Transferred to Cobija!

Hello!

First off, Shout out to Poppa Buma for turning super old this week on the third! Way to go old man!

Well transfers happened and guess where I am! Too late! I´m in Cobija! Ta da! It´s an hour and a half north of santa cruz by plane and it´s sweet! I think that i´ll only be here for two transfers though cause after that cobija goes to the la paz mission and i don´t think that the pres is planning on sending gringos there. i came here with two other guys from the office too. Elder groberg was the assistant and Elder flores was my comp and they´re both here too! It´s pretty fun. My comps name is Elder Estrada, he´s from Peru and he´s amazing! holy cow was I blessed this transfer! Super good teacher, super humble, super happy. I´m gonna like this guy.

So last week we didn´t get to work pretty much at all for the transfers and i also had to train my replacement, Elder Flemming. He´s super cool. Super tall and he lost like 60 pounds in the mission. He used to be a chunker but now he´s a fine slab of texas steak (he´s from texas) jaja! Too bad he´s in the office now and is gonna get suuuuper fat again hahahah!

So I´m a district leader now. It´s really cool but I´m really nervous too. I took my first logros yesterday which is like their key indicators to send to the zone leaders and i kept forgetting to ask them stuff so i had to keep calling back and forth between zone leaders and the companionships hahhaha! oh well. Sorry zone leaders! But we also had our first district meeting on saturday and it went super well! I got Elder Hernandez to give a lesson on christlike atributes and then we talked about investigators and then me and my comp did a practice. I hate doing practices but whatever, they´re useful I guess. I´m super nervous to be district leader but I know that I´m gonna learn a lot. I´ve learned that on the mission being district leader, zone leader, trainer, or whatever doesn´t mean that you´re better or more important, it´s just another opportunity to serve and learn more. There are a lot of incredible missionaries here and I believe that i´m district leader so that i can learn from them.

I´m actually pretty glad that i left the offices. It was super cool and the time flew by but i was ready to leave. I loved everything but I hated saying bye to the old missionaries. They were always so trunky and made me miss my mommy. miss ya mommy. But besides that it was awesome.

So our house is pretty awesome. It´s in the area that got flooded recently and the missionaries were pulled out of there (so we´re reopening the area). So missionaries haven´t been there for like two months and so mold and stuff started growing. It was quite the welcome! hahahaha! oh man we just bought a bunch of chlorine and started going ham on that place! Man it stunk! I think one of the reasons the lord sent me here is to learn how to clean gross things haha!  It´s all clean now though so it´s all good. Our toilet doesn´t work though so we have to use a bucket full of water to make it flush hahahhaa! Gosh I love this house!

I could talk a while about cobija but just know that it´s awesome. I´m stoked to be here. There´s certalinly work to get done but it´ll be awesome!

love you all!

Elder Buma

3/21/14

aloha

what is this week but last week´s next week?

Anyways we´re gonna start this one off with a shout out to my good ol poppy. I Love ya Pop. It was father´s day this week on thursday so I was thinking of ya. The ward had a churasco which is basically a barbecue and the member who was cooking the meet was wearing quite the shirt. It said "Don´t be a Richard" (but it didn´t say Richard...) haha so we had to tell him that maybe he shouldn´t wear that shirt too much. He laughed, we laughed, it´s all taken care of. That´s a funny thing about bolivia. A lot of people wear clothing with stuff in english on it even though they don´t understand it haha. Anyways so i love ya daddy. I wish we could talk on father´s day too but we´ll save that for mommy´s day.

So i was thinking this week. Before the mission I would have probably enjoyed it if a girl just walked up to me and kissed me to say hello. Now stay with me. I´m just saying, don´t jump to any conclusions like i´m missing girls or anything. just listen. jeez. Anyways, I say that because here in bolivia their culture is that when you greet someone who you know you kiss them on the cheek. I´m just saying that before the mission I would have totally embraced that culture but now that I´m a missionary it´s just plain awkward. Like they´ll go for the kiss and then I make an awkward face and back away, they get surprised, and then i have to explain, it´s just a mess. BUT i did find a scripture in 1 corinthians 16:20. You can go ahead and look that up. I showed it to my president. He laughed and called me trunky haha.

So an elder went home this week for health issues. He´s fine, just went home for more testing. Anyways his companion was Elder Zaldívar so Elder Zaldívar was in a trio with me for two days! not sure if you people remember but me and him lived in the same house for three transfers and it was great hanging out with him again. It was a little awkward though cause my current comp and him are like worst enemies. I felt like bella or Bell from twilight, both of them fighting for my love... Not that I read those books or anything...

Anyways we found a less active member from brazil in our area! she´s really nice, really smart, really likes the church, knows it´s true, her dad was actually a branch president in brazil, but she moved to santa cruz, and kind of fell away. She´s living with a guy now and has two kids with him but doesn´t want to marry him. She´s really nice but it´s kind of an interesting situation. The guy she lives with is like goofy from disney basically. Or in other words, he´s a dummy. Super nice but dumb. And that´s how we found out why she doesn´t want to marry him... Interesting... He´s really nice though. Has a looooooot of questions about the church cause he looked it up on the internet and watched some "documentaries" on the church so he has doubts but oh well. we´ll get it cleared up. The brazilian, Pámela helps a lot. She´s really smart too. She´s a plastic surgeon. haha she also found the secret to eat a lot and be skinny. She´s had like 3 lipo suctions. hahahahahahahah! I laughed my butt off on the inside when she told us that. She told us "I hate running, but i love eating. So i just get lipo. Easy" hahahhaha! I like them.

Ariel is another guys we´re teaching. He came to our activity for father´s day and he´s really smart. He actually has a friend that´s a returned missionary so he listens well.

Not sure if i told you guys but about three weeks ago my phone fell out of my pocket in a taxi so i was without a cell phone so i couldn´t answer the calls from sick missionaries so the hermana zambrano had to help them all and some never got answered so they just did whatever. The hermana wasn´t too happy with that so she had my comp give me his phone and had that number changed so i could help the other missionaries. that really bugged my comp cause it hurt his pride a bit. he felt like the hermana thought my job was more important than his so he got a little bugged. Ni modo.

So I love mate. I was feeling a little backed up this week if you know what i mean so I drank mate this morning and HOLY COW does that stuff speed things up! The unfortunate thing was that we were outside walking the the soccer field. I got THIS CLOSE to just finding a bush. haha. But on the bright side I feel like five pounds lighter. And I swear my pants fit looser. haha

So i think that´s all I have time for this week. Transfers are this week and i think i´m going to leave the office but we´ll see. I´ll let you know next saturday or monday haha.

love ya, can´t wait to hear from you!

Elder Buma

3/7/14

Hi!

Alright what to talk about this week...

1. In the office something that`s really cool is that if an elder ever loses his mission card or something we get to call their parents in the states and tell them in english. i like doing that, it`s fun. It was funny this week though cause i had to call an elder`s parents that he lost his card this week and he was standing right next to me when i was talking to his dad. It was funny trust me...

2. so an hermana from our ward got home from chihuaha mexico this week and she knows elder Stepan! it was fun to talk with her. it seems like her mission was pretty sweet. Elder stepan must love it. it was interesting though. we eat dinner in her house every night and we had a cita right at 6 so we were almost out the door and she got a little mad that we didn`t share a scripture before we left, so we shared a spiritual thought. then she asked us how our key indicators are and stuff like that. I totally understand if she wanted a spiritual thought but we ended up getting to our appt. late and the investigator had to leave... That frustrated me. she`s really nice though.

3. we had consejo de lideres this week and as usual it was awesome. The president decided to talk mostly about music. he said we should only listen to music from the church, and he did it with so much love, he didn`t get mad and say A LOT OF YOUR MISSIONARIES IN YOUR ZONES ARE LISTENING TO DISNEY! STOP IT SINNERS! he did it with love and without any anger. and you should have seen all the disney music we got in the office a couple days later... hahaha! man my president is incredible. without ever raising his voice or saying anything mean, he sets limits, and people follow him. I`m really learning a lot from him.

4. So after consejo, the next day we had interviews in the office so there were a lot of missionaries and EVERYONE and their dog came up to me and started making jokes that i was sick. "oh look at the health secretary, the sickest misssionary in the mission haha" i didn`t even know that people knew i was sick so i was just like ya haha. oh jeez que verguenza jaja

4. we went to this market called the cumabi this week and it`s awesome! It`s a giant DI outside! All the merchandise comes in bags from other places, most of the stuff is used, and it`s awesome. Ties for like 3 bolivianos and backpacks that in the states cost well over a hundred for like 20 bucks. Also there was a jehova`s witness from pennsylvania there selling chocolate chip cookies! we bought like all of them. Super nice guy.

5. so the new assistant is elder villafranca, he`s from honduras and he looks, acts, and even smells like stevan lopes. it`s weird. i have to send a picture cause it`s uncanny i tell you!

6. so we got to teach this week and we asked the president to accompany us to one of our menos activos who happens to be the immigration lawyer for our mission and the south mission haha. it was awesome. They`re always super hard to set an appt. with cause they`re too "busy" but when we said the pres was going to come they immediately said yes hahaha. It was super cool. they`re no longer inactive. we got to teach tania too. she`s a street contact and when we went by her house she said she didn`t really have time cause she had to finish a project dfor the university so we said we`d just do a 7 minute lesson, she let us in and when we started we were sitting outside and it started to POUR right when we started so we quickly put our chairs in her little hallway thingy, super narrow, and taught her in a single file line haha. we didn`t have any more time either so we basically just gave her a book of mormon, testified, laughed about the experience and left. It was funny though so i think she`s pretty interested haha. we went by alex calle too and his mom said that he wasn`t home so we called him on the and we started talking to him and he said he wasn`t home but the funny thing was that i saw his dog in the house barking and i could hear the dog barking through the phone... jajajaja! oh well. hehehe

So everything`s good. Working normal. Thank you all so much for praying for me. I feel great. You guys are great! Talk to ya later!

Elder Buma