1/31/15

Hey! man! what a week! By far I`ve felt the spirit more during this week than probably all of the rest of my mission combined! Man it was hard though!

So the mission pres is back and he is soooooo cool. Every single meeting we have I can just feel the spirit!. He`s so amazing! We`ve talked about just all subjects and it`s just amazing!

So this week? Why did i feel the spirit so much you ask? I`m a missionary, a representative of the Lord that`s why! This week we didn`t have to many lessons cause i was helping a lot of missionaries with medical things and my comps had few medical appointments too and our area`s a little tough. But there was one day in particular, Monday in fact, when we were tracting with a member and we walked by a guy sitting outside and we walked by him but then we all decided we should go back. He ended up letting us in, we met his mom and we really hit it off. We found out he`s a thorasic surgeon (no idea how to spell that in english) and his mom is veeeery catholic. We ended up talking about eternal families and we really touched his mother. She told us at the very beginning that she didn`t want to change religions, didn`t want to listen to us and said that after we die we aren`t married anymore. I have never felt the spirit as strong as when we were testifying about families and the importance of the ordinance of being sealed. The spirit worked through us. They were touched. There was silence is the right times, it was just amazing.

i`m already out of time so i got to write fast. We just had a pday activity with the pres. we watched conozca los mormones and it was amazing! the pres watched it in normal clothes with us which was super weird. He is one fashionable guy. Man he`s awesome.

I love you all. talk to you later. Gosh dang it there`s never time!

Elder buma

1/24/15

Hello! 

Alright first thing shout out to Rachel for getting her mission call to the coolest COUNTRY ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET! Didn´t get the coolest mission, but close enough.(friend Rachel Batty was called to Santa Cruz Bolivia--Stephen is in Santa Cruz North. He had to go see the secretary of health in that mission this past week so he has been to their offices).

Alright so this week was fun. The President went to Beni and Pando with his family to talk to the missionaries there so they don´t have good cell connection so while they were away Hermana Zambrano (mission president's wife) gave me a sheet with sicknesses and what we do for each of them for when missionaries call when they´re sick cause she won´t be able to help them. Long story short, I've gotten a million phone calls in the past couple days and none of their symptoms are on my little paper! Now I know why in medical school they give you books cause it don´t all fit on just one piece of paper. It´s ok though, no one has died so i think I´m doing a pretty good job hahahaha. This is a fun job. I like it.

So investigators. That´s the one thing about this new assignment that I don´t like. I left all of my investigators in my old area and I heard yesterday that the family I was teaching The Angulo family, are getting baptized this saturday. Mom, Dad, and two kids. DANG IT! It´s ok though I was able to go to Katerine´s baptism last week which was cool. (Katerine´s a girl from my old area that i taught) so they´re all doing great back there!

Here it´s a little different story, we´re in a pretty wealthy place now where everyone just has intercoms so they don´t even come to the door. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO CONTACT SPEAKING INTO AN INTERCOM! Not fun! But it´s ok. We´re getting more investigators.

Ana Soruco for example. She likes listening to everyone, understands the restoration and told us the other day that she believes we´re the most correct she´s ever heard. She believes it all but she has absolutely no support from the family. The rest of them do NOT like mormons so she still doesnt want to get baptized. Suggestions?

Luis Urquiza is the husband of a member and he also understands that only our church holds all the truths of the gospel but he doesn´t really care beyond that. He told us ya I think you´re right but I don´t want to leave the house alone and go to church. I believe and that´s enough. Suggestions?

Besides them we have a few menos activos that we´re teaching right now and we contacted a few people so we´ll see where that goes. This area is a looooot different that my last one but it´s really cool. Out of time! I had more stories but I really got to go. Love you!

Elder Buma

1/17/15

Hiiiiiiiiii

How is everyone! Everything good? Alright so apparently my momma didn´t get the letter from last week so i resent it, hopefully you get it and hopefully you get this one too.

So being in the offices is really cool. i´ve been dealing with a lot of different stuff though. this last week somehow a missionary got a bleed in his intestine and we got him all fine but that dummy told his mom in an email that he had a bleed without telling her that he was fine! she called, emailed, even smoke signaled us in the office until we called them and informed them everything. It was kind of cool. I got to translate for the president. I could just feel is power inside of me when I was translating. It was really cool. but that missionary is fine now and the momma is too. Side note, that mom totally reminded me of my mom. She was super loud, super freaked out, super animated, to be honest a little annoying, you guys know my mom, and i loved it. It made me miss my momma. Love you mommy!

So the mission pres has a special son who´s actually gonna finish the rest of his time here in bolivia as a service missionary here in the offices doing family history with elder zelaya. Elder zelaya is a PODEROSO elder who had to get eye surgery so he can´t proselyte for a while so for the next five months he´s gonna do family history with daniel zambrano. it´s so cool. We´re even gonna bring him in with the new missionaries in february, give him elder zelaya as a trainer, and he may even come live in our house with us. SUper Cool.

We were able to teach more this week. Ana Soruco and luis urquiza are our best investigators and we have a couple new ones too. The only really hard things is that everyone is stinkin in looooove with elder neuhaus the missionary here before me. They all miss him so much and i just want to yell at them and say I¨M COOL TOO! but it´s ok, they´re starting to fall in love with me too. No one can resist the incredible charm of elder buma. it´s impossible.

So the office can be a bit stressful so we take our steem out on each other when we get home with towel whipping! It is sosoooooo fun! We found a new way to fold the towels to make it slap waaaay harder! Man it hurts but man it´s fun. Elder mancheff, who´s like a flipping ape nails everyone so hard. It´s just awesome.

Another shout out to the glovers for the fake mustaches and grow animals. took a sweet photo and the hermana zambrano really likes the grow animals, super fun.

alright, out of time,

love you

Elder BUma

1/3/15

HELLO! I`m writing on a Saturday! Totally breaking rules like a bad boy! Haha don`t worry, I`m not breaking any rules, this is my new pday, haha. Transfers were this week and I`m the new secretary of salud, I mean salad, i mean health. That took me by surprise. I`m super stoked to be working in the offices but it`s also really sad too.

First, the really cool parts about being in the office. We received all of the newbies on Tuesday and it was sooooooo fun hahahah. I`ve only been out for a bit but they totally reminded me of how I felt when I got here. The first things they asked me were, how much time do you have, how long does it take to get Spanish, what do you do to become an office missionary, and is it always this hot? Hahahaha, it wasn`t even a hot day. Poor boys got to get accustomed but they`re a great group and there`s a lot of potential in this group. Mom, remember that waiter at the Garden that said his brother was coming to this mission? Well I received him this week, super cool guy, and he got the best trainer EVER Elder Loehner. He was the assistant until this transfer.

After receiving the newbies we went to the offices did all their junk, then went to dinner at MED. OH MY GOODNESS! That was sooooo good. I ate pork ribs for goodness sake! In this mission we can`t eat strawberries, lettuce, pork, or anything else like that and in one meal I ate all of that because it`s safe in MED! We also ate at Tanta and another really really nice place. I had NO idea these places even EXISTED in Bolivia, it`s really cool. It was really funny though the President looked at me while we were eating and said, you just barely told all these missionaries that they can`t eat any pork, lettuce, or strawberries and you`re eating all of them at once! Hahahahaha, I laughed.

Another good thing about this gig is our house. It`s kind of dirty but there`s hot water in the shower! and air conditioning in one room! and a laundry machine! That`s super nice.

I also get to work a lot with the President which is cool, he`s awesome.

Now the sad stuff about this job.

I haven`t taught a lesson since Monday. Since I got here all we did was capacitar... uh... capacitate, iniciate... whatever, we helped out the newbies, and did all the work for the transfers. I haven`t slept a lot either cause we have had to get up suuuuper early like everyday to get everyone to the airport and back and stuff so that`s a bummer. Also, there`s this one elder who has to stay with us in the office cause he got really sick in Riberalta so he`s in a trio with me and Elder Sullca for now and we tried to go working yesterday but that elder coudn`t so we just sat in the house...boring.

It`s also pretty stressful in this job. Everyone in the mission has some weird fungus or something and I set up appointments with them and the doctors and the doctors never want to work with our insurance so I have to convince them to use it and how to use it. It`s stinking hard cause the old health secretary taught me how to do everything in like fifteen minutes and then had to get on a plane for Cobija. So I`m kind of stressed. If you have a minute this week if you could pray for me to learn how to do this quick that`d be appreciated.

My entire mission so far has been pretty stressful, I trained after six weeks, then I was a trainer (my son is also now training by the way THAT'S MY BOY!) and now I`m in the office. Sometimes I feel like I still need to be trained how to just be a missionary. But the Lord knows what he`s doing. It`s stressful but I`ll learn.

Oh I`m also getting fatter now cause all we do is eat here. It`s really good food though so i ain`t complaining. There`s a saying here "six months to sexy." So I`ll worry about looking good in about a year.

Oh! My companion! his name is Elder Sullca and he`s from Bolivia but he speaks almost perfect English! He`s such a little nerd and I love him soooo much! It`s kind of weird though, when we`re in the house i`m not allowed to talk to him in Spanish so he can get ready for his English exam at the end of the mission so I`m speaking a lot more English now. I also taught him how to do the rubik`s cube and he learned in like three days WOW! he`s a genius, seriously. He`s also such a good example to me. His lung stinking EXPLODED during the mission and he`s still serving! What a tough guy!

So it`s very different right now but I really like it. I`ll let you all know how it`s going. Keep me updated ya? I love you all!

Elder Buma