Week 14 - October 14, 2014

So this week was a little crazy (and slow might I add...) and the work didn’t really accelerate all that much, but things are all good! SO first sorry I didn’t email yesterday, Magalhães and I were in Florianópolis ALL DAY and we didn’t get a chance to email at all. It was a real bummer! So - no I haven’t died mom so you can stop worrying! :) 

So last Monday we were in Floripa again to pick up some stuff at the hospital for Elder Magalhães, and it turns out he has nothing wrong with his kidneys but instead has a problem with his spine. So once a week he will have to do physical therapy for a while. The next day we were in Floripa again because he needed to sign some stuff for the President and I needed to pick up a special something from the post office. Oh you know... just a flippin’ box that was sent for my Birthday! (And by the way I am sorry to those I did not respond to last week concerning my Birthday, I had like two minutes on the computer.... but I certainly felt the love! So thank you!) I had to carry this sucker for like a whole two miles from the post office, to the bus station, from the bus to my house. I swear mom put bricks or something inside... but I got the box on Tuesday and waited to open it until Sunday. This made my week feel like an eternity, but boy was it cool to open it on Sunday! Thank you so much for everything…it was awesome!!

Tuesday night we had ward activity and had planned this activity called "Gato ou Cachorro". haha It was super funny cause Elder Magalhães and elder Albano dressed up like a cat and a dog and the ward mission leader made the comparison between the two animals and the members. Sometimes like a cat we don’t really do anything or are just super lazy and sometimes we are like the dog that is over enthusiastic and sometimes gets preoccupied with other things. The last point was that we really cant make this comparison cause we aren’t cats or dogs, but children of God, and everyone on earth are brothers and sisters and this is what we ought to remember when we do missionary work. It was cool! 

Wednesday I don’t remember other than we now have another new investigator named Giovanni. We have only met with him once but he is 23 and has a true desire to follow the will of God and is really cool. He seems pretty interested and I hope he really starts to progress! 

Thursday we had Zone conference, which was good. We have two new zone leaders who are really awesome (and crazy) and it was good to see all of these different missionaries. 

Friday we came across this crazy drunk lady who wanted money to buy more alcohol and it was really weird but funny encounter. Definitely a story ill remember for a long while... 

Saturday we helped a member move their whole house all day and that was cool. It was really the first time we have done any service in a long while and it felt good. 

Sunday was nuts. It was fast Sunday so sacrament meeting was really awesome. The members here have really really strong testimonies. After we had lunch with the member we had helped move the day before and that was good. I was really surprised that everything was put away and organized before getting there. The people here are notorious for simply not finishing things... but it was good! That night we were invited to the elders quorum presidents house to celebrate my Birthday which was really really awesome they made me a cake and pizza ad sung for me and everything. I definitely felt the love! 

My love for the work grows more and more every day and things are going great. Definitely going through that refiners fire and boy is it hot!

Love you all,
Elder Buck 

Week 13 - October 6, 2014

Did I get  my package?? Why YES I did!!

Mom I’m really sorry but I only have forty-five minutes to write and read all of my messages. Then we have to head to Floripa (Florianópolis) on the bus for about half an hour walk half an hour to the mission home walk back to the bus station and take the bus back home for thirty minutes and try to make it home - all before 7:00!

So my week was really really good, but really really slow. Nothing big happened except for getting the package. Thank you so much! Thanks to that I was also able to make peanut butter milkshakes for everyone, which was cool! We had another lesson with one of our progressing investigators, Zelia, and we asked her to say the prayer again. It was so simple and so sincere and I really think she received her answer. She started to break down in tears and it was so cool. The Spirit is strong in Brasil!

Elder Abano has a new companion who I really like. He’s been in the field one transfer longer than me, he Brazilian and his name is Elder Coelho. Super cool guy!

On Tuesday one of the members from our ward was involved in a terrible motorbike accident and got was hurt very badly. He has seven broken bones and a collapsed lung. He’s doing aright, but it was one week before he was supposed to get married. That was a real bummer.

I was able to watch all of conference in Portuguese and it was really hard to understand, but there were some really great talks and there is always something we can be doing as members to help in this great work. We truly do have a living prophet who leads and guides this church. I love the gospel! 

Love To All!

Elder Buck

Week 12 - September 29, 2014

Primeira Transferência: COMPLETE

Hey!

This week was really really good!

First Biguaçu is really awesome and the members have finally come around to help us out a little bit! It’s really amazing how much the members here do. We finally have some investigators! It feels so good to finally be teaching real lessons more often! But lets start with some other things that happened this week.

Cool things: Zelia & Guilherme both showed up for ward activity night (which we hold every Tuesday night) and it was so so fun. The members truly love being able to get together and play games and meet new people. The second cool thing was that we went to go teach a lesson and these investigators straight up fed us some of the best soup I’ve had since I’ve been here. And we went to visit them again and they fed us AGAIN. And these are investigators, not members I might add. They are so cool, but have been really hard to get a hold of because of how much they work. But that could have made my whole week regardless! Oh and one more cool thing, I didn’t get transferred and neither did my comp, so we have another six weeks in Biguaçu together!

Interesting character: EDSON. Elder Magalhães and I were walking down the street to make contacts with random people and out of nowhere this worker starts talking to us from across the street in ENGLISH. DUDE! So we end up having this long conversation with this guy and turns out that he lived in the United States for 5 years, served in the AIR FORCE, and had to move back cause of his drinking problem. He told us that he is SO desperate to change his life and try to make it back to the states, so we gave him our number, he put it in his weekly planner and we told when and where we hold sacrament meeting. He put the address down and everything and when Sunday came around... he didn’t make it. He had to watch his daughter and couldn’t leave the house. I was such a bummer but he is such a cool guy. I really hope we can do some work with this guy because he is so awesome.

Funny Story: Elder Magalhães bought a flippin’ Taser, and now threatens to use it all the time…but the real story is that one of the days this week he was playing with it and after using it, he touched the end and shocked himself. I died! Hilarious.

Weekly Difficulty(s): Emailing flippin’ pictures is THE WORST! And I didn’t get to send letters out either so that was the bummer of the week.

Spiritual experience: Well, I think the Lord has finally used me for the purpose I’m out here for! We were teaching one of our investigators named Cris and she has been living with her boyfriend for twenty years, has an 18-year-old daughter, and is 41 years old. We taught the law of Chastity and honestly I wasn’t really thinking that the lesson would go all that well because we had only spoken with her once before this visit (and talking about Chastity can get a little weird). But during the lesson Elder Magalhães taught most of it but asked me to read a part of one of the pamphlets we have in Português. Yeah…all right…cool! So I read the pamphlet without a flaw and afterward Cris said, “Wow you read better than you can speak.” I honestly am so bad at reading anything in Português but my mind was clearer than it had ever been before. And Elder Magelhães, after talking a bit about what we have to do to be clean, asked me to talk a little about the importance of all of this. Honestly I can’t really remember all that I said but I do know that I remembered a really random quote from "Our search for Happiness" about chastity, translated it into Português, and did not have any doubt in my mind that what I had just said was perfectly delivered in Português. But for the rest of the day after that I was pulling random words from who knows where and then very next day I was back to speaking the same, really bad Português I was the day before that lesson. It was really weird but so cool.

Missionary work truly is the work of the Lord!

Eu amo vocês!

Elder Buck

Week 11 - September 22, 2014

Sorry this letter is Probably going to be pretty short but hopefully it’ll do the job in comparison to last week haha. The past two weeks have really been a blur and I realized that missionary work is SO hard! Sorry about the missing letter from last week, I really meant to send one! The past two weeks have moved really really fast.

Monday: Elder Magalhães and I went to the hospital to get his kidneys checked out and we go back today to see the results. We met with the doctor and holy cow; this lady was speaking a different language or something because she was talking so fast. The fastest I think I’ve ever heard anyone speak Português. It was NUTS.

Tuesday: Every Tuesday night we have ward activity with the members to play Pingy pongy, games, etc. and we had 2 investigators show up! It was so cool that someone finally stuck with their commitment! One of our investigators is this 14-year-old boy named Guilherme and he is so good at futebol. The people here are nuts about soccer. And on top of that he’s really really good at ping pong. STUD. I’m really hoping he gets baptized because this kid is awesome.

Wednesday: I got three letters from my family and Rachel Riffey! Thank you very much I love you all! #3lettersweg

Thursday: We had a district meeting with our zone leaders and I actually understood stuff! Yay! It feels good when you can actually say something in response to what you heard in a language that’s not your own haha :)

Friday: We visited a less-active member in our ward and he claimed to be studying English for about 14 years by himself and when he attempted to speak in English to me, it sounded like Russian. It is so awkward when you can’t understand your own language...haha especially when he tries telling a joke and you don’t laugh because you don’t understand. And then him telling the same joke in Português and you laugh like you got the joke but you really didn’t because it was in Português...Good times! Haha It was so weird!

Saturday/Sunday: ......

But a cool experience that happened last week that I wanted to write about was about one of our investigators named Zelia. We showed up to her house, sat down, and before we could really say anything she described how she felt every time we stopped by. She is so cool. She said she can’t really explain why, but every time we come by she is always so awake and happy. She says she works a lot and doesn’t sleep very much but every time we stop by she feels a sense of peace and happiness that comes from nowhere. And how she feels when we leave is like something left with us. All we’ve really taught about is the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. She also described the felling of wanting to change when we leave! Hurrah! And on top of that, she has told all of her friends at work about the feeling she gets when we are around because she wants them to feel the same peace she feels. It made my entire week! Her 10-year-old son is also sitting in on all of the discussions and at the end he gave the sweetest prayer and I swear the Spirit was tangible and he started crying after! It was so so so awesome. Experiences like these make the walking all day, getting windows shut in your face all worth it :)

That’s all I got for this week, Thanks for all the prayers and love, amo vocês!

Elder Buck

Week 10 - September 15, 2014

Bailey's computer erased his big email this week. So here are some pictures and a short message he was able to send to his dad.

The work...Frustrating but we have a couple investigators that are really progressing. People think that all of Brasil is a place where you get most contacts and baptisms, but it is really so different where I am right now. Florianópolis is another planet in comparison to the other missions in this country. People like to talk about religion here but nobody progresses. It's tough. Then put on top of that the learning of a new language and that makes the process even harder. We did finally get the gas working in our apartment TODAY! This is super awesome because now we can cook whatever.

Well my computer is being so lame and it erased my whole email :( I'm trying to send pictures and stuff too! I want to cry, and I only have five minutes because my companion has to go to hospital for something. I won't be able to try later because it is like a thirty-minute walk from our house to the computers I'm sorry I have to go. Thank you for your prayers, I can feel them. :) Glad everything is going all right. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!

Love You!

Elder Buck

The book is blue! 

Our Zone 

Chimarrão

Ward Building

 I don't know....

Week 9 - September 8, 2014

OPA!

This week was very cool so I’ll do my best to put in as much detail as possible!

Monday was P-DAY and we really didn’t get anything done that we wanted which was a bummer, but it was awesome to hear from you all once again!

Tuesday was kind of uneventful but I really learned a lot about myself concerning my knowledge of the Restoration and everything that happened before, after, in between, EVERTHING. I also realized that most of my time was spent learning the language in the CTM and I need to learn a little more doctrine! Which is cool and leads me to my next point...

Wednesday I don’t remember…sorry! (I swear this e-mail gets better…)

But THURSDAY! We taught our VERY FIRST INVESTIGATOR: Zelia :) We taught her the restoration and the Plan of Salvation. Elder Magalães taught the whole Restoration part in which I believed I knew pretty well after studying on Wednesday. Then he turns to me after and says, "Alright, teach about God." And boy was my first sentence great! "Nos temos um amoroso Pai Celetial."...You know and at this point I thought to myself," Wow, Bailey, what do you know about God? There’s so much to say, but I don’t know how to say what’s on my mind AND have her understand 100% what I’m saying." At this point I looked to my companion and he got the clue that I had no idea what else to say, so he went ahead and took over. Boy did I feel kind of dumb! It was a good learning experience because I learned how important it is to plan the lessons before hand with your companion. Haha. The missionaries (especially me) are not perfect ☺ 

Friday we had Zone conference in which all of us had to wake up at 5:00 and head for the bus station. (Wow I really dislike buses.) We got to the chapel where every Elder/Sister in our zone congregated for training, instruction, etc. About one week prior to the conference the zone leaders asked if our district (Biguaçu #2) would do a special musical number for 25 other Elders/Sisters. We said yes, of course, and put it off for about, I dunno...A WEEK. The night before we went to our church building in Biguaçu to figure out what song to sing out of the hymn book. We ended up not being able to decide because one of the Elders in our district never wanted to sing the song the other 3 Elders picked. (I’m not going say who either!) We came to the mutual agreement that we (I) would sing "I Know that my Redeemer Lives"...when we showed up to the chapel the morning of the zone conference. YAY. No practice or anything I sang my heart out. Mom you would be so proud and so horrified because it was truly so awful. Maybe when I have time next week I can go into a little more detail but as I finished, I just had to walk back to my seat without making any eye contact and sit down and not say another word for the rest of the conference because it was pretty embarrassing! Good thing we are in Brasil and I don’t know anyone here! Next...

Saturday I felt the Saviors love for me so so much. I was reading the book by Elder Ballard in the missionary library called, "Our Search for Happiness" This book is my favorite. I was in a section of the book where it was talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I came across a part in the book when he said something to the effect of "may we not forget the sweet account of when the Savior visited the Nephites in the Americas (3 Nephi 17)" I went to the scripture and nearly cried like a little baby because Christ loves us so much and when we show our faith for him, he is so happy and so pleased with us. I would encourage all of you to read it and hopefully it will speak to your heart as much as it did to mine. Another quote from the book that I really loved was "You find yourself wanting to do what He would do and respond as He would respond in an effort to bring your life into harmony with His. And an interesting thing happens whenever you attempt to place your feet in Christ´s footsteps. If you really concentrate on trying to walk the way he walked - loving, caring, serving, and obeying each step of the way - one day you´ll look up and discover that His path has led you directly to the throne of God." The book is so good!

Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting. First, I have learned to appreciate the sacrament. It’s awesome. Second, the people here have such strong testimonies of the gospel. I never know 100% of what they are saying (ever), but I can understand the Spirit. The Spirit will always testify of truth. The Book is Blue my friends!

That it really it for this week! 

Eu amo vocês!
Elder Buck

Week 8 - September 1, 2014

Hey There!

Well...this week went by painfully slow! A lot of stuff happened, but this week did not go very fast.

First of all I would like to give my own mother a shout out. I didn't realize how much she (and dad) did for me. I really took both of them for granted. I didn't really realize it until now but...I feel like I am the maid of the apartamento! And it is hard. From laundry, dishes, sweeping, dishes... There is a lot of cleaning to do here! Thank you mom and dad for cleaning up my messes and dealing with me for 18 years. I now feel a little bit of your pain!

So on PDAY last week our district did some jungle exploring! Literally we hiked through a tropical rain forest on Monday. The whole time I felt like I was suffocating, but it was definitely different! Would I want to go again? Probably not. Did I learn something new? Yes! That South America is not a place I would want to live...the spiders are really scary! But I loved reading all of the emails from today and last week, they were so great!

On Wednesday I came to the realization that I am actually making a little more progress in the language. I discussed this matter (the best I could in broken Portuguese) with my companion and he said something that really boosted my self-esteem haha. He said that when I talk in Portuguese, I don't have a North American, American Portuguese accent. AT ALL. He said I have a Pãolista accent. Weird huh?! He said the only real giveaway was that I talk really really slow and mix up my words at times haha. But that’s not the point! I speak with the tongue of a real life Brazilian...figuratively speaking. I’m not sure if my companion is being sympathetic or what, but he sounded pretty serious! I thing at last I'm beginning to see the fruits of my labor! Cool beans.

Next, Thursday we had a district meeting in which two other elders from our same district joined us. After our meeting that morning, we had lunch planned with a member from the ward who was planning on feeding 4 elders, not 6. So my companion and the other senior companion from the other companionship split and bought lunch for themselves while the other 3 elders and I went to the lunch appointment that we had planned. When we finished eating and returned back to our house, we found that my companion and the other companion decided to take naps. Cool, no big deal...it's whatever. They were asleep in my and Elder Magalhães room. Alrighty? Elder Magalhães on his bed, awesome. And Elder Calani on my bed...QUE DROGA. Using my pillow and my blanket. (The Lords pillow and blanket.) I guess what I learned from this experience is that nothing is really ours. Everything belongs to the Lord. Anyway...that night I got Skylar, Nick, and Mom's letter which made me feel better haha. Sky, I am super sad that Robin Williams is dead.

Nothing really happened for the rest of the week, but this one story, which I thought, was pretty cool. When Elder Magalhães and I were knocking doors earlier this week, we came up to this one house and my companion turns to me and says, "Sua vez" (your turn). He clapped his hands and a man pokes his head out a window and I proceed to say, "Boa tarde, tudo bem Senhor? Somos missionários da igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Satos dos Ultimos Dias!" He came out of his house and asked what the deal was and I proceeded to tell him just a little about why we were at his house and stuff, then Elder Magalhães took over when I didn't know what else to say. At the end of our little conversation we asked the man if we could come back to teach him a little more about our church. He said, "Look I´m Catholic, but because of your sincere effort to try to talk in Portuguese, you two can come back on Tuesday of next week." Sick. The Holy Ghost is a real thing! Kinda funny, but whatever gets us into their house I guess...

That is it for this week; I love every single one of you and have y'all in my prayers! Eu amo vocês!

Elder Buck

It was a good day!

My Companion - Elder Magelhães

My favorite guy

Our jungle hike