Monday, September 26, 2011

Bolivianos!

¡Hola!

Well Cornellá spoiled me!!!!! Wow it is different here. We have to work super hard. Well actually the truth is that Granollers is a great area. It is a lot like Tarragona. So it is fairly successful. The only problem is that Cornellá was SUPER successful and so now I am not satisfied with anything less. It is ok though. Because now I have a lot of motivation to work hard here to have the same success as Cornellá.

In fact, somehow, sometime, I really don´t know how or when, I won the confidence of President (more accurately, God, seeing as transfers are done through inspiration/revelation) as an area builder/saver. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to talk to Elder Allphin (my ayudante friend). The first thing he said to me was, "I could not believe you got moved AGAIN! But I was there and it was complete revelation. You are really needed in Granollers...." And then he began to list a bunch of things that President is expecting me to do here. One of the things is to really help my companion, Elder Ellis grow into a missionary. Then on Thursday I received a call from the zone leaders telling me the exact same things.

We´ve already gotten to work. Friday was a day of miracles for us. Thursday our zone leaders called us and gave us the advice to talk about baptism with every investigator. We decided to listen to our zone leaders and put their counsel to test. By listening to our leaders, we saw miracles on Friday as we set 4 new fechas bautismales!

I really do love it already in Granollers. Why? Because there are a ton of Bolivians! From the start of my mission, since Sergio´s baptism, I have just loved Bolivians. Their food is amazing and they are super nice. Some of my best friends here in Spain are Bolivians. I have already met so many great Bolivian families in Granollers! I am so excited.

Another exciting thing....Elder Greep is in my district here. He stayed in Tarragona for two more transfers and is now is Mataro. It is really exciting because we are super close. And now I can hear about everyone in Tarragona.

All the facebook birthday wishes were finally forwarded to me. Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday. (Y a mis amigos en españa, ¡Muchas gracías!)

I suppose that is all for today.

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

New Address

Elder Buchkovich
C/Girona 35, 3, 1
08402 Granollers
España

On The Road Again

¡Hola!


Well the Lord is really trying to teach me to accept change. Once again after only two transfers (3 months) I have been transferred. I am not going to lie, at first I was quite frustrated. This is the second time in a row that I have been transferred from an amazing ward so quickly. I was looking forward to stake conference where I could see everyone from Lleida and Tarragona. And we have 6 fechas bautismales here. Indeed I was quite frustrated. But then I got over myself. Now I have a lot of excitement to go to my new area. In fact I am actually starting to like change. I get to meet new people and work super hard in many great places. And change keeps things interesting. Being transferred a lot is quite humbling. This is a great lesson for me.


I am going to Granollers. It is about a half hour north of Barcelona. My new companion is Elder Ellis. He is now my second non-American companion.....yep he is from Canada! It will be fun. He is from Vancouver Island. This will be his third transfer in the mission. I look forward to working with him a lot.


Oh sadly, the miracle of me not being allergic to seafood has come to an end. Yesterday in a member´s house (super embarrassing) my allergies returned in full force. There was vomiting and hives. I had to return to piso, take a Benadryl, and rest for a bit. It completely ruined our plans to despedirme a todos.


This week I learned why we have such great missionaries here in the Spain Barcelona Mission. The missionaries have great parents! We invited the father of one the Hermanas who is returning home this week to help us in a visit with an African woman. This investigator has a fecha, but is having trouble with the Word of Wisdom. The father of the sister missionary bore an amazing testimony and everytime he spoke we could feel the Spirit super strongly. She could feel it too. He helped us out greatly. With the faith of our fathers we are performing miracles here in Spain!


¡Hasta luego!


Love,
Elder Buchkovich

Answer to Prayer

¡Hola!

Bueno pues, the website where we write our weekly reports to Presidente isn´t working, thus I actually have time to write today. The only problem is....I´m not used to having time to actually sit and think. Well this past semana...We have continued working super hard. We took some time of Preparation Day again today to visit Pedro and Rolando. Elder Parry came with me to do the baptismal interview. They are going to be baptized mañana. A Tuesday baptism is a little strange, but they are too busy with chess tournaments on Saturday. Pedro and Rolando are really great. Pedro went to a JAS (young single adults) dance on Friday and really enjoyed it. He fit in quite well. Then this Saturday Germán is getting baptised. We taught him all the lessons, but he lives in another ward in the area of the Hermanas. So he´s technically not "our" baptism. But we are still really excited for him. Stacey (a woman from Nigeria) and Rossy (the 11 year old daughter of a menos activa) might get baptized this weekend. But it´s more likely that they´ll be baptized in one or two semanas.

This is probably my last week with Elder Manotas. Can you believe it´s already time for transfers again!?!?!

Bueno a miracle story. Well as if I wansn´t already convinced that God answers my prayers, he gave me another reason to believe it this week. There is a recent convert here from Nigeria. His name is Kachi. He does not really understand much about the Church or the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have been trying my best to help him. But I´ve had little success. Thus I´ve been praying for help. Well this week, his friend Godwin moved here. Godwin is a super strong member who originally introduced Kachi to the church in Mallorca. Plus Africans understand other Africans better. So Godwin will help a ton. Godwin was supposed to move to Holland but he missed his flight. So he has to stay here. I know Godwin is the help I´ve been praying for. it´s no coincidence that Godwin missed his flight. God wants to all His children to grow in their testimonies and will do whatever it takes to help them understand His Gospel.

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

Two More Baptisms

Hola!

Well this month is already a little less interesting. Bishop H. David Burton (General Bishop of the Church) was supposed to come for a special mission conference. But he cancelled. However we are already off to a great start in Septiembre. Francisca and Paul were both baptized this weekend. Francisca is from Paraguay. She is the cousin of a member, Maura. And Paul is from Peru. He was about to baptized there, but then moved to Spain. Here he found the church and showed up one Sunday. Two weeks later he got baptized! We have 3 fechas set for 17 Septiembre. Also Pedro and Rolando, the professional chess playing Cubans, will be baptized during the week next week! We are super animated for this month!

I have learned so much from the Lord this past week. However I lack time. Thus I won´t explain. Just remember to always find yourself on the Lord´s side, even in the small things.

Miracle story: Two weeks ago a lady from Nigeria contacted us on the street. She told us that she was really busy but she wanted to show us where she lived. There was no man home so we set up another time to visit. When we returned she was not there. Well it turns out that she had taken us to her friend´s house. Her friend, Stacey, informed us that she (the original lady) is not fully healthy in the mind. We have not seen the original African lady again. However we started teaching Stacey, the friend. We gave her a tour of the capilla this week. And when we showed her the baptismal font, she told us that she would like us to baptize her. She told us the same again when she came to our baptism on Saturday. She speaks Spanish well and to her own excitement has already made several new friends in the ward!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

Wonderful End to August

¡Hola!

Well this week was a wonderful week. Every week in the mission is wonderful, especially in the Spain Barcelona Mission. We beat our record of baptisms-missionwide-in-a-single-weekend. 20 children of God were baptized and confirmed this weekend! Last week I believe I shared a story about Juan Carlos. Well I have an update. He got baptized!!!!!!! It was a beautiful baptismal service. Juan Ricuardo, a young single adult who about to leave on a mission, baptized Juan Carlos. And Luis Alfredo, another youth who helped us with the visits, gave an AMAZING talk. We even had surprise guests, Los Hinckley. Last Thursday at a capacitacion, I told Hna Hinckley the miracle story. She loved it. It turns out that their son-in-law served as a branch president in Torino, where the girlfriend of Juan Carlos lives. Thus she said they would like to come. When the Hinckleys called to wish me happy birthday I reminded them about the baptism. Hna Hinckley said that they had another baptism to go to. But in the end they came to ours! I always love seeing the Hinckleys! The ward was super animated to have the Hinckleys come.

Yesterday Juan Carlos was confirmed by Elder Manotas. During priesthood class, I ordained Juan Carlos to the priesthood. It was my first time giving someone the priesthood. And of course blessing are always a challenge in Spanish because I´m not used to talking in "tu" form. And it was on the spot. I thought the Bishopric or someone would do it. But they asked me. I hope it went alright.

Everything here is still wonderful. September is going to be quite the exciting month. I won´t say anything yet. But it should be a good month, with a lot of learning and miracles!

And for the weekly miracle story.....
The Relief Society president has been asking our ward mission leader to have us visit a menos activa member who lives in a nearby pueblo. Finally this week he called us with her address and we set up a time with him to go visit her. When we passed by her house, she was not home. However, we met her 11 year old daughter who is not baptized. We set up another time to visit and returned later that week. We found out that the daughter was ready to be baptized once before, but one of the missionaries was transferred and she never got baptized. She still has strong desires to be baptized, so we set a new fecha with her! Our Relief Society president was quite excited when she found out we followed through on her "assignment."

Keep safe with all that crazy weather!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

A Year of Growth

¡Hola!

One year down.....you can believe it?! The truth is, this is super sad. I only have one year left in Spain. Only one year left devoting all my time as a full-time missionary. Today happens to be my real birthday. On a day were most jovenes in the US. celebrate their right to legally purchase alcohol, I am out serving the Lord. I believe I am having more fun!!!

Well I had a lot to say. But the computer froze and I had to restart. And now I dont have time. Everything here is wonderful. We have baptisms scheduled for every weekend for the next few weeks.

We saw MANY miracles this week. It is amazing how blessed we were by the Lord! However it is hard for me to remember off hand all the different miracles because one affected me profoundly. We left our last visit on Monday quite discouraged. At the beginning of the month we had several fechas set for the month of August. However some of them found work, others moved away, and others we lost contact with. On Monday our last fecha for August told us that she wanted to wait until September (we later found out she has problems with the Word of Wisdom). As senior companion I felt really bad. I kept thinking of all the things we could have done better with our investigators. I felt as if I had let my companion down and President down (because he had received revelation about every companionship baptizing this month). That night during my nightly prayer I asked God for a miracle. I told him I had the faith that he could lead us to one of his sons or daughters who was ready to be baptized. On Thursday we met Juan Carlos. He had been attending church for several weeks. We thought he was a member until his girlfriend approached us during church that Sunday before to set up a visit. His girlfriend, a member, is on vacation here, visiting him for several weeks. She brought him to church and has been teaching him everything. He even started reading the Book of Mormon. During the visit Thursday, we invited him to be baptized on 10 September. When we did so, he turned to his girlfriend. She interrupted, telling us, "Well the problem is that I leave on the 30th." And then he followed saying, "Yeah. And I would like her to be here." So problem-solved...we set the date for 27 August! I know that the Lord answered my prayer. I know it without a doubt. When we have the faith, the Lord guides us to his prepared sons and daughters.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich