Transfers?

Hola familia,
So mi familia I guess I will start out by telling you about transfers since thats the most important. It was pretty crazy but I got transfered!! Weird! So I'm now in whats called maschwitz haha its in zona escobar like I was when I first got to Argentina. So I'm back in provincia and not even close to capital anymore. Its going to be weird cause this transfer is general conference at the end and so I will get to see a bunch of friends and members from tortuguitas when we have general conference at the end! :) I'm way stoked!! But its going to be an interesting transfer. My new companion is elder barakat. I hope jacob is reading this when I say this but he is from el salvador! Hes told me a little bit about it. Like he told me that belise (the other half of jacobs mission) they dont speak spanish at all there in belise. Its all english. And then in el salvador is all spanish. Not sure if jacob already knew that but I thought that was cool. I'm sure I'll be learning a lot more about el salvador over the next 5 so stay tuned jacob ;) But yeah so he has 3 months in the mission haha since last transfer was 5 weeks he technically has 1 week left in his training which I'll be finishing haha but yeah. And.... we live in a pention with the 2 elders that are in the area savio (which is our ward too, our area just has a different name) and guess who it is... yep ELDER WALKER!!! :) haha I'm so stoked its gonna be so sick to live with him!! It's been a little bit since I've seen him. Its gonna be a lot of fun. And so far my companion is pretty chill and he knows a lot of english but I am so glad to not be speaking english anymore. Who needs that language ;) and elder walker is training so he gets his new new latino companion tomorrow so that will be interesting too. So yeah besides that its been a kinda difficult week in liniers. antonela went back to cordoba for a couple weeks so I didnt really get to say goodbye to her. We finally ate with familia toñanez again (it had been a couple weeks) and I got pretty sick with something in my stomach so I wasnt doing to good for a couple days and then just like yesterday and the day before I've been getting sick like cold wise and all stuffed up and stuff so thats not fun.. But besides that I said goodbye to some families and got pictures. I got pictures with erika and when I texted her and told her I was leaving she said she cried. But I told her that when she gets baptized that I can come back to it and do the ordinance if she wants. So I guess we will see with that haha. We had a family night with familia pignataro which was a lot of fun. I will send you guys some pics in a sec. But yeah jared was gonna come early this morning and say bye but never showed up.. dont know why. But its okay I'm excited to meet new members and experience a new area with new miracles and new people to baptize! Besides that.. I bought some toms last week for like $9 US dollars haha. Oh and yeah we had a conference call the other day and president told us that the whole south part of our mission like tierra del fuego and stuff down with the penguins is going to be its own mission. So crazy! Like you sent me recently mom. So it wont be part of our mission anymore and people might be getting called down there soon to go help open it up. And theres still a lot of greengos waiting for their visas so they might all come in next transfer. So we will see. But yeah that was pretty much my week for now. We weren't able to go to the despedida cause none of our investigators could come but a lot of people got transferred this transfer. I saw elder jorquera and he is now in the offices hahaha it was really funny when I found that out. Elder brown is a zone leader now and Elder harrison is training now. Really nuts but thats the mish.
And mom dont think I'm going to forget! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I LOVE YOU!!! :) :) Thank you for everything you do! You are the best mom in the world!! :) I hope you have a fun day today and get to relax and do something fun!


Yes I just got your package today mom. Haven't opened it yet but thank you! Okay just make sure this package you send isn't expensive please! I hope my debit card comes soon cause I need it cause I need to take out like $40 to replace the bottoms of my shoes haha. Well I guess that's it for this week. I don't think these pictures are going to work today cause its going so dang slow and I don't know why. pero espero que todos tengan una buena semana! les amo con todo corazon!


Con Amor, Elder Buxton

Hey make sure jacob reads my email and emails me if he has an questions or anything he wants me to ask my companion

Happy President's Day

Hola familia,

So this week was an alright week but kinda a struggle too but thats okay cause we find a way to be happy anyway :) So last tuesday we knew was the viewing of sydney bruning so to district meeting and the whole day we wore purple ties in her honor which was good. But yeah so besides that we have been trying to get some new investigators but we arent having a ton of success. The investigators we have aren't progressing really so its been kinda difficult with them. Dania and celso are pretty much done with and have no real desire to come to church. We met a new girl named ana who's 18 and has a baby that everything was perfect to go to church and stuff and we went to her house in the morning and everything and she had left earlier that morning cause I guess she woke up and just wanted to be alone for a while.. So that stunk but yeah.. We found a new kid who's cousins with erika last night when we were with her and his name is diego. He accepted a book of mormon and he started listening in on our conversation with erika about the plan of salvation. He also accepted a baptismal date for the 10th of march so we just gotta get him to come to church each week. Besides that me and my comp have been really feeling like we are doing the same things and visiting the same people and so we arent getting anywhere. The analogy our president uses is that we are painting the same tree over and over. So we decided that this week we need to go paint new trees! We just hope that the queen of hearts doesn't get mad at us when she finds out.. ;) haha yep missionaries can make jokes and have fun too ;) Okay so I just wrote everything out and almost all of it got deleted.... ugh.. Okay not sure what I said. umm so this week was kinda difficult for my companion since he was kinda struggling with some personal stuff. But I am grateful for when he broke down I was able to give him a blessing with the authority of God. We truly are so blessed to have the true priesthood of God restored back on the earth. Jose Smith es un capo! :) Oh and I have some good news for cassidee. On march 3rd the jonas brothers are gonna be here haha jealous cass? ;) But besides that dania and celso are pretty much done with which is really kinda sad but they aren't progressing at all so yeah. Also last week we went on divisions with versalles (the other area in our district) and I went over there with elder dewitt. They really are kinda struggling right now and their numbers are really low and his companion elder bennitt (whos from orem) goes home next monday. So it was good to be able to go over there and help them find a new investigator that we found by "gathering israel" in the one appointment they had set. Its also always really funny how when we invite people to come listen they are hesitant at first and so we say we just come for like 3 minutes and then we always end up talking for like half an hour or more haha its funny. But yeah so thats what me and my companion are gonna be doing a lot this week is just gathering israel all the time and start doing new things so that we can find new investigators to set up the next transfer good since this week is the last week of the transfer. Its weird cause it was only 5 weeks but felt really long. But we heard that there may be more 5 week transfers.. I guess we will find out. But yeah we are gonna try to go to the despedida since we have quite a few friends who are leaving so yeah we will see. We just gotta get an investigator to go with us or we cant go. So yeah I guess that's pretty much it for this week.


Hey mom what degree are you working for again? And what movie are you gonna go see today? Make sure you get that homework done! Sorry I'm not there to help ya.. haha. But yeah texting is really nice and I'm interested to see how everything will change with our new mission president in July. So today I got an email from some kid that I dont even know that said he is going into the mtc in april and stuff and that he was looking on the internet about information on his mission (dont know what mission, he didnt say) and he said he found my blog and read some stuff and he basically just said how I kinda inspired him I guess and that I have a strong testimony that is affecting more people than I think or something like that. That was a really cool email to get :) I am glad that austin is doing really good. I hope he will be okay going into the field since its a big change and all but I know he will be fine. And don't worry mom he doesn't have that much time to email me now so we cant say too much haha. If I were you mom I wouldn't worry too much about cassidee since she is in high school and she needs to have fun and live it up (without getting near danger obviously) but thats the only way she is gonna learn all the life lessons she needs. Who does she usually hang out with? And no I havent got your package yet since we havent gone anywhere but I should next monday on transfers. And we actually havent played any soccer in a while which is kinda sad.. But oh well. Keep up the good work everyone! les amo a todos mucho! chao!


Love, Elder Buxton

Address for mailing packages...

I got a letter about how to mail packages to Cody from now on and I thought I would post it just in case anyone sends more packages this year. The cost also went up through the post office so just be sure to send something small if you send anything at all.  He is also planning to buy lots of souvenirs before he comes home so a suggestion would be for gifts....to put money on his debit card and then just mail him a card (like for his birthday etc.)....I can deposit onto his debit card. I have found that it is hard to find visa gift cards that work internationally.  Just some information that I thought I would share...not that you need to send him anything.

Letter mailing address:

FROM: Name of person sending
              Address
              City, State, Zip
              Country

TO:        Missionary's Name
               General Lavalle 1828
               1646 San Fernando
                Buenos Aires, Argentina


NEVER SEND ANYTHING BY FED EX, UPS IR ANY OTHER PRIVATE MAIL CARRIER IN THE US. THE PACKAGES WILL LIKELY NOT ARRIVE OR WILL BE TOO EXPENSIVE FOR THEM TO PICK UP.

FROM:      NAME OF MISSIONARY
                   ( so they know to whom to give it to)
                   Address of the person sending the package
                   City, State, Zip
                   Country

TO:             Dellene Lowry
                   General Lavalle 1828
                   1646 San Fernando
                   Buenos aires,Argentina

Thanks to everyone for your love and support!

Happy Valentines Day!

Hola familia,
So this week was a pretty good week. First of all the district leaders and zone leaders had a capacitación on tuesday so I went on divisions with elder skeen. Then on wednesday we had a zone meeting and they told us all the things they talked about in the capacitación the day before. We basically changed a lot of things in the mission this week. We changed the way we do companionship study and daily planning a little bit and the whole mission got newer and nicer cell phones that have texting now and so yeah. Its all pretty crazy but these changes have really started to help us. As of right now we have 2 phones until the end of the transfer haha which is really nice. And also I we found out that in the next 9 weeks we will be getting 81 new missionaries in our mission. Right now we have like 94 companionships so basically what they were saying and what we learned in the junior companion capacitación on thursday is that almost all the junior comps will be senior comps real soon. And that theres a lot of old senior comps just cause we have so many missionaries waiting to come in. And so basically in 2 weeks I will probably be training haha. Anything can happen with transfers but about 30 of those missionaries are coming in 2 weeks at the end of the transfer so everything is going to change. I am completely down with training though I don't mind at all cause I already pretty much do most stuff so yeah it'll be fun. Also on wednesday I went on divisions with our zone leader elder larson who actually came to argentina with me but we weren't friends or anything. But it was really good and I seriously learned a lot from him and have started to apply those things to my work and yeah its great. Hes a capo! besides that this last weekend was kinda sad actually. We have been talking to dania a lot lately and she isn't reading or praying and doesnt know if she wants to be baptised because of that. And she just got a boyfriend so she is just really thinking about him.. Also with celso he was all good to go to church on sunday and then we had a more intense discussion saturday night with a member that just showed up that lives there too but isn't active at all and celso kinda was more honest with us and told us that he likes the evangelistas more and stuff and then we went to get him on sunday morning and said he wouldn't come.. So we are gonna be having the drop talk with both of them.. also with erika she wants to come but her dad wont let her so we need to talk to her dad. And katy couldn't come cause of work.. I even talked to her boss but yeah most of them said they will come next sunday so we will see. And we need to find new investigators which we are really gonna do this week. One way we do that is by gathering Israel in every appointment. Meaning inviting everyone around and nearby and in the home to come listen. So yeah we have faith so we are okay! :) But yeah I guess tomorrow here is something thats called carnaval. No its not a carnival (however you spell that in english.. haha) but basically what it is is here in whats called liniers which is just a ton of shops and stores and stuff on the streets for blocks and blocks by the train station (where we work a lot and where jareds shop is) theres going to be a huge just like water/foam/paint/whatever else fight. So I dont think we can even go in tomorrow haha but yeah it sounds like fun if I wasnt a missionary haha but oh well. That was mostly about it for my week. Now lets find out about you guys...

I'm so glad to hear and see that austins doing so good! thats awesome!! :) So stoked for him! and I loved seeing the pictures of him as a missionary! His hair is so short!! haha does cassidee not stay out late on the weekend hanging out mom? dang brother dickson got released? Man.. I want him as my leader when I get back. I miss him. He has definitely made a huge impact on my life and has really helped me get on the mission. I'm very grateful for him and the good example he is even if he does make me take the big uhaul truck back and scare half of orem city hahaha. Yeah yesterday it actually rained pretty bad when we were in the big building with dania and some of her friends that we met yesterday too. And the draining system on the ceiling in there is terrible so the water got in pretty bad. The whole floor was a river and a lake and a lot of the clothes got wet. But I think everything will be fine. Hey question. Did austin leave all his soccer cleats? And no mom I don't have my new debit card. Just my expired one. So yeah I guess that's it for this week. I just read in my companions families emails that sydney bruning died last week. You don't know her I don't think mom. But I know austin and jacob and them do and maybe cassidee. Shes shelby brunings sister who graduated from timp the same year as me and she played soccer. Sydney is her little sister and that was so sad to hear that she committed suicide.. a lot of people know that family so I'm sure part of orem is kinda blowin up right now.. Austin wrote me so I'm gonna write him back and tell him but yeah way sad.. but anyway. espero que todos tengan una buena semana! les amo! :)

Love, Elder Buxton

I will try to write Ashlee back in a sec if my companion isn't finished yet. But I wrote austin back but decided to not tell him about sydney. Not sure why. but yeah your welcome mom. ;) love you!

Oh and I forgot. Happy valentines day!! :) I love you mom and am so grateful for all that you do! We were reminded by our "mission mom" hermana gulbrandsen that this month is the month of love so we need to show our love to our heavenly father and work extra hard this month. Not just us on the mission though. I love all of you and am so grateful for all your support and help.

you can put that part on the blog too. thanks :)

Love you! I would really be nowhere without you mom... your my hero!! :)

(FYI for anyone reading this blog....I am truly hoping that Austin has not found out about Syndey's death. I feel that he doesn't need to hear something so negative while he is so fresh in the MTC so I am hoping that he hasn't found out and am grateful that Cody felt inspired not to tell him. Please don't tell him if you write to him. Thanks...Traci)

February 4, 2012

Hola familia!
So this last week has been a pretty good week. Then again every week in the mission is good if you make it that way :) So towards the end of last week celso came back! :) And he came to church with us finally!! Its about time! He really liked it and he now has a baptismal date for the 17th of this month so we are helping him with that. also we have dania who couldn't make it to church cause her family is in bolivia so she had to work sunday. We also have other investigators now where dania works. Its a big building with just a ton of clothes kinda like genx but every person has their little clothes business part that they sit by and sell. So we now are teaching dania, a girl that works with her name katy, a little boy that works with them named alan, and 2 girls that sell like 10 feet away from dania and one of their boyfriends kinda. They are all good friends so we go and teach them all together but it can tend to get hectic cause they have to attend to their customers still and they all ask so many interesting questions. But its awesome to know that dania and erica they both already have had a confirmation from the spirit that the book is true. Which is awesome! Now all they have to do is decide to follow that and show heavenly father they are willing to repent and be baptized! Erica and the other girl evelin technically don't live in our area so we cant baptize them which is sad.. :( but we will see what to do with that.
Recently I have been changing a lot which I love to see. Obviously thats not my purpose here but if we are working and thinking and focusing on our investigators, thats when we change as people. I learned some really important things a couple weeks ago that I just recently have been really applying to my life. The first one is that happiness really seriously honestly truely is a DECISION (dont know if thats spelled right, but who needs english anyway ;) ) but I really started to choose to be happy and I have noticed a huge difference in my life. My companion has even said that hes seen a huge difference. When we choose to be happy thats when true happiness comes. Happiness is not a reflection of our circumstances. Something that has helped me with that though is something else I learned. When we have a problem or something we always say "heavenly father please help me with this problem." That is too broad. Like when Jesus asked the brother of jared " what would you have me do?" We must ask something more specific. For example if I want to be more humble and I say "heavenly father please help me be more humble" I'm basically saying "heavenly father please change me so that I'm more humble." God can't change us. BUT he can give us desires. Recently I have been asking heavenly father to bless me with the desires to be a 100% missionary. And for the desire to want to choose to be happy. I promise you all it makes all the difference. Just something I have really loved recently.
Oh and on saturday I had something cool happen with dania. So after we said the closing prayer and stuff it was time to give them some homework to read and pray about in the book of mormon. dania didnt have her book at work so I took out a sticky note and wrote down the first page number that came to my head and told her to read any 2 verses on the page and then I promised her that it would help her in her life and would be something she needs. When we went yesterday I looked at the page I gave her (pg 137 in spanish) and she "just happen" to read 2 verses that were perfect for her! I like flipped out cause I thought that was so sweet and knew that I only did that by the power of God. She didnt really understand the verses but we helped her after that. They were 2 nephi 32:4-5 I think. 4 talks about how if we dont understand the words of Christ its cause we have not asked or knocked. It was perfect cause dania has a hard time understand scriptures and I really hope from teaching that to her yesterday she learned why. But yeah so she and katy and alan have baptismal dates for this month so we are going to be helping them with that but it really comes from their part. So its up to them. We are just here to help them in anyway possible. This week should be a pretty good week. The district leaders and zone leaders have a meeting tomorrow so I will probably be on divisions with elder skeen and then wednesday we have zone meeting and then thursday apparently we have a meeting for junior companions (hahah I laughed when I saw that) and then yeah I think we will be doing other divisions this week with our district and with our zone leaders so its going to be a busy busy week. I am really happy to hear how good austin is doing though! :) I was really excited last night to read his email and see how hes doing. I'm so glad hes loving the mtc a lot more now. I cant wait till he gets into the field and really starts experiencing things. But thats all the important stuff I cant think of to tell you right now haha.


Haha wendys was good but its not the same as home. Frosty are nothing the same and yes everything here like mccdonalds and wendys wise is way more expensive. Yeah we all knew about elder whitzit but not exactly was wrong because saturday we have a conference call from president (we actually have those quite often) and after lunch we started our fast as a mission to have more baptized and find more investigators and for elder whitzit to get better. Is he like in the hospital here or what? yeah I saw that austin saw carson. And tell john I love him and good luck for me! that's insane 855?!? oh yeah so one of the reasons people arent really training and not really going up to senior companion here in our mission is cause we have like over 60 missionaries waiting for their visas.. so crazy! They will probably all come in in packs and everyones gonna train! hahah that'd be funny. Your excercising mom? Thats awesome!! Keep it up! I kinda stopped reading miracle of forgiveness but started again weeks ago and I'm almost done with it now. Well I guess thats it for this week. les amo mucho! esta iglesia es la verdad!


Love, Elder Buxton

tell kirsten I miss her emails. havent heard from her in a little while. Tell her I will try to write her a letter soon too. thanks!

January 29, 2012

hola familia!

Fist of all I will say sorry for writing today and not yesterday. Yesterday we had our "Gira de la mision" (mission tour, I think haha) and so we had basically a multi zone conference in the morning with president obviously but also with a 70. It was elder wilham and his wife. It only last til 12 but it was awesome to be able to hear and learn from the words of the Lord for 4 hours. We learned a lot of stuff and there really was a strong spirit. But yeah so since we had that we went to work after and they put our pday today. So sorry about that. Hope you didnt worry too much mom haha. Dont worry I'm still alive! ;) So that was in a church in capital which was cool cause in that area is where the only wendys in like all of buenos aires or something is so we went there and ate after a bunch of us friends. Like elder middaugh came back up from the south so it was realy good to be with him and stuff. And elder khutell who went to timpanogos. Me and him talked a bit and that was pretty cool cause a transfer ago he was in tortuguitas, my first area. And he was like best friends with laura browne (the girl I took to my senior prom) and yeah we just talked for a bit. Also yesterday night we had a noche de hogar with antonela and jared and we got dania and her friend who we actually started teaching a little also named katy and a kid that got baptized on saturday in jareds ward and his brother who has doubts about the church right now. So yeah we were actually there pretty late and got home late but it was really really awesome to see how the spirit worked in each of them and at the end I asked them all what they learned. Its so cool when the spirit works how it does cause they all learn such different things but they are all things that God was testifying more to them and its maybe what they need to change in their lives. Thats how it was for antonela. But its so good to see things starting to change. We are definitely teaching more and better and thats helping the investigators to really learn from the spirit and not from us. Thats how the new teaching program of the church works. Danias family is all in bolivia for vacacions for a little bit and she wasnt able to make it to church so we pushed her baptismal date to the 10th of february. She still doubts cause she wants her family to be there but we know that God wants her baptized now! So we are still with her on that but we just taught her about Joseph Smith and she really liked it. Also a couple weeks ago we had a lesson with her and she told us yesterday actually that after the lesson she went inside and she just felt really happy for some reason and didnt know why. We testified to her that that was the spirit. And we asked her what she thinks God is telling her and she said that the book is true and I asked her if she really believed that and she said yes! She already knows its true! So thats awesome. She wasnt able to come to church but we are definitely getting her there this sunday so she can be baptized the following week. Last week me and my companion actually got pretty sick. I got really sick one night and was just pretty much rolling around in pain for hours and wasnt doing so good the next day but I'm okay now so its all good :) We finally actually got to meet with the bishop on sunday and that went really good and we should be getting ward missionaries soon and so that should really help us out so we have people to accompany us to citas. I mean appointments haha wow castellano... :) besides that I'll spare you of all the details that arent as important haha. It was a pretty good week. We pretty much right now only are working with dania and katy.. We gotta find new investigators. We have some others but they arent really progressing and its hard to find them.. oh and celso came back from bolivia yesterday! We saw him on the street and set up an appointment to pass by tonight so we will see with that. I am really gaining a strong testimony of revelation. Me and my companion are always talking about things in the street and at lunch and at night and as we do that and then think of a scripture we always receive like revelations. Its so interesting how the spirit works but I had a cool revelation about something I've been thinking a lot about recently but this is already long so I will share it next week. But its been so cool to just talk about things and then cause we are doing something and actually looking and pondering we receive knowledge. Its so sick!! :) haha well anyway I think thats it for this past week. Oh and mom the 70 told us yesterday that we should definitely have a copy of our mission call. I'm not sure why I didnt bring one but could you please send me one? thanks!

hahah yep mom transfers are on your birthday. Pretty cool huh? Wow that sounds like a crazy start of the week especially for aust. I wish I could hear him bear his testimony.. I dont think I've heard him cry in his testimony before.. but I'm so glad that everything went good with him going in to the MTC and stuff. All the pictures look great and some very sad with him like hugging jacob and stuff. But I know he has so much faith and he is going to be great. He wont like it at first. nobody does. They say if you make it to the first sunday then you will be just fine. So I'm glad he survived! :) It slowly gets better and better with the more effort we put in. Your obviously going to be really sad and homesick at first but the happiness and focusing does come. He just needs to be patient. I'm SO glad to hear he likes his companion. You guys have no idea how much of an affect a companion can have on your happiness, homesickness, and just everything. And you guys have no idea how many bad companions there are on the mission and how many problems missionaries have with companions. Its way crazy.. but I know he is going to be just fine. Don't worry too much about him mom. The Lord will always be with him as long as he tries and does his part.
Okay about the package. i hope you havent bought the 2 pants yet. I'm good with just 1. if you bought 2 already send me them but if not just buy one pair. I dont really care which ones. just not too tight and not too baggy and 34x34 haha. Also I was wondering mom if you could send me a couple other things. Safety pins, some big zip lock bags, and maybe you can find my chelsea essien jersey and send that? And also one last thing. do you think you can find pictures of like my senior and junior prom and like sadies with ali and just basically a bunch of pictures from dances. And other pictures you can find and send as hard copies that you havent already sent to me. Only if you find some though. I for sure want some of some of the dances over the past years like prom and when me and ali went to payson sadies and stuff. And also just been think I dont have pictures of like when I had my mustache or pictures of clothes I used to wear during high school. Like my sophmore and junior year and like the one on facebook of me and trent at trafalga where you can see our whole bodies. just whatever you can find would be great. Not nearly as many as last time though haha you dont have to some me very many. But yeah thanks mom! and did austin leave boxes at home of like his clothes and stuff or what did he do?
It was funny that you sent me that talk last week by pres eyring called the voice of the lord and then its the main message in the january liahona. I started reading it and was like umm I swear I've read this before haha. Well I guess thats about it for this week. Today and yesterday are extremeley hot... its crazy. Gut we´ll survive! les amo mucho! y se que tan importante que es la obra misional y que no es nuestra obra. es la obra de el. nosotros estamos aca para ayudar a el. chao!

Love, Elder Buxton



haha funny there was a lady right behind us that doesnt speak spanish and she was trying to ask something but couldnt and then we were right there to help her haha just goes to show that missionaries are in the right place at the right time when they are doing what theyre supposed to. That just hapeened 10 senconds ago haha

No email yet...

I did not receive an email from Cody today. In emailing with some other missionary moms, they did not receive emails from their children in Cody's same mission either, except for one who said that her son emailed her early and a short email stating that the internet cafe was closing early. So, we are thinking that maybe they all closed early today for some reason and most missionaries didn't get there in time not knowing this. It is only a guess but we are hoping that he may get a chance to email tomorrow for whatever reason they didn't get to email today. At least that is what I am praying for since there was nothing in the news about anything happening in Buenos Aires today. Thanks for your continued prayers and support for my missionaries. They really need and feel your prayers on their behalf.