Monday, May 14, 2012

Baptism Pictures






Quiero Barcelona

¡Hola!


Well I had a nice conversation with Mom and Dad yesterday. The Rays joined in for a while. And luckily, mostly due to technical issues, I was able to say "hi" to the Reeds for 5 minutes before ending the call. For those of you who could not be a part of the phone call here is a quick update. I had to go to Barcelona for a few days to take care of some residency. I am finally legal again!!! That was really fun. We had some free time before a visit so we haggled with a Muslim man to sell us cheap fake Barç jerseys. I bought Piqué and Alexis. I really love the city of Barcelona. It has become a home away from home for me. It felt so nice returning there for few days, hearing Catalan again, seeing all the palm trees. I LOVE BARCELONA!!


Everything is still amazing in Burgos. This week was filled with many amazing miracles. I would say that the biggest miracle is with Felix´s mother. She was quite angry about his baptism. This week after praying with Félix and his wife, she felt that she needed to be baptized too! It is a complete miracle. The Spirit of God can soften any heart.


Tuesday morning we did not have any fijo-ed visits planned. Thus we decided to use this time to pass by some antiguos. Upon leaving piso we prayed to find a family to baptize. Througout the morning we only ever came across old, grumpy men who did not want anything to do with us. Finally as were returning to piso we saw our family. We were only one block away from piso when we saw a young Ecuatorian family walking towards us. We immediately started talking to them. As it turns out the wife has relatives who are members in Ecuador. We had our first visit on Saturday. They accepted our invitation to be baptized, however we will set the actual fecha during our next visit when we will also meet their 11 year old daughter. We prayed to find a family. And of course God answered our prayers!


Another miracle happened Wednesday right before English class. A man walked into the capilla and told us that he was ready to take his life seriously and make some changes. He is an old investigator that attended church years ago. Now he is ready to accept the Gospel. We asked him to come back later after English class to have a visit. He came and accepted a baptismal date! On Sunday we were not expecting him to come because he told us that he had a prior commitment with another church. We were quite surprised when he walked into Gospel Principle class!


¡Hasta luego!


Love,

Elder Buchkovich


¡Hola!


It has been an interesting week. We continue to work hard! We had a zone enfoque in Bilbao (zone wide district meeting lead by the zone leaders). For the second have of the meeting the zone leaders called 4 of us "old" missionaries to the front. We had a question and answer session with the rest of the zone. It was fun sharing advice with younger missionaries, but I really wish people would stop reminding me that I am going home soon. I still have lots of time!


We also did an intercambio. It was fun! I went up to Vitoria. I served in a trio with Elder Rhead and Elder Archibald. Elder Poinar went to burgos with Elder Shiflet. We had a great time in Vitoria. Elder Shiflet suffered a bit. Elder Poinar is quite interesting to put it nicely. He managed to offend ALL of our recent converts and quite a few members. They were all super excited when I got back. I can´t go into much detail. I don´t have time.


I bore my testimony on Sunday. I mentioned my dear mother. I will write in in the next email....if i remember.


One miracle this week came from a recent convert. Isabel has a really strong testimony; however, due to work, she has not been able to come to church over the past few weeks. With some encouragement from us and her visiting teachers, Isabel finally worked up the courage to ask her boss for Sundays free. And he agreed! It is a miracle alone that her boss so willingly let her have Sunday free without any problem. But it does not end there. Isabel was so excited to come back to church that she invited her boyfriend to come. He came and loved it! He participated in classes and afterwards Isabel, while smiling, told us that he was really excited about church. I love recent converts! They bring so many people to the Gospel!!


¡Hasta luego!


Love,

Elder Buchkovich