Quick Update

I have not had good luck with the email down here the past couple of weeks. I start my letter home then the electricity goes out and I lose my letters and my writing time is up for the computers are back up again.

We have been teaching Adela and her two daughters and they all have a date for baptism set, so we are really happy for them and the good changes that have been made in their lives. We are still working with some other couples but most of them have children without marriage so we have to get them to agree to marriage first. That is crazy?!

I am sending pictures of our cookout at the church on our P-day. We had meat, beans, (looks like a fried cowpie) guacamole and pop. Got to love it! I am the only white boy as you can see. We also picked up an old guitar that both Elder Alonso and I both play. I am doing good, have not lost any weight because all my clothes still fit and loving the work.

Happy Birthday Dad, I love you!

I have all three legs of my stool under me! (prayer, scriptures, journal)

Sorry this is so short, but I love all of you!

Elder Buck

Blessings After Trial of Our Faith

Hi Family!

Still no rain in Arizona...that stinks..there is lots of rain here. Wow, school is about to start again and Carly will be a junior! CRAZY! If you could send me a CD of something to listen too, I was trying to upload hymns in spanish and the computer here deleted everything I had loaded on my iPod so I now have nothing approved to listen too.

In your letters, you know how you told me our faith would be tried before we will receive blessings--okay my faith has sure been tried the last month and right now we are definitely receiving those blessing this week, this week has been AWESOME.

Saturday we were looking for the home of an inactive member, we passed by a drunk man sitting on a log and he told us he wanted to hear the word of God, so we stopped to talk with him, but he was too drunk to understand what we were saying to him. We asked him were he lived and he pointed off in a direction so we told him we would stop by his home sometime and visit. We continued down the road looking for the members home and an old man started walking behind us, so my companion started to talk to him, then the drunk starts yelling to us the name of the old man we are talking too. We ask him if he knows the drunk man and he tells us his name and shows us were he lives and then leaves us.

We are standing in front of the drunk mans house and yell out "Buenas!" at the gate, and a girl about 16 years old comes out of the house to talk to us. I noticed a woman poking her head through the door opening so I yelled "Hola" and she waved back and came out by the girl. We told her who we were and she invited us in to talk to them. Her name is Adela and had not been to church since she was 15 years old and was probably close to 40 now. (Adela is the wife of the drunk man on the log)

We started to teach her and I was talking about faith in Jesus Christ and she stops us to tell us that 15 days ago she had been praying cuzs she is have a really hard time and needed help. I told her that is why my companion and I were there. We finished teaching her the lesson and invited her to church the next day, but she said she couldn't attend, BUT the next morning she was at church with her two girls. After church she asked if she could talk to Elder Alonso and I in private. We went into a room at the church and she starts to cry and told us her family is having many problems with her husband and they haven't eaten for awhile and she can hardly support her kids. She also told us, that if we had arrived at her house the day before, one hour later, she would have committed suicide....WOW...We then gave her a blessing of comfort. We talked with her daughters, they loved church and wanted to come back next week with Adela. It's pretty crazy to think if we had not gone to her house, she may have committed suicide.

We are also teaching a couple, Jose and Anna, they are 18 and 24 years old, and a cool guy named Jyro. He went to sacrament meeting with us and wants the lessons so hopefully he will accept repentance unto baptism.

Once again, thank you to all of you for everything and love you all! I wish I had more than 1 hour for emailing on the computer because they are slow as heck. Sorry I can't reply to everyone and everything but I'm going to try and send more pictures.

Love, Elder Buck
!

Setting and Reaching Goals

Hello Everyone!

Yes, it has been another long-hard week. Our goal was to meet all the recent converts and visit with them to see how their doing, keep them encouraged and keep them coming to church. Sadly, almost all of them are inactive now and going to other churches already. The fellowshipping of the converts is really most important. That is the thing I don't get all the active members of the wards are all converts so they know how it feels to be a new member. We have a lot of work to do!

We taught 30 lessons this week but no investigators will take the challenge to be baptized :/ They are stubborn in their currents religion and beliefs.

This week is the 30th Anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution and the Sandinista National Liberation Front so it has been pretty crazy with riots, screaming-drunk people in the streets, so that has been fun. On Sunday, we were in a part of the city that is more dangerous, because the men carry machetes and are usually drunk. We had a drunk man stop us to talk, in the mean time another drunk man came up behind me and put his hand in my pants back pocket, hoping to rob me. All I had in the pocket was a handkerchief, so when he realizes I have no wallet he tries to run away but I tripped him and he stumbled. Next thing we see is the drunk we were talking too starts beating up the drunk who fell down, so we just kind of walked away...:P

It has rained almost everyday this week so it is muggy and muddy. But I am trying to do what Jeffery R. Holland said in his talk to us at the MTC...support the good times and the bad times and just laugh about it. :)

I thank all of you for love and support to me. Thank you Dad for you letter, it has helped me out a ton!

I love you all!

Elder Buck

A Much Better Week!

Elder Alonso from Guatemala
They grow big caterpillars here!
The lush green countryside.
Pineapple field - they do not grow on trees! LOL
Julio, church member

Hola mi Familia!

Thank you so much for all of your love and support and your letters!

Carly, I first want to start with answering your letter. That is an awesome dream you had and that is an awesome way to think of the Savior. Carly you’re going to do awesome, your spirit is so strong, and you’re a hard worker in school. You keep it up. I love you. You keep doing everything your doing, listen to Mom and Dad they know what’s best for us. If anything I have learned, in these 5 months I have been out, is how kind, loving and supportive our parents are.

Thank you again for all your love and advice! This week has been a lot better, still having a real hard time with our investigators but I love being here. I have been in Nicaragua for 3 months and I can pretty much understand what everyone is saying and they can understand what I’m saying (finally!!) ha-ha

Oh it was so cool yesterday, we were over at the house of Familia Moya. They have a huge family but the mom she goes to church every Sunday and knows a lot but doesn’t want to be baptized. :/ She has 3 children who are baptized Geovany, Scarlet, and Henry. They are awesome, Scarlet is inactive right now but I found away to get her interested again in the church. Okay, so you know how I love spelling bee stuff. Ha-ha, it’s even funnier in Spanish. Since I know the Spanish alphabet I can spell the words, so yesterday we were over at their house only visiting. It was the Mom, Geovany and Scarlet, my companion and I. Before when we visited, I never really talked so they were kind of surprised when I started talking in Spanish. I was asking them questions of what they like to do to find out what we could do for family home evening next week. The mom was kind of interested in family home evening - not really, and Scarlet didn’t even want to do it. When I asked her what she likes to do she said "deletrear" which means to-spell and I was like "Oh cool, spell the word "dispensacion" which is dispensation. She spelled the word quickly and so I gave her a harder one. Then I told her I like to spell words too, so she gave me a word to spell and I did it quickly so they were really surprised. Ha-ha

Then we were having this completion with a list of words to spell and I got all of them right. I suggested "Hey, we should do a game next week for Noche de Hograr (family home evening)” and she was excited for that. I thought that was awesome, because during the spelling bee her whole family gathered around us to listen and watch us. They all want to participate next Monday night which is awesome cuz they didn’t want to participate before! I’m excited for next week!

Yesterday, Monday, was amazing we went to this awesome area outside of Managua. In a place called Jinotepe which is Beautiful. It’s so green and its how I imagined Nicaragua, I have included the pictures. We had a guide his name was Julio he’s really cool and a member of the church. That was awesome, we climbed this gigantic mountain, ate wild pineapple from the bush (ha-ha I thought pineapple grew on palm trees :P and watched the wild monkeys in the trees. It was amazing and the weather is perfect!

After the hike I got a haircut from a lady who is a member and she hacked the crap out of my hair ha-ha so I need to get it fixed. But that’s all the time I have, thank you again for everything, I love you all!

Elder Buck
p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENDAL!

The Reality is Sinking In...

Wow! I have been in the mission field for 5 months now. Crazy how fast time goes by. Yeah, I have to admitt I was a little discouraged in my last letter and this week didn't exactly go the way I throught it would either. I am struggling right now, I really try not to get discouraged so I don't feel worthless or I'm not doing enough. I guess it is Satan working on me with negative thoughts. Grrr...I'm mad at myself right now, I want to improve and I pray for help and forgiveness for shortcomings but I still feel like I'm a failure. I'm lost right now. I do get along well with my companion,he is awesome, he is always smiling and positive, I guess I should learn some things from him.

I am really feeling the physical challenges of walking 10-15 miles each day in the heat and humidity, I am pretty exhausted by the afternoon and my legs are weak which makes it hard to walk.

The familia Correa will not be getting baptized at this time. We have worked hard with them this week but they have some habits to stop and committments to make before they are ready. We have made other contacts this week but nobody is progressing at the moment.

Every week we have investigators who say they will go to church with us on Sunday so every Sunday we wake up and, eat breakfast, and go to all of our investigators houses to take them to church with us. But by Sunday morning they all have an excuse why they cannot go with us that day.

Monson is almost ready to leave for the MTC, I wish I could write to him so please tell him congratulations for me! Happy Birthday Kendal, and Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad.

I love all of you ... always!

Elder Buck

p.s. Note from Sandra: If anyone reading this post has had discouragement while serving a mission or other church calling, your positive feedback, personal experiences about how you endured or overcame your challenges could be emailed to Elder Buck. His email address is in the right hand column.

A So-So Week

Okay before I start writing, YES DAD I DID GET TO SEE THE PICTURES, THANKYOU SO MUCH FOR PUTTING UP THAT WEBSITE FOR ME! ha-ha

Buenos, it has been a pretty good week. My companion is from Guatemala and he is AWESOME, literally it is a blessing to be serving with him. He is the nicest, most caring person I know out here in the field! He is so cool and always positive and hard working! He is my trainer, (he doesn’t know it though) he has been serving for 7months and its his first time being a trainer and District leader since he took the place of Elder Garcia.

Okay, this week has been a tough one. We started working at trying to teach discussions and had a lot of appointments drop out, so we had all this extra time, so we asked if we could go to the Ward Mission Leaders house to meet him and get a list of recent converts. Well, Hermano Monson lives like 2 miles away so that was a pretty long walk and no one has telephones to be able to see if they are home a head of time. Luckily he was home, but didn’t have the list, so that didn’t help to much ha-ha. He told us that every Thursday we have a meeting with the Bishop to discuss how things are going. Well later that night we went to the church for the meeting and waited for an hour but he never showed up.

As far as contacting people daily, sharing a brief part of our message with them and inviting them to church; we average about 25 people each day, but as far as lessons we don’t get a lot of teaching. We find a lot of people who are interested and we teach them 2-3 principles from lesson 1 The Restoration and then make an appointment to come back to teach more but it is usually 5 or 6 day later visit, so that kinda stinks. Some families, we are teaching, are not there when we arrive to teach and everyone lives so far away! So after walking about a mile and a half from one house to another and finding out their not home, or busy, or have some excuse to why we can’t teach them, its pretty discouraging at times.The family, Correa, we do have a baptism for them this week, and other then that I’m doing the best I can!

Yesterday I got really discouraged, when we walked from house to house and nobody could visit, everything was dropping through, it was so hot and humid, I had a head ache from the heat, I was super tired and grumpy! Yeah, I didn´t have a smile yesterday or have a positive attitude and my companion was shocked too. I am working on that and my attitude harder.

Wow Monson leaves soon, HOLY COW that’s awesome! I sure hope Tyler doesn’t feel left out, I miss him and hope he´s doing good.

I don´t think Nicaragua is affected by the economy, there have been riots and protests but that’s about it. Sorry I don´t know much about economy here :/ My health is okay, other than I have been having headaches from being in the sun all day, and it doesn´t seem like I have enough energy, but if anything happens I’m well taken care of here, no worries! The weather here is always the same, its rainy and kinda of cold, or humid and really hot!

Yeah as far as the Spanish language there are days, like in the early morning, when my companion is speaking to me and my brain can´t seem to figure what the heck he´s saying to me! ha-ha But when I’m fully awake and my brain is working I can pretty much understand him. As far as talking about church or the Gospel I can pretty much understand everything other then a few words not in my vocabulary yet.

Thank you so much Mom and Dad for everything! Mom for all your love and support and Dad for all your love and advice! Carly for your goofy little letters! Yeah I definitely need to work on the three pillars a lot more, Dad. Prayer, reading & study, plus writing in my journal.

Love you all!
Elder Buck

New Companion and Work Is Good

Hey Family!!

Glad to hear everyone had a good time in Utah. Well, it has been another week in good-old-stinky-hot-Nicaragua! Everything is awesome though and I’m loving it! Okay about all the health stuff, my health is good, sometimes I will get really bad headaches but I think its because I’m in the sun for most of the day, but other then that everything is good. I don’t know how much I weigh but we get fed a ton of food by Hermana Gladis.

Spanish is coming faster then it was before, we have been having a lot of meetings real early in the morning so I haven’t been able to do personal study or language study at our regular time so my Spanish right now is "okay". My goal each day is to memorize thirty words and so far I have been accomplishing this goal so my vocabulary is pretty big.

They had emergency changes to make with companionships, so I am no longer with Elder Garcia who was awesome. We had our differences and I have had to develop patience and self control cuz one time I wanted to punch him in the face! BUT I didn’t....I just walked away into the other room and prayed for help and not to have contention in our companionship. But I will miss Elder Garcia when we were getting along and we were doing an awesome job.

My new companion is Elder Alonso, he is from Guatemala and is really cool! He is quiet, really smart and hard worker, so I’m thinking this is one of those really good companionships. I’m expecting a lot out of us this change. We’re going to do AWESOME! I can tell. Ha-ha He is only 5’3” in height so we look like David and Goliath. We think a lot alike as far as goals we want to accomplish and set, and he helps me a ton understanding things in Spanish. We have only been companions for a day too! Ha-ha.

Right now we have 5 families and baptismal dates for those families set on the 11 of July so I’m really excited. These families are awesome and really interested in the gospel, they all worked last Sunday so they couldn’t go to church but as far as I know they are able to go this Sunday. One Family (its pretty sad) their 3 month old daughter passed away like a month ago and they have this book of her death, with pictures of her dead (which isn’t good, its better to remember them and see them when they were alive) so we taught them the Plan of Salvation. Everyone in the family was crying by the end of the lesson and thanked us, so after that I felt awesome.

I DID RECIEVE THE PACKAGE! I got it last night, so it took about 2-3 weeks to get to me. Thank you for everything, I pray for you all everyday, hope all is well, money is flowing and everyone is happy!

Love,
Elder Buck