Week 32 - February 16, 2015

Just walking...

I am doing well! We had a really good week and we are teaching a bunch! My companion reminds me a LOT of my first companion Elder Magalhães. But this time around has been a little easier because I feel like I actually know what I’m doing! I don’t need someone to show me how to be obedient or hard working when I have JESUS! There is a lot you can learn from every companion you have and with this companion the Lord has given me, I am learning patience and how to understand better what people are saying.

Cool thing: Got Boxes! With peanut butter!

Funny thing: Totally lead the music in church yesterday! 

Weekly difficulty: We had 10 elders in our house last night because of the ridiculous carnival day in Navegantes.

Spiritual Experience: We taught the Plan of Salvation for a lady and in the middle of the lesson she broke down in tears because she didn’t know where her two brothers are now who passed away 3 months ago. It was super cool to see the hope that the knowledge of this amazing gospel brings into the lives of people.

Scripture: Alma 48. Captain Moroni is so cool!

That’ s pretty much it. Love you guys!

Elder Buck

Week 31 - February 9, 2015

Welp there goes another week! And so you know, it was not too incredibly exciting but I’ll try to fill y’all in!

Cool thing: Well I totally gave my first 10-minute talk during sacrament meeting yesterday and wow wasn’t that stressful! Bahahaha It went better than I thought considering I prepared it all the day before and I don’t speak Portuguese very well. The Lord definitely guided me!

Funny thing: Played basketball today and Brazilians are miserable hahaha

Interesting Character: CECILIA. So we were at the home of an older lady who goes to church every week and is super nice. We left a message with her and after we asked if she knew anyone that would like to hear a message. She said she is always sharing stuff with all of her friends, but at the moment not really. During one of our zone conferences when Elder Claudio Costa spoke to us he instructed us to get references from the members. And when they say they don’t have anyone to give to us, then we should ask if they have an enemy that needs to hear a message from the missionaries. We did just that with this little old lady and she gave us a reference of Cecilia who lived across the street from her. But before going across the street to talk with her, this little lady told us that Cecilia was the most awful woman that she has ever met and she is just angry all the time. So we walked across the street to her house she was already out side and we greeted her and before we could even say that we were missionaries, she just said, "What do you want?" And we said we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and she responded by saying, "leave I don’t want to hear anything you have to say!" We kind of persisted and said, "We have a message that is super special for you, it’s about Christ and how we can be happy for all eternity!" She proceeded by saying," I’m already Catholic and I know that there is only one God not the fifty that you people preach!" Elder Cordeiro proceeded by saying," So if your Catholic, you believe in commandments and one of the greatest commandments is to love thy neighbor as thyself" then she continued by saying, "I don’t want to hear anything you have to say!" And then it was probably pretty bad what I said, "Look, I didn’t leave my house, my family, friends, school, and everything for nothing. We are hear to talk to you about how we can find our salvation and you don’t even have the time to listen for two minutes at what we have to say. How rude." Then she said leave so we did. That was a good one...but we figured we had pretty much taught a lesson right there. We had taught a little about commandments, sacrifice, salvation, love, and charity! Hahaha The only thing missing was a prayer! :)

Weekly Difficulty: I was walking on the street and this guy on his bike rode past and called me a prostitute and called my tie ugly :( Yeah…wasn’t exactly the biggest self-esteem booster....

Spiritual Experience: Yesterday me and Elder Coelho felt like we should knock doors on a specific street and found 4 new investigators in about 30 minutes so that was super powerful!

Scripture of the Week: Alma 26 Who wouldn’t want this kind of happiness!?

Love you all, hope your week was as interesting as mine! HAHA

Elder Buck

Can you identify the two Americans??

Cookin' like a boss...

What happens to your chair when you let another elder sit in it 

when you're not home...

Week 30 - February 2, 2015

The best mission in the entire world!

Hey Everyone! 

I am doing really really good over here! I’m really beginning to love the mission a lot. It definitely is NOT EASY BY ANY MEANS but it’s definitely where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. I am happy right now. Happy to be here, happy that I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing, happy my family is all good, happy to know what I know, just super happy! I am doing very well. Please continue to feed the missionaries and help them as much as you can! It's cool to find a family you can hang with and it almost feels like you’re at home again. I love those families.

Cool thing: Transfers. I have a new comp! It’s ELDER CORDEIRO (kor-daye-roo). He’s Brazilian and from São Paulo! He seems pretty cool, he has about 8-9 months in the mission, and so he’s pretty new like me! (Which makes me feel not so bad hahaha.) I am super stoked for that! And Elder Burton got transferred to Navigantes (nahv-ee-guhn-cheese), which is literally 30 minutes away from this area.... So I’ll be seeing him again soon!

Me and the little guy...

(Not So) Funny Thing: Well I’ve eaten some pretty weird crap thus far in my mission and it all seems to be from this month (not all but most of it hahaha) well here is the list:

-Cow Stomach (this was actually really gross and we had it this week. Just look it up on the internet.)
-Octopus
-Cow Liver
-Chicken Hearts
-Squid
-and flippin' Marlin (it was delicious)

Interesting character: …yeah I don’t have time to write this one…

Weekly Difficulty: One of our investigators was arrested this week...She was caught in the act of deadly assault with a weapon...YEESH.

Spiritual Experience: Me and Elder fasted for Esters mom to let her be baptized this week and we showed up for church and she came up to us and said she was ready to get baptized :) The power of fasting is absolutely incredible. We are going by her house today to have her mom sign the baptism papers! It looks like the date will be on the 21 of this month :)

Scripture: I studied Isaiah 29 this week and that was cool.

Love Y’ALL!
Elder Buck

The biggest bag of Ruffles in the entire world!

Week 29 - January 26, 2015

Oi!!

It was a fantastic and busy week so I will try to sum it up the best I can with the time I have!

Cool Thing: So the other Elders we are living with had a Baptism this week which was super cool! They baptized a 14-year-old kid named Artur. It is so awesome to see these young guys accepting the gospel!

Interesting Character: GRACIELA. So we were walking down the street this week and a lady walking behind us called for us and we talked with her. We found out she is like 50 from Uruguay, works for a traveling Circus (which just so happens to be in Itajaí), and she’s a member. We totally got her a ride to church this Sunday and everything it was cool. She is too old now but she used to be a trapeze artist...so cool! And her mom used to work with three different elephants. Yeah so that was awesome!

Weekly Difficulty: Something smells like it died in our house.

Spiritual Experience: So a big problem in our ward is how "difficult" it is to go to church on Sundays because the chapel is so far away. There are a lot of people who have just simply stopped going because of it. We have a chapel that has been built a lot closer to where everyone lives and the thing is that everyone will begin going to church again when this other chapel opens up. So what the bishop decided to do (he’s a really cool guy) is to do a ward fast for the chapel to open, or get approved. We fasted on Saturday to Sunday and during church he totally announced that the church will be opening in a few weeks. THE CHURCH IS TRUE Y’ALL! Oh and another experience this week was that our oven has had a lot of problems lighting and stuff lately. Elder Burton made banana bread this week and tried to light the oven and it didn’t work...I then proceeded to say, "Elder, did you even pray?" And at that moment we both said personal prayers asking that the stove work and the first time he tried after the prayer, it lit. I know I got chills too! And as fake as that story sounds, its totally true hahaha! God really does answer prayers!

Well that’s it for this week, love you all!

Elder Buck

Week 28 - January 19, 2015

 The only thing that gets me through this heat...tereré!

morro da cruz, hoje de manhã!

Hello!

Cool Thing: We had Interviews with the president this week and every time I meet with him I always get a very reassuring feeling that he is indeed a man called of God. I love my mission President! He told me some cool stuff.

Interesting Character: Old Lady... Me and Elder were walking down the street and this old lady was sitting out on her balcony and reading her Bible and as we walked by she just said, "Jesus is awesome!" We stopped and she proceeded to tell us a bunch of stuff about Jesus. She was really crazy but she is so right! Jesus IS awesome!

Funny thing: I got nothing for this week!

Spiritual Experience: We gave a ton of priesthood blessings this week and they were super powerful! (Sorry I’m not going into detail I have like two seconds to write this...)

Scripture of the week: 1 Nephi 21: 14-16. We shared this scripture with a lot of people this week and I love it!

Hope y’all have a good week!

Elder Buck

Week 27 - January 12, 2015

 Me and Elder Coelho....

 Light pants in the summer is a NO people...

Oi!

So it was a fantastic week with a ton of cool stuff that happened, I try to explain it the best I can...

Cool things: We have 2 Investigators that are progressing so fast. Rosinha: She is a middle-aged lady with super bad depression and every time we teach her she is laying down on her bed. She had prayed about the Book of Mormon and she knows it is true! We marked a date to get her baptized and she said she would try! She’s really awesome, but the only problem is she never leaves her house much less her room. We gave her a priesthood blessing and met with her again this week and she was up about walking around and it was the first time I had every seen her walking, or sitting up while we taught to her. Wow the church is true! The other is Francinaldo: He is a twenty five year old guy who we have been teaching and he also has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. He knows it is true! And he’s part of the spiritual experience this week:)

Interesting character: JACKSON: We taught this guy and his girlfriend a little about the restoration and how the gospel blesses families. At first he was super skeptical of the LDS religion and began kind of trying to break us apart... we answered all of his questions, started with a prayer, taught about families and stuff and by the end, he was completely different. He is super intelligent and stuff but I think he realized that the internet is not the most reliable source for information, but the spirit is! :) We will be teaching him again this week.

Funny thing: We gave a blessing to a baby this week because she was sick, and during the blessing she grabbed my tie and put it in her mouth. It was really cute!

Weekly difficulty: The drunken people just love the missionaries.... Also, we left the window open for a whole day while it was raining and Elder Burton’s bed got drenched and our room was a mess.

Spiritual Experience: We had a lesson with our investigator on Saturday and he said he would love to go to church with us. We told him what time the bus would come around to pick up all members (the chapel next to where we work still hasn’t opened so we meet at a different chapel far away) and told him that we could stop by his house in the morning and walk with him to the bus stop place. We went to his house in the morning, knocked on his door and nothing.... we waited like five to ten minutes outside his house and knocked again.... nothing. Dang. So we walked to the stop and waited another 10 minutes before the bus came. The bus rolled up and we all got in. As we sat down I look up and Francinaldo is in front of my face and just says," good morning ;)" he sat down and he went to church with us and it was seriously one of the best sacrament meetings I had ever been to. It was awesome. 

Scripture of the week: Isaiah 53: 3-5 ....My favorite "Christ scripture" :) Oh and last week was Luke 2:52…

Welp, that’s pretty much it for this week, Love you all! Tchau!

Elder Buck

Some time of "pie in the face" activity for Zone Conference...

Our Zone...

Week 26 - January 5, 2015

What did I get for New Years? America.

Welp folks, It’s officially been 6 months. That’s weird! But here we go with the week....

Cool thing: New Years Eve! We got to spend time with our bishop and eat a lot of food and stuff it was fantastic. And new years day, we weren’t allowed to go outside so we had our own barbeque and it was awesome. We cook meat so good! Matt would be so proud! (Don’t leave raw meat in the trash can, it stinks really bad after a couple of days...) But on top of that, there were fireworks going off the ENTIRE NIGHT and it was really annoying but cool! I missed home a lot on that day!

Funny thing: Elder Burton and I were on the public bus going to the center for a district meeting and I was sitting down and for some reason he was standing up. He was holding on to one of the railings above his head and he said he kind of zoned out for a little bit, but he totally did a “George of the Jungle” swing on the bus when a sharp turn was made. So if y’all can imagine a little missionary guy a little shorter than me swinging into the bus doors in the moment a sharp turn was made, you would know that it looked really hilarious and really embarrassing. It was a good laugh I had!

Weekly difficulty: Elder Burton and I were teaching a lesson outside this old lady’s house and in the middle of me talking about how Jesus suffered for our sins and through Him we can return back to the presence of our Heavenly Father, Her little Chihuahua decided to pee on my shoe.... and my pants.... and my sock.... I wanted to kick that dog so bad. But regardless of the dog peeing on me the Spirit still testified of the truth! And it rained really hard that night and because we don’t have umbrellas Elder Burton and I got absolutely drenched. We decided to jump in some giant puddles and I jumped in one and totally wrecked my ankle...

Scripture: Luke 2:42... With the whole New Years thing, we should be making our goals, but this scripture is a good guide to know what kind of goals. It’s a good one!

Spiritual Experience: So I forgot to tell about this last week, but I helped with my first confirmation in the mission! Its a weird story but there was a lady who Elder Burton and his other companion baptized, but didn’t get confirmed until 2 weeks after I showed up here so that was cool. Elder Burton did the blessing, but it was in front of a lot of people because 2 wards from this stake had to do sacrament together, but it was super cool experience! We have also had some really great lessons with some very cool people this week so that was awesome as well!

Hope you all have a great week! Tchau

Elder Buck

The BQ we did in our house...

What we use to mop the house...