May 28, 2012

I LOVE Cody's email today. So positive and happy...thanks to everyone for your prayers. I truly believe in the power of prayer and see it working in his life.  He sent a few pictures today and I finally figured out how to change them to jpegs! This means I can also post some of his previous pictures that I hadn't been able to fix. So fun!

hola familia
hey so its been a kind of weird week I guess haha. It still has been a struggle with my companion and things cause we are so different and everything but things have gotten better and I hope they continue to get even better but we will see. we had a capacitacion on tuesday and wednesday. which is a training meeting for all the zone leaders and the people in training with their trainers. it was so good and we are there from like 9 or 10 in the morning til about 4 in the afternoon. its awesome cause I got to be with elder walker and elder isley. I seriously just love them. we are all so happy together haha. and elder jorquera in del viso which is my district. its like an hour or an hour and a half to the mission offices where we have those meetings but I like traveling cause its really more relaxing and I get to hang out with elder jorquera and some of my other friends. but during the capacitaciones we learn from president and do practices and we all eat lunch there together and they are just fun. we have another one tomorrow so I'm stoked for that. we did divisions on friday and elder jorquera came to my area and it was so great. we are such homies now and we just work hard and we tons of fun and stuff too so that was great. not goning to lie it was great to get a break from my companion haha and elder jorquera liked a break too but yeah it was a lot of fun. I'm glad we are with elder jorquera and his companion today too cause its more fun with them cause elder jorquera likes and plays soccer too and yeah we are just way good friends. but yeah then on wednesday this week we have zone conference so that will be good too. we have been really working hard with getting our investigators to church this last week but still only had 3 of them there. we are probably going to be dropping some cause we cant ever get lessons with them and they dont come to church and stuff. but yeah we finally got a kid named juan who is 20 years old to come to church. we did a tour of the chapel on Saturday and watched the restoration video with him and he really felt the spirit. he's different than other kids and doesnt drink and smoke and wants to learn more he is just afraid sometimes. but he listens to music I do and he lives for soccer too and so I relate to him good. my companion doesnt know him way good but I've known him since the beginning and I really hope we can continue to help him. I really love him. hes awesome! a long with our other investigators too obviously haha but I just wanted to tell you in more depth about him but yeah. we found another family from a recent convert that is really nice and likes what were teaching them but the dad has only been there for 1 lesson and he heard some things about mormons from other people so we need to talk to him about that but they arent married also so we gotta work on that cause the mom wants to get baptised and so do her 3 kids. I guess we will see though. I actually have noticed things that I am learning from having this companion. not really from him just the things I'm doing because of him. I'm really like coming out of my shell haha. I'm not shy to talk and stuff anymore. I just talk to people a lot now and its helping me to understand people way better and its really helping me accomplish my goal of becoming really outgoing so hopefully I can continue to do that haha. I think thats all the main stuff for the week.

wow thats freakin awesome and crazy about the packets! glad he got them done! its so sweet being able to just relax and have it be summer after all that work but yeah thats dumb that you had to waste that money. the school should have to pay for it. but oh well I guess. yeah the rededication is on september 9th. open house is all through august almost. but thats one thing our president stressed in our meetings last week is that we know where the lord is going to be on september 9th. so we need to prepare his people to be there when he comes. some of the stake centers here will be extentions to the temple during the rededication so I think we will get to go to that. I hope so. thatd be sick! thanks so much mom for your inspiring words and the quotes and talks. they really do help. I'm so greatful for you in my life. thanks so much!! I love you!! I'm glad everything else is going good for you guys and I hope you guys and more austin have an awesome graduation tomorrow. that will be awesome! send me some pics! I guess thats it for this week. I love you guys!!

Love Elder Buxton

May 21, 2012

hola familia, wow so its been a really crazy week. so things really were a struggle and things with the new comp the first few days but then I got sick of some things so we talked a couple times and fixed some things but we are still learning and this transfer will still be difficult because me and my comp or complete opposites. he likes classical music and doesnt play sports whatsoever and sports are my life. the best way I can think to describe him is neville from icarly haha that really kind of is like him. but yeah. so on wednesday we went to capitol with the others from my mtc districts to do all of our visa stuff. capitol is so freakin sick!!!!!! I cant wait to serve there! I got to see the 20 something lane street which is awesome! but yeah that took a lot time which i was way happy for cause i love hanging out with elder isley and elder walker and elder alder. It was great to actually laugh and smile for real for a little bit. I really love them. I really hate that I feel like I've just been struggling on my mission and still am. I guess I just dont know where to find that joy and desire to serve and want that more than anything else. thats why I get homesick a lot I guess. I haven't found that yet so when I get homesick which is a lot I just want to be back at home more. I hate it.. it makes things so hard and I really struggle with that every day... but anyway. before we came back to tortuguitas our area we ate at the mcdonalds there and it was crazy cause some big lady was running away from a big cop and they came into the mcdonalds and they calmed down a bit and were talking and then she freaked out again and tried to get away and she got hold of a couple glass containers on the counter of the mccafe and shattered those and everything and then the other cops got there and took her outside and talked to her and stuff and then we left. It was pretty crazy though. I love capitol already and I was only there for half a day. everything is so sick there! then on thursday morning hermano alegre (counselor in the bishopric that was sick) he passed away. they had a service friday morning that we went to and that was my first funeral service I have ever been to. it was the saddest thing I have ever seen. every single person was crying so much and the spirit was so strong in there. and I actually knew him too and he was an awesome guy. I started to cry too. it was so sad. going to that really opened up my eyes to things. but yeah after the service everyone just really broke out in tears especially members of the family and like the daughter had to be taken out into the hall to sit on a chair cause she like couldnt breath and just yeah it was awful and so spiritual at the same time. of course it rained that day. It always rains for funerals. the past like 3 or 4 days have been way rainy and muddy and cold so its been hard to ride bikes especially when they suck and they break.. but yeah and then weve been trying to teach our investigators but they are never home or never can and none of them came to church on sunday and just ugh.. its been such a struggle this week. hopefully it will be better this week but I guess we will see. but yeah I think thats all the main things that happened this week. that I can think of right now anyway. wow thats crazy cole is leaving already! and jason and chase leave when? dangit! that really sucks you guys lost but at least you guys made it to the next round. I dont think timpanogos has ever done that so thats good. yeah being done with high school and club soccer really is so hard cause its so much fun. thats one thing I struggle with here is just wishing I could go back to club and high school soccer. I miss all that. but yeah make sure austin gets those packets done! I'm not really sure what assignment your talking about. but thats awesome they graduated seminary finally. and I'm going to look at the bridal pictures after this. I'm sure they are great though. sounds like everything else is going great though. whats hollywood connection? but yeah I just hate how I feel like I'm just struggling my whole mission and I hate that I feel like I would rather be at home and stuff. I don't know how find the love and desire to serve. no matter what I try to do. I have awesome experiences and study the book of mormon way hard. I pray all the time! I dont get it.. I pray for help so hard but i still just keep wishing my mission was over or that I was at home. obviously you know me and I would never come home for myself like that but I still just wish I knew how to love the work more than anything thats at home. I'm just really confused and I still a lot of the time feel like heavenly father isnt talking to me. i dont know what more to do though cause I feel like I'm doing all that I can. yeah I just dont know... feel free to send me talks and things that might help or that you just love cause I can always print them out and read them in my personal study. I love doing that. so yeah I guess thats it for now. I love you guys!! keep up the good work! Love Elder Buxton ps I will see what i can do about a picture of me in my suit. and dont worry I definitely plan on playing soccer when I get back so you will still be able to watch I guess to add a little bit more. my companion is from montana and has 8 months in the mission but speaks pretty good castellano (spanish). and yeah hes just the opposite of me with almost everything though. and my camera wouldnt work when I went to capitol so I didnt get any pictures of that which was dumb but I will probably get to serve there and we have to go back to finish our visa stuff I guess in another 6 months or something like that so dont worry I will get pictures of capitol sometime or another

May 14, 2012

hey guys
so it was great to get to talk to you guys. I'm really glad it all worked out and all. gol so last night was pretty crazy. when we were riding back to our pention last night president called elder curbela and called him to be a zone leader in a different zone. so we went to bed later and everything and went to the mission offices for transfers and it was really good. I got to talk to elder isley and walker and mcnabb for a while. It really was great to just be able to chill and talk with them for a little while. now I have a new companion in my own area named elder dewsnup. hes from montana and he is really... different. hes really the definition of a molly mormon.. freak I really dont know what I'm going to do.. hes the completely opposite of me and just how he is already I can tell I'm not going to like this transfer very much.. :( fah!! not excited for this.... so yeah I guess we will see.. but yeah that's all for now since I already told you things on the phone.

yeah I'm glad that we all have these opportunities to learn even when they seem so impossible. it really is difficult at times and you just want to give up but that won't get us anywhere. I really hope I am and can be an example to others and I'm glad logan was able to talk to me too. how come austin and cade didnt really say anything? oh man I hope austins doin alright and that he gets the packets done. it really is such a relief to get them done. I'm glad he is graduating seminary too. I know I would have and he will regret not graduating a lot for the rest of our lives so thats really important. yeah and good luck with all the wedding stuff and things. I know that things will work out and you'll all be alright. oh and by the way I talked to doctor youngs son for just a few minutes today. kinda cool! thanks for your email and thanks for all your help mom and everything you do for me. I'm so blessed to have the best mom in the world. thank you so much! I love you!! I love you all!!

Love Elder Buxton

Mother's Day!

Best Mother's Day! Talked to Cody for 1 hr and 35 minutes.....It was so great to hear his voice and to be able to ask him tons of questions. He said that the President emailed them earlier this week and told them that the best Mother's Day gift they can give us would be for us to be able to see the person that they are becoming. Cody talked about how much he has changed and learned already on his mission and that he is excited to be able to show us how much he has changed and what he has become. He talked about the importance of following the mission rules since this seems to be a problem among many missionaries in his mission. Because of this, their President is getting stricter with following the rules and Cody is being very diligent about this.  He is anxious to see what happens with transfers tomorrow...will him and his companion stay together or will he get a new companion that will still need to train him for 2 more weeks but yet this will make him the trainer of the area since he has been there and knows it well. Guess we will see since they will get a call tonight if there are any changes. Can't wait to get his email tomorrow....and pics....since he said he finally got his hair cut but it is too short.  He feels good about his Spanish and says that many people are surprised that a "gringo" can talk so well since many of the missionaries that have been their longer are still struggling to pronounce things correctly. He thanked me for putting him in Spanish Immersion...I guess it pays off!

May 7, 2012

hola familia

so its been a pretty crazy week. well i guess everyweek usually is but so we had a mission conference on wednesday and we all recieved a new book of mormon that we are all going to read in 60 days together and we got 3 colored pencils too to mark 3 things in the whole book of mormon. the first is everytime it says christ or refers to chirst, a different color is for every time it mentions the doctrine of christ( faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring to the end) and the 3rd color is for anything that makes our faith grow. we have to read 9 pages a day and its going pretty good so far and im glad i have this opportunity to read it all. its great! it only takes like 30-45 min a day which isnt bad at all but yeah. and then a couple weeks ago a senior couple from utah came to our church and presented an activity that we are going to do which we did on saturday. it was a church open house. it was 4 hours long and we set up a bunch of stuff and the sister missionaries came and they gave a tour every 20 minutes and it was for members and anyone who wants to come. we got people off the street and everything. it went pretty good and we got like 25 non members and we got referalls from all the memebers and everything. so this week we are going to contact them all and do all we can with them. also something else thats cool is there is a black guy in del viso (right next to our area, the 2 missionaries in the area are in our district and we are always with them and everything on p days and stuff) and he speaks english and hes from ghana and he is kinda interested in the church so our companions did they best the could in their little english to talk to him haha but soon we are going to do divisions and im going to teach him. itll be awesome! our district consists of us del viso and garin (zone leaders are in garin). me and one of the zone leaders are the only greengos in our district but he is leaving next monday to go home cause hes done. so we went to an expensive all you can eat meat buffet today which was amazing and stuff since its his last p day and yeah. transfers are next week but we are expecting and hoping that us and del viso will be the same since i am still in training and the senior companion in del viso is training the new elder from chile still. but i guess anything can happen so we will see. okay um so with the mothers day call it will be on sunday so this coming sunday and we will just do phone and maybe next time do skype since we are doing it at a members house and i dont know if they have a webcam and stuff. so i guess your supposed to call that number? hopefully you still have it but i decided that you could call at like 4:30 right after church since that is 7:30 here and before church we will be eating lunch and everything so yeah 4:30 on sunday. and we can talk for about an hour or so. also i cant email friends anymore so tell jacob and all them they can email me and tell me stories or whatever but i cant email them back. i will try and write them when i can but yeah.  and tell landon happy birthday today and jacob happy birthday on thursday too!! okay um i think thats it for now. i cant even think right now. so many things happened this week. talking on the phone will be good so i can answer any questions you guys have or anything so yeah plan on all that. okay well i love you guys!

Love Elder Buxton

April 23, 2012

hey guys

so im attaching 3 pictures that were on my companions camera from the rainstorm and that was our district last transfer. its a bit different now but still mostly the same. so this week has been pretty alright i guess. my sickness got worse and i woke up thursday morning with a bad fever and then after i got up and showered at like 10 i felt fine until about 6 it started to come back so we went in early and i rested. its still not gone i still have a bad cough and stuffed up and my body kinda aches and stuff so that really sucks but yeah. we had a family home evening with a family on monday and they invited 9 non members and we taught the whole firt lesson to all of them and weve been trying to meet with all of them and teach them but yeah we are working on that. we had stake conference yesterday which was really good. our mission president and his wife both spoke at it which was way cool. president spoke about a lot of things that i needed to hear and it was in spanish but i understood all of it so thats good. it was all great. there were baptisms afterwards but this is our first weekend we didnt have a baptism haha weird. but yeah besides that its been a normal week of trying to find new investigators and being sick and everything but yeah i think thats about it. i know barcelona and real madrid played yesterday or the day before. dont know who won though. and barcelona and chelsea play each other on tuesday which will be freakin sick! wish i could watch it but oh well i guess. sounds like everything at home is going great which is awesome im glad! crazy about the car and hopefully it sells soon. and sounds like twolves are doing great im glad! keep up all the good work! les amo mucho!


Love Elder Buxton

April 16, 2012

hola familia

so this week has been pretty good i guess haha. my neck is better so thats good but my sickness is only worse and i havent been sleeping all that good so thats not good but i guess we will just see. it rained again on saturday but not nearly as bad though so thats good. we did baptise the counselors mom which went great she has an awesome testimony and everything. it was along with 2 other 8 year olds that got baptised but those are just the wards and not ours but its good they got baptised. and on sunday we confirmed 2 of our baptisms over the past couple weeks that hadnt been confirmed yet and wow what a crazy fight with the bishop and everything. we had to involve the stake president and our mission president. it was so crazy. cause he didnt want them confirmed cause well i dont know why. he doesnt have the same vision as the rest of us and he doesnt want to work with us at all. but he doesnt have the keys to say that they cant be confirmed so yeah. we called him with our zone leaders and he didnt answer but then later that night he called our zone leaders back and said a bunch of stuff to them that isnt okay so then our president got involved from the zone leaders and he called us and we explained the situation and then he called the stake president to tell the bishop he doesnt have the keys to say they cant be confirmed so the stake president called the bishop and i guess just laid down the law haha so we were worried about facing him on sunday so we prayed a ton and it went fine. we talked to him for a sec before sacrament. we said they are here to be confirmed cause they finally came to church and we said is everything good? and he said no everythings not good but if you guys want to go ahead and do what you want then go ahead and then he just walked off. but yeah wow pretty stupid and crazy. its all good though. aparently he didnt know that he didnt have the keys to say they cant be confirmed but yeah its all good now. besides that its been kind of a normal week i guess haha well i guess no week on the mission is really a normal one but still. we played soccer again today and then ate at a way nice restaurant which was pretty sick. the ice cream here is way good! and they have the real dulce de leche down here and its amazing!! i always get a factura with it in it. but yeah.


fuah sounds like everything is going pretty good. glad austin got some stuff done. it really feels good when you get things done but yeah good luck with all the wedding planning and all that. things are probably going to get pretty crazy with the wedding and school ending and everything haha. dont worry im praying for you guys. i guess thats all for now. les amo mucho!


Elder Buxton

April 9, 2012

hey family!

okay so this week was really kind of a struggle actually. something was wrong with my neck earlier this week and i was in lots of pain for 2 or 3 days and still had to ride my bike and everything everywhere. it was horrible. it wasnt just a kink though something inside my neck was really like pulled or strained or something but yeah that really was horrible and then i got sick so it sucks that im sick now and have a bad cough.. but yeah we had a baptism on saturday which went great. i sent you the picture of that one too. but yeah and then i think it was on like wednesday or something there was a bad rain storm and the streets were no joke flooded about a foot or 2 on all the rodes and we had to ride our bikes home a few miles in that. oh man it was freakin so awesome!! ive never been so drenched in my life! haha but yeah that was great. randomly the other day we got a call from the 2nd counselor in the bishopric saying that his mom wants to get baptised. weve been praying really hard for more investigators and people to baptise so that was definitely a blessing and we will baptise her this sunday and we will try to baptise her daughter who is like 22 or something this week too. itll be sick!! on i think thursday or maybe friday we had a meeting with everyone in the mission at the mission office. a meeting for easter and i got to see elder brown and talk to him for a sec and see elder harrison but couldnt talk much cause we came and went spiritually and not talking much but FUAH!!! (thats how they say wow here, its pretty much just fuh hahaha so awesome! totally getting in the habit of saying that ;) ) but yeah holy it was such an amazing spiritual meeting. our mission president and his wife both spoke. fuh they are amazing!! i thought that at efy everyone singing the efy medley together was spiritual.. yeah doesnt even compare to a whole chapel of missionaries just before thanksgiving right after our mission president speaks. i wish i could explain what he talked about and stuff but i guess ill have to do that in about 20 months. it was great though! some other random stuff i guess is that my companion knows quite a bit of english words but he cant really speak in english so we hardly ever talk in english so thats a challenge but good. from seeing the others from my district in the meeting i think im the only one that has a native companion and that was the one thing i was really scared about for argentina but now im glad that i have him cause then im always speaking spanish and improving a lot faster. here you pretty much have to choose 1 of 2 soccer teams. boca or rever. i think i have finally decided on boca though haha. i saw rever play a bit last night since it was on at an less actives house that we were at. i havent seen boca play yet but i like their jerseys and stuff better so i guess i choose them haha. oh oh and the other day one morning our water shut off so we couldnt shower or use water for  2  days so that kinda sucked but we are alive haha but yeah. and it really is true that if a car puts on their emergency lights they can do whatever they want. theres no rules on the streets here. its freakin crazy! but yeah so i think thats pretty much it for this week and for now. everything that i can think of. it really is hard to love people and love the work and stuff when its hard to understand people and speak and cant comunicate with people very good. and then throw in being homesick too and that really sucks... but yeah this is definitely the hardest thing ive ever done.. but yeah ill talk to you guys next week. chow! les amo mucho!!

Elder Buxton

April 2, 2012

Hola Familia,

So this past week has been pretty crazy getting people ready for baptisms and transfers being today and conference and everything. we had 6 baptims on saturday as a district so we did that all together and it was just so freakin crazy getting everything ready and for the little girl we baptised we had to get the permission from her parents and conference where we watched it at was like an hour away and it was just all crazy. so we fasted all saturday and we definitely got blessed. we got the baptism on saturday. everything worked out perfect and so we broke the district, zone, and mission record for most baptisms in a month for one zone. oh man it was freakin sick! but yeah if you fast and pray and have faith youll be blessed every time! so crazy. and yeah so we got the calls last night and elder barnwell left this morning so that was kinda sad but now i get all his stuff like a real bed and a good bike and more space and now ill be trained for real so that will be good. it is a lot of fun with 3 though so ill defnintely miss that. oh yeah and its been way hard cause our bishop wont work with us at all. he even told us a couple weeks ago that he doesnt really want to work with us. he thinks we are baptising just for numbers which isnt true at all. but yeah so he isnt helping us with anything and he is making things more complicated and wow its so dumb. but yeah um i think thats pretty much it about the weekend. me and like 10 other greengos all got to watch conference in a little room in a church haha it was great. i was with elder walker most the time which was good and elder mcnabb was there too haha but im glad we got to watch conference in english. conference was great!! sad we missed the priesthood session though.. but oh well. conference talked a lot about the family so i hope you all listened! haha. mom the talk by david s baxter on saturday was all about single parents and families. im sure you listened to it but if not then you need to. i really liked it and it reminded me of a scripture i love that i want you to read. alma 34:41 its a great one! oh and also along with uchtdorfs talk on i think sunday theres a talk i read taht morning by bednar called and nothing shall offend them, nov 2006 ensign. go read  taht one too. such great talks! so yeah we played soccer again today which was a little different with a couple new people. oh yeah and so our district leader finished his mission and leaves today so last night elder curbela got called as district leader. ive literally been with a district leader everytime in the field. haha pretty funny. but that propbably means i will go on exchanges quite a bit with zone leaders and just others in the district but we will see how that goes. and ive showed a lot of families our family pictures and they all love them haha they all said that we all look the same and one family said that we look celestial haha. another asked why we are wearing the same clothes cause the standard of living and standard for everything down here is way lower. they dont do family pictures or anything like that here. and then another family all said that you look way young mom haha they all ask me are these your brothers and sisters and i have to say yeah and my mom in the middle everytime hahaha its funny. so yeah i think thats pretty much it for this last week. ive been hearing that serving in the capitol is freakin awesome cause thats where barnwell is going so he is lucky. i cant wait til i get to serve there! man i cant figure out the camera on the computer. and it doesnt help that everything is in spanish so i guess no pictures this week either dangit. i finally got my last pictures from in the mtc that were on elder walkers camera of me in elder harrisons thuggie (youd have to see it, pretty sick, its basically a tall tee hoodie, freakin dope) with my tight black pants and elder walkers white nike high tops. dang they are all sick haha. we never go tracting its all appointments and such but yeah just depends on the day. we have like 6 of us in our district but our zone leaders are technically in our district too so i guess 8 and in our zone theres like maybe 30 or so? not sure how many zones in the mission like 5 or 6 im guessing. and i dont know about the blog. oh wow sounds like the games were close. thats awesome they won one of them at least though. yeah austin just needs to pray about it and not be afraid to try new things. he will definitely learn that on the mission so i think he will be alright no matter what he does. thats why im excited to get farther in and learn how to be way more outgoing and comfortable with change but yeah. dang thats a bummer about conference for them but good though. man i wanna see hunger games so bad!! gol! oh well youll have it on dvd for sure though ready for me. yeah shayla has been writing me a bit and said jacob is coming like tomorrow i think? so shes excited to get to see him and show him around and hang out with him. thats awesome. when did he leave and when does he get home? but yeah we have like i think 15 new missionaries coming in tomorrow which will be cool. we have one that will be in our district. but yeah everything else sounds great and im glad you loved conference! wow germany? and connor? those are both way awesome!! tell tim congrats and i love him! or tell austin too. and also that address you gave me is the address that you guys can mail me throughout my whole mission so give that to people and tell them they can mail me whenever and ill try to email or figure a way to respond back. tell austin to text that address to kiona and kirsten. tell ashlee HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! and to have an awesome day!! i guess thats it for now. ill email next week and tellyou how the first week with just 2 of us goes. i think thats all. im never really too sure haha. if i was there there is a ton ton more i would tell you. about all the little things and stuff and i wish i had time on here but ill tell you everything in 21 months ;) haha. les amo mucho!!!

Love Elder Buxton

March 19, 2012

Familia!!!



Wow! okay um where to even start.. haha so we landed in the airport. the flight was long but we got fed and stuff and i talked to theold man next to me and his wife for a bit. not really about church stuff but thats okay. then we landed and got picked up by sister gulbrandsen (mission presidents wife) and the AP´s (assistants to the president). and then got taken to our mission presidents home which is way nice and we had introductions and everything and ate empanadas i believe. so good!!! and we talked about everything and all that. our president and wife are so awesome!! then a bunch of other missionaries came in and we found out who are trainers are but we got put in trios because theywere expecting us in 2 weeks so theyall have companions till transfers in 2 weeks and then it will just be us and our trainer. after that we eachtook a car ot our areas and got to work. i am in a city called malvinas which is about aan hour and a half north of the capitol buenos aires. but its all buesos aires. just like theirs salk lake and theirs downtown salt lake. i am with elder barnwell who is from arizona and he has only been here for 2 months so technically he is still being trained is his first 12 week program too and was in the mtc at the same time as me in december and january. our trainer is elder curbela who is from santa fe, argentina so he is fluent but he speaks prettygood english. they are both way way cool and nice! so yeha hmm everything is weird here. the towns we serve in outside of the capitol are seriously ghetto. take the ghetto your thinking of and times it by 10. literally. if you saw our pention where we live youwould literally be disgusted haha. all the houses here pretty much are dirt and rock floors. we live above a car garage thing and we are actually a biking area so we have to carry our bikes upand down the stairs every day. everyhouse has some kind of fence or wall right outside it, wether big small or crappy. but thats whywe clap instead of knock cause you cant get to the doors even if they have one which they usually dont. they are crazyabout coke here. its called coka. so we drink a lot of that. it tastes a little different though. i introduced myself to the ward on sunday and that was good. the accent here is sick and im excited to be fluent in it. theydont like spicyhere at all so thats good cause i dont either. theythink ketchup is spicyso theydont have that here. the mayonaise and mustard and milk and stuff are in bag pounches things its so weird. there are literally wild dogs running around EVERWHERE. no joke! so ill probably get attacked a lot haha. sometimes for breakfast we go across the street and buy facturas but are just patries but we pick which ones we want and we always get the dulce de leche ones. so good!!! i havent tried the meat yet but will soon. here we eat at about 1 a giant lunchand then we dont eat until we get back at like 9or 9:30 cause you eat so much at lunch. for trash they just use like grocery sacks and they just burn it all right in front of the house by the street. so it always smells like fires and trash here haha. um what else. soccer is seriously so huge here you dont even know. soccer jerseys everywhere! im wearing my argentina one right now so i fit in pretty good haha. in atlanta people would always tell us house beautiful the city is and the girls haha. i thought it would be cool bu tnot as true as they sound. its so true though even out here not in the city i love it for some reason. i love the streets and the town and stuff and there really are pretty girls everywhere! haha. oh yeah and you know how in the us we have like traffic laws and what we call lanes on the road? yeah they dont have those here really. everyjust goes and stops and parks and turns when and wherever theywant. LITERALLY. cars are like never more than a few inches away and you can drive anywhere on the street you want and people fly by us like literally inches away and people are honking and stuff all the time. its so crazyand scary!! haha. you guyswould literally be scared for life. i dont ever want to drive here. here we are asked by our president to introduce the book of mormon a certain way so we do that and partof that is asking them to be baptised right after we introduce. kinda cool and interesting. hmm ill start responding to your email now cause i cant think what else right now. feel free to ask questions though too. haha yeah so i think that scale was off or something but i weigh about 170 right now so yeah haha. oh im glad you got the picture of me with the president. thats cool! im glad you like the pictures though. also it is so freakin humid here and its not even summer anymore! you get so dirty and gross every single day no matter what you do here. umm so they told me that me sending you guys mail is expensive so i dont know about that yet and i dont know how long i always have to email. cause if my companions are done then i cant take too long. but these letters will get a lot shorter as time goes so i can write everyone and cause they dont need to be long always but yeah. so im not sure with all that yet i guess. gah im so mad about hunger games!! im glad im not tortured with magazines and stuff now though. but i gotta go now! i love you guys!! keep up thegood work!





Love Elder Buxton

Arriving in Argentina

March 16, 2012

Dear Buxton Family,

  We are so thankful to have Elder Buxton with us. He arrived safely this morning and is doing wonderful. We are so excited for this great opportunity we have together to serve the Lord. We all ate lunch together here in the mission home and this afternoon he will be meeting his trainer and arriving in his area to work.  Your son will be communicating with you on his preparation day.

We love you,

President and Sister Gulbrandsen

February 9, 2012

hola familia!

alright well a lot has happened in one week... so got some stuff to tell you guys. so one of our old zone leaders in the district older than us got hurt in basketball on i think monday or tuesday. he was driving into the basket i think and he somehow tripped and went head first into the wall of bleachers. like they werent out they were like a big wall when they are folded up ya know? but they arent like the ones at timp where its flat. the top of each individual chair sticks out so it was pretty bad. he went to the hospital and had to get 5 staples on the top of his head and like 10 stitches in 2 places around his ear. he is doing good now though. so all of the older district left except for 3. a few went to boise and a few went to LA. they are all mexico bound but mexicos visas are messed up right now. some of them will just sign their visas and then go straight to mexico. a few others will be in that mission for a few weeks. so one of the ones still here leaves tomorrow and the other 2 are still waiting for their reassignment or where they have to go to get their visas signed so yeah. so i hosted one kid on wednesday and it was really funny cause he is going to the marshall islands and after talking he played soccer for bountiful and we found out that he played for the forza team we beat in state cup last year in the quarters when i scored 2 goals and the game winner in the last 30 seconds. haha it was kinda funny. hosting can be pretty fun. its good to get me talking to people. okay ahora es tiempo por el parte mas importante. tenemos una problema..... so we went to our visa meeting yesterday and did like finger prints and stuff and we found out that we wont be getting our visas... so we are all getting reassigned for a month. so basically we get our travel plans next week of the state side mission we are each going to and then we will still leave the week of the 20th but we will be in that state side mission for about a month until our visas come and then we sign them and go straight to argentina... so yeah pretty crazy. we are all kinda bummed but were are okay with it. state side first will be a good transition into the field but we were so excited to just get to argentina. oh well i guess. we just cant wait to find out where we go. and we are sad that we probably wont all be going to the same place and together on the same flight. so yeah thats the bad news. the good news is that we at least leave here in less than 2 weeks which is the main thing i wanted haha so its not a huge deal. besides that its been pretty much a normal week. we keep getting our 3 investigators ready for baptism which is really good and we did really good on our TRC lesson this week. it was a girl that got back from the vegas mission a month ago and she spoke freakin fast! my companion didnt know what was going on most the time. it was a lot harder to understand her cause i had to translate faster but somehow i understood almost all of it which was cool. so yeah and elder harrison and elder walker got made zone leaders for a week and a half so basically me and elder mcnab never got to do any assignments. but oh well. i knew the terrys were moving cause  kyler dear eldered me and told me. thats pretty crazy though. but sad we cant go down to st george for the weekend anymore.. and thats dumb that austin and them dont want to do the trek. keep prayin about it and let me know what you decide to do. if you think you should go then the lord will be there with you to make sure your knee does just fine. haha yeah i thought you would like elder browns mom emailing you haha i just know my mom too well. yeah elder isley talks to both his parents. not so much his real dad but his real mom for sure. im not very familiar with calling cards but i saw elder harrisons taht his parents sent his which was just like a $20 verizon one. so maybe you could just buy me a $20 or something one and put it in the box? thatd be great. um im trying to remember what you said in your other email. a big bottle from cosco would be nice. thats way crazy about taylors mom. hope he is doing okay. hopefully he knows shes in a better place and that he will see her again. oh could you please dear elder me 2 of brian regans jokes? just like copy and paste them off the internet. the butterfly one and the airplane one. jacob should know what im talking about if you dont. thanks! tambien por favor yo quiero las canciones que usted dice austin y jacob would envian a mi. so por favor have them send me those songs haha. so i think thats everything hopefully. next week will be cool cause itll be a little different. next friday we go to infield orientation literally all day long instead of p day and then we will have p day on saturday and probably start packing. so we will see how that goes. so yeah. gracias por todas las cosas que ustedes hacen para mi! :) les amo mucho!!!! adios!

Love, Elder Buxton

MTC emails

I will post a few random emails from the MTC since it is too late to post all of them

January 20, 2012

querido familia,

things are going pretty good! josh has meals around the same time as me and i have talked with chapman a few times for a while so that was good. ive been learning lots of new stuff every week. we all struggle with spanish but we get better and better every day. we have a rule that in the mornings til breakfast you cant speak any english or you do push ups. the best way to learn spanish is just speaking it all the time. it helps so much! we are going to extend that to lunch this coming week. we continue to teach our "investigators" and this last week me and my companion committed one to baptism and he accepted. we have yet to teach him about the commandments and will next time cause we know he has a smoking problem. but yeah and every thursday we have to opportunity to teach some volunteer members that live close by or are going to byu and we just teach them for 20 mintues and we do that twice. and then we actually get feed back on that one. our investigators cant give us feed back. so yeah.this last week we had elder duncan of the seventy give a really good talk and i had a ton to say and talk about after during our district review. we all really really look forward to tuesday night devotionals cause they are always so freakin good! funny cauze at home i always kinda dreaded going to firesides and stuff haha. wait so does that mean austin cant go to aspen grove on the soccer retreat or what? thats way awesome about cassidee. tell her a job well done and to keep it up! what do you mean which high school? she might not go to timp? im workin harder to fill up the camera and send it to you guys. hahaha yeah what was the thing you sent me? not sure if i would call that a camera ;) haha kidding. i guess itll have to do. we have 2 main teachers but the main one we had left on tuesday cause he was doing law school and is going to join like the air force i think so now we have 2 main way cool teachers that we love. they are both way funny. thats way cool about church ball! tell him to freakin put those in! i love playing here cause like every just lines up and you shoot for teams so if you cant make a free throw you never get to play haha but for some reason i always make shots here. its weird! i never did at home and here in the gym im known as "slippers" cause i wore my black slip on shoes the first few weeks and played really good and so every knows me as that and as the kid that can drain 3's like nothing haha i dont get how. you play games to 7 by 1's and 2's and quite a bit of the time i end games fast cause for some reason i can shoot here and i just put up like 2 or 3 3's in a row. haha its so fun. oh and the kid that gave me the nickname, i was playing with him the other day and got headbutted in the lip. it was a complete accident but it bled alot and i had a fat all purple and black lip. its healing fast but yeah haha it looked a lot worse than it was. im fine now though. my other friend thats in my district tahts really good a basketball sprained his ankle pretty bad the other day so that really sucks. he will be okay though. thats awesome about iowa. i know they really like him so he could easily get offered something there. but it really just comes down to praying about it and heavenly will for sure tell him whats right. make sure he fasts about it too. helps a lot! yeah i got my haircut and everything. we signed up to get a humidifier so that will be great once we get it. thats awesome about the scriptures! keep it up! wish i could write more. we are going to the temple soon. we love it! :) both our teachers served in different missions in argentina which is cool so they can tell us kinda whats its like. buenos aires is a bigger city though so it will be different. the more i learn almost kinda the less i like haha. we know we are going to get robbed quite a bit and maybe even have people steal from our apartment and stuff. we have heard stories. but we have all read our patriarchle blessings a lot here and i am already expecting things to happen because my blessing says that if i follow the mission rules and follow the promptings of the spirit, angles will abide and your life will physically be saved. so im not worrying because im definitely going to be obedient but i already know that stuff is going to happen. its also going to be weird with stuff like they dont use gallons they use liters. they dont use feet they use meters i think? and they dont use their clocks 1-12 hours they do 1-24 like millitary time. so that will be weird haha. none of us can believe we have already been here for a month! thats crazy!! only 23 months left of our missions!! i think thats all i have to say for now. if you have anymore questions just ask. i love you all! keep up the good work!

 

Love Elder Buxton

 

p.s. is cassidee austin and ashlee planning on individually writing me back? just wondering

 

p.s.s. glad they havent looked at rings yet but i guess it doesnt really matter now. i wont be home in time anyway. and what do you mean you have to cut some stuff out? and also i have wrote steggell and brent but i dont usually have time to write them back so its kinda hard to talk to them. thank you for the packages!!!!!!!!!! :) :) love them!!

Called to Serve: Argentina, Buenos Aires North Mission

Cody opened his mission call on September 28, 2011 and was really hoping to serve a foreign mission but was convinced it would be stateside just because he dreamed of foreign.  He was pleasantly surprised to be called to Argentina and to be able to use the Spanish that he had taken in school since he was only in the 1st grade! Such an exciting night it was with over 50 people in attendance to watch him open his call, including his cousins on Skype from St. George.