¡Hola!
Well this past week I spent getting to know everyone in the area. We have an interesting area. Recently Elder Hansen gave most of our area in Tarragona to the other elders here because they were having trouble finding people to teach. Thus, we don´t work very much in Tarragona. We work in several pueblos. Torredembarra is a really nice pueblo on the coast. And St. Pere y St Pau is a nice pueblo super close to the coast also. Most of our focus, though, is on Reus. It´s a nearby city that is only slightly smaller than Tarragona. There used to be a rama (branch) of the church there. My goal over these next few months that I am here is to do all that I can to prepare the city for a rama again. Elder Hansen is great. It´s a little sad that I´ll only be working with him for one transfer before he goes home.
This week is going to be crazy. There is leadership training in Barç this week. All the district and zone leaders attend. Since my companion is district leader, he has to go. Thus while he is there, I will be in Zaragoza. Of the four elders in Zaragoza, 3 of them have leadership positions so I have to go there and be with the greenie who is left over. This causes a problem because we have a baptism this weekend we have to prepare for. We can´t send the greenie here because then there would be no elders in Zaragoza. Thus i have to go there and the other Tarragona will have to help prepare our baptism. We´ll get back Friday and still have quite a bit to prepare. It will be interesting. But I am excited to go to Zaragoza. I love seeing new areas in the mission!
Well we have to go catch the train soon. Sorry for the super short letter!
¡Hasta luego!
Love,
Elder Buchkovich
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
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
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
Monday, March 28, 2011
General conference... this week already?
¡Hola!
This weekend is General Conference! Can you believe it!? The time is just FLYING by. Of the 4 General Conferences taking place during my mission, this weekend is already the 2nd! I honestly cannot believe that 6 months have past since the last General Conference. This means very soon I will have been in Spain for 6 months! Transfers have become a regular unit of time for me. haha. The only problem is that they are too short! I could possibly be leaving Lleida next week! I don´t want to! It still feels like I just got here and I love the people so much. I am not ready to leave. I feel like I have unfinished business here. Also it doesn´t feel like Elder Shields and I have been together long enough. We work so well together; we need more than one transfer together. I am probably just nervous for nothing. The pattern I have noticed about Lleida is that most elders spend 4 transfers here. I have only spent 3. Plus I spent so little time in Valencia, I don´t think president will move me yet. But we´ll see. This transfer will be interesting. There are a TON of missionaries leaving and I believe there aren´t any coming in.
Again I apologize for not sharing more missionary experiences. Miracles and feeling the Spirit have just become an everyday part of life. Thus, I don´t feel the need to share them constantly. But here are a few.
We are working with a Spaniard named Ismael. Various companionships have been in contact off and on with him since 2006. He is super evangelical and likes to argue. Since we started working with him in late January, he has been kind to us, but still likes to argue but in a nice way. Yesterday was the first time he actually just quietly listened to us. The Spirit was so thick you could cut it! Planning for the cita we weren´t sure what to teach him. But that morning I said a prayer asking for inspiration on what to teach. Going into the cita I felt impressed to talk about faith and Alma 32. At the beginning he tried to "catch" us with a Bible verse. But when it supported what Alma was saying, he became quiet. He answered questions when we asked him, but generally he just listened.
One of my favorite things about Valencia was how people contacted us! They would walk up to us and ask for a Book of Mormon or ask to meet with us, etc. That has happened a few times here in Lleida. Now that Elder Shields and I are together, it has been happening more than usual. We must just be easy to approach. Last week we had several people approach us. One in particular was a lady from Brazil, named Lucia. She had a Book of Mormon in Brasil but accidentally left it there, and she also knew a little about the Church. She moved to Spain 6 or 7 years ago and has seen the missionaries several times. Finally last week when she saw us she felt (the Holy Ghost, quizas? sí!) like she should talk to us this time. We had a really good cita with her, but unfortunately we had to hand her over to the other elders. In fact, all of the golden investigators that have contacted us have lived in the other elders´ area. I think God is trying to teach Elder Shields and me a lesson on being self-less. We should be happy for these people´s salvation, not upset that we don´t get to baptize them personally.
Well I´m out of time for today. If I want to get a napolitana today, I need to get off the computer now before my bill gets to high.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYONE GIVES ME! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Buchkovich
This weekend is General Conference! Can you believe it!? The time is just FLYING by. Of the 4 General Conferences taking place during my mission, this weekend is already the 2nd! I honestly cannot believe that 6 months have past since the last General Conference. This means very soon I will have been in Spain for 6 months! Transfers have become a regular unit of time for me. haha. The only problem is that they are too short! I could possibly be leaving Lleida next week! I don´t want to! It still feels like I just got here and I love the people so much. I am not ready to leave. I feel like I have unfinished business here. Also it doesn´t feel like Elder Shields and I have been together long enough. We work so well together; we need more than one transfer together. I am probably just nervous for nothing. The pattern I have noticed about Lleida is that most elders spend 4 transfers here. I have only spent 3. Plus I spent so little time in Valencia, I don´t think president will move me yet. But we´ll see. This transfer will be interesting. There are a TON of missionaries leaving and I believe there aren´t any coming in.
Again I apologize for not sharing more missionary experiences. Miracles and feeling the Spirit have just become an everyday part of life. Thus, I don´t feel the need to share them constantly. But here are a few.
We are working with a Spaniard named Ismael. Various companionships have been in contact off and on with him since 2006. He is super evangelical and likes to argue. Since we started working with him in late January, he has been kind to us, but still likes to argue but in a nice way. Yesterday was the first time he actually just quietly listened to us. The Spirit was so thick you could cut it! Planning for the cita we weren´t sure what to teach him. But that morning I said a prayer asking for inspiration on what to teach. Going into the cita I felt impressed to talk about faith and Alma 32. At the beginning he tried to "catch" us with a Bible verse. But when it supported what Alma was saying, he became quiet. He answered questions when we asked him, but generally he just listened.
One of my favorite things about Valencia was how people contacted us! They would walk up to us and ask for a Book of Mormon or ask to meet with us, etc. That has happened a few times here in Lleida. Now that Elder Shields and I are together, it has been happening more than usual. We must just be easy to approach. Last week we had several people approach us. One in particular was a lady from Brazil, named Lucia. She had a Book of Mormon in Brasil but accidentally left it there, and she also knew a little about the Church. She moved to Spain 6 or 7 years ago and has seen the missionaries several times. Finally last week when she saw us she felt (the Holy Ghost, quizas? sí!) like she should talk to us this time. We had a really good cita with her, but unfortunately we had to hand her over to the other elders. In fact, all of the golden investigators that have contacted us have lived in the other elders´ area. I think God is trying to teach Elder Shields and me a lesson on being self-less. We should be happy for these people´s salvation, not upset that we don´t get to baptize them personally.
Well I´m out of time for today. If I want to get a napolitana today, I need to get off the computer now before my bill gets to high.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYONE GIVES ME! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Buchkovich
Friday, March 25, 2011
Happy (Belated) St. Patrick's Day
¡Hola!
This week was Zone Conference. As usual it was amazing! We focused on leveraging the power of members in missionary work. THIS WAS SUPER HELPFUL! The members in Lleida do not help out very much. Thus the work has not been progressing much; it is statistically proven that more member references are baptized and remain active members than street contacts. We learned a ton that will hopefully help us increase the animo of the members here and help the work catch fire. At one point during the conference, Hermana Hinckley took the sisters out for a special lesson and President Hinckley taught the elders a special lesson. I´m not sure if the sisters actually got a lesson or if they just helped Hna Hinckley prepare for lunch. But on the other hand President Hinckley gave us a warning lesson on what happens in Spain during the summer. He started out by saying, "In a few days this rain will stop and the sun will come out." He turned to one of our zone leaders, Elder Jimenez, who is a native to Spain and asked,"What happens after that?" Elder Jimenez responded, saying, "The girls go crazy!!" Then President spent 15 or so minutes giving us advice on how to keep virtuous and chaste thoughts while there are so many "distractions" around.
Back in February Elder Plaskett and I worked with the Bishopric to plan a special Sunday where all the talks and lessons are simple doctrine aimed at investigators. This way members could feel more comfortable bringing friends and us missionaries could bring more people to church by using the Special Sunday as an excuse for people to come. The Bishopric at the time didn´t give us a specific date. We only knew that it would be the 20 or 28th of March. To be honest I kind of forgot about it until last Sunday. The Bishopric nor us advertised it. Last Sunday (the 13th) a lot of the talks seemed focused on the Restoration and the nature of God- simple doctrinal topics. This reminded me of the special Sunday. I was too embarrassed to ask the Bishopric if that was it so I just assumed that we had forgotten and it was too late. Well Saturday evening the Second Councilor came up to us to see if we were planning on during anything during Sacrament Meeting for the Special Sunday. Elder Hughes on the spot offered to do a special musical number. This was bad for two reasons. A. I can´t sing and we had no time to prepare. B. This means that we hadn´t already had the special sunday. It was the next day and we had not advertised it at all. Needless to say we made a lot of phone calls that night trying to get people to come to church and to bring people to church. We actually had quite a few nonmembers come, but not near as many as I would have hoped. Also the musical number turned out well. Josh accompanied us on the piano as we sang the first two verses of "Llamados a Servir" and we invited the congregation to sing the 4th verse with us. It was really nice. Unfortunately all of our adult investigators had to leave after sacrament meeting. The remaining nonmembers and investigators were youth and primary age. Thus we had nobody for gospel principles class. One member didn´t approve of this. He assumed that since nobody was at class that nobody had come to sacrament. And he chewed us out. It was really annoying because if he wants fijo investigators, he should help us out with references!!!!! At the end of his scolding of us he did offer to help us in citas on weekends, so that made it a little less annoying and discouraging. We ended up going to Gospel Doctrines class, which was a nice change.
Currently Elder Shields and I are teaching several part member families. We feel pretty good about them and hope to have some baptisms soon. We are still teaching a couple Africans. One of them is a nice lady named Charlotte. She is nice, but a bit loca! Elder Parrish came on intercambios with me. During the lesson his lips got dry so he licked them a tiny bit. Charlotte freaked out and grabbed his tongue, telling him that we are not animals. It was hilarious!!! When we got home for medio dia he immediately brushed his teeth. haha!
Well I suppose that is all for today. ¡Hasta luego! Happy Belated St. Patrick´s Day!
Love,
Elder Buchkovich
This week was Zone Conference. As usual it was amazing! We focused on leveraging the power of members in missionary work. THIS WAS SUPER HELPFUL! The members in Lleida do not help out very much. Thus the work has not been progressing much; it is statistically proven that more member references are baptized and remain active members than street contacts. We learned a ton that will hopefully help us increase the animo of the members here and help the work catch fire. At one point during the conference, Hermana Hinckley took the sisters out for a special lesson and President Hinckley taught the elders a special lesson. I´m not sure if the sisters actually got a lesson or if they just helped Hna Hinckley prepare for lunch. But on the other hand President Hinckley gave us a warning lesson on what happens in Spain during the summer. He started out by saying, "In a few days this rain will stop and the sun will come out." He turned to one of our zone leaders, Elder Jimenez, who is a native to Spain and asked,"What happens after that?" Elder Jimenez responded, saying, "The girls go crazy!!" Then President spent 15 or so minutes giving us advice on how to keep virtuous and chaste thoughts while there are so many "distractions" around.
Back in February Elder Plaskett and I worked with the Bishopric to plan a special Sunday where all the talks and lessons are simple doctrine aimed at investigators. This way members could feel more comfortable bringing friends and us missionaries could bring more people to church by using the Special Sunday as an excuse for people to come. The Bishopric at the time didn´t give us a specific date. We only knew that it would be the 20 or 28th of March. To be honest I kind of forgot about it until last Sunday. The Bishopric nor us advertised it. Last Sunday (the 13th) a lot of the talks seemed focused on the Restoration and the nature of God- simple doctrinal topics. This reminded me of the special Sunday. I was too embarrassed to ask the Bishopric if that was it so I just assumed that we had forgotten and it was too late. Well Saturday evening the Second Councilor came up to us to see if we were planning on during anything during Sacrament Meeting for the Special Sunday. Elder Hughes on the spot offered to do a special musical number. This was bad for two reasons. A. I can´t sing and we had no time to prepare. B. This means that we hadn´t already had the special sunday. It was the next day and we had not advertised it at all. Needless to say we made a lot of phone calls that night trying to get people to come to church and to bring people to church. We actually had quite a few nonmembers come, but not near as many as I would have hoped. Also the musical number turned out well. Josh accompanied us on the piano as we sang the first two verses of "Llamados a Servir" and we invited the congregation to sing the 4th verse with us. It was really nice. Unfortunately all of our adult investigators had to leave after sacrament meeting. The remaining nonmembers and investigators were youth and primary age. Thus we had nobody for gospel principles class. One member didn´t approve of this. He assumed that since nobody was at class that nobody had come to sacrament. And he chewed us out. It was really annoying because if he wants fijo investigators, he should help us out with references!!!!! At the end of his scolding of us he did offer to help us in citas on weekends, so that made it a little less annoying and discouraging. We ended up going to Gospel Doctrines class, which was a nice change.
Currently Elder Shields and I are teaching several part member families. We feel pretty good about them and hope to have some baptisms soon. We are still teaching a couple Africans. One of them is a nice lady named Charlotte. She is nice, but a bit loca! Elder Parrish came on intercambios with me. During the lesson his lips got dry so he licked them a tiny bit. Charlotte freaked out and grabbed his tongue, telling him that we are not animals. It was hilarious!!! When we got home for medio dia he immediately brushed his teeth. haha!
Well I suppose that is all for today. ¡Hasta luego! Happy Belated St. Patrick´s Day!
Love,
Elder Buchkovich
Monday, March 14, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)