Happy Halloween!

Hola Familia,
First of all Happy Halloween everyone!! Hope its a good one! Cause they don't do anything here... haha. So this last week was pretty good and crazy like always. FINALLY isabel got baptised!! :) We had her baptism on thursday and it went really good. We talked a lot with her dad mario and in the end we put his baptism on sunday but then we went and had a lesson with him on saturday and found out that he smokes. So we put his goal for his baptism on the 10th. We also gave him a blessing to be able to quit also. I know he can do it! So we found some new investigators this last week which were good but in the end the only one that came was paulina who has 2 kids and she lives with her.. marido... man? (don't know how to say that in english. They aren't married) and they don't get a long very good but are together for the kids so we are gonna try to help them get separated to get baptised. Her man smokes and is into drugs and drinking and stuff but paulina listens and likes what we teach so that's good. On sunday in sacrament meeting it was kinda a disaster cause her kids are kinda terrible and we kinda gotta talk to paulina also about being reverent and stuff. But it was good that she came! She has a baptismal date for the 10th also. valentina and gabriel and their parents (the family from paraguay) didnt come.. so we had to reput their dates for the 10th. So we have 4 baptisms set up for the 10th right now. So the other day I did divisions and went over to la boca to do a few baptismal interviews. I was with elder moran from ecuador. It went pretty good and I did 2 interviews on friday and then 1 on saturday morning. So real quick the one on saturday morning was with a girl named yamila who is 19 and lives alone. They already told me that she had a couple problems with question 4 so I already knew I'd have to call president and stuff. And I knew that if it was okay with president that he would basically put the decision of her repentance and baptism on me. So I prayed a lot before the interview to have the spirit with me to know if she was ready. So it was hard cause there wasnt service in her house so I went outside on the other side of a different house (this is nothing like I'm explaining it cause its a villa. you guys cant even imagine how these villas are) but yeah so I was standing on wooden boards which were basically the porch and pathway of a house that was suspended about 10 off the ground above a river. haha it was the most dangerous looking thing ever. It was sweet though! Then president wanted to talk to her so I had her come out and she talked and we went back in and finished the interview. After talking to president though when I was talking to and teaching her I could really feel the love that heavenly father has for her. It was awesome to be able to feel that and I hope that she could feel that love from God through me. In the end she got baptised yesterday which was great. So yesterday morning we had a meeting with the bishops, stake president, mission president, and all the missionaries in the stake (apparently we have this meeting every 4th sunday of the month). It was really good and I got to see elder arostica so it was great! :) then we went to the villa to look for investigators before church. The meeting was at 7 in the morning. After church we had lunch with an awesome family. familia shaffauser. The dad looks a lot like pres eyring haha but yeah they invited us 4 and the missionary couple. So I was the translator for lunch haha it was fun though. Also each week we eat with familia chavez and the dad is temporarily the ward mission leader (hes really the ward secretary) because ours is inactive.. but yeah they have a kid thats 18 a girl thats 17 that are active and way chill and then 2 other girls that are like 20 and another boy thats like 20 whos not active. They are really fun to be with too. They are a family of many talents. Also the sweetest thing happened yesterday! After church me and my comp did divisions with a member so he could go give a blessing and teach a lesson and I could be with paulina a bit while we ate refreshments (there was some food cause an hermana is moving from the ward this week). So I was with the elder cruz and garrett and we ran downstairs and I ran into jared from my area in liniers!! antonela and his sister were out in the car and they went to church in a different ward to see an elder and then came here to see elder ferreiros in la boca and he didnt know I was here. We then went outside and talked with all them for a while. It was so great!! :) but yeah today I think we are gonna go eat at a buffet and then go play soccer cause jared and some friends are gonna come back up and play. Should be sick! oh and yesterday we had a really good lesson with a girl named jessica that we found last week. We taught her the restoration and she understood really well and wants to know if the book of mormon is true. Then at the end some drunk guy came up and started to mess with us and was talking about who knows what a ton. He was basically talking to me the whole time cause I'm from the united states but it was alright in the end. He got a little too close to jessica at one point and I was ready to do whatever but anyway. Stuff like that happens all the time. Its what makes being a missionary fun! ;) I guess thats it for this week. Wow this is long. It was pretty cold here all week long. kinda wierd. Very strange temperature changes. oh oh and also we had 2 miracle investigators show up at church yesterday. A lady and her son. And they live in our area :) we are gonna visit them tonight. and today is jessicas birthday. She turns 17. We asked if we could come on tuesday and then she told us its her birthday today and said she wants us to come. Pretty cool! oh this is so nuts cause this is already the last week of the transfer! We cant believe it... it went by so fast. I really really hope that us 4 stay together here in the ward. I want to stay with elder cutipa so he can kill me. We will see what happens and I will email you guys again next tuesday.


Austins gonna play kickball against the girls volleyball team at UVU? haha what the... okay yeah just let me know what UVU says. Did I meet with an advisor last time? and what classes and times are you signing me up for? and yes in this mission we focus a lot alot on lessons with member present lessons. We are supposed to get, with a lot of work and diligence, 20 lessons with member present a week. In lots of areas its hard to get. 2 weeks ago we had 20 and last week we had 24. very awesome cause this ward hasnt had that in a while. We are really seeing real growth here in the ward and some members are getting more excited about the work. It's great to see :) we try to never have other lessons. Which is lessons with just us and an investigator. haha thats cool you talked to elder garretts mom. haha yep I'm just so nice huh? ;) and yes I plan on leaving lots of stuff. yeah we are getting like 26 misisonaries tomorrow and like 28 next week. so crazy!! The work of salvations is hastening!! :) does that make sense in english? hmm who knows.. you guys understand me! You put money in my account for elder whitsitt? I dont ever see him though... so I dunno how that is gonna work... austin is a primary teacher?? haha thats awesome!! :) bueno les amo a todos!


Elder Buxton

How are you?

Hola Familia,

This last week was definitely crazy and hard in many ways. But first of all yesterday was mothers day so Happy Mothers Day Mom!!! I love you!!!! your the best!!! :) so this week we had pretty good numbers again which was very good. We had the most lessons with a member present last week than we have the whole transfer so that was good. In this mission we focus a lot a lot on member present lessons. we try not to teach any "other lessons" which is just us and an investigator. we focus on teaching with members to investigators and to other member, mainly recent converts and less actives. So that is going pretty good so far. So isabel didnt get baptised this last weekend.. apparently she couldn't get wet.. for girl reasons.. but she finally finally came to church with us!! It was great! So her and hopefully her dad and little brother too will get baptised this thursday. Hopefully everything turns out good! mirian and alcides and their family didnt come to church.. they were all sleeping.. but we had a lesson with them last night and reput the fechas with valentina and gabriel for the 3rd of november. On friday we did divisions so I stayed in my area with elder cruz and that went pretty good. He is such a cacahuate! ;) We get a long really well so thats good. Hes such a good kid and elder. oh and on tuesday we had district meeting for half an hour and then the hermanas left and we were going to watch the priesthood session but it didnt work.. so we watched it as a zone at a members house on friday morning. It was very good I liked it a lot! I'm excited to listen to and read the talks again. Then on friday night we had our first ward family night/ talent show. We are going to do this every 2 weeks and each time we take turns as organizations. Friday was la obra misional. So it wasnt a very good turn out in the beginning so I shared a spiritual thought and then us 4 missionaries in the ward did a couple little skits that we didn't plan out hardly at all cause of loss of time during the week but it all turned out good and we had some really good laughs. And then a few kids in the ward break dance so they danced at the end and thats when like a bunch more people showed up.. thats kinda how it works her in argentina. We say that something starts at 7:30 and everyone shows up at 9:15... its really frustrating but its okay. Wo then on saturday morning me and elder cruz went to la boca to do some interviews and then we met up with the zone leaders and did divisons again. I went with elder ferreiros for the day and did their 3 interviews taht night and then we switched back. It went really good. elder ferreiros is a capo! hes from argentina and hes way cool so yeah. Those were basically some of the highlights of the week. Hopefully we can keep the numbers up this week and find more escogidos (chosen) ((people that are prepared)). We found a couple people last week but we will see how they progress first and then I'll tell you about them ;) so yeah I think thats it for the week. oh and next sunday we got invited the 6 of us for lunch. us 4 missionaries and the couple missionaries to have lunch with a member. It should be way good and I think the hermana missionary is gonna make a dessert from the states and bring it! :) I sure hope so!

elder whitsitt just told me that president gave him a break haha I'm not really sure why. It happens every once in a while. As district leaders we really don't get much free time haha always calling or texting people or verifying things and stuff like that. It can be crazy sometimes. I don't have my drivers license with me mom. I'm in argentina remember? ;) haha. you cant really carry things around with you that your afraid to lose haha.  Thats great to hear that ashlee is getting so much better so fast. I'm very glad! :) whos farewell did austin go to? wow thast crazy about cass! I'm glad that she is okay and that nothing serious happened. It is still very weird to me that she is old enough to drive.. that just blows my mind. I cant picture it. Well thats it for this week. keep praying everyone and dont stop keeping the commandments! God has so many blessings he just cant wait to give us! les amo a todos!

Elder Buxton

Fall is here....

Hola Familia,

So this last week was pretty crazy and good. So on tuesday we went to temaiken! It was so sick! The coolest zoo I've ever been too. And it was so great to see elder arostica and elder whitsitt and all them and hang out a little bit. But yeah it was a lot of fun. We got home that night at like 8:15 I think haha it was nuts. So on thursday we went to go contact an old investigator and she had moved but a man and lady answered and so we asked if we could share a message with them. It was a good lesson and they are way way awesome! They are called mirian y alcides. They arent married but they are just so great! On saturday we went back and we met 2 of their kids who are actually just mirians kids. They are all from paraguay and they are just like such happy people especially the mom mirian. They have a lot of faith in god and we put baptismal dates with the 2 kids for the 27th and they accepted and the whole family came to church!! :) We went to the villa sunday morning to go get them and Ana (shes a recent convert along with her sisters that we have been working with a lot lately). Ana is 17 with her twin sister but ana has a kid and she got her baby blessing yesterdy too so that was good. We went to go get isabel who was supposed to get baptised on saturday but didnt cause we met her dad and brother and so we are hoping that we can baptise them all together this coming saturday. Isabel is anas way good friend but now at the moment they arent on very good terms.. long story. But so yeah that might be a problem since we would always teach her in anas house. But yeah so isabel wasnt home so we just went with the family from paraguay and ana. It was just awesome to see them in church and see the members helping them to feel comfortable. We also explained to them that they need to get married first before getting baptised and she already knew that so we are gonna help them do that. Mirian has got baptised in a bunch of different churches and just loves stuff about God. So we are gonna really help her to understand that there is only one true church and not everything that has to do about God and Jesus are correct. But we are very happy to have found them :) last weekend I did a couple more interviews and one of them was the first time that I had to call president in the middle of it cause he had a problem with question 4. If you dont know what that means just ask a returned missionary. For you mom ask matt. But yeah it was cool though that he was able to pass anyway. And then a little bit later I felt the need to get some help with stuff from president so I called him back later and can I just say how much I love my mission president. Hes just such a baller! :) one of the best mission dads ever :) he has helped me so much with stuff and I have really felt his love from us. Also on sunday morning, since we were fasting cause it was fast sunday, we got a text from the mission saying that pres ayre got an email from pres gulbrandsen saying that hermana gulbrandsen has cancer and will have an operation this thursday.. :( it was really sad news.. it wasnt that hard on my comp or elder cruz or garrett cause they didnt know her. My comp met them but not very much. But yeah its super crazy. So please keep her and her family in your prayers! So yeah thats pretty much it. Today we are gonna go eat with the patriarch again and watch the priesthood session of conference :) and then finally play some soccer! And then tomorrow we meet as a zone to watch the priesthood session again haha that'll be fun. I want you to all know how much I love this church and how eternally grateful for the atonement. I have such a strong testimony of it and repentance and have no doubt that we can all be forgiven of all our sins.

I'm so glad ashlee is getting so much better! That makes me very happy! :) I pray for her every day so its definitely from all of our prayers. And yes the weather is getting kinda warmer here. Its been pretty random the weather. Cloudy and then sunny and then a little rainy but we somehow adjust. It's usually just always humid no matter what. Especially if its cloudy. But we manage :) Wait why wasnt austin training with the team? Yeah I hope you all are reading your scrips and praying everyday! Tell cass to have tons of fun this weekend!! And to tell me all about it. And send me pics. I hope you can get caught up on your school work mom. Good luck as well! Well I guess thats it for this week. les amo!

Elder Buxton

Another great week!

Hola Familia!

wow okay so much has happened this last week! okay first of all so I'm sure today is just a normal day for all of you but for us its not. so this morning we got up kinda early and had a leader training meeting in san fernando which was great and I got to talk to everyone from my district since we are all leaders and a bunch of other friends which was awesome. and then we came back in bus and train and ate lunch with the stake patriarch whos in our ward and now we have time to email home and then work. In other words today is kinda a normal work day (apart from the meeting) because we just get to write and then work today and we will have p day tomorrow. we will be going to temaiken (a big zoo in escobar like 10 min away from maschwitz) as a mission!! :) its gonna be so sick!! we gotta get up early and then have a meeting in the chapel there and then we go to the zoo. its kinda a gift from president and now that we are 240 missionaries instead of 170 when pres ayre got here he kinda wants us to be able to meet everyone. I'm so excited to be able to hang out with everyone and see everyone I didnt see today. mainly elder whitsitt (since he isnt a district leader anymore) and elder arostica. but yeah thatll be way way fun. okay so general conference was great!! :) I hope that you were all able to learn and understand as much if not more stuff than I did. I really felt the spirit strong during the conference most of the time. sunday morning was kinda rough for reasons but besides that it was awesome. we are so blessed to have prophets seers and revelators in our day :) oh and our little greengo room was great like always with cookies and snacks and the spirit :) during the week we had the zone meeting which was really good and we were able to set goals as a district and zone. I also did like 3 baptismal interviews which went good too. with one of them I was able to do divisions with one of the zone leaders for a few hours and learned alot about how they work and are having success. its cool to know that even though I am the oldest (in mission time) in the zone that I can still learn so much from everyone else. humility is such a huge attribute! so besides that isabel was supposed to get baptised on sunday. she passed her interview and everything during the week and then wasnt able to come on sunday.. it was sad that she couldnt enter into the waters of baptism just yet or see the conference but she will get baptised this saturday. so besides that we had 3 baptisms as a district and we should have at least a few more this weekend. I really like it here in capital and the work I feel is so much more fast paced up here in this zone and in my district which is helping me to do better and be better faster which I'm greatful for! and its actually starting to get a bit warmer which I'm happy about :) so thats about it for my week.

oh dont worry mom last monday I downloaded the relief society session talks and listened to them during the week :) they were great. and supposedly we are gonna watch the priesthood session as a zone soon and we might watch it next week with the patriarch too :) so we are set haha. elder garrett speaks a little bit but doesnt understand like anything haha we help him though. yeah his trainer is a really really good trainer and person and he speaks way good english so thats good too. and the new senior couple is from I think they said spanish fork? I think so. I'm so glad ashlee is finally coming home!! :) I know she will heal in no time! mom thats awesome you got accepted!! I'm very happy and proud of you!! :) congrats!! I really loved elder hollands talk about depression too. It was great. well I guess thats it for this week. I think me and my district from the mtc tomorrow are gonna plan what to do for our last p day since we can go anywhere we want we want to hang out and do something together. cant wait! :) les amo mucho!! :)

Elder Buxton