7/13/15

Well this was an interesting week, frustrating and good.

So I got to do EFY again! The youth from Santa Cruz did it this last week and it was way better this time too! The lights didn`t go out, I got a mike, we did the haka even better—everything just went super smooth. Also I got to see a lot of the youth from Viru Viru and Charcas that I haven`t seen in a long time. I felt the love, haha. The only problem is that EFY takes all day cause it takes forever getting home so we couldn`t proselyte.

On Tuesday I got the opportunity to baptize Jose. His mom and step dad are members but they were inactive for a while. So we rescued them and Jose got baptized. We wanted his step dad to do the baptism but Jose didn`t want him to. That kind of made us sad cause we thought that would be a good bonding experience for them but oh well.

Then on Thursday the Pope was here in Santa Cruz so we had to stay inside the house all day... so that was fun. We went hard working out in the house; totally did a whole 20 curl ups. I`m gonna have washboard abs when I get home, hahahaha!

On Saturday we had an activity in the ward and my comp and I were in charge. We played Minute to Win it games. It actually ended up super good. I was terrified that they wouldn`t like the games and that we couldn`t find all the materials that we needed, but it ended up working out super well. We were there for pretty much the entire afternoon until Mayorline`s baptism. I got to baptize her which was cool. Super smart girl. She really understands and has a testimony of the prophets and the restoration.

So with all the activities and stuff there wasn`t a whole lot of time to proselyte. Also, our main investigators stopped progressing. One got a job on Sundays, the other got back with her boyfriend who`s married to another girl and moved away, and the other just doesn`t want it anymore. So that was pretty tough. We basically have to start from scratch now in the area... I think my knuckles are gonna be bruised after so much tracting this next week! Haha!!

Overall it was a good week. There`s ups and downs like always but at the end of every day you can always look back and see the hand of the Lord somewhere.

Love you all!

Elder Buma

7/6/15

Hola!

Hi everyone i hope your fourth of July was just amazing!

Alright so let´s get started.

so last monday I had to go to the office to get a reimbursment and I made a joke with elder Cochran (secretary) that my birthday had already passed and that i still hadn´t gotten anything in the mail so he needed to get better at his job. and lo and behold this week i got your birthday cards haha. THANK YOU!

So we got to do EFY this week. Super fun hahahaha man i wish you guys had been there. So they did EFY in this super huge nice resort called the hotel rio selva. It´s in the middle of NOWHERE it just appeared haha. But what was so funny getting there was that a member took me and a few of the other missionaries there and it was raining soooo hard and the road wasn´t paved so it was just mud. We were sliding all over the place for like thirty minutes trying to get there. It was pretty fun.

So after we got there we got to eat a super nice lunch with the kids and then we went into this big salon to do the presentation. The problem is is that the lights went out... So we had to do our presentation in the dark with flashlights... haha So we walked up on stage singing llamados a servir and then me and elder francis had to just scream for anyone to hear us with our flashlights on our faces haha. I felt like i was telling a campfire story or something haha! After that Elder Fusi talked about how we´re in a spiritual battle between good and evil and then the president talked about how Elder Fusi´s tongan and explained the haka dance to the kids that it´s a dance that they would do when they got ready to fight. So we then did the haka for all the kids  to get them all psyched up to fight evil haha. it was awesome! I felt my inner tongan come out in me. hahaha!

After we did our presentation and everything the lights came back on and we left. But by that time it had rained even more and the roads were completely impassable haha! It took us a good two hours to find a way out of there. We had an aquatic bus it seemed like haha. I felt like I was on the pirates of the caribean ride in disneyland. haha!

The other big thing that happened this week was that we had a conference with equipetrol and viru viru with the pres. It really got us all psyched to work harder and be more obedient. As missionaries and as members we are always being watched and we must always be an example for everyone.

Alright I´m pretty much out of time but I love you all!

Elder Buma

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