Only ten more to go!

¡Hola!

Nancy was baptized this weekend! It was an interesting service. During the visits Nancy always talked about her dog. One morning I jokingly mentioned to Elder Shiflet that she was probably going to want to bring her dog. That statement proved to be prophetic. That same day she asked us if she could bring her dog to her baptism. The branch president was with us in the visit and he agreed to allow it only if someone was holding it at all times. The dog behaved well during the service, but before and after the service it ran around the capilla wreaking havoc with the primary kids. My rule of not baptizing seems to not work anymore. We could not convince Nancy to let a member baptize her. But I do not really mind. I am now only 10 baptisms away from my mission goal!!

We still do not know how Nancy´s phone called us in the middle of the night! The Gospel has really blessed her life. Before she started meeting with us she could not sleep well due to nightmares. However since she starting meeting with us, she has been sleeping really well at night. Her life is a lot more peaceful.

My miracle story this week comes from contacting. Recently we have been trying to place a stronger emphasis on contacting. We are always running from visit to visit; thus sometimes we forget the Lord´s counsel in Doctrine and Covenants to not travel swiftly while people all around perish. Therefore we have been trying harder to contact. We have seen several miracles from this. Although most of our contacts have rejected us, God has greatly blessed us for our finding efforts. We met two wonderfully golden families during a visit with one of our baptismal fechas. Then on Saturday one the members showed up with his friend from work, who is already reading the Book of Mormon! To top the week off, Jackson came to church. Jackson is a menos activo we contacted two weeks ago. He was literally the only person on the street. He came to church with his two young daughters, one of which is 12 and unbaptized. She really enjoyed the Young Women´s class and wants to come back! Although contacting is not the most effective finding technique, God always blesses us for our efforts!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,

Elder Buchkovich

Visiting Teaching

¡Hola!

It has been another great week in Burgos! To cap of the week Burgos saw an attendance of 59 people in church! They are getting quite close to ward numbers!!

The members in Burgos continue to impress me with their dedication to home/visiting teaching. They are working MIRACLES in missionary work, even when we are not there! Everytime we visit Xandra, our recent convert, we always ask her about her cousin. We have been trying to contact her cousin for a while now. This past week Xandra´s visiting teachers visited her to teach one of the new convert lessons (I love that!). And lo and behold, her cousin happened to pass by that day. The visiting teachers invited her to the lesson, and she agreed to listen. They found out that she is meeting with the Testigos, but invited her to meet with us. The members are working so hard here!

President approved one of the pisos were looking at. Thus, the office is currently making arrangements with the landlord. Hopefully soon we will be moving into our new piso!! We did a pretty good job with the piso we found. It is reallynice and really cheap. President was quite excited by how much cheaper it is than our current piso.

Día de Sant Jordi was yesterday. But since we are not in Catalunya, it was not as big as a deal here. There was still "Día del Libro" but it isn´t is as big as Sant Jordi and you have to be selling books to participate. So we just handed out Books of Mormon between visits. It is actually funny how much I have changed from the beginning of my mission. When we first arrived in Spain we used a taxi to go downtown to do paperwork. We were all really afraid to talk to the taxi driver and all i remember saying is "gracias! adios!" as we left the cab. Well yeasterday while helpìng some members move, they called a taxi for us to get to the new piso from the old one. Upon entering the taxi, I immediately started talking to him and before leaving the cab, gave him a Book of Mormon. It was great fun!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,

Elder Buchkovich

Estoy en Espana

¡Hola!

Well it snowed again yesterday. In fact it has been quite chilly this past week. The weather is really random. One moment it is warm and sunny, the next it is snowy and windy! I am starting to wander if I am actually in Spain or if I am serving in Cleveland, Ohio. haha! We actually met a man from California yesterday. He is hiking el camino de Santiago. He told us that he might go home early though. He came to Spain expecting to enjoy warm, beautiful weather. Instead he has been freezing cold in snow! The poor man!!

I cannot believe I have been in Burgos for a whole transfer already. It was by far my most successful transfer!! Better than Cornellá!! We are working really hard and have seen a ton of success thanks to the members here. They really want to be a ward.

A miracle this week was the Noche de Hogar that we had with Cecilia and Felix. We originally invited them to hold a Noche de Hogar to help them form a stronger relationship in their marriage. We planned to teach them how to hold a small, simple but spiritual noche de hogar so that they could begin to hold them regularly as a family. We also asked them to invite the Romanian family that they live with. Well Cecilia and Felix went the extra mile with this noche de hogar. They not only invited the Romanian family, but everyone that lives with them. During the noche de hogar Cecilia shared a super powerful testimony on families and the Gospel. It was amazing! Normally the people living in this piso go their separate ways and do their own things. But during this noche de hogar you could realy note the unity and love between everyone. Thanks to this noche de hogar and the testimony of Cecilia, the Romanian family (whom were already teaching) is a lot more receptive to our message, and we have begun teaching Yamilka, one of the other piso-mates. The power of members is incredible!

Our recent converts are well cared for by the ward. They are all being visited by their home/visiting teachers. This Sunday during ward council our branch president read a letter from the stake that mentioned members teaching the new convert lessons. All the ward council members were really excited about doing this so that "the missionaries can focus more on investigators." I am thoroughly impressed with Burgos. It is a small branch, but the members really understand that they are the key to success. And they are excited about that!

Next week preparation day will be on Tuesday again because Día de Sant Jordi falls on Monday. So my emails will come on Tuesday.

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

My Easter Snow Curse

¡Hola!

For as long as I can remember we have always had snow on Easter weekend. The first nice Easter in Cleveland in a long time was when I was at BYU, where it snowed. Then finally I thought that at least in Spain I would have two Easters without snow. Well I was wrong! Last year it was a nice Easter. BUT this year it snowed all morning Saturday. Another Easter weekend with snow. No matter where I am for Easter it always snows!!! haha. oh well.

I really LOVE Easter!! I just love celebrating the resurrección of our Lord Jesus Christ! He lives!!! It is a lot more special, now that I have such a deeper understanding of the Atonement. He suffered so that we don´t have too. Cualquier illness, pain, problem, etc. that we have, He suffered already so that He could comfort and help us (Alma 7:11-13). He payed the price for our sins and weakness, and all he asks of us are few simple things such as being baptized by the proper authority and keeping the commandments. His infinite amor for us is increible!

Nancy is one of our big miracles from this past week. About two weeks ago, in the middle of the night, we received two missed calls from her. Her number was saved in our phone, but neither of us knew an investigator named Nancy. So we excitedly called her back the next day. When we called she was quite confused as to how we had her number. When we told her that she had called us, she said, "I could not have called anyone last night. I was sleeping!" Nonetheless she agreed to come to our baptism that weekend. She could not stay for conference after the baptism, but agreed to a visit this past Tuesday. At the visit we learned more about Nancy. When she was a young girl in Peru her parents always wanted to be baptized but never did. For a time the missionaries even lived in her house! She has always known she needs to be baptized and is now set on being baptized here in Burgos! We still do not know how her phone called us (we suspect her dog), but somehow Heavenly Father provided a way for the missionaries to find one of His lonely daughters in need of the Gospel.

The mission really does prepare one for life. Right now I am learning how to search for a new piso. It is quite fun. Although we spent our entire preparation day looking at pisos. = /

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

Best Weekend of My Life

¡Hola!

What is better than General Conference weekend? General Conference weekend + 2 baptisms!! This weekend Felix and Xandra got baptized. It was wonderful! I don´t have time to write about both of them. Here is Felix´s story. Xandra´s story will come next week.

God never forgets his children. Never. The conversion story of Felix is proof of this. God works in mysterious ways to meet the needs of all his children. We have been working with Felix, the husband of a menos activa, for about a month now. Despite having several momentos claves, Felix still had many doubts the Wednesday before his baptism, especially when his parents protested and called him crazy. The visit Wednesday evening started terribly when Felix and his wife began to argue about the baptism. The visit was miraculously saved when their home teachers randomly showed up. This is where the hand of God is manifested. Recently new home teaching companions and assignments were handed out. Hermano Luis in months passed never really took much time to do hometeaching. But this week he felt really impressed to complete his hometeaching for the month with his companion, Hermano Fabian. All day Wednesday he FELT that is was really important to visit Cecilia and Felix. He also strangely felt that the missionaries would be there when he went. Thus hermanos Luis and Fabian decided to visit Felix on Wednesday evening. They arrived just in time to save our visit. Hno Luis began to share is own conversion experience. With the addition of Hno Luis´s and Hno Fabian´s testimonies to our testimonios, Felix´s heart had one more momento clave. That night at 1:00 in the morning Felix randomly woke up his wife just to tell her that he was getting baptized. As he explained it, he "just woke up and knew he needed to be baptized." And so on Saturday Felix was baptized by his hometeacher, Hno. Luis. I am so grateful that the Lord inspired Hno Luis to do his hometeaching. I am even more grateful that Hno. Luis acted on his impressions. It is truly miraculous the change in heart that occured that night, all do to a member´s testimony and willingness to follow the promptings of the Spirit.

I´ll also talk more about conference next week. As usual I loved Elder Holland and Pres. Uchtdorf´s talks. Pres. Monson was inspiring like always.

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Elder Buchkovich

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