6/29/15

Hi! So this week was pretty chill.

I want to start off by apologizing to my sweet mother who always said that i should practice the piano so i could play on the mission. I didn`t pay much attention and now I understand. Without the piano the hymns are pretty rough. BUT I`ve been dedicating myself to practicing whenever i have a chance and i was starting to feel pretty good about it and so i played the piano this week in church.... IT WAS TERRIBLE! HOLY COW! EMBARRASSING! I was all ready to go and then when i went to hit the first note, they were the completely wrong notes! oh man then i tried to catch up and it just got worse... NEVER AGAIN. it was pretty funny though. Better to laugh than cry right haha.

So another drunk guy story. So we have this investigator named Wilder Vaca. He`s even gone with us to visit people and is super stoked for his the 11th to be baptized! So anyways we were talking with him and this drunk guy came up to us and sat down and just started yelling and singing to us. Yes I do have a video. And he just started talking about how I have to marry his daughter and that he has a lot of money and that he`ll take care of us. super awkward cause it was in the middle of a lesson and now wilder calls me hermano yerno which means brother son-in-law... I always get nicknames! I`m Elder Buma!

Anyways so a little more about warnes. It`s super cool. Most of our area is paved except for this one part that`s WAY out there and we have to get there in moto. It`s pretty nice overall though. The branch is pretty sweet. our branch missionary leader is honestly amazing! he`s a returned missionary and has made the branch council into an actual council making assignments instead of just a couple of members just talking. My companion is pretty cool. He`s still new and doesn`t know how to do the area book and stuff but neither did i when i was new. Just want to say thanks once again to Elder Beltran. Man that guy`s cool.

So we`re doing efy this week and me and about 15 other elders and sisters are going to sing a song. Elder Parmenter`s gonna dress up like moroni and talk about him and then me and elder fancis get mikes and we get to kind of start the thing off kind of as hosts. We`re gonna talk about the book of mormon and then ask the kids and a couple of the elders to give their testimony on the book of mormon. It`s gonna be pretty fun. Haha hopefully i don`t say anything embarrassing! alright that`s it for this week! Love you all!

Elder Buma

6/22/15

Hola mis queridos hermanos y hermanas!

How did your week go? I hope amazing!

So last week we had a zone meeting right before transfers and you guys have to read the scripture we read! Haha, but you have to read it in Spanish. It`s Juan 14:27. That got us all pumped to go to La Paz!

But I ended up getting transferred. I`m an hour north of Santa Cruz in Warnes and it`s pretty sweet! Super strong Relief Society and Young Women; they greet the investigators so well. The men’s organizations aren`t super strong, but it`s ok. I`m companions with Elder Medina, he`s from El Salvador and I`m finishing up his training. He`s a really cool guy, a little quiet and he doesn`t know much about the area book or the logistics of the mission, but he`s cool. Pretty immature still though, haha. I look at him sometimes and ask myself if I was also that immature—haha, oh goodness.

We live in a small house but it`s clean and mold-free so that`s cool. I actually think it`s my favorite house yet. We`re also living with two other elders. Elder Penney from California (he`s actually from my group) and Elder Ryan from Washington (super nice, kind of a nerd, haha).

IT`S PRETTY COLD! Holy cow! On Thursday I started off the day in Cobija in warm weather and then I got to Santa Cruz four hours later and was freezing! Holy cow! It was windy and super cold! it was 14 degrees celsius I think. So the last few days have just been awesome. No sweating. I get to wear a blanket while we study and it`s just so awesome. I love the cold. The only problem is that I have NO winter clothing. When I went to Cobija, I left all my winter stuff in the assistant`s house cause I couldn`t take it to Cobija. So I`m just using borrowed jackets and stuff.

My big day was this week, but nobody knew that here! Haha, not even my comp, so it was pretty much a normal day. But I bought a plate of chicken so that was pretty festive! On Saturday (the day after his birthday)people asked me when my birthday was I told them that it was the nineteenth so they made me a cake and yesterday we had a little party. They stuffed my head in the cake, the whole nine yards, haha.

So they`re doing EFY for the first time here in Santa Cruz the third of July and Hermana Zambrano asked me to help out with about 14 other missionaries. I`m pretty excited! So even though I didn`t get to go to EFY, I can say I participated in one!

Love you guys so much! Talk to you next week!

Elder Buma

6/15/15

Haha, I´d just like to start of with one of my shout outs. TO ME! It´s my birthday! June 19th 1996 Stephen Robert Buma came into this world and the world has never been the same since. Haha.

I actually pretty much forgot about my birthday. I have no idea what we´re going to do for it cause I didn´t tell anyone about it and transfers are two days before my birthday so we´ll see what goes down, haha.

Transfers are this Wednesday and they decide who goes to the new mission or not so everyone´s super excited slash nervous. I doubt I´m going but we´ll see.

I forgot to write down my experiences this week so let me think a second...

Story number 1.

So we´re talking with Daniel Escovar, right? Super cool guy, super funny, little immature—basically a Latino Elder Buma, hehehe. So he´s a less active that we´re helping. We decided to talk about prophets this week and he just started talking about some interesting things…so the first interesting thing was that he believes aliens are protecting the earth from meteors! His proof was that he said, ¨Why haven´t we been hit with meteors like what happened with the dinosaurs? ALIENS!¨ We have aliens protecting the earth brothers and sisters! HAHA. Then when we were talking about the importance of prophets he started talking about how Joseph smith was the only true prophet of this dispensacion because he saw Heavenly Father and received his authority from angels. He thinks the other prophets were chosen by men... so we´re working on that now. I´ve never had this doubt before. Everyone always doubts that Joseph was a prophet but once they get that they accept all the others. Haha, still love that guy though. We´re going to have a family home evening tonight with him and we´re making TACOS! 

We have four people who all want to be baptized but they just have little problems that keeps them from getting to their goal! Becken Lima is a nine year old who wants to be baptized but his family keeps traveling so we can never finish the lessons with him! He even asked us last time, “Why haven´t I been baptized yet?” CAUSE YA DON¨T STAY IN COBIJA LONG ENOUGH FOR US TO FILL THE FONT!

Wanda Gonzalez is attending just about every week and she enjoys sacrament. But not Relief Society...

Michael is 21 years old and wants to be baptized but he has to get married to his girlfriend... who´s like ten years older than him...

Dardo is also nine years old and wants to be baptized. He lives with his grandma and goes to church with her but we can´t get in touch with the dad to ask permission to baptize him! He´s legally with his grandma so we could do it with her permission but she wants his dad´s permission too...

So the works going pretty well. Just have to dot some t´s and cross some i´s.

In English class I taught them “you´re nuts.” People went wild with that and now they call me “you´re nuts” instead of Elder Buma sometimes... it´s true but haha oh well.

Good week all around. Love ya!

Elder Buma

6/8/15

hello! Good week am i right? School´s out, my awesome sisters ran a half marathon, the gospel continues to be spread around the earth. There´s just so many reasons to smile!

that´s actually something I´ve learned here. Staying positive and always having a smile on can completely change everything. There´s always things to get us down and I was a little discouraged for not having a ton of success recently and I thought that i wasn´t being of much use to the work here cause cobija´s still small and still isn´t perfect. But then I looked at where cobija was a while ago.... wow. it was bad. pretty much in Riberalta, guayaramerin, and Cobija the church had a lot of problems a while ago. But in the past little while they´ve progressed soo much. There haven´t been a ton of baptisms but the branches are stable now. Actually, we had an exchange with the zone leaders this week and I told Elder Alonzo that I was a little frustrated so he told me his story of Riberalta. He was in Riberalta for six months and didn´t have a single baptism and the attendance hardy grew either. he was also discouraged but then he told me that the fruits of our labors aren´t always immediate and we can only do our best and the lord will do the rest. After listening tohim i was able to see the progress that cobija´s made and it was just a whole lot better. Also, after being more postitive, our lessons were more powerful, we felt the spirit more, and a lot more members got excited and happy. it was super cool. So stay positive!

So we´re looking for a new apartment right cause ours is super humid and grows mold super easily and just not super nice haha. So anyways while we were walking around we contacted this guy, wilder, and it just so happened that the apartment next to his was available and it looked super nice! so we called the owner, looked around, and then called the zone leaders to come look at it. They then informed us that the hermanas in cobija used to live there and they had to move becuase that apartment is actually above a sewer ad apparently that sewer broke once and their house got filled with not very nice things... so we´re not going to live there haha.

After that we were walking and this super drunk guy called us and man that was the experience. Talking with drunks has always been really funny to me. anyways, his name´s Andy. he speaks almost perfect english, even when drunk so that´s a pretty impressive if i say so myself, and he has a sweeeet house. Pretty rich drunk guy. but the thing that surprised me most is that he started talking to us that he lived in the US for 20 years, that he´s been to Utah, and that he graduated from Columbia. I didn´t believe anything cause he was drunk but then he showed us PICTURES of him in Utah in front of the temple and a diploma from columbia! what in the world! So that was amazing and then he started talking about how he loves the church and how Joseph Smith is the greatest man to ever walk the earth. The he said that Moroni is god and that the angel moroni on top of our temples is baby god. So it started out pretty cool but then he started spitting out apostacies HAHAHAHAHA oh! he also wants to turn his house into a mormon church. SCORE! Free chapel for the mormons hahahaha!

Becken lima is a kid of a less active family and they want to baptize him so they´re active now! We´re hoping he can get baptized in three weeks. his mom is actually the equivalent of a senator in bolivia so that´s cool too. She has some issues that women aren´t called as prophets or have the priesthood though... it´s ok though. one step at a time.

fabricio has attended twice now and really likes coming to church and stays for the whole three hours! he has a couple of doubts about getting baptized again but his cousin is helping him out a lot cause he had the same doubt when he was baptized.

Overall everything good, everything nice, Always got reasons to smile. Love you!

Elder Buma

6/1/15

so interesting week haha.

Last monday was a little interesting haha. After writing you people we went to get our hair cut and my hair dresser was apparently also a member of the cobija assembly (some sort of big shot politician) haha. so i got my hair cut by the bolivian Hilary Clinton apparently haha! also after the haircut she took a picture of me cause i´m gringo... haha. Also later that night a couple of girls passed us and one of them asked us who we were and where we were from. When I said that I´m from the states she said no wonder you´re a churro. I did not understand what that meant but then a member explained to us that churro here is slang for papacito or good looking. haha. So i´m a papacito hahahaha! that was awkward. My comp also really doesn´t like it when people treat me differently for being gringo so that was a little awkward haha.

The next day we went to javier. Super cool paralyzed guy. But it just turned into bible bashing cause his pastor talked to him. I actually really enjoyed it. It´s actually pretty fun to bible bash now. Also, they really get your blood pumping. Sometimes lessons are a little boring because people don´t get into the lesson. When they want to bilble bash at least they´re excited!

Uh... wow... completely out of time! Sorry! Full details next week!

Elder Buma

5/25/15

Hi everyone! So quite an interesting week i must say. Filled with adventure, bugs, and the spirit.

So first announcement. I am officiallly out of toothpaste from America! I feel like a real missionary now haha.

So we were in a service project right? I was talking the Hno. Mendez when all of a sudden I turned into Forrest Gump. SOMETHING BIT ME! (Ya know, that scene in vietnam) Anyways a stinking bee went up my pants and but me in the butt! Just like how Forrest gump got bit in the butt. The really awkward part though was that the hno. mendez took the stinger out... so that was pretty funny... and awkward... hehe.

I baptized Carmen this week... Surprise! haha. I only taught her like twice on exchanges because she doesn´t live in our area. but last thursday she asked if i could be the one to baptize her. hahahah! so that was a little interesting. So no baptisms in my area this week, but i got one in the other area. haha Take that elder alonzo! hahaha!

We got to speak in sacrament meeting this week. That´s always fun, speaking in front of a whole lot of people. We got to talk on missionary work and it was really cool. THe only problem was that we didn´t know we were the only two speakers, so my comp took up eight minutes and by that time it was like 9:25... I had to take up the rest of the time... I´ve never given a talk that long in my life! holy shnikes. But it´s ok the lord really filled my mounth in that moment.D&C 84:85. And what was really cool was that after we got several members to give us references! We´re still mostly focusing on strengthening the leadership and members in the branch so not a whole lot of investigators but i see a lot of good stuff happening in the branch. The only weird thing was that after sacrament meeting in sunday school the teacher talked about black magic... that kind of weirded out Denis who came to church but is having doubts about getting baptized... oh well.

We finally had a good branch council! we had no leaders even coming so me and my comp visited leaders and got them to visit the other leaders and everyone came! we made assignments and it was great. It´s just really hard to get activities together here cause it´s really hard to get a budget from the church because in the past they´ve had a lot of problems with leaders misusing money from the church so now it´s super hard to get any money but we´re working on that. One step at a time!

So, like all weeks, this one had a lot of ups and downs, lots of walking in the sun but the lord is truly mindful of us. Love you all! talk to you later!

Elder Buma

5/18/15

Hey everyone!

Ok, story number 1! On Monday we had a family home evening with a part member family and it was awesome! Super spiritual—the dad finally listened to us (this is the piña family by the way) and we just testified of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Great family. After the lesson the mom made sloppy joes! Super tasty. Then for a game, we played probably one of the dumbest games but everyone had a great time. We had to go around in a circle, telling the person next to us “My neighbor has died” in different ways: sad, excited, happy, etc., but if someone messed up the dialogue or laughed they lost. Then the losers had a punishment. The first loser had to yell out the front door “someone stole my pig!” then the next loser had to yell out the door, “I stole the pig!” and then the last loser had to yell out the door, I ate the pig!¨ Super weird, right? But the entire time we were just laughing our heads off and then when we left all the neighbors looked at us funny. So that´s a fun game for family home evening if you´re looking for ideas, haha.

Story number 2! So it´s humid here right and stuff? Well I don´t know how but my blanket got filled with mold and it smelled sooooooo nasty! But on the brightside the smell knocked me out cold and I slept like a baby, hehehe.

Last story. So it´s finally cold here. Apparently in Santa Cruz it´s absolutely freezing but here it´s just a little chilly. I was sooo happy cause I brought my jacket to Cobija just in case it got cold. Everyone called me crazy for bringing a jacket. It´s never cold in Cobija they said. Well they were wrong! I was so excited that I could use my jacket! But to my disappointment when I put it on it was also filled with mold! DARN IT! So I just left in a normal shirt and I was fine. Haha.

So a little piece of news. They might end up sending gringos to the new La Paz missopm! Ah! I doubt I´ll end up going there but it would be cool—literally much cooler!

Alright, I´m out of time. Love you all. See you later!

Elder Buma

5/11/15

Hey everyone!

Well yesterday was a great Mother´s day! Just super!

Anyways so this last week was transfers and pretty much no one changed in our zone. My comp was a little sad that he didn´t get a transfer because that basically means he´s for sure going to the la paz mission. The only change was that Hna. tijerino finished her mission and her comp went to montero so we got two new elders in my district: elder folland from bountiful and elder castro from columbia. Elder Castro is suuuuuper funny. He was actually going to be a catholic preacher before his mom introduced him to the missionaries. He always tells me that his conversion was completely the spirit and not just because the missionaries were smart or cool because every time they would have a lesson he would just destroy the missionaries bible bashing and eventually he just felt like what they were saying was true. Really cool story actually. And when he converted his dad quit supporting him in school cause he´s a preacher but elder castro says it was worth it to come to the true church of christ. He also always makes jokes about columbia because drug trafficking is so big there and it´s pretty dangerous apparently. Really like that elder. elder Folland´s cool too but he´s just another gringo from bountiful who played football hahaha.

Service is seriously the best way to contact. There was this lady trying to get her scooter to start right. Anyways, we offered our help and ended up pushing her scooter around for like thirty minutes literally sprinting trying to get it to ignite. Finally it turned on after 30 minutes and we were just sweating bolts and breathing super hard, shirts unbuttoned, ties loosened, shirtes untucked, looking super profesh ya know. And then we just started like a regular contact ¨hey thanks for letting us help you with your scooter and did you know that we´re missionaries? ya we´d like to teach you the gospel of jesus christ.* haha she was a little surprised but she was super willing to listen after what we did for her. She also tried to pay us 20 bolivianos but we just said no and set up an appt. she lives in the area of the other elders but it was awesome!

Mother´s day was awesome. still helping out secia and denis make it to their baptism, still district leader, still sweating, still loving cobija! love you all! talk to you later!

Elder Buma

5/4/15

SHOUT OUT! MY BIG SISTER JUST HAD A SPECIAL DAY! HER BIRTHDAY! Her name is Emily Buma, born on May 2nd, 1993, and she´s been a blessing to her family and to everyone that she´s ever come in contact from that day. She´s an amazing example to me and I love ya with all my heart Emmers. April showers bring may flowers, my sista Emily is one amazing May flower.

Anyways, I should really learn to bring my umbrella with me every day. We were on our way to internet and it just started dumping! Heheh. I love Cobija.

Anyways update on investigators. Only three are progressing now and only two are gonna make it to their baptismal date. We´ve been working our behinds off to help them all but in the end you can´t force them to go to church. The two that are progressing are a teenage girl, and a guy in his twenties. They both have family who are members and so their family really helps us out bringing them to church. That family, The familia Piña, was actually partially inactive before but now having missionary experiences has helped them all come to church! Awesome! It was hard teaching them at first because they´re not super educated here. The first time was just terrible. I was explaining priesthood authority and I ain´t gonna lie I was feeling pretty prideful about my Spanish and I thought I had explained everything perfectly and powerfully but when I was done they just sat there with blank expressions and hadn´t understood anything... It was like a slap in the face that I need to learn how to connect with people and teach to their needs and their understanding. Not sure if that story made sense but the Lord gives us humbling experiences whenever we´re feeling prideful.

So I don´t have much more time but this week was probably one of the most spiritual that I´ve had on my mission. This is probably my hardest area that I´ve had because of the branch situation but I´ve come to know more and more that this is His work and not mine. I know that He loves each of his children. Never on my mission have I felt the Lord´s love for me more powerfully than I did this week. I know he lives and loves us. I´m out of time and I´m sorry I can´t really write about stories much anymore cause of internet but I´ll try harder!

I love all of you so much. Thank you for your prayers. Talk to you later.

Elder Buma

4/27/15

I´m sorry everyone but there ain´t very good internet here. But we´ve had an amazing week! we have six people with a date for the 23rd of may! carlos, alvaro, maria, ricardo, alison,  and bruno. theypre all awesome, they just have issues waking up to go to church! haha kind of like me! heheh We´re working hard here, there´s a lot of work to do. It´s a really weak branch with about thirty attending each week and there´s about no organization or leadership so we´re really trying to get this thing organized! working hard, happy! talk to you later! Sorry I can´t write more! love you all!

Elder Buma

4/20/15

Hello everybody.

well as usual i dont have a lot of time but that´s ok!

So this week was super cool! I got to do an intercambio with elder hernandez in my district this week and he´s just about my favorite elder in the whole world. Super nice, super loving, super humble, he jsut wants to help people all the time. They have a lot more jungle and hills in their area so you know i was snappin pictures all that day. I know we shouldn´t look like tourists on the mission and shouldn´t take a ton of pictures but oh well. Totally worth it! I´ll try to send pics sometime but we both know that probably ain´t gonna happen so why lie?

Anyways this week we got to go to santa cruz! I love BOA airlines. They give you all the snacks you want and all the soda you want. I had like five mini sandwiches on the way to la paz and five more on the way to santa cruz! I´m starting to realize why i´ve gained weight on the mission... I eat... A lot. And HOLY COW there´s an elder in cobija, ELder Romero, from Nicaragua who is HUGE. I thought he came on the mission like that but he showed me a picture before the mission and my mind was blown! So i made the goal not to eat so much. But we both know that ain´t gonna happen so why lie? hehe

so anwyas we got to santa cruz and it was so coool! Elder waddell is poderoso! he speaks spanish so well and you can just feel his spirit when he walks into the room. he talked a lot about our purpose as missionaries and how we can use the tons of less actives to find new investigators and baptize more. He pumped us up!

While we were there we stayed in a sweet hotel where all the newbies go when they get here. It´s calle the hotel Torre. It´s just amazing. I stayed with Elder Groberg in a room and we ate everything in that little refridgerator. I think the finance secretary´s gonna be a little upset with me hahahaha! take that elder Solano! (he´s the finance secretary) anyways so that hotel´s awesome The south mission also uses that hotel so Rachel, that´s the hotel you´ll stay at your first few days in the mish.

Also while we were in santa cruz i got to work a day in my last area charcas for like two hours. We visited a recent convert and her family that´s just awesome! the familia pinto. The mom there cooks super well and gave me a loaf of platano bread. Basiclly banana bread and it is delicious. Me and elder groberg ate the whole thing. Just delicious. Golly jee it was fun being back there!

So anyways we got back to cobija just pumped to work right? We started going and we had a ton a lessons the day we got back and they were all new people with promise. It was super fun but i got sooooo tired. In the last lesson I fell asleep! My comp gave the prayer to start the lesson... and i fell asleep... hahaha! the investigator had to poke me to wake me up... whoops. But it was such a cool day! It was incredible. Really by working harder I swear the work is so much easier if that makes any sense. so we have a lot of new people that we´re teaching so i´m super excited for the next couple of weeks.

anyways i´m out of time. Sorry i can´t really go into detail on much stuff but oh well. Love you all so much!

Elder Buma

4/13/15

whoops! i totally forgot to write the big email this week! uhhh. wel i have like thirty seconds to pound this out. sorry!

so we´re getting close to mommy day! yay!

mom could you send me some food recipes that i could make here. like brownies, cookies, maybe a pasta or two. some ward members want me to make some american stuff and i ain´t about to let them know that i have no idea how to cook anything besides cereal!

We get to go to santa cruz this week and have a conference with elder Waddel woo hooo!

my favorite family in the branch is the familia fontan. They own a bakery and they make me cinamon rolls! Oh my gosh is it so amazing! they´re from uruguay but they live here now and they actually have quite a bit of money and a washing machine! so you can guess they were the first family i made friends with hehehehe!

sorry, out of time, i´ll do better i swear! love you all! be examples of the believers in every moment! not just sunday!

Elder  BUma

4/6/15

Hi!

Sorry this one´s got to be short. Bad internet day.

This week was awesome! holy cow i love cobija. It´s on the border with Brazil in the north of bolivia. i totallyfalo portugués ahora.

conference was AMAZING! holy cow. I love conference.

we´re super lost in the area still, spent like five hours looking for a house one day. hahahaha i started calling all the missionaries who had ever served in my area for help. hahahah! I´m so hopeless with directions.

Humbling experience. I met a member with severe disabilities and he is suuuuper poor and his house smelled like puke but i´ve never met a sweeter soul and he came to ever session of conference. he´s awesome. Hermano Pozo.

I hope everyone had a good easter! love you all. Bolivia life for lyfe!

Elder Buma