5/16/16

Buenos Días mis queridos amigos!

This week was just dandy. All weeks are dandy, all weeks have their problems, and all weeks are filled with the spirit.

ok, this week was Transfers!!! aaahhhhhh!!!! well don´t get too excited though cause i´m in the same place haha. AND i´m loving it! haha. My companion changed though. Elder Pitarch went to Viru Viru, my first area! Elder Villalta from Arenillas, Ecuador came to be my comp. Man! I already love this Elder! He actually knows Jared forester from our stake back home. Jared served in his city in Ecuador. Anyways he´s awesome. really good at teaching.

while we were helping missionaries go to their new areas i ran into elders that are serving in viru viru, warnes, and montero. It was awesome to ask them how the areas are doing and the people there still remember me! that made me feel good inside haha.

Anyways so on my last day with elder pitarch we were walking right? we turn around and see that a little cute puppy is following us. when the dog sees us look at him he starts to turn back to go to his house. now, quick note for parents, don´t have your children read this part of the email if they really like dogs. Anyways, the dog starts going back to his house and WAM! got nailed by a car... i was stunned. my comp told me afterwards that i screamed WHOAH when it got hit... woops. Anyways, the story doesn´t stop there. After we see the dog get hit we saw a young girl start to cry, pick up the dog, and take it to her house. Does this sound like a perfect time for misionaries? i say yes. so we went up to the house, the dad came out to talk to us, and we start talking about the plan of salvation haha. and long story short we´ve basically taught them every day since. their name is the family Monasterio... Always got to be looking for opportunities to teach! hahahahah!

the young girl we met last week came to church and we didn´t even go to pick her up!... Again, ¨that was easy¨hahaha! she´s progressing well. haha we have a family home evening with the raldes family and her tonight haha.

Jesus and Mabel and their kids came to church yesterday! not sure if you remember about them but they came to church! they came they came they came! yes!

woops, got to go, but this week was great. hope to hear from you guys next week!

love you!

Elder Buma

5/9/16

I´m gonna keep this one short cause i want time to be able to download some conference talks before getting off. I loooove listening to conference talks! especially the older ones. I´ve basically been searching for talks from Gordon B. Hinckley and thomas s monson.

I was reading the bible this week and i found a great scripture in acts 6:8-10. if you want to look that up... that`d be great haha.

This week when we were looking for a less active family we clapped at a house and a young woman came out and we asked her about the family and she said that she knew the family, she led us there, we met the family, turns out the family is one of the pioneers in the church, the young woman stayed for a small spiritual thought with my companion and me, and everyone came to church yesterday... well that was easy... ahahaa! don`t know what`s gonna happen with this family or the investigator but so far it´s going well. haha the family´s name is the familia Raldes.

Another investigator named Jakelin Gutierrez showed up to church this week on her own!... she got to church exactly when church ended but still! it was great!

Having fun, working hard. In the words of ronald mcdonald I´M LOVIN IT!

love you all,

Elder Buma

5/2/16

Shout Out!... Not sure if that is loud enough... 

SSSSSHHHHHHOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTT OOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That`s better. Shout out to one of my favorite people on this planet. Emily Buma! Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Today is my sista`s birthday! Em, I`ve always loved our adventures together, going down to Provo to visit, and hitting up Jdawgs or JCW`s. Em, you`re one of my best examples and it`s no surprise that you got the rookie of the year award at work! You da best. Merry Birthday ya filthy animal! hashtag home alone.

Well this week was a little crazy. It got ridiculously cold all of a sudden! Weird... also, two elders all of a sudden were told this week that they had to leave their house by today because the owner needs the space. We`ve been helping them look for a house and the house that we found wasn`t approved so we have to go help them move to our house right after we get off of internet.

Also, we`ve had an exchange with the elders from Los Pinos 2 pretty much all week. I was with Elder Calderon from Chile. He`s a little chubby, nice guy--a really precious soul seriously.

The other we left a house and the investigator`s dog followed us all the way to our next appointment and waited for us until we left! At first I thought it was kind of cool until when we were passing by a member`s house with a german shepherd... It was GO TIME! That german shepherd did not want that dog in his neighborhood. I had no idea what to do and I only remember thinking ¨If Sampson (the member`s german shepherd) kills this dog, it`s owner will never listen to us again! ¡) haha luckily the member got them apart and it was all ok haha.

Because of the cold, everyone`s gotten sick. There weren`t any investigators in church but we`re working hard and loving life!

Sorry! I`m out of time! I`ll talk to you later! Have a great week!

Elder Buma

4/25/16

Oh what a week what a week.

Well this week we couldn´t proselyte as much as we would have liked, but besides that it was great!

I got my teeth whitened on Monday by a member who does it really cheap for missionaries. haha my comp told me that I was doing it just so I can get married faster when I get home hahaha!

On Tuesday I got to go back to Charcas on an exchange! It´s been more than a year since I’ve been there and it was awesome! I went to a couple old investigators like Ana Soruco that I used to visit! Sadly, most of them had stopped investigating but we had really cool visits with them so we´ll see what happens!

On Wednesday Elder Calderon came to our mission. AAAAHHHHHH!!!! He´s an area seventy that was actually the president of our mission right before President Zambrano and let me tell you, they are polar opposites. I hope my trainer, Elder Beltran reads this cause he used to tell me all about Elder Calderon haha. Elder Calderon kinda yells a lot and gets in your face a bit whereas President Zambrano is pure love. I personally loved the conference, not sure about the disobedient elders haha, but if you were obedient there was nothing to fear from him. He talked a lot about how we need to baptize more and be a lot more direct in our teaching too so we´ve made the goal to be more direct in teaching.

The Murillo Alvarez family is progressing really well. They want to get married and everything, now we´re just waiting for the brother´s divorce to come through and they´ll be ready to get married and baptized.

Julio Cespedez (a recent convert that fell back into getting drunk) had a rough week this week. He got drunk and fell and nailed his head right by his eyebrow and now has a huuuge herida... don´t know how to say herida (wound)... anyways we´re working with him and loving him a lot. MAN addictions are hard to overcome!

Out of time! Love you!

Elder Buma

4/18/16

Alright, well my time is gone so here`s what I’ll let you people know.

We had stake conference this week which was awesome! Elder Moscoso from the area seventy came and his talks were awesome! Afterwards we visited a recent convert family that absolutely loooved the conference. Haha. it was so funny on Saturday night for the adult session the family thought that it was only priesthood holders and when the brother saw that there were sisters there as well he was a little confused but we explained. What was so funny was the next day he told his wife, ¨wow de verdad que perdiste algo increible!¨ wow you really missed out! Hahaha! And the way he said it made me laugh so hard. Anyways it`s always awesome to see people come to really know the gospel. It motivates me!

This week’s been really good! Working hard and meeting more people. The Murillo family is progressing well but they still have to get married....Ever is also progressing well and really interested in the plan of salvation. He also needs to get married, but they`re really liking it!

Whoops sorry! Out of time! Hope you all have a great week! Love you!

Elder Buma

4/11/16

Alright so there`s not much time left so I basically decided in between sending pics and writing... sending pics is easier so I chose pics hahahaha!

Really quick this week started out amazing--Ever accepted a baptisimal date for the 30^th. Murillo Alvarez had a family home evening with us in the house of the Maldonados and we ate pizza (Murillo Alvarez left before we took pics haha oh well).

There were a couple disappointing things too. Julio Cespedez, a convert who had fallen back into drinking, was progressing so well! When I met him he was super drunk but since that first visit he hadn`t had even a sip of alcohol... until yesterday... when he was getting ready for church his friends invited him to drink... and he drank...NOOOOO! It`s ok though. He`s still awesome and progressing. He`ll beat it!

Alright I love you all super much and stuff. Don`t want to sound girly or anything but it`s true!

Working super hard. Putting faith in the Lord.

Elder Buma

4/4/16

SHOOOOUUUUTT OOUUTT! On April third some very significant things happened in the church. My father Robert Buma was also born on that date. Both incredible events for my life and i´m sure grateful that i only have to remember one date haha!. I am so grateful for my poppy and for everything that he´s done for me. I love you pop with all my heart. I hope your day was amazing! and what better way to spend your birthday watching conference! haha.

That actually brings me into my next point. CONFERENCE WAS THIS WEEKEND and what a blessing it was! As always it was awesome and I can´t believe how fast it went! haha when i was little i thought it was an eternity! hahahha! I particularly loved the talk by bonnie oscarson. ¨we know the gospel, but do we believe it¨ I loooooved that. The church is MORE than just a nice little cristian club! that was great! everything was great, but i really liked her talk.

on saturday and sunday we went around inviting people to conference in ninety something degree weather in our suits and no one accompanied us conference, so we got to the chapel after a 50 minute micro ride super sweaty and alone...but others came! hha that always happens to me in the mission. the people we go personally to invite can´t come but others do!

one family that came is the murillo family. they´re a contact that my companion made before i came here. they lost contact with them a while ago but we went back last week and we clapped but no one came out so we turned to go but right when we were leaving they got to their house from work! right on time! the brother actually used to be a journalist and he´s just loving everything that we´re teaching so he actually did like an ïnterview¨ with us to do a little article in a small paper. we´ll see what happens. 

(internet just went out forever, this email´s gonna be a whole lot shorter now!)

another guy that came is ever loaiza that elder solano and i contacted a week ago on an exchange

During transfers elder Aguilar from el salvador was with my comp and i for two days and we contacted a house right? they let us come into their yard and we were talking and the lesson was going great but at the end elder agular asked them if he could take a picture of their plant. do you want to know why he wanted to take a picture of their plant? because it was a marijuana plant! they obviously told him no and were much less nice after that... man! i know it´s wrong to have a marijuana plant but you don´t need to take pictures of them. I´m pretty sure they think we´re from the FBI now... oh darn.

I love you all somuch and i hope you have a great week!

Elder Buma