Thursday, September 25, 2014

Another week down!

Hello People with safe food! How are ya? Good I hope.
Anyways, this week was pretty cool. It started off pretty bummy cause my tummy hurt but i went to the doc, he gave me a pill, it all worked out. Just have to be careful with the food for a while. Haha when I went to the doc the president was around there so he came by with his wife and his son.So we were talking and he asked how I was and I said that i was better. The unfortunate thing was that I tried to tell him that I can´t really go to the potty well. Anyways the word that a latino missionary taught me is apparently the s word so i told my president that i´m having issues shizzing. HHAHAHAHAHA he laughed his butt off. I´m lucky to have such a cool president.

Anyways, This week it rained. And when i say it rained I mean it dumped! The roads were flooded and there were a lot of places where we were walking where the water was up to our shins. It blew! It was pretty cool though. Haha when i came out here I didn´t think the water would really be that bad. I was dead wrong. Hahaha. So needless to say i´m buying boots this week haha.
So we taught a lot more this week and we had a baptism! His name´s ariel and he´s awesome! He was pretty much ready to be baptized forever we just had to teach him the lessons. It was awesome and this week we´ll give him the priesthood! Woot woot.

We also have this other investigator Beymar. He agreed to be baptized and he´s awesome and sooooo smart! We taught him the plan of salvation and it was ridiculous how well he understood it! I wish you could have been there. His comments would basically make my jaw drop at how well he understood. I can´t really think of any specific examples but he understood so well that we gave him the whole enchilada of the plan of salvation. Not just the basics in preach my gospel. It was probably my favorite lesson by far. He loves the teachings and he already has a testimony he just has to go to church! He went once but since then he keeps not being able to go which is frustrating but ni moda. He´ll get there eventually.

My spanish is at the point where I can basically explain all the prinicples and I can get my point across with everything. I just can´t understand everyone yet which is so frustrating! We´ll be in a lesson and i´ll ask if they have any questions and I won´t understand so my comp has to take over. It´s frustrating but it´s coming along.

Thanks for all the updates! Love you all so much! Bolivia´s awesome. I´m convinced it´s trying to kill me but i´m sure we´ll be best friends soon. 
Love ya guys!
Elder Buma

Monday, September 15, 2014

Elder Buma still has his sense of humor!:)

Hey People!
Interesting week. So we had a jam packed week planned with appointments and stuff right. Well pretty much all of them fell through! i was tiiiiiiicked. I felt like a bad missionary. And on top of that I was going to ask this one investigator if I could use his baƱo but he didn´t come to the door so i nearly went potty in my pants! That investigator´s name is Erik and he is now my least favorite investigator.
We also had like five investigators commit to come to church and when we went to go pick them up they weren´t there! They´re awesome investigators too. We wanted to challenge them to baptism but they weren´t flipping there! I think that´s the most frustrating thing about bolivia. The people say that they´ll do something but then they don´t follow through with it.
It´s ok though. We´ve got a bapism planned for this saturday for ariel. he´s the bishops nephew and we´ve been teaching him a ton and he really really really wants to get baptized. So we´re having some success right?
We got a cold front! Oh my goodness you have no idea how happy I was when I was shivering last tuesday. It was so weird. Literally the day before the cold front I thought I was melting away and the next day I had to put on a sweater. Bolivia´s crazy like that haha. Seriously though it was probably my favorite day walking around in a sweater and not sweating. Just fantastic.
I gave a talk in church this week. HAHAHAHA it was rough. But I got a few really good laughs out of the crowd so it´s ok. Still not sure if they were laughing at my joke or at my spanish... we´re going to say that they laughed at the joke.
So we got haircuts this week. My hairstylist was totally gay and it was weird. A gay guy tried to flirt with me in spanish... Now that doesn´t happen every day haha. Anyways a typical haircut here costs like 15 boliviano which is like 2 bucks. Well I guess we went to the wrong place cause ours cost 50 boliviano! So ya sorry mom just make sure you keep money on my personal card cause I´m going to run out of money if I keep getting swindled like that haha. Donka. I mean Gracias

All in all everything´s good. Just a little frustrated and my body´s still getting used to Bolivia. Stomach hurts but I think it´s getting better. Just as long as I don´t poop my pants I´ll be ok. haha
Thanks for all the updates! Keep them a comin! Love you all!
Elder Buma

Monday, September 8, 2014

Week 3!

hey everyone!
So this week was awesome. Bolivia´s awesome. Be jealous. 
Anyways, so you know how I really like rolls? well that´s like one of the only substantial food things you can buy from the little stores and it is faaaaantastic! I just walk around nibbling on a piece of bread with some melted cheese. goodness it´s great!... I´m gonna get fat... oh well!

So to get around here we use these things called micros and they are so cool! they are like buses but they just stop wherever the gosh dang place you want! haha you have to get on and off of them quick though cause they just keep going. it´s so much fun! I don´t know why i love them so much and my comp thinks I´m weird cause of it but I was born weird so ya know, whatevs.

We also buy most of our junk from places called ventas and they´re awesome too. Pretty much all they have is milk, bread, oreos, and powerade. It´s awesome!  And they´re so stinking cheap to buy cookies and stuff. It´s just awesome.

I´m feeling wayyyy better but I still am not having solid 2s hahhahaha. sorry, but it´s all good. 

We got some investigators to come to church yesterday! A mom and dad whose kids are already members and an eighteen year old named beymar. The couple´s basically already members. We are just waiting for them to get all their documents to get married. No one has their frickin documents in this country! Ugh! Everyone we talk to who wants to be baptized still has to get married and they don´t have their docs! COME ON!
Anyways, Beymar´s really cool and we´ve been meeting with him. He felt the spirit so strongly during the sacrament it was crazy! afterwards he was just like, man I felt something so strong during the santa cena. And I was just like THAT´s THE SPIRIT and he was like COOL! It was super cool. We challenged him to be baptized and he accepted so that´s cool I guess hahahaha. He just needs to be taught the rest of the lessons and go to church two more times and then he´s getting dunked! I mean baptized. sorry

Our ward´s awesome. Super cool members but there´s a few funny things. There´s this one member who was telling everyone during his testimony in sacrament meeting that he uses sesame seed oil to give blessings and he also gives blessings over the phone... They actually asked me during elder´s quorum, since I´m from utah and would obviously know, if it´s ok to use sesame seed oil so i explained why you need to use olive oil and I felt so smart. NBD 
My spanish still blows. GOSH DANG! it´s so frustrating! But i just make some jokes about myself and my awful spanish and then the people laugh and like me. So it´s ok but stinking frustrating!

So we´re focusing a lot on reactivation. We have like 50 converts in the ward and only like 14 attend. So we got some rescuing to do!

All in all it´s awesome! Fricking hot and tiring but awesome. Thanks for all the updates! keep them a comin!
love you all
Elder Buma

Monday, September 1, 2014

He made it to Bolivia!

Hey Guys!
Holy cow crazy two weeks! So we finished up in the MTC and now I´m in bolivia! It´s kind of ridiculously crazy. I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE the people. So stinking nice.
So Anyways I got here tuesday night after thirty hours of traveling from slc to LA to miami to la paz to santa cruz. I was stinking tired but I got to talk to a lot of cool people and I gave a lot of people pass a long cards. So I´m kind of a big deal. Not even in the country yet and I already got some investigators. NBD haha.
So once I got here I met the other greenies in my group and we met our president who is a super cool guy by the way and we had our entrance interviews then we basically just did immigration stuff until thursday night.Thursday night we got our new companions and went out to our areas. I´m in viru viru 2 which is in the 6th to the ninth ring of santa cruz.
I´ve learned some stuff about myself since getting here. I´ve learned that I have allergies and that my stomach is a baby. Since like the second day getting here I´ve been battling something. I´m still doing work everyday but I´ve had a few close calls where I almost didn´t make it to a bathroom in time. Haha I´ve even a couple of times had to ask random people if I can use their potty. And let me tell you, I have gone into bathrooms that would make you vomit. hahahaha! It kind of blows dealing with it but as I´m writing this it´s pretty funny. Sorry if I grossed you out but that happened and it´s interesting.
I also learned that our house in Utah is stinking Paradise! We live in nothing like that here and it has been quite the humbling experience. I´ve also never sweated this much in my life! Holy Cow it´s hawt! hahaha it´s quite the experience
So the work here is pretty cool. Me and my companion are kind of opening up an area so neither of us know anyone in the area so we just started contacting and it was so cool. Literally everyone we talked to were so easy to get into the door. We´d just say that we´re missionaries and that we have a message and they´d invite us in. haha I´m not sure Ben´s getting much of that in Belgium. So it´s way fun to contact. My comp keeps refusing to talk when we go in somewhere so I´m forced to kind of take the lead in the lesson and it´s stinking hard cause my spanish still blows but it´s coming along.
So I´m super uncomfortable, sweating, and my stomach kills but it´s ok. I´m just praying not to have an accident. hahaha oh man this is quite the adventure. Remember to always pray and read your scrips! Thanks for all the updates! Love you guys!