2/22/16

Hello everyone! so this week`s letter is gonna be short for time`s sake.

Story number 1. On Friday, in the morning, I decided to clean our fridge cause it smelled funny. I took out all the stuff and found my chocolate milk in there so I decided to drink the entire bag (one liter) so that I wouldn`t waste it.... never, ever, ever drink a whole liter of Bolivian chocolate milk... like ever, hahahahahah! I was in the bathroom for all three lessons we had that day. We would pray, I would go to the bathroom, and my comp would teach! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I dug a grave this week so that was cool.... it was hard! It had just rained a little so the ground was super packed like a rock! It was quite the experience. It was for a brother from the branch whose family aren’t members. When we were digging the grave, his brothers started to make fun of me cause I`m a gringo. It was a super weird experience digging a grave but it seems like his family is more open to us visiting them now. They`re not from our area but it`s an awesome reference!

We haven`t been able to visit Dolores this week because we`ve been in the house again for elections to see if Evo can run for president again in five years. So we delayed her baptism till next week. Man, I am tired of the house! First Carnaval for three days and then elections for a day and a half! We couldn`t even hold church meetings yesterday! Oh well, now we`re rested to go full steam this week! 

Love you all!

Elder Buma

2/15/16

Hey everyone! I´m baaaaaack! Hope you all had a wonderful Carnaval and I´ve been told that Valentine´s Say was yesterday so that´s cool. Hope you all had a great time.

So this one´s gonna be short cause of internet problems and stuff, but it´s ok!

SO we started this week in the house... three days is a long time... it was like prison. Haha we ate good food though so I´m happy!

Dolores had her baptismal interview yesterday and she´ll be getting baptized next week!

Sonia´s doing good. She and Jaime want to get married so we´re in the process of trying to help them get that worked out. There are a few problems but nothing serious.

Eliseo and Martha are still planning on getting married, they just need to set a date. Eliseo was looking at the pictures in the gospel principles book yesterday in church and saw the pictures of the prophets of this dispensation. He was like, ¨What in the world--they´re all gringos!¨ Haha that´s always a fun question...so we talked with him and explained the restoration a little more but it´s all good now. 

On Saturday we had a sweet multi-zone conference with the president. It was awesome! We did a lot of practices and he helped us learn how to teach our investigators to pray with real intent. It was so awesome! He even told us. ¨You want to know why more investigators don´t get baptized or why they don´t gain a testimony? It´s cause they don´t know how to pray!¨ So we all sat there like little goobers and learned how to do it right. It was great!

Love you all! Hope you have a great week!

Elder Buma

2/8/16

Hey everyone!

Well this week has just been dandy! 

I don`t have much time so this is gonna be short.

Sonia`s progressing just wonderfully. She and her boyfriend Jaime (inactive member) are talking about marriage! She likes what she`s hearing and tells us that she knows that this gospel will bless her. She always feels the Spirit when we teach her. I also made no bake cookies and we ate them after a lesson this week. I think those helped too, hehe.

Dolores also wants to get baptized this Saturday! With Carnival, I`m not sure when we`re going to be able to do her interview, but she`s great!

There`s this one family, the Angulo family, that are just great. They`re members and they love the missionaries. The mom and dad have been having some problems in their relationship, and the other day the sister thanked us so much with tears in her eyes for giving our time to serve others. It really made me remember why I`m here—not for me but for others. It was a wonderful experience and I sincerely pray that the Lord will bless them that they might be able to work out their troubles.

I love all of you! Talk to you next Monday!

Elder Buma

2/1/16

Good day to all!

I hope your week was superb! (My comp learned “superb” this week and shouts it every once in a while now.)

Anyways, this week was pretty cool. Lots of service and lots of being awesome.

On Saturday we had Ines`s and Andres`s baptism in the morning. It went great! After baptizing Andres, he decided to swim out instead of walk out of the font, which made everyone laugh.

Right after the baptism we ran, got changed, and went to Martha`s to do service. Long story short, she takes care of a few little buildings for the city of Montero and she had to clean them all in between Saturday and toda, so her ox was in the mire. We helped her on Saturday hoping to do enough so that she could come to church yesterday, but she still couldn`t make it. It was a pretty fun service though--just dumping a ton of water everywhere to get the gunk out of rooms. The only bad part about the service was that with the little money Martha has, she bought food and made us lunch... cow stomach and cow intestine with ucca... I did my best and I`m not admitting anything, but the pockets of my rain jacket smell like cow stomach and cow intestine... hahahaha.

Last week I downloaded a lot of conference talks from like 1996. It`s awesome to listen to them while I get ready in the morning. Two that really stuck in my mind this morning are from President Monson. He recited a poem that was about a man who would get up in the morning and pray that God would bless the poor and needy but then during the day he wouldn`t stop to help those he saw. Then at night, he would once again ask God to bless the poor and needy. At the end of the poem it says, ¨if only I could live in the same way as I pray¨

It is my prayer that we may always remember that we have the opportunity and responsibility to comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

this week is carnival so I`m going to be locked in my house on Monday. I will be writing this Saturday (in five days) in the morning.

I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Elder Buma

1/25/16

Hey everyone!

This week was awesome! We had a great worldwide training transmission from Salt Lake for all the missionaries! Elder Anderson, Elder Bednar, Sister Oscarson, Elder Clayton, Elder Oaks, and Bishop Waddel spoke (I met Bishop Waddel here! I shook his hand!). Anyways, it was awesome to hear from them and to learn more. I really liked it cause it simplified everything. They repeated ¨we teach repentance and baptize converts” like 20 times. I also really liked it when Elder Aderson said that if we don´t know what to say, testify of the Savior.

Lately we´ve really been trying to find more people to teach so whenever we see people in the street, we stop to give them a card. In fact, it´s actually super fun to contact that way. I love it when we contact adventists in particular cause they´re always one of two extremes—one, they won´t even look at us in the eyes or talk to us, or two, they´ll invite you in, give you food and then take out their bible and try to bible bash. We don´t bible bash though.

So this week I´ve come to hate cockroaches more. One ran up my leg and into my pant and another one was just chillin on my toothbrush one night…come on! I put that in my mouth you sicko!

It´s hot! We haven´t been able to sleep the past week cause it´s so hot in our house. We took the mattresses up to the roof so that we can sleep outside and have no one see us. On the bright side, we finally have hot water in the shower cause the sun heats up the water for us, hahaha!

I ran a marathon this week. Well not really, but this week we went to play basketball at six in the morning and low and behold, the stake was just about to have a race. I knew that there was going to be an activity but not so early! Anyway,s they let us play basketball for a sec and then they told us that we had to participate. So we put on some numbers and went running! I got third place, right behind Elder Mell and another member... it´s been a while since I´ve run hard...I almost died.

Andres and Ines (two children from a less active family) are getting baptized this week! Their mom´s pretty much reactivated but their dad is....not so much... it´s ok though.

Martha and her kids are doing great and through them we´ve come to know some other great investigators like Eliseo. We also met Sonia this week and they both came to church yesterday! They´ve got the date for the 13th of February! Hopefully it works out!

Love you all! Hasta luego puej!

Elder Buma

1/18/16

Well I have five minutes so... UH OH!

Shout out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to Chella Bella. Chelsea Marie Buma was born on January 20th 19 something (can`t remember the year... how old are you going to be? 27 or 28?...) Anyways since that blessed day the world has never been the same. Who can say if it`s been changed for the better but because it`s known her it has been changed for good. (hashtag wicked) Love you Chel! You`re the Best One!

This week was great! Martha and her kids got baptized and so did Dolores`s kids! We filled up the font in the morning and by the night it had drained a little on us but it was no big deal. all got baptized.

Me and my comp got nailed with rain this week. The first time in my mission when I`ve been caught in really deep water without boots... oh well, shoes dry.

Rosemeri didn`t get baptized this week but we`re still working with her. she knows that the gospel has already blessed her. she actually told us that before she hit her kids and now she doesn`t and her kids told her. mom, you`re a lot nicer now... The gospel makes people nice! that was cool. she just needs to commit now and read the Book of Mormon more.

Out of time! I love you all! Have an amazing week and Chel, the world is definitely a better place with you. Have a happy, happy birthday!

Elder Buma

1/11/16

Sorry everyone! This one`s gonna be short!

This week was awesome! Working really hard and seeing the blessings from the Lord!

This week we were able to take Martha to a baptism and she liked it a lot. she told us afterwards that she feels a lot better getting baptized now. She got baptized in another church years ago in a river and the current took her away andshe didn`t know how to swim so she almost drowned! Thank goodness for baptismal fonts!

Yesterday four of our investigators were interviewed for baptism! Marta Vargas and her son Ismael and Dolores`s two sons Clinton and Franklin.

Dolores was also going to be interviewed but when she got to the chapel last night she showed up with her ex husband and said that they wanted to get back together! I felt like I was in a novela (soap opera). It`s ok though. She told us that she understands the law of chastity and that she still wants to get baptized so we`re ok. We are going to visit her and her ¨husband¨ tonight. He seems like a great guy so we`ll see how it goes.

There`s always obstacles in life. Just got to have patience, hope, work hard, and not give up!

Love you all!

Elder Buma

1/4/16

Whoops. Sorry about last week everyone. I got a little carried away watching Mormon Messages... haha

Anyways the last two weeks have been super awesome! I got to talk to my family on Christmas, got chunkier, and all that jazz. I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The last couple weeks have literally flown by so it`s hard to remember exactly what to write...

Last week I spoke in sacrament about how Mormons celebrate Christmas. Well true to the faith doesn`t really give a specific outline for what we do so I talked about how Mormons can certainly partay hard, but Mormon style. If you want to see a good example of someone parties hard Mormon style, I invite you to watch my mother Carolyn. That`ll give you a great idea. I also talked about how we would always do the nativity scene on Christmas Eve in my own family and they all laughed when I said that me and my cousin would always be Mary and Joseph and that I didn`t like it haha! love ya Alli!

With the new years a lot of people in the branch talked about their goals for this year in testimony meeting. I really liked one sister who not only said her goals but also talked about how she had set a plan to meet those goals. As missionaries we set goals but we also make plans to meet those goals. If there`s no plan, there`s a very small chance that we complete the goal.

The work is going really well here in Pampa. We have several people with dates like Marta Vargas and her son Ismael, Dolores and her two sons, Rosemeri and Arnez. They`re all great people but it seems like the adversary is making whatever problems possible happen to keep them from actually getting to the baptismal font. They all want to be baptized but problems keep coming up. Please pray for them.

Loving the work, working hard, love you all!

Elder Buma

12/21/15

Alright this letter`s gonna be short cause i`m going to talk to you people in like 2 days so ya.

anyways this week was really cool. we got to sing in the plaza principal de montero yesterday and it was super fun to sing with the primary of the stake. everyone looked at us funny at first but once we started they were looking at us as if we were angels haha.

yesterday i was with my comp and we saw some people struggling carrying plastic chairs so we offered to help carry them. As we were walking we came to find that the guy is actually a returned missionary, ex stake secretary, inactive. We helped him ith the chairs and then went back with him to his house and got to share a little message. He`s the only member in his family and it seems like they`re golden investigators! hechos 10:38

Rosemeri, marta, and noelia have all accepted to be baptized! Rosemeri`s date is next saturday but we havent set a date for the others yet. We have to teach marta very slowly porque capta muy poco and noelia`s dad is in potosi and he also accepted to be baptized so we`re going to wait until he gets back in January.

Well we`re going to go to Santa Cruz now to sing in la plaza CRE (the electric company) and then eat dinner with pres. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! love you guys!

Elder Buma

12/14/15

Buen Dia!

Alright this week I wanted to start by talking about the importance of associating ourselves with good people, and good influences.

This week has been pretty hard for some great people I know. Richard Guevara is an amazing guy. He`s reactivated and helps a lot with the work here in Pampa la Madre. Sadly his wife, who has abandoned him and her children three times before, left again but this time took his kids too. He has been crushed. He continues to work, help us, and talk with lawyers like crazy to get his kids back but he is super sad. We`ve been spending a lot of time with him this week to help him. I`m sure he`d appreciate your prayers too.

Marta Vargas is also a great lady. She`s a suuuuuuper humble investigator and suuuuper poor. She also has a husband that is definitely not completing his duties outlined in "the family-a proclamation to the world."

Throughout my time here in Bolivia I`ve met a lot of really humble people and people who have had a lot of struggles in their lives. And every time I hear of some struggle I am reminded just how important the gospel is. The Gospel changes lives. I know that. It is my prayer that I may always hold on to the iron rod and associate myself with others that will help me grab on instead of people who would pull me off of it.

On Friday i got a phone call from the zone leaders in Viru Viru and they told me that Fernanda wanted me to baptize her so they got permission from President Zambrano and I got to go to Warnes on Saturday to do the baptism! it was awesome being able to go back there and perform the baptism. man I loved that area!

Some funny things this week would be things like getting yelled at in quechua (this is an older indigenous language) and having people tell me I`m from the CIA trying to take over Bolivia. I was also reading in the bible and read in Lucas 10:8. (I looked it up: Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you). I`m going to try to apply that more when people give me cow stomach. haha!

I hope you all had a great week! Have a very merry Christmas and make it a Merry Christmas for others too!

Elder Buma

12/7/15

Sorry! Not much time today!

I`m in Montero, Pampa la madre 1. It`s a branch that had about 90 attend this week.

I`m with Elder Mayaute. from Lima, Peru.

It`s been a super fun week getting to know the area. I am terrible with directions.

The house definitely needs some cleaning.

Loving life.

Be an example of the believers!

Elder Buma

11/30/15

Hello Everybody!

Well apparently it was Thanksgiving this past week. I`d love to send a list of all the things I`m grateful for but I don`t have time, I am very grateful to have shoes though.

Anyways, this week was awesome. We were in Santa Cruz a lot for migraciones for my comp and stake conference and stuff so we lost a lot of time to proselite but we made the most of the time we had! There`s so little of it!

On Wednesday my comp had migraciones at five in the morning. When we got there, the mission secretary ElderTtaylor and the health secretary Elder Bell were there helping them out. Elder Taylor needed a briefcase and the missionaries needed food so Elder Bell asked me to go with him to get some stuff. While we were getting everything, a doctor called Elder Bell asking for a missionaries id number and he didn`t know what that was so I helped him get it. It was super weird being with him and doing that. I felt like I had gone back in time 8 months haha.

Fernanda Santisteban is progressing really well and she has a date for the 12th. She understands everything super well. We`ll see if me and my comp are still here to be at the baptism.

On Saturday we had the stake conference priesthood session and adult session in Santa Cruz but yesterday we transmitted it through internet to our chapel on Sunday. It worked... ok. hahaha! It wasn`t the best. It was raining super hard so a lot of people couldn`t come and then the projector didn`t want to work and the computer didn`t either... We got it to work but we lost quite a bit of the conference. It made for a great laugh though!

After conference we had an appointment with the familia Flores. They`re less actives and I accidentaly said that transfers were this week and they got super sad. Then they made me sad. They told us that they hadn`t felt the spirit much for the past few years since Elder Garret (whoever that is) was here but they told us that they`ve been able to feel it a lot with us and they told us how they love us and stuff. I almost cried. I love them so much.

 I usually try not to tell people about transfers cause i don`t want any special treatments or to say goodbye and then end up staying in the same area so I usually just send pictures to my old areas to say goodbye haha. 

After the familia Flores, we went to the familia Orozco and they made us pizza! It was awesome! We had a great family home evening and played a really fun game called habla chancho.

Great week here in Bolivia.

Sed agradecidos!

Elder Buma

11/23/15

Hello everyone! haha so it`s just been another great week in Bolivia.

So last tuesday i got to have an exchange with Elder Willes. haha Elder Willes is from draper and we actually both went to Jordan for a semester before he transfered to alt and we both got to Bolivia at the same time. it was super fun to work with him for a day. We shared stories from the mission. How our testimonies have grown, it was super funny to talk about the beginning of the mission too. Oh to remember those wonderful days as a greenie. I had a lot to learn haha.

Anyways on wednesday we had a multizone conference in santa cruz. It was awesome! the president talked to us how we can better our teaching abilities and it was just great! Keep it simple, keep it powerful. It was super cool when he said speak to them like you`re never going to see them again. Then he started giving a lesson about the atonement and how the end of the gospel is the person. after all the progress reports, activities, and lessons. the end is to get to the person. it was super powerful. I also got to see some buddies like elder cochran which was cool but not as cool as the lessons.

On thursday My comp had migrations. so we had to go to santa cruz to pick up his passport. We had to get up at 4 to get there on time but whatever. I got to see some more of my buddies. like elder taylor. he`s the mission secretary now and we also got here to bolivia together. We just laughed our heads off about the beginning of the mission. the food, the language, stuff like that. haha just reminded me that if we go through a trial we`ll laugh our heads off about it later hahaha!

later that night for noche de hermanamiento we played simon says and reverse charades. it was super funny doing simon says with everyone cause they got so into it. And now whenever people get too loud i can just say SIMON DICE SILENCIO! and everyone gets super quiet. Thank you simon.

On saturday we were just about to have missionary corelation in the chapel when a guy on his bike came into the chapel. his bike was decked out in colombian flags and stuff and apparently he`s been biking for over a year trying to bike 50,000 kilometers! wow! he was pretty beat though. he didn`t have a dime and he needed a place to stay. so we talked to him a bit, had to call the mission president to ask if we should give him money which the branch president ended up doing, and then he was on his merry way. It was kind of sad though. He told us that he`s lost everything. he got divorced, he lost his faith (he used to be a pastor) and now all he wants is to bike 50,000 kilometers. He`s kind of crazy. But i certainly hope he can find the church again and listen to the missionaries more.

Right after corelation on saturday we were on our way to a cita when a guy stops his scooter and starts to talk to us in enlish, his name is mauricio. super weird guy. he actually lived in the states, dated a mormon girl, and would go to our church in the states drunk. he also talked to us about how an alien almost killed him and a bunch of weird stuff. weird. anyways the next day in church guess who came. MAURICIO! what in the world! it was super funny though on saturday night he also told us about how he likes to have relations with girls a lot and guess what theme it was for that week in gospel principles? the law of chastity! haha i laughed so hard on the inside but on the outside I was serious cause it`s a pretty serious theme. Mauricio lives in the area of the other elders but we`ll see if we can get some progress there haha.

alright last thing real quick! so we were in a family home evening last night and we were in the middle of a lesson about putting on the armor of god when their little two year old son peed himself standing up. ask me if he had a diaper... no he did not... but they didn`t even think it was a big deal! The hermana rivero changed his pants real quick, didn`t even clean the floor and then said alright you were saying elders? so we just kept on with the lesson with pee on the floor when two minutes later he peed himself again! on top of his mom`s feet! and they still didn`t think it was a big deal! I felt like i was in a zoo haha. I love that family with all my heart and they`re actually pretty much fully active again in the church which is super cool haha. love them.

love all you guys!

Elder BUma