September 9, 2013

well hello hello!

thank you for the emails and all that business. it sure means a lot that you still care about me, even though i am ya know... over here, not really doing anything for you :) eh eh eh...

man. too bad erin still hasnt had her baby. that little lady needs to make herself known outside of the belly. i so SO enjoyed the coon story!! i cant tell you how much i want one! they are so grand! and they sound so polite (in a way) and tame. adorable!!

ok. ok. that storm sounds great!! i wonder why there was such a good on in utah! i can imagine bum just the way you described. so funny! we recently got a pretty sweet storm. lots of thunder and a little bit of lights flickering. at 6:10 am, there was lightning right by our apartment. it was so close that we heard the thunder at the same time we saw the lightning. it was so bright and loud!! i think it was the loudest i have ever heard. it woke us all up at the same time. s mayle describes it as "it sounded like a full dresser being pushed down the stairs!" but seriously it was great. we could feel the walls shake. man! cant even describe it.
ah a good storm is just so grand.

this week i went to another mission leadership council. it was good to go to. our mission president is doing a great job. after the meeting with everyone, we had a sisters meeting. we talked about the sisters needs and problems we have seen and ways to help and all that stuff.

did i tell you about the man (brother bowe) in our ward who i was able to meet that walks around penacook with a little black dog on his shoulder? oh man it is great!! well. we had a wonderful lesson with him. he talked about fellow-shipping in the gospel and doing personal missionary work. he said "its my calling" RIGHT when he was done saying that, the first loud, nearby thunder made itself known. brother bowe immediately jumped up and got into attack position and then settled back down and started laughing. it scared him so bad! hahaha but it was so good! oh man it was great. but he let me take a picture with his black dog on my shoulder.

oh yeah, transfer news. s mayle and i are staying, s herrick is leaving, but unfortunately, not to brazil. she is going to be somewhere in the mission. i really love s herrick. she definitely has a sense of humor that is the most like mine out of any of my companions. well, maybe. but she is great. but lets be honest. i am stoked about not being in a trio. it is just.. ok. so yeah. that is our news. i will miss her. but i am excited to just love s mayle and be her companion. also i am excited to have a desk :)

so this week we were teaching anthony again. when we got there, we were planning on teaching him the plan of salvation. but before we even sat down he said- " i have some questions for you guys today" ..hold on to your butts.. it wasnt so bad though, he heard about the word of wisdom and he was concerned. he was saying it just isnt realistic for someone today to live that kind of lifestyle. but we went on to talk about it. we had never taught the word of wisdom as a companionship before, but we actually all worked in unity, we independently shared scriptures that supported each other and that helped him understand. at one point he said "well i am about to put my foot in my mouth about up to my knee...." he got all stuttery, then explained that when he gets excited about something, his mouth wants to swear, but that he didnt want to swear in front of us. we gave him a minute to gather himself and settle down. then he explained how AWESOME he thought the word of wisdom is and medical this and scientifically that! he was STOKED about it. hahahahahaha! oh it was great. he committed right there to try to live it. i shook his hand right there for two reasons- 1 i am proud of him. 2 i cant hug him. it was just the coolest! i have never seen such a drastic, immediate change. hahahaha it was a blast. before we left, he said he also found some stuff online about polygamy. so this weeks lesson should be good. hahaha :)

have i ever told you about gloria? she is one of the cutest and sweetest ladies you will ever know. s herrick and i met her on one of our very first days here. she is adorable. she is torn right now because she likes us a lot, she is praying about baptism, but she loves the church  that she has been attending. she is part of a 7th day adventist group. we are trying to help her see that we love everyone and we wont expect her to cut all ties and abandon them. so to help her see that, we went to church with her on saturday (of course is was on a saturday:)  ).  it was good stuff. i dont really know much of anything about them, except the whole 7th day thing. but they were so much fun. they all loved us, even with our little name tags. the sermon was great- they read from and discussed the bible. there was one point when he was talking about how the lord will never forget us, how he will gather us like a hen gathers her chicks, all that kind of stuff. he asked if we though the lord would not prepare us for the second coming. "of course he will!" was his answer to his own question. ah it was just so grand! it reminded me of the last paragraph in the introduction to the book of mormon that says when we gain a witness of the books divinity and all that, we will also know that the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is the lords kingdom once again established upon the earth, preparatory to the second coming of the messiah. aaah! so good! while we were listening to the sermon, i just wanted to teach them. i wanted to teach the preacher. not to prove him wrong or anything, but to show him how right he was and how the gospel that i have is exactly what he needs and how much he is going to love it! they had the equivalent of a pot luck linger longer and the preacher insisted that we went first. it was so cute! no wonder she feels so torn. but she came to church with us yesterday and loved it! she stayed for all 3 hours, didnt want to leave! plus there was lots of fellow-shipping with hardly any work on our (missionaries) part. it was grand. simply grand. i love that woman.

   

ooh! also, yesterday was s mayle's birthday. i made it as special as i could, even though there isnt a whole lot i could do. but i made sure to jump on her bed in the morning and stack the 3 cakes that we recieved this week and put them on her desk and all that good stuff. s herrick and i wished each other and lots of other people a "happy sister mayle's birthday" all day. s herrick told me that for s mayles birthday, i could hold her (s herrick's) hand at any time. what a great gift. hahahaha :)

well i have got to get going. i am excited for my first niece! great job erin! 

i love you all!!!

love, sister lani buxton

September 2, 2013

bob and fam,

thanks a bundle for everything! my 22nd was wonderful and perfect! a woman wanted to meet us at 10:00 at dunkin doughnuts, so we went and waited and my lovely companion sister herrick bought me my favorite one. :) then our friend craig wanted to meet up with us for lunch, so that was great. he brought popsicles for us. it was pretty sad, he has been reading a lot of anti, so he doesnt trust the book of mormon. but we bore our testimony and all that and tried to help him understand. by the end of the visit, he agreed to read the book of mormon, which was a pleasant surprise for us. he has a lot of faith in the bible and in the lord, i just pray that he will take council from the lord on this one instead of trying to give council to him. for dinner, sister creed, a less active member we have been working with had us over. i requested mashed potatoes with lentil soup on top. she did a wonderful job. after dinner, i used the bathroom. exciting eh? so when i came out, she was walking into the room with a beautiful personalized cake with 22 lit candles on it! then all 3 of them started singing to me. it was adorable! she even gave me a card and a gift. i love that woman so much. she really made me birthday special. :) she got a calling a couple weeks ago and i was able to sit in when they set her apart. that was the first time i have experienced that with a member i have been working with on my mission. it really was such a sweet moment. 

so back to you. i got the box the day before my birthday. i was so excited to open it. i woke up 5 minutes early so i could start into it. i really love it! thank you so much. i wore the skirt 2 days in a row and i am going to wear it again tomorrow. hahaha :) the cardigan is wonderful. i love it. oooh its so soft and lovely. the shoes i definitely love! wowie! and the shirt is even cool. i dont know how often i will wear it just because most of my skirts are patterned, so it gets a little crazy. but everything fits and i love it all. i am surprised with how perfect it all is. thank you so much! i really so appreciate it. i love you all :) thank you thank you thank you! and i will have you know i was legitimately surprised. i mean, i couldnt think of anything i wanted for my day, so you did a great job. just know this- i love it all!

tell erin that the consequences for not having the baby on my birthday is to either wait for me to get home, or to wait until my 23 birthday.

oh man oh man. a couple months ago, we met a man named devin outside a tattoo shop. it was great and all that. this week, we found him and his friends! it was so much fun to talk to them. we talked for like... i dont know. 40 minutes maybe. it was such a fun time. by the end of it, devin committed to read some of the book of mormon, and we are going to try to see him this week again. that guy was so cool. we talked about the tower of babel, native americans, all that cool stuff.

another cool story- a couple weeks ago, this guy called to us from across the street to talk to him. we go over there. he is totally wasted. it was so silly. he was out of it. he had a friend with him who explained to us that he worships the devil and all this silly business. he had 666 tattoed on the back of his neck. he told us he knew we were god's angels. i tried to share a scripture with him, but he ran away. he wouldnt touch us. wouldnt shake our hands. it was sad. i looked into his eyes and said "god remembers you, brother." this week we went to stop by a less active. the 666 guy was there!!! ah! he was trying to hide in place. he was so embarrassed. there were other people around and we had a great, but short gospel conversation. i got to read the scripture to him. at the end, he shook our hands :)

i love you!!!!!!

love, sister wanay buxton

August 26, 2013

hello hello family!!

thank you very much for the email! and the letters! after we went shopping, we stopped at our apartment for about 3 minutes. there was a letter from you bob!

this week was great again. i have been thinking a lot about the significance of christ being compared to light. i always understood that, but it just gets cooler the more i think about it. light shows you where you are going, light gives direction, light reveals truth. if you are in a dark room with a someone, they can give you a crayon and tell you it is orange. why wouldnt you believe them if you cant see it? but if you are outside in the sunlight and someone gives you a blue crayon and tells you it is orange, well. you know they are lying to you, because the light reveals truth. light gives warmth. when you are in the light, you can feel it. with darkness comes coldness. physically, the colder an environment is, the slower it is. if it is really cold, things can freeze, which prevents anything from happening. i think this is a significant metaphor. i think the farther from the light of christ we get, the colder we get, and the less productive we are, (in an eternal perspective) and progress towards salvation can even come to a stand still. 

in sacrament meeting yesterday, a man from the bedford ward talked. (yes, where i used to serve!) he talked about fear vs. faith. it was an amazing talk! i wont talk about it too much, but some funny things he said concerning negativity that i really enjoyed were "thank goodness for my pessimism, because ever since i have lost hope, i have been a lot happier" and "depression has really put a spring in my step!" it was funny, everyone laughed. but really! it was so funny the way he made it so obvious why fear is opposed to faith. hah. i loved it.

speaking of bedford, i was able to go there this week for exchanges. i saw nancy!!! remember nancy, the woman who let us in after shoveling her drive way? oh man! i was so happy to see her. she was so nice to us. she fed us lunch and desert and gave me a little candle. she said she wants to be baptized in december. i am just so happy :) i love her!

while we were on exchanges, we were teaching a man named david in the common area of his apartment building. about 3 minutes into our meeting, a woman walked by, but quickly stopped to ask us where we were from. we asked if she wanted to join us, to which she quickly responded "yes!" and ran to get something, then ran back to sit with us. ner name was rayna. she was... from somewhere spanish speaking, but she was fluent is english. we taught the restoration. her EYES!! they were so focused, so sincere. she wanted to hear and understand everything we were saying. about half way through the lesson, she told us that the night before, she was praying and she asked god for something, someone to help her and show her the way she needed to go. .... WOW!  it was so cool to hear. before we left, she said "i know god heard me.. i know god heard my prayer!" she hugged us and we went on our way. wow. it is just so amazing when prayers are answered. that was an answer to her prayers and also to our prayers. it was such a testimony builder for me. i love the lord and i am so appreciative that he hears us! 

there is another man named dave that is an investigator here in boscawen. he is great. he is always telling us that he wants to do what the lord wants him to do. he wants to follow the lord and all that. he is great. heart of gold. but it is so sad that he doesnt see his prayers being answered. we always ask him to read the book of mormon and pray about it and all that stuff. he always responds with "only if the lord asks me to. i will pray about if i should read it." yeah yeah thats great. what do you think we are here for? if we are the lord's servants, then maybe we are an answer to that prayer. unfortunately, he is only expecting the answer to his prayer to come in the form of a dream. so basically, his eyes to revelation are closed all day. it is sad to see. life would be so much easier for everyone if they could just recognize answers to prayers. i think that is something i will be working on for the rest of my life. everyone should.

ah! sorry i have to go. i love you all! thank you for everything!

love, sister buxton!

thank you for the birthday love!

August 19, 2013

oh hey family :)

thank you for the email. i definitely enjoyed this weeks update :) i am happy to hear erin will probs pop sooner than september 25. just make it august 30th to let me know you still love me, even though you are having a baby long before i come home! august 30th sounds perfect :)

so in the little town of penacook, which is where i live, there is a wonderful man with some tattoos on one arm, a nice round mid section, evenly tapered hair, and a small black chihuahua that sits on his shoulder. i see him occasionally as we drive by, but i hadnt been lucky enough to see him while walking by. he is great.

on tuesday we went to contact a less active member of the ward who we had never met before. his name is jeffrey bowe. as we are walking to his house, a small black chihuahua comes out to bark at us and show us how tough he was. then a man came out who said hi to us. he introduced himself as brother bowe. hey thats a great sign! he then picked up the little dog and put him on his shoulder. oh HEY!! its you!! you are that guy we see from time to time! hows it going?! hahaha! it was such a delight to finally get to meet this man. he is so cool. he told us that he used to be into some pretty heavy drugs and he was even a drug dealer in l.a., but then he found missionaries, who taught him the gospel. he gave up his lifestyle and got baptized. this was just four years ago! as we talked more with him, he obviously had a strong testimony and a desire to be better, as he has not been active as of recent. he told us of some of his troubles and told us how difficult things are for him without making it a pity party. i told him i had just watched a video on mormon.org that said "we should not demand something unreasonable from ourselves, but we should demand progress from ourselves." (or something to that effect) he gave me a high-five and told me that made his day. we talked for just a few minutes with him, shared a scripture, had a prayer and left. i saw a little tear making its way down his cheek. its amazing how 4 people can come in contact with each other for just 5-10 minutes, and during that time feel the spirit, love each other and have more motivation afterwards. man! i love it!

did i ever tell you about the morning we went for a run and a woman put her head out her window and yelled to us that there was a bear in the hood? man oh man. i love that woman. i want to BE her some day. she has a beautiful home with lots of hand made decorations. she has 10 projects of different mediums going on all the time. she wears a bandana on her head. she tames wild cats. she is so gentle and kind and she loved her savior so much. she has a heart of gold!! i love her!! but anyway. this week we finally had an actual lesson with her. we taught her about the plan of salvation. she was so sweet and receptive. i love teaching the atonement! i mostly just wanted to tell you about how amazing she is. :)

ok. get ready for this. a miracle is about to be told. we were on our way to a lesson with a member from the ward who's name is brother shepard. he is an amazing man who has had a crazy crazy past but converted at 25, got married, has a beautiful family, and his wife passed away a couple years ago. he is just 51 now. he is top notch. so anyway, we were walking with him when suddenly we hear someone yell "hello" to us followed by a "where are you going?" we look around to find a man on a ladder painting a house. we walk over and talk to him. his name was craig. he was friendly but then told us he didnt want to talk too much about religion because we have such different theology. he then explains that he believes christ is the savior and that he is god. yes, we do to :) he was a little confused as he saw that our view of christ was the same  "latter day saints are jehova's witnesses, right?" doh! hahaha another person confusing us for jws. hahahaha i told him we get confused with them all the time. he said "yeah, me too!" hahahahaha! meaning they confuse him!

hahah  that little exchange cracked me and my comps up. oh it was funny :) but anyway,  we talked for a couple minutes longer, but he still didnt want to agree to a return appointment. so we went on our way and about 45 minutes later, we were making our way back the same way. he called us over again and asked to it with him during his lunch break the next day. happily we agreed, and met him the next day. he is a wonderful man who basically is part of a bible study group, so he loves the bible. he still thought we had drastically different views, so a lot of the meeting was him explaining how we are different and us explaining that we have the same beliefs as him. i think he was pleasantly surprised to know of our similarities. he ended up showing us a bible verse asking us to pray to know the truth. he basically pulled a moroni's promise on us! hahahaha! so s herrick layed down some sweet, sweet testimony about how she will continue to seek truth by praying and she invited him to do the same. we then showed him moroni's promise in moroni 10:3-5. after we read it he said "well that sounds familiar! hhahaha!" it was great :) i think we are making progress with him, but we still need to really teach him a pmg lesson. i believe that will help big time.

i think you must be praying for me a lot, because i have been so blessed for my whole mission. we are always so busy. we always have people to see, places to go. thank you so much for your prayers and support. i am the happiest and most blessed missionary in the field. 

ok. do you want proof? get a load of this miracle- we were going to contact another less active. we usually park in her dooa yahd (driveway). but hey, a little something very softly told me to park over by the beach of the lake. so i did. on our way over to the house, a sweet middle aged couple was loading their canoe into their vehicle. they called us  over- "hey what are the name tags for? what message are you trying to get out?" wow! a request to state our purpose? i will take it! so we go over and we didnt even say 2 sentences before the woman interrupted us by saying "do you have any literature you could give me?" to which sister mayle gladly gave her a book of mormon. she was so happy to receive it. i asked her why she wanted it. she told me "i have been doing some soul searching. i need something" wow!!! we talked for a few minutes and she told us about some reasons she is searching and some trials she is facing. much of it was about relatives passing. i shared 2 nephi 9 :3,4 with her and marked alma 40 for her. she was so thankful and so sweet to us. she gave us her number and we went on our way.

family. its a mission of miracles! it is a gospel that gives hope! it is a knowledge that brings us back to life! i love this gospel so much! i love it! thank you for everything! keep being wonderful and happy!

 i love you so much! have a wonderful week and be sure to give birth on august 30th!

love, sister wanay buxton who will share the birthday of her first niece!

August 12, 2013

bob! and family!!

wow wow wow! thank you so much! i got two, count em, TWO boxes from you this week! thank you so much! i loved every bit of it! my companions do too, but not like i do. the half way box cracked me up so much! it took me about... 15 seconds after opening up the box and seeing all the half things to figure it out. thank you for remembering :) i havent really done anything for my marks of being out. but i will tell you how a sister missionary can know if the first half of her mission has been a success: if she can find (ON her nine month mark) a very pregnant woman who will take a picture with her. this happened to me! i was so happy! she even let me poke out my belly for the picture. it was such a good time. so that is how i celebrated :) and of course with the box you sent. i am so thankful for the letters that everyone sent. thank you so much! the whole thing is so cute and fun. and i am so thankful to have the copies of the book of mormon with the testimonies. those are so great!!

ah! so this week has been a week..... of....       

MIRACLES!

wowie!!!!

i will start with monday.

the time was 8:45 pm. the air was humid. the feet were walking. a small girl in a sequin dress ran up to us and started asking us questions. her mom was not far from her. thanks to the little girl, who's name was abigale, we had the opportunity to explain our purpose, which every missionary wants to do. while we tried to put it into little girl lingo, her mom gave some clarification "they talk for god, honey."  abigale- "do you know about jesus?" "yes, we do" "teach me about him!" she insisted, as she sat down in the street and fixed her happy eyes on us. wow! it was great. we went back the next day and had a lesson, as well as an adventure through the forest. throughout the lesson, her mom, who is named angela, kept saying things like "ask them when their service is....   ...remember when we talked about where spirits go? ...   they are busy working for the lord, they cant stay too long..." all in such a gentle and kind way. wow angela is prepared for us and she has been preparing her little girl for us. it is so amazing!

wednesday: allow me to preface this with an explanation of one of our investigators. his name is anthony. he has 5 kids under the age of 18. he has been raised baptist and he is ver, ver close to his mom who might as well be a black woman from the south, she is so baptist. so he tells his mom he is looking into the church, to which she is hesitant about. but he defended us and the book of mormon and even convinced her to let us meet her. ok. back to wednesday!!!!

so we go visit anthony's mom, sharlene. we talk for about 25 minutes. in that time we were able to talk about the book of mormon and the contents of it, some of our basic beliefs and her family. about 15 minutes into our meeting, she stopped and said "ok i have one question.... .....   why dont more people use this book? i mean, why doesnt my religion study it along side the bible? i mean, it is so good and it goes along with it, why isnt it used by everyone?!" WOW!! oh man we were so surprised and so happy! it was an amazing time with her. she wants to see us again and you had better believe we feel the same way.

thursday: so the preface to this one- ray. he is the one we found on the street during me and s herrick's first week. he has come to church since then and we have also found out that he has a cousin that he has never met that lives in our ward. he is the sweetest old man. he also has some learning disabilities, so we usually take our time getting though the  lessons with him. we were worried that he might not be grasping anything. he is kind and wants to learn, but it didnt seem like anything was quite getting though. so on thursday..... we show up to his little apartment where him and his cat, bebe live. after a couple minutes, we ask him if he remembers who joseph smith is. he explained who he was!! and we didnt even help him! wow it was so amazing. also, he said the opening prayer!! the only other time he has said a prayer is when we helped him think of what to say, wrote his words down for him, then asked him to read it. so this was huge that he said a prayer, on his own, on the spot!! ah!!! we were so happy! we probs could have sung loud enough for you to hear us!

after that, we went on over to anthony! we talked about the visit we had with his mom. he was so happy to hear about it. then we read 2 nephi 29 with him and helped him understand it. he asked so many great questions, we even ended up explaining the 12 tribes and all that. he was so stoked after we read that chapter. he just thought it was the most amazing thing. "i need to find like... an hour every single day to just study this thing!... ... i mean, i have learned more in the 15 minutes you ladies have been here than in the hour long service i used to go to." oh man. that guy is so great. he has a new found love for the book of mormon. is it so exciting! i helped him see the comparison of lehi and his family starting out their journey to him and his family. when he brought up their "adopted daughter" i responded with "hey thats perfect! they adopt someone named zoram!" hahaha he thought that was great. at the end of the lesson, he said a totally inspired prayer. he was asking heavenly father to help him and his family and asking for help with getting his family interested in the gospel. oh it was lovely. this next week, we are planning on teaching his whole family (with his help! how fun!) the restoration. wow! i am stoked!

saturday- so we are not allowed to write other missionaries within the mission boundaries- not even sister to sister or elder to elder. but grandpa (thankfully) sent a letter to my old address, which s cloward got, forwarded to me, but first.... she wrote on the envelope "i love you sisters buxton, herrick and mayle! ken is getting baptized on the 11! (he is going to the temple on the 17!) love, sister cloward. family!!! did you read that!?!! do you know who that is????? ken!! ken is the man that s cloward and i found in his garage, told him about the book of mormon and he read it in less than a week!!! and now he has been baptized and he has recieved the gift of the holy ghost! wow!!! ah!! i am just so happy!!!! 

ok i have a couple minutes to tell you a great story! bonnie and lexi! bonnie is the mom, lexi is the 13 year old daughter. we went to visit them saturday. during our visit, bonnie recounted something that happened to her the other day. the jw's had come by her house! they were telling her about the end of the world and all that. she said she turned to lexi and said "i dont think they are with the sisters.." so she looked back at them and said "one minute" she ran and got her book of mormon and came back and showed it to them and  said "this is what we do here!" and they turned around and left her alone. hahahah she totally defended us and the book of mormon! it was great! hahhaha

sorry i have to go! i love you family! thank you for all the love and funny stories and all that. thank you thank you thank you!!! i love you all!

love, your missionary daughter/sister/aunt wanay/ sister buxton :)

p.s. keep being righteous!!!

August 5, 2013

dear bob and family and stuff,

hey! thanks for the email and the letters and all that. i still havent gotten the box yet, but i am going to bedford tomorrow, so if they still have it, i can get it from them then. thank you for remembering me. s herrick told me that her parents told her they werent going to write her letters and they have stuck to their word, even though she is in the states. they still email and send pictures and all that, but no letters for her. but she is cool. she deals with things pretty well. i feel the same way you do about the cookbook. whatever you can come up with will be great, i am sure :) my poor bum. i hope things are getting better. i want pictures! are there pictures of the cheeks? if you dont mind, i want to see pictures :)and yes i am glad you are picking up on the new england vocab. 'wicked amazing' is correct :) hahaha

i am happy that my nephew remembers me :) i love that kid.

this week has been a good one :)

do you remember me talking about kelly walter? she was one of my investigators from bedford 2. well she just moved to concord!! this week i was able to give her a visit! it was so good to see her. she introduced herself to my companions as "the investigator that has been trying to be baptized for 2 years, but cant stop smoking and drinking wine" hahaha is was rich. i love that woman. we had an awesome talk about what she wants to do and where she wants to be. she is still onboard to live the word of wisdom, and she thinks that this new place and basically her new life is going to be very key. she was just under a lot of stress and in a bad situation, so i am glad she is out of there. the bad news is that she isnt actually in my area. she is in the elders area in the concord ward. (i am in the canterbury ward, which meets in the same building as the concord ward.) i was afraid she might not want elders because i know in the past she has requested sisters. (in bedford she wasnt in my area but we still taught her) but good news!!! she does want to be taught by the elders!! so elder crockett and elder porter are going to be teaching her. let me tell you about those two elders- elder crockett is from arizona. he was in the mtc at the same time as me, but not in the same district. we met when we came out to new hammy together. (well- along with like 9 other missionaries) i was the travel whoever whatever, so i was "responsible" for him. our seats were next to each other. it was great. now, he is my district leader. he is great! he is very good at keeping everything spiritual and making sure everyone is happy and feels welcome. alright. elder porter. do you remember my friend named lisa from jr. high? she loved spider man and you searched the world twice to find a spider man costume for her for halloween. remember? well elder porter is her little brother! luke porter that is. i think he knew sam just a little bit. so yeah, that is pretty cool :) so those two will teach kelly.

oh man :) so bishop has been asking us to visit certain people in the ward. (which is great!) he asked us to visit a woman named debbie adams. turns out she is not the debra adams we thought we had on the records. her name is the same and her address is accurate. but date of birth is not the same, nor is location of birth. but for several years she has been receiving visiting teaching letters in the mail! haha :) when we went to see her this week, she invited us right in, gave us a surprise lunch, let us pull her weeds and share a message. man it was great :) the lord surely does work in mysterious ways. he sure is clever too! i just hope the other debra adams is still in full faith and all that. hopefully she hasnt gotten lost in all this.

another member that bishop asked us to visit was named sharon mcgehee. we have tried for a couple weeks and finally this week- SUCCESS! we were a pleasant surprise for her. she invited us right in and we had a lovely chat with her and her cat. she is a wonderful woman from arizona who moved out here all alone last september. she is solid! her testimony and desire is definitely there. it was so great to see. she came to church this sunday! after sacrament, i asked her if she was planning on staying longer. she told me she would stay for second hour, but first! she wanted to meet the bishop! well yes ma'am! i am sure he would love that :) it is just to cool to see someone with so much confidence. i am happy we were able to meet her.

oh man. another sister the bishop asked us to visit (when we first got here) is named sister cathy creed. she is a HOOT! oh i just love her. for the last month she has had us over every sunday for dinner and a lesson. her daughter, cynthia, has scooted by a couple times, but doesnt seem too interested in hanging out or sticking around. she is 24 and reminds me a little of pre mission me. well recently, she has slowly started coming around more often and for longer periods of time. this week we stopped by their place to go to an appointment with sister creed. she forgot, wasnt there, and the investigator cancelled. but cynthia was there and she invited us in! so we talked for a little while. you know, the usual- spongebob, cats, etc.. she opened up a little bit about her personal life and we were able to listen. before we left we shared a scripture, which she really enjoyed. i asked her what kind of message she would like us to share with them on sunday (assuming she would stick around for the lesson :)) she thought for a minute and then asked for a message about taking time to relax take care of yourself. they all work so much and cynthia really worries about her mom not taking any time for herself. well sunday came around. sister creek came to sacrament meeting :):):):):):):):) and after church, we went there for dinner. cynthia was rushing out the door and couldnt stay. that was a little sad, but it was ok. sister creed explained after cynthia left that she asked her to take notes during the lesson because she was sad to miss it!! half way though dinner, cynthia rushed home, ate with us and enjoyed the lesson :) they were so cute! they chose to read out of the same book instead of two. they complimented each other and expressed gratitude and a desire to help each other more. oh it was the sweetest thing!!! ah! i just love missionary work!!

thank you for so much love and support and love. i really do appreciate all of you :) thank you for helping me to prepare to be a missionary!

i love you! keep the stories coming!

love, sister lani buxton

July 29, 2013

oh hello family!

thank you for the letters and such. i love being loved, so thank you for allowing me to feel loved. i can still hear milo and logan's voices in my head. i wonder how different they sound now. they sure seem cute in the letters and in my head :) i hope they dont forget me!

yes i can buy mexican food, there is just not as many options, which i am ok with anyway. i dont cook a whole lot. i just do simple fast meals. oh. speaking of such things. i told my mission president about you, bob. he asked me to ask you if there was any way you could help out with easy recipes for missionaries. i was in a missionary leadership meeting the other day and the elders voiced that they have a really hard time knowing what to buy and how to cook and all that stuff. they just need simple quick stuff. if there is any way you can help out, i am positive they would appreciate it.

 
bum, i thought about you all week. i am so sad for you. it just sounds so scary and owie. how can you lay down and heal when you are hurting on more than one side?? but i am glad you are doing better.

oh yeah! transfer calls- didnt get one. we are all 3 staying for another transfer! well at least for now. i dont know when s herrick gets her visa, but i hope it comes soon. i worry about her. i dont know how much longer she can keep up this whole patiently waiting thing. but she sure is a wonderful contribution to the companionship. i love her. s mayle is... possibly happy about the news of no news. she didnt really let us know if she was relieved or disappointed. but. we are happy :) she is coming out of her shell a little now; she is silly and fun and even giggly at times! it is great! thank you for the prayers. i know they reached us. things are going a lot better for us and we have a lot more unity. we still need to work on it, but there has been a lot of improvement.

are you ready to hear about our wicked sweet week?? it sure was a good one! we got to do some service on a small farm this week. this sweet brazilian family allows us to come over and help and take home milk and eggs and stuff :) this week when we got there, they told us the wonderful news that their can had just given birth an hour earlier!! oh it was cute. we got to go see the little calf and the mom. the calf was still a little wet, and sooo cute!! we were able to see the calf stand up and try to play a little, nurse and cuddle. oh it was such a joyous time. you would have loved it, bob. the mom is great. i guess she has investigated before and she almost got baptized, but i think she is not wanting to give up coffee.. so she was pretty hesitant of us at first (4 or 5 weeks ago) but now she is so happy to see us! when we went over this last week, she wanted to sit down right away and talk about what she read in the book of mormon! she has been sharing what she reads with her family and she told us that she wants them to start sitting in on the lessons! wowie!!!!! she keeps telling us that she is not giong to join and all that, but my goodness! her heart is changing already! she is coming up with her own ideas for commitments. she is just a joy.

ron is doing well. we had another lesson with him this week. i have missed him a couple times due to exchanges and what not, so this was the first time i was able to talk to him in person while he was sober. wow! the light in his eyes was amazing. there was also a lot of sadness in his eyes, but now there is also hope. he used to be so hopeless, it was heart breaking. at the end of the lesson, i shared 3 nephi 9:14 with him. with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face he said "thats beautiful. that makes me feel so happy!" then s herrick and i invited him to be baptized, to which he happily said yes :) we are planning for october 12 :) we went away from the lesson practically off the ground! we were all just so happy :) later this week, we had a lesson with a man named anthony. he was pretty happy to see us and was all excited about mormon.org and the book of mormon. he is also planning on being baptized on october 12 :)

after we talked with anthony, we were walking to our car when we saw a woman standing outside her car. we waved and said hi, and she was just so... perplexed by us. she kept asking us "where did you just come from?... you are so cute! where were you?" hahaha it was so funny. it seemed like she just wanted so badly to talk to us, but had nothing to say, so she just kept asking the same questions. it was great! but we did talk to her, all 4 of us were laughing and just having so much fun. she gave us her number and we gave her ours. we are so excited to see her again! i hope i didnt make her sound crazy. she actually seems totally sane- she was just hilarious!

then, 15 minutes later, we were walking down the road when a man waved us down and ran across the street to say hi to us. he told us that he used to be a member and that he wants to come back! hahaha wow! how often does that happen? so good. he had some mental disabilities, so i dont know if he really is a member or anything like that, but hey, who knows what will happen next!

on saturday, we got to help out with a... WEDDING!! a member of our ward along with a recent convert of the ward got married :) they asked us to help out with stuff. bob, i got to help cater the wedding! just like you!! it wasnt anything fancy; they had us make over 200 tuna and egg salad sandwiches and we helped decorate the cultural hall and that sort of stuff. it was great though. that couple is amazing. they pretty much did all of it! they got all the decorations ready to go, she had her friend do her hair, she was in the kitchen with us getting food and all that ready to go, they had 3 cameras they assigned to me, an elder and someone else to take pictures the whole time. it was amazing! and so cute!

i know my emails are very jumbled and all that. i hope you can still understand them. and i know i make plenty of spelling errors and all that, i just dont have time to fix them or anything.

but as you can see, this week has been wonderful. and next year, i will tell you the rest of my mission, because there is just not enough time on a pday or emotion in a keyboard for me to tell you how much i am being blessed, the miracles i am seeing, the love i have for my mission, the desire i have for these people, the happiness the gospel brings to me and the reality of heavenly father and jesus christ. i love all of it so much! even the trials! i know they are difficult, but this is what i chose. every time something challenging comes up i just tell myself- this is what i chose. i chose to serve a mission. i chose everything that comes with it. as i think about that and as i study the plan of salvation, i realize that i will be able to tell myself the same thing for the rest of my life, because i used to live with god! i knew about his plan and i knew that earth life was going to be challenging and i knew i was going to have to walk by faith. i chose to follow christ and i chose to go with the lord's plan. i chose earth life. all that it brings, i chose it.

well to finish off this email, you can see that i have been having a great time and that i love you all very much! keep being a wonderful family! i love you all lots and lots!! i am excited to get that box in the mail! thank you so much!!! i love you!

love, sister wanay buxton :)