Week 68 - October 26, 2015

 Me, Peterson, and his raincoat walking in the rain!

Hey Fam and Friends!

So this week I don’t have a lot to report because we are having some difficulty finding more people to teach, but the week went by fast and we worked hard. My comp is learning the ropes and he is doing really well. As for this area, it has been tough, but fortunately the members have helped us out a lot here. Yesterday in church we counted 35 people (members) and on the branch/ward list there are a total of 306 … so I think we have a good idea of what our priority is in this area. 

We are planning on dedicating our house today because we finally got EVERYTHING cleaned/washed. It is good to know that I’m breathing in mold particle-free air hahaha! 

But things are going super well here and hope you all have a fantastic week! 

Tchau!
Elder Buck

Week 67 - October 19, 2015

Just a selfie for the world

Our apartment 

My CTR ring suffered an upgrade (thank you bleach)...

One of the neighborhoods that is part of our area

A view of our area

Dear Family & Friends,

So this week was pretty similar to last week. We did a whole lot of contacting and knocking on doors. We did find some new people to start teaching and the work is getting a little better. It has been fun and interesting getting to train and open this area. I’ve sure learned a lot and stretched myself to new lengths.

The members here have helped us out a ton and we are super stoked to be here in this area. Our cell phone is STILL broken so that it making it very difficult to call investigators, members, the President, etc. So that is something that I’ve had to exercise a lot of patience with for sure!

I did make some microwave chocolate cake this week and it turned out SO GOOD! You’d be proud of me mom! I have definitely explored some of my unknown talents these days haha! 

My new comp, Elder Peterson, is doing awesome too. He is practically fluent (considering he took five years of Spanish and has the gift of tongues)!

That is all for now I guess! Tchau!

Elder Buck

Week 66 - October 13, 2015

Hey Everyone!

Monday: I don’t even remember what happened to be quite honest.

Tuesday: So I traveled to Florianópolis to pick up the new Elder that I would be training. It was super weird to pass by all of my old areas again after so long. It was a super cool day. So we got there, we ate lunch, and afterward found out who we would be training. So it looks like I’ll be training Elder Peterson from Boon Iowa! I was actually really hoping to train an American since I’ve only had one for my entire mission. He seems super cool and is ready to do some work.

Picking up the new Elder...

Saying goodbye to Elders Coelho and Elder William

Wednesday: So traveled to our designated area in São Francisco do Sul, where we are opening the area (whitewashing). When we showed up a member picked us up, took us to lunch, and then to our house. When we arrived at our apartment…It was probably the grossest, sickest, most offensive missionary home I’ve probably stepped into. We immediately started the cleaning process from cleaning 50 – 2 liter soda bottles off the ground, rotten fruit on top of the refrigerator, a disgusting toilet, nasty shower, dirty dishes, sweeping no less than 5 times, taking and old boots and socks from the dresser and floors, cleaning spider webs , moping the floors with bleach, cleaning mold off the kitchen walls, cleaning the old food and grease off of everything, etc. That was seriously the most ridiculous living condition for any person. It’s still getting cleaned after 5 days. ANYWAY…we had to find the chapel by ourselves that night as well so it was a super long day. We did some visits with the Elder’s Quorum President and our day ended…

Thursday: So since our phone hasn’t been working to call anyone, we had to find a member that lived by us to help us find our lunch appointment. He took us to the lunch appointment and Elder Peterson got to test and eat cow liver for the first time! Hahaha He says he liked it so I’ll take his work for it. After that we did contacts. We entered one for the whole day.

Friday: So Friday was interesting because we have to travel like an hour to get to our district meetings every week so we had to find the bus station, travel to another city and meet up with the district. The district leader happens to be my old companion Elder Cordeiro, so that’s pretty cool. We returned home, did a bunch of knocking on doors and after we visited a less active family who happened to make us dinner!

Saturday: By this day I had been wanting to hurt somebody because our phone hasn’t been working to call people, but we got to our lunch appointment fine because the member came and gave us a ride again saving us a little stress...haha After that we knocked on doors and then went to the chapel to meet some member who were throwing a ward party. We got to know the branch Branch President a little better (who is awesome I might add) as well as a lot of other people. The Spirit is so much stronger in this branch than the ward that I was previously serving in. It is really awesome here. After that we visited less active members.

Sunday: WAS BUSY…trying to mark appointments, schedule lunches, print off new ward lists, ward council meetings, getting numbers, etc. I have never been so frantic about Sunday meetings in my entire life, but this branch is super awesome and helping us out a lot! We had a lot of success Sunday, knocking doors, and found some cool people to teach. Sunday night I died!

BUT that’s it for this week! Tchau!

Me and Elder Peterson

Week 65 - October 5, 2015

Transfer Week! 

There will not be a large email today as Elder Buck is being transferred to a new area called São Fransisco do Sul. It is a beautiful city just across the water from Joinville. He served in Joinville for almost 6 months and will miss everyone there - but he is excited for a new adventure!

 New tie swag! Thanks to Elder William and his drawing skills!