Roman Summer

¡Hola!

Well, unfortunately I was only companions with Elder Shields for one transfer. And I had to leave Lleida earlier than I wanted to. Due to the high number of elders finishing their missions and the lack of any new elders coming in, two areas had to be combined with other areas. One of the areas that combined was Lleida. The two areas in Lleida combined into one area. Elder Parrish was transferred to Logroño. Elders Hughes and Shields became companions in Lleida. I moved a whopping 30 minutes by AVE to Tarragona! I am super excited. I really enjoyed Tarragona when I did intercambios here in December. Lleida and Tarragona are in the same district again now, so I will still see Elders Shields and Hughes every week. Plus stake conference is this month so I will get to see a lot of the Lleida members there. Also, my new companion, Elder Hansen, is the district leader. Thus we will being travelling to Lleida soon for baptismal interviews, and we will be doing intercambios with Lleida. So I will get to go back several times! Tarragona is an awesome city. It was founded as a Roman colony and has several Roman ruins. Also it is on the Mediterranean coast; thus I will be spending the summer on the coast! haha....not that it makes a difference as a missionary. It will be hard seeing tourists and others heading to the beach. Oh well, there is work to be done!

Elder Hansen is great. I loved him as a district leader two transfers ago. I look forward to working with him. I will actually "kill him" in the mission. He goes home after this transfer. This actually makes me a little nervous. There is a HUGE group of new elders coming in next transfer and the transfer after a HUGE group leaves. This means all of the older and middle missionaries will be either in leadership positions or training in the next few transfers. Our mission is very, very young and so I am now a middle missionary, thus it is very likely (seeing as I´ll need a new companion) that I could be made a senior companion....or even train or be district leader (if President is crazy).

General Conference was AMAZING as usual. What a special privelege we have to listen to a Prophet of God and his Apostles! I know without a doubt that they are called of God to lead His children. Everyone should take the time to listen to their words and counsels and apply them in his/her own life. Several times I felt as though I was being singled out. haha. I had recently decided (due to my new confidence and less weight) that after my mission I was going to save money and enjoy life as a bachelor,dating as many girls as I can, and someday (at 28 or so) returning to Spain to find a wife. Well that idea was thrown out the window this weekend by the Prophet, Elder Scott, and several others. They destroyed all my excuses...being too poor to marry, wanting to have fun, etc. Oh well, I still have almost a 1 1/2 years until I have to worry about marriage. My favorite talk was during the Priesthood session by President Uchtdorf. He gave a great talk about living up to the priveleges of the Priesthood and its blessings. I want to apply it to being a missionary and start living up more to the potential I have as a missionary and be worthy to receive blessings and miracles in the work.

The schedule for Conference was wierd here, seeing as we are 8 hours ahead of Salt Lake City. We watched the Saturday morning session live at 6 pm here. Then we watched Priesthood the next morning at 11 am and the Saturday afternoon session at 2pm. At 6 pm we watched the Sunday morning session live. The plan was to watch the Sunday afternoon session live at 10 pm. However, right before President Monson spoke during the morning session, it started to rain and we lost our satellite connection at the capilla. Thus we didn´t bother trying later for the afternoon session and merely watched parts of the that session and the prophet´s talk on Monday at a locutorio. We had several investigators there when the connection was lost, who were quite disappointed they didn´t get to hear the Prophet.

Tengo una montaña de fotos a compartir con ustedes, pero no lo tengo mi camera conmigo. Entonces la proxima semana voy a envoyer muchos fotos de mi ultima semana en Lérida y cosas como así.

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich