Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Another Week Gone
¡Hola!
If the first transfer is the longest transfer, then my mission is going to fly by! Eventhough this week was kind of bad and I´ve been super sick, it went super fast. I want to start off apologizing for my letter writing as of late. I`ve spent the last 2 p-days trying to sleep off this bad cold, so l haven´t been able to write as many letters. I don´t know how long the mail takes but the few letters I have written should be arriving in the states soon.
This week has been pretty tough. We had to indefinitely postpone 3 baptismal fechas (dates). I don´t know if their baptisms will be rescheduled. Jazmín (17 yrs old) came to church on Sunday with her dad who is a member; so that is seems promising. On Wednesday I made a ¨homework¨ assignment for her and her brother Andrés (20 yrs old). I wrote some questions that i thought might help them and scripture references to answer those questions. I´m hoping that since Jazmín came to church that it means she did it. I tried asking her but i was rushed, and therefore my Spanish failed. I really want to help her and Andrés accept the gospel. They are both really great people!
Elder Lara went on intercambios this week with an elder down in Caterroja (i butchered the spelling of that town). So since i´m so new we did a 3 way intercambio. Elder Ames (one the other elders in my ward) went with me in my area since he is super experienced and speaks super good spanish. and the other elder from caterroja went with elder shields. this week elder shields and i might have to go on intercambios together, which will be interesting because elder sheilds is only a transfer ahead of me. i was proud of myself this week though. elder ames doesn´t know my area well. I was able to navigate us to our citas (even if it wasnt always the quickest route). i´m really starting to get to know northwest valencia!
i got my first spanish haircut last pday. It´s not too different from home. However, they don´t cut the hair in on the neck as high up. the best part was having my hair shampoo-ed and massaged by a beautiful spanish girl. haha. eventually i want to buy a spanish suit. i´m waiting for a couple months until one of their huge end of fashion season sales that they have in spain. when i come home in 2 years i´ll be transformed into a spaniard! lol.
they still feed us WAAAY too much here. i still don´t know what i´m eating, but most of the food is good so i just gladly eat it. i did have one interesting experience this week. i have already eaten enough fishcake to last me a lifetime. i dont want to go into detail cuz i still get nauseous. but, we were way overfed. i thought i was going to burst. and it wasn´t too tasty. dad would love it. i think it´s mostly made out of eggs and fish. the problem is i´m not a big fan of plain fish. and my body isn´t used to eating as much fish as we had to.
the pics wont upload on this pc. so maybe next week. sorry.
as usual i´m having trouble remembering all that i was going to say. that and i want to keep these letters positive....this week didn´t have much positive.
love,
elder buchkovich
If the first transfer is the longest transfer, then my mission is going to fly by! Eventhough this week was kind of bad and I´ve been super sick, it went super fast. I want to start off apologizing for my letter writing as of late. I`ve spent the last 2 p-days trying to sleep off this bad cold, so l haven´t been able to write as many letters. I don´t know how long the mail takes but the few letters I have written should be arriving in the states soon.
This week has been pretty tough. We had to indefinitely postpone 3 baptismal fechas (dates). I don´t know if their baptisms will be rescheduled. Jazmín (17 yrs old) came to church on Sunday with her dad who is a member; so that is seems promising. On Wednesday I made a ¨homework¨ assignment for her and her brother Andrés (20 yrs old). I wrote some questions that i thought might help them and scripture references to answer those questions. I´m hoping that since Jazmín came to church that it means she did it. I tried asking her but i was rushed, and therefore my Spanish failed. I really want to help her and Andrés accept the gospel. They are both really great people!
Elder Lara went on intercambios this week with an elder down in Caterroja (i butchered the spelling of that town). So since i´m so new we did a 3 way intercambio. Elder Ames (one the other elders in my ward) went with me in my area since he is super experienced and speaks super good spanish. and the other elder from caterroja went with elder shields. this week elder shields and i might have to go on intercambios together, which will be interesting because elder sheilds is only a transfer ahead of me. i was proud of myself this week though. elder ames doesn´t know my area well. I was able to navigate us to our citas (even if it wasnt always the quickest route). i´m really starting to get to know northwest valencia!
i got my first spanish haircut last pday. It´s not too different from home. However, they don´t cut the hair in on the neck as high up. the best part was having my hair shampoo-ed and massaged by a beautiful spanish girl. haha. eventually i want to buy a spanish suit. i´m waiting for a couple months until one of their huge end of fashion season sales that they have in spain. when i come home in 2 years i´ll be transformed into a spaniard! lol.
they still feed us WAAAY too much here. i still don´t know what i´m eating, but most of the food is good so i just gladly eat it. i did have one interesting experience this week. i have already eaten enough fishcake to last me a lifetime. i dont want to go into detail cuz i still get nauseous. but, we were way overfed. i thought i was going to burst. and it wasn´t too tasty. dad would love it. i think it´s mostly made out of eggs and fish. the problem is i´m not a big fan of plain fish. and my body isn´t used to eating as much fish as we had to.
the pics wont upload on this pc. so maybe next week. sorry.
as usual i´m having trouble remembering all that i was going to say. that and i want to keep these letters positive....this week didn´t have much positive.
love,
elder buchkovich
Monday, October 18, 2010
Valencia
¡Hola!
Tuesday morning we arrived in Barcelona. we went up to the castle on a hill that overlooks the city on one side and the mediterranean on the other side. it was gorgeous. everything was! we spent most of the day in the office. we had lunch with president and sister hinckley and had orientation and stuff. we finally got our companions and first assignments. my companion couldn´t come pick me up so i had to wait until wednesday to meet him. those of us coming to the southern part of the mission were supposed to leave tuesday evenign, but the train was full. so we had to stay overnight. this was cool because every tuesday evening during transfer week, those at the office go and sign hymns in downtown barcelona. it was a really cool experience. however it was cold and rainy...no wonder i have a cold now. haha. it was fun and a lot of people stopped and listened seemed interested. wednesday bright an early we boarded a train down to valencia!
My first area is Valencia. I love it here! It is a beautiful city. Palm trees line the streets and the old architecture is quite pretty. My apartment is near the soccer stadium for Valencia´s team. It is so awesome. I love the soccer culture here. People are constantly playing soccer on the sidewalk, in the park, etc. It´s truly wonderful! My companion is Elder Lara. He goes home after the next transfer I believe. He is really great. They split up the zone leaders down here. so, he is one of the zone leaders. the other zone leader and his companion share the same apartment.
I already love the people here. The members of the Valencia I ward are amazing. They´re so sweet. They love the missionaries and even though I can´t communicate well with them, they all try talking to me. and even say ¨welcome¨ which is funny cuz i know ¨bienvenidos¨ President hinckley mentioned that they might split the ward up soon. i noticed that the chapel was quite full yesterday. They feed the missionaries well too. We have a lunch (instead of dinner) appointment almost every day in the afternoon. They cook tons of food for us and expect us to eat everything. It´s intense. I feel like i´m gaining so much weight already. the food is all amazing....except for the blood sausage; i could have gone without trying that. usually i have no clue wat i´m eating, but since it´s mostly delicious, i don´t mind not knowing. it´s probably better that way.
There were three baptisms this Saturday, one from each area actually in Valencia. Sergio was the one baptized from my area. He reminds me a lot of charlie. Anyway he is really cool. He is 20 years old and is originally from somewhere in south/central america...i want to say guatemala....anyway he has relatives back home who are members. one day he decided to find the church and be baptized. he saw elder lara on the subway but was too afraid to talk to him. but he vowed to talk to the next missionaries he saw. some days later, he saw to elders. the zone leaders were in barcelona for a mission counsel meeting. so it was their two companions, two relatively new missionaries. sergio came up to them and asked to be baptized. they thought they misunderstood him but wrote down his info anyway. two weeks later i got to witness his baptism. apparently stuff like this happens a lot in valencia. the missionary work is on fire here! missionaries get contacted more than they contact. and we teach people from all over the world. there are a lot of immigrants from africa and south america. we teach a lot of nigerians. i like these lessons because they speak english! i can actually help out a lot more. we have several more baptism dates set and a few investigators without dates but are really close. for example joanna is a 16 year old girl who is waiting for her mom´s permission. her cousins are really strong members, but her mom doesn´t feel that she is ready. however, we´ve been teaching her mom a lot and she seems to be making progress, even if she won´t admit it.
Church yesterday was interesting. I had to introduce myself during sacrament meeting. i´ve never been so nervous before in my life. i´m pretty sure i messed up my spanish a bunch of times. the language barrier is hard. hopefully i´ll get over it soon. the whole mission is hard. i can`t talk to anyone, i´m exhausted, and now i have a really bad cold. but i still love it. i can´t help being happy knowing i´m serving the Lord. the great thing is that even when i have now clue what is being said, i can still feel the Spirit in our lessons. this is going to be an awesome 22 months! i kind of wish i had more time!!!
I´m going to send my address to Mom. If you want it just ask her or ask Michelle (via my account) on facebook. I attached a pic of me and Sergio. I´ll send more next week.
¡Hasta luego!
Love,
Elder Buchkovich
AND IT WAS ELDER BUCHKOVICH! (OR SO WE THINK)
Well, Alex was singing with that group and he was in the back, so I am pretty certain that the person we picked out was him. If you haven't searched the picture, do it now. Find Alex! Print it off and let his neices and nephews search for him!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
CAST YOUR VOTE!
Is the guy in the back under the brown umbrella behind the yellow unbrella Elder Alex Buchkovich? You will need your magnifying glass or go to the Barcelona Blog and click on the image to see a larger version.
Letter from Barcelona
Hello!
Your son, as I am sure you are well aware, has arrived safely in our mission. I would like to take this time to send a letter from Pres. & Hermana Hinckley, as well as a few photos that were taken of your son upon his arrival here.
If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email.
Thanks.
Elder Parry
Secretario al Presidente
La Misión de Barcelona España
637.460.885
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The Spain Barcelona Mission: "Regular" Transfers
The Spain Barcelona Mission: "Regular" Transfers: "In between all of the 'interim' transfers driven by visa delays, we still have our 'regular' transfer every six weeks. Regular transfers wer..."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)