last night...Thursday, March 17th. His flight was suppose to arrive at Sky Harbor at 7 pm. Various family members and friends were all driving to the airport to be there when he came off the plane. However, we had just exited the freeway into the airport area when Stu got a phone call on his cell from a number he did not recognize.
Phone conversation:
Hello this is Stu.
Hello this is Elder Buck.
Where are you calling from? (thinking McCoy was using the expensive phones on the plane)
I'm in the airport..where is everyone? (McCoy's flight was 45 minutes EARLY...a first for American Airlines I think!)
We are just pulling into the airport terminal and still need to find a garage to park!
I will go down to the luggage carousel and get my luggage...so I will meet you there.
Tanner and his family got to the luggage area first and met up with McCoy.
Stu, Sandra, Carly and several friends plus the Tryon's arrived a few minutes later and found the lonely Elder.
Carver, Amanda and kids were on the upper level so we had to find them and bring them down to McCoy.
The family went to a nearby In and Out Burger to grab a bite to eat then we took McCoy to meet with President Weathersby and be released as a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We got McCoy home...visited for a while...then got to bed about midnight.
So no big video of him coming out of the terminal area and the family to great him with signs and smiles. Stu did video all of us together when we finally found him. I'll post the video later.
Friday, March 18, 2011
March 7th Letter Home
Hello Family!
Just so you all know I have 10 DAYS LEFT...not 9.
Wow Jake Armstrong is serving a mission… that’s AWESOME!!
I am feeling better, my stomach doesn’t hurt as bad and I don’t have diarrhea much. It’s for sure not our food I watch her cook and we drink nothing but purified water but I will be okay.
I am for sure going to be keeping the habits and all that I need to when I get back. I will for sure be going to institute, school, singles branch (if necessary) and work and all things necessary. That’s so weird that Carly is an adult and will be doing those things too...
I had an awesome week!
Monday after writing you guys not too much of anything exciting happened that day.
Tuesday My companion and I were focused on baptizing a family for this last week so first we visited them to see how they were doing and they were expressing some doubts and difficulties that they were having concerning baptism that Saturday and wanted us to visit them later that night. Then before going to the next visit we contacted these people that were out side and found 5 new investigators, and then we talked with another family that we have that our progressing named Bilma and Francisco to make sure they were going to church this week and they informed me that they were. Then later that night we went back to Familia Padilla the family that is preparing to be baptized that week and we were able convince them enough to have a baptismal interview.
Wednesday We had a really bad day that day we walked and walked and walked SO FAR.....and nothing...nothing....NOTHING!! No news no contacts no NADA!
Thursday we had the baptismal interview with the family Padilla just the husband got interviewed but we found out that he was cheating on his wife and selling drugs to make ends meet..........I did not see that one coming. Later we went to the family that we contacted 2 days before and taught them the gospel and they accepted a baptismal date but it wasn’t too positive they live with a whole bunch of other people who didn’t let us in to their house to teach them.
Later I went and did the interviews for Villa Flor we were there for EVER and I interviewed to people to be baptized last Saturday.
Friday just a bunch of visits to encourage people to go to church... no one accepted to be baptized but we did have 1 more new investigator.
Saturday was the activity for the baptisms but we didn’t have any baptisms.
Sunday we had in church 5 investigators 2 families. The prophet sent out a commandment from a revelation that he received that we should focus more on the institute and seminary age students and get them in these classes. So on Sunday our ward obeyed and we did 80 visits to members of the ward active and less active to invite and encourage.
My companion and I received a special assignment to go visit this woman who is the only member of her family and is inactive. Well my companion and I went and it was super far to walk. But when we got to her house we met her husband but at the time didn’t know that, that was her husband. But as we sat down and visited her to get to know who she is we found out that she used to be a seminary teacher and was a really active member of the church. We found out that she had a husband and when I asked if he was home he was just leaving the house and so I called him and asked him if he would like to join us. He was reluctant and said yes. So as we taught him, he was incredible he only been to church once but he knew everything. He never met with missionaries before but he said he was really interested in the message we taught. As we got to the part of the book of Mormon and we taught him about Moroni´s promise he said he was anxious to know, then as we set the baptismal date I had the strongest impression that for this Saturday he should be baptized with out any hesitation he said "YES!!" I love the GOSPEL AND MISSIONARY WORK!! THIS IS TOTALLY WORTH IT! I can only recall the joy that I felt but I was seriously happy and loved this person. His name is Lenin.
But that’s all I have for time right now.
I love you all and will talk with you next week!
Elder Buck
Just so you all know I have 10 DAYS LEFT...not 9.
Wow Jake Armstrong is serving a mission… that’s AWESOME!!
I am feeling better, my stomach doesn’t hurt as bad and I don’t have diarrhea much. It’s for sure not our food I watch her cook and we drink nothing but purified water but I will be okay.
I am for sure going to be keeping the habits and all that I need to when I get back. I will for sure be going to institute, school, singles branch (if necessary) and work and all things necessary. That’s so weird that Carly is an adult and will be doing those things too...
I had an awesome week!
Monday after writing you guys not too much of anything exciting happened that day.
Tuesday My companion and I were focused on baptizing a family for this last week so first we visited them to see how they were doing and they were expressing some doubts and difficulties that they were having concerning baptism that Saturday and wanted us to visit them later that night. Then before going to the next visit we contacted these people that were out side and found 5 new investigators, and then we talked with another family that we have that our progressing named Bilma and Francisco to make sure they were going to church this week and they informed me that they were. Then later that night we went back to Familia Padilla the family that is preparing to be baptized that week and we were able convince them enough to have a baptismal interview.
Wednesday We had a really bad day that day we walked and walked and walked SO FAR.....and nothing...nothing....NOTHING!! No news no contacts no NADA!
Thursday we had the baptismal interview with the family Padilla just the husband got interviewed but we found out that he was cheating on his wife and selling drugs to make ends meet..........I did not see that one coming. Later we went to the family that we contacted 2 days before and taught them the gospel and they accepted a baptismal date but it wasn’t too positive they live with a whole bunch of other people who didn’t let us in to their house to teach them.
Later I went and did the interviews for Villa Flor we were there for EVER and I interviewed to people to be baptized last Saturday.
Friday just a bunch of visits to encourage people to go to church... no one accepted to be baptized but we did have 1 more new investigator.
Saturday was the activity for the baptisms but we didn’t have any baptisms.
Sunday we had in church 5 investigators 2 families. The prophet sent out a commandment from a revelation that he received that we should focus more on the institute and seminary age students and get them in these classes. So on Sunday our ward obeyed and we did 80 visits to members of the ward active and less active to invite and encourage.
My companion and I received a special assignment to go visit this woman who is the only member of her family and is inactive. Well my companion and I went and it was super far to walk. But when we got to her house we met her husband but at the time didn’t know that, that was her husband. But as we sat down and visited her to get to know who she is we found out that she used to be a seminary teacher and was a really active member of the church. We found out that she had a husband and when I asked if he was home he was just leaving the house and so I called him and asked him if he would like to join us. He was reluctant and said yes. So as we taught him, he was incredible he only been to church once but he knew everything. He never met with missionaries before but he said he was really interested in the message we taught. As we got to the part of the book of Mormon and we taught him about Moroni´s promise he said he was anxious to know, then as we set the baptismal date I had the strongest impression that for this Saturday he should be baptized with out any hesitation he said "YES!!" I love the GOSPEL AND MISSIONARY WORK!! THIS IS TOTALLY WORTH IT! I can only recall the joy that I felt but I was seriously happy and loved this person. His name is Lenin.
But that’s all I have for time right now.
I love you all and will talk with you next week!
Elder Buck
Monday, March 7, 2011
Feb 28th Letter
Hello Family!
Well as far as my health I am doing a little bit better...I have diarrhea here and there. I drank over 25 Gatorade's this past week so I'm doing a lot better as far as keeping hydrated. Im not going to lie though...I AM SO TIRED....my body is dead. I can’t even wake up in the mornings and the moment my head hits the pillow I am out. It’s really really tough to be keeping strong when my body is physically giving up on me.
Thanks for the videos that are really neat seeing snow... I'm actually not to excited to go back to cold weather.
I will work with Dad the best I can so you can be blessed....but I will be back and ready to help the best I can!
ha ha to be honest I'm looking forward to a visit to Doctor Hancock... I WANT TO BE NORMAL AGAIN!?
Ahh..I'm sorry Carly that you didn't get accepted to BYU but wherever you go you will do well THAT'S FOR SURE!
I am so ready to work once I get back that will be the first thing that I need to do! I got to keep all my working habits like the time that I get up, go to bed (actually I would love going to bed a little bit earlier) and most important my personal study and prayer. I need to get registered up to institute and just have a good environment and influence and I know I will be able to stay strong and do what I need to in life, if I keep those same habits. But I'm ready to all that I can to help for so much that you guys have helped me with including my mission.
It scares me to think of where I would be in life if I didn't serve this mission. I figure this I would be a bum, almost literally and definitely wouldn't have a purpose in life. These two years have been so dang hard but I have grown so much spiritually and if it weren’t for these trials there would be no other way possible that I can learn and grown as much as I have here.
This is a response to mom’s letter:
No they don’t have the missionaries see the doctor but I tried. Um you might want to double check the information they gave you I was told I would be leaving on March 17th in the morning. I DONT WANT TO BE RELEASED THAT SAME NIGHT I WANT TO BE A MISSIONARY FOREVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!! Im really not looking forward to being released, its going to be sad missionary work is my life......
Im glad you enjoyed Myriams story this week was pretty good, difficult but good.
Monday We did family home evening with one of our part member families and it was alright.
Tuesday We did District meeting and all that Jazz, then after wards we ate lunch. After lunch were we eat there is only one person who lives there and is not a member. His name is Javier and he is Luz Marina´s brother. He is Evangelico and has always been confused about the fact that we talk so much about Joseph Smith so we had to explain it simply but he understood then we explained the book of Mormon then he understood! Then we left the invitation read, pray and ask God if it is true and he said he will! Then we check up on our family that we were going to be baptized last week but we found a couple problems and moved it back to this Saturday.
Wednesday I went for my poop exam in the morning and I didn’t have any parasites so only God knows what I have. Cuz shortly afterwards I called the mission to tell them that I didn’t have any parasites then she like (the nurse) oh that’s good yeah but the bad news is I STILL HAVE DIARREA! Nothing was done....im on my own to suffer that’s alright I don’t care anymore.
Thursday We went to Fam: Padilla and checked up on them are doing a little bit better with trials and what not. but that’s about it for that day.
Friday we found an incredible lady named Pilar, she is amazing. Okay this is her story:
She is a single mother of 2 children and her oldest daughter left her with her son who is 15 months and she is very very poor. So when we met her she was very positive and she called us over and she first asked us who we were. and she was like "oh I have heard about you from other people but they are very positive about you so I don’t listen to what they say" so I told her who and what we actually are. Then she was like I want to be baptized and we were shocked. Then she was like if I join your church I can’t tell my pastor or he will say bad things and make me feel bad about joining. But sadly this week we couldn’t get her to church she left at 5 in the morning to go work on Sunday she is so poor she wants to get baptized but hasn’t developed faith enough to make sacrifices to receive blessings.
Well that’s all I can type...I am out of time.
I love you all
Elder Buck
Well as far as my health I am doing a little bit better...I have diarrhea here and there. I drank over 25 Gatorade's this past week so I'm doing a lot better as far as keeping hydrated. Im not going to lie though...I AM SO TIRED....my body is dead. I can’t even wake up in the mornings and the moment my head hits the pillow I am out. It’s really really tough to be keeping strong when my body is physically giving up on me.
Thanks for the videos that are really neat seeing snow... I'm actually not to excited to go back to cold weather.
I will work with Dad the best I can so you can be blessed....but I will be back and ready to help the best I can!
ha ha to be honest I'm looking forward to a visit to Doctor Hancock... I WANT TO BE NORMAL AGAIN!?
Ahh..I'm sorry Carly that you didn't get accepted to BYU but wherever you go you will do well THAT'S FOR SURE!
I am so ready to work once I get back that will be the first thing that I need to do! I got to keep all my working habits like the time that I get up, go to bed (actually I would love going to bed a little bit earlier) and most important my personal study and prayer. I need to get registered up to institute and just have a good environment and influence and I know I will be able to stay strong and do what I need to in life, if I keep those same habits. But I'm ready to all that I can to help for so much that you guys have helped me with including my mission.
It scares me to think of where I would be in life if I didn't serve this mission. I figure this I would be a bum, almost literally and definitely wouldn't have a purpose in life. These two years have been so dang hard but I have grown so much spiritually and if it weren’t for these trials there would be no other way possible that I can learn and grown as much as I have here.
This is a response to mom’s letter:
No they don’t have the missionaries see the doctor but I tried. Um you might want to double check the information they gave you I was told I would be leaving on March 17th in the morning. I DONT WANT TO BE RELEASED THAT SAME NIGHT I WANT TO BE A MISSIONARY FOREVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!! Im really not looking forward to being released, its going to be sad missionary work is my life......
Im glad you enjoyed Myriams story this week was pretty good, difficult but good.
Monday We did family home evening with one of our part member families and it was alright.
Tuesday We did District meeting and all that Jazz, then after wards we ate lunch. After lunch were we eat there is only one person who lives there and is not a member. His name is Javier and he is Luz Marina´s brother. He is Evangelico and has always been confused about the fact that we talk so much about Joseph Smith so we had to explain it simply but he understood then we explained the book of Mormon then he understood! Then we left the invitation read, pray and ask God if it is true and he said he will! Then we check up on our family that we were going to be baptized last week but we found a couple problems and moved it back to this Saturday.
Wednesday I went for my poop exam in the morning and I didn’t have any parasites so only God knows what I have. Cuz shortly afterwards I called the mission to tell them that I didn’t have any parasites then she like (the nurse) oh that’s good yeah but the bad news is I STILL HAVE DIARREA! Nothing was done....im on my own to suffer that’s alright I don’t care anymore.
Thursday We went to Fam: Padilla and checked up on them are doing a little bit better with trials and what not. but that’s about it for that day.
Friday we found an incredible lady named Pilar, she is amazing. Okay this is her story:
She is a single mother of 2 children and her oldest daughter left her with her son who is 15 months and she is very very poor. So when we met her she was very positive and she called us over and she first asked us who we were. and she was like "oh I have heard about you from other people but they are very positive about you so I don’t listen to what they say" so I told her who and what we actually are. Then she was like I want to be baptized and we were shocked. Then she was like if I join your church I can’t tell my pastor or he will say bad things and make me feel bad about joining. But sadly this week we couldn’t get her to church she left at 5 in the morning to go work on Sunday she is so poor she wants to get baptized but hasn’t developed faith enough to make sacrifices to receive blessings.
Well that’s all I can type...I am out of time.
I love you all
Elder Buck
Monday, Feb 21st Letter
Hello Family!
Things this week have gone pretty well. I still have not been to a Doctor or to the hospital but I am still sick im going on my 4th week of having diarrhea WOO-HOO!!
My companion says he is feeling a lot better but sometimes he will say that his stomach hurts, but we’re hanging in there...
It is very hard to get things done when I feel weak and not well for sure, I HATE IT!!! I want to be normal....
Yes my companion is from Tonga, HE IS SO COOL! He speaks English well because he was raised in Tonga but lived in the states. He is doing good with Spanish he write Spanish it’s just the speaking part he struggles on, but he is doing awesome. He says he likes Nicaragua. Well in his family he is an only child but his whole family are members. Its awesome he always tells me about the Tongan culture (usually cause im always asking) and what they do and Tonga it’s really cool. They are really close people especially like family relationships.
Ha-ha so Rulon´s is getting chubby huh that’s alright he’s a baby that’s good to hear that they are doing well though.
Well I have a super cool story to tell you guys about this week.
Well this week we had a baptism and her name is Myriam and we just barely met her last Wednesday. Well anyway the Saturday before last Saturday my ward secretary told us that he was gong to bring a friend to church. And when we met her we set up a visit for Wednesday to teach her.
Well Victor has known her for about 2 years because they have been studying together in medicine. But in her family her parents are divorced and her mom is a pastor of an evangelical church and her dad is a priest of a Catholic church. And she is just confused and doesn’t know what to do or where to go. So when we met up with her she wasn’t very positive but positive enough to meet up with us.
When we came and I asked her "what she wanted to learn from us" she just said "she wanted to know more". so then I was like "okay well what do you know??" so then she told us all that she knew. Ya she knew everything! So then I asked her "have you prayed and asked what you knew about the church if it is true". and she said "no". and I asked "why?" and she said "she didn’t have courage". so I asked her "what does she need to have courage?" and she said "she didn’t know". so I read in the scripture guide what courage is and it says "courage is not fear, not fearing to do what is correct." so I asked her do you know what "faith" is?? and she didn’t really know so we read Alma 32 and at the end she was like "wow" and so at this point I knew she felt the spirit so I was like "will you pray to know if this is true" and she said "yes" and I was like "Myriam will follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who has the authority of God this Saturday" and she was like "yes" and I was like "wow".....its incredible how the spirit works.
Well that is about it, this computer I am using is horrible so that’s all im able to write today.
I love you All
Elder Buck
Things this week have gone pretty well. I still have not been to a Doctor or to the hospital but I am still sick im going on my 4th week of having diarrhea WOO-HOO!!
My companion says he is feeling a lot better but sometimes he will say that his stomach hurts, but we’re hanging in there...
It is very hard to get things done when I feel weak and not well for sure, I HATE IT!!! I want to be normal....
Yes my companion is from Tonga, HE IS SO COOL! He speaks English well because he was raised in Tonga but lived in the states. He is doing good with Spanish he write Spanish it’s just the speaking part he struggles on, but he is doing awesome. He says he likes Nicaragua. Well in his family he is an only child but his whole family are members. Its awesome he always tells me about the Tongan culture (usually cause im always asking) and what they do and Tonga it’s really cool. They are really close people especially like family relationships.
Ha-ha so Rulon´s is getting chubby huh that’s alright he’s a baby that’s good to hear that they are doing well though.
Well I have a super cool story to tell you guys about this week.
Well this week we had a baptism and her name is Myriam and we just barely met her last Wednesday. Well anyway the Saturday before last Saturday my ward secretary told us that he was gong to bring a friend to church. And when we met her we set up a visit for Wednesday to teach her.
Well Victor has known her for about 2 years because they have been studying together in medicine. But in her family her parents are divorced and her mom is a pastor of an evangelical church and her dad is a priest of a Catholic church. And she is just confused and doesn’t know what to do or where to go. So when we met up with her she wasn’t very positive but positive enough to meet up with us.
When we came and I asked her "what she wanted to learn from us" she just said "she wanted to know more". so then I was like "okay well what do you know??" so then she told us all that she knew. Ya she knew everything! So then I asked her "have you prayed and asked what you knew about the church if it is true". and she said "no". and I asked "why?" and she said "she didn’t have courage". so I asked her "what does she need to have courage?" and she said "she didn’t know". so I read in the scripture guide what courage is and it says "courage is not fear, not fearing to do what is correct." so I asked her do you know what "faith" is?? and she didn’t really know so we read Alma 32 and at the end she was like "wow" and so at this point I knew she felt the spirit so I was like "will you pray to know if this is true" and she said "yes" and I was like "Myriam will follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who has the authority of God this Saturday" and she was like "yes" and I was like "wow".....its incredible how the spirit works.
Well that is about it, this computer I am using is horrible so that’s all im able to write today.
I love you All
Elder Buck
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