Monday, January 28, 2013

bob!

i went to my ward mission leaders home for our weekly meeting. there on his counter was a picture of mckenzi edwards. mind=blown. it was so weird. her picture is in the mission office and all over the place over here! it is so strange!!!!! her new husband was the AP before i got here.

so. on saturday morning sister caffall decided we would sing "theres sunshine in my soul" together. so we did. then we went and did missionary stuff. that day included a man talking AT US for over an hour about how evil our religion is. gosh. hopefully we can go teach his wife. she was sweet and calm. then we got chased by a ferocious dog. i ran in hopes of an invisible fence- they are popular out here. there wasnt one. luckily the dog didnt want to eat use once he was close enough to see the name tags :) it was a good day though :) we had a lot of fun. then when we came home, there was a box of sunshine on our porch!! amazing! thank you so much for the box of sunshine! it made both of us so happy! we are so thankful for it :) you truly are too generous and sweet. what inspired this? its wonderful! i cant thank you enough. it sure is good to know i am loved.

oh also. i did see a chiropractor from the ward i am serving in and he insisted that he did it for free. plus he spent like 40 minutes just smoothing out knots and sore muscles! he is a wonderful man!

we are teaching a girl named ryann. she is tristens wife. i cant remember if i told you about either of them. they are great though. have a lot of social anxiety. this week we made a deal with her that if we brought a member to the lesson this week and had the same member pick her up for church, she would come! wow! so exciting! i really hope she comes and brings her boy. her boy is the smart one with all the questions. he needs this so bad. he seems so sad when we see him. i think he is just confused and worried. its so sad. but it will change!

remember  angela? well she is now officially a new investigator, as qualified by preach my gospel. oh my heavens she is so faithful. i love that lady. i cant wait to teach her again. she always teaches us with her sweet spirit when we are over there.

jackie should still be getting baptized this weekend. she told us this week that she wants to be a missionary some day! wow!

i sure am loving this work. i think me and s caffall will only be together for 3 more weeks. transfers are coming and we are getting more sisters!

well i am sorry my letters are always short. i will respond to dad's via snail mail.

love sister lani buxton

Monday, January 14, 2013

bob!!

 i am happy to hear about more and more mission calls! it is so great and crazy to hear about all of it! i hope more come! a mission is such a wonderful thing. i am so glad i am here! i wont get sick! you cant get sick either! i hope everything goes well with erin. 

jackie set her baptismal date for the 2nd of feb! we are so happy for her! she is an amazing girl. she is extremely receptive. she started going to seminary on her own accord and said she loves it so much. she sacrifices seeing her dad (her parents are divorced) so that she can go to church. she says no to hangin out with her friends so that we can come over and teach her. oh she is just an amazing girl. i really love her. 

we finally met with tristen's family! he is so cool! but it was so great. his wife is so sweet to us and wants to learn more. also his little boy named caleb was so sweet! he is like 9 years old and i think he is more interested than anyone. i taught him how to pray a few weeks ago while in their drive way and he just loved it. he is such a sweet and sincere boy. he was so worried when we were there. he couldnt stop asking us questions like "where did i come from? i know my mom and dad made me but where did I COME FROM?     .. what are we supposed to be doing here? what is it for?" all this kind of stuff. oh he was so sweet. i love that boy. that family is just amazing. 

so on friday night s caffall and i went upstairs in our apartment to retrieve some bedding. new england people have a habit of putting rubber on their stairs. these stairs have rubber which has been walked on so much that it is now completely smooth. on our way down, i spose i was just doing too many things at once; carrying my bedding, flossing my teeth, wearing extra soft socks.... and i fell down the stairs! so for the last few days i have not been able to do all the things i used to be able to do. sister caffall has to help me put on my boots as well as take them off. i cant retreive most things from the ground. its really a silly thing. hahahaha :)

but there is a chiropractor in the ward and he felt my spine and he says i should probs come in. i am so excited! i love the chiropractor! oh it will be such a sweet time. i have a bunch of money that people keep sending me, so no worries. i will be able to use that. my only hope is that my fall was funny so that s caffall could get a kick out of it. because if it wasnt funny, it wasnt worth it!

well. thank you for all your love! thank you for the letters! i loved the colored pencils you sent and all that stuff! thank you thank you! i love you a lot! 

love, sister buxton

ps, i love being called sister buxton! it is so great!

January 7, 2013

dad,

thank you for being proud of me with the grump! i really like that guy and it was such a wonderful time to see him laughing and enjoying some company. the lord was definitely blessing me that night with his spirit because i just knew i had to do it. the hardest part was getting my companion to do it. she was scared and really didnt want to. but after he started talking to us and things got lighter, she felt so much love for him. it was really great to see :)

new years wasnt anything great. that night i did wake up multiple times in the middle of dreaming about investigators. we had spent a while that night going through the area book and apparently i just couldnt stop talking about the people that were in there! coincidentally i slept through midnight even though my companion woke up from fireworks and banging pans etc..  kinda funny.

thank you for talking on the phone with me! it was great to hear those familiar voices! the only voices i hear these days that i knew before november 7 is the mo-tab!

thank you for the letter! i will be sending another email in a few minutes to mom and who ever :)

love you!

love, your horrible missionary :)

bob,

hey sorry not much time. your email made me laugh! in the library! haha you are just funny bob.

i did get the new years box from erin. we decided we would celebrate the 14 in russia or something. that way we can celebrate without staying up. neither of us want to stay up. we dont get enough sleep as it is. but i am SO THANKFUL AND SURPRISED erin did that. i am so touched. and did she tell you how she did it? there was tinsel or whatever exploding out of the package. it was great :)

i am glad scott got a job. he should do a good job at his job. (or else).

i cant believe how cold it is over there! we got lots of snow here! it was and is wonderful. my boots have kept me so happy, as has my coat. i love those things. today it is like 56 degrees! it was last time i checked, can youbelieve that? haha

i am happy fotis swims around and stuff. oh that made me happy. i think as long as the water doesnt get below 4 or 5 Celsius he should be ok :)

i did not get transferred, and neither did my companion. another 6 weeks :) did i tell you you can always send mail to the mission office? they are really good about forwarding mail.

sadly there is no news about angela YET! we stopped by pete and he said go away again. we will have o figure out how to get to him! come on pete!

thank you for all those updates. they are so fun to read! one miracle i saw was with a man named gerry. we were excited to have our second appointment with him. our first one didnt go well because the spirit wasnt there. a couple from the ward was going to teach with us. a couple hours before the appointment, he sent us a voicemail, cancelling the appointment and politely explaining that he didnt want us to come over any more, because what we have just isnt right for h im. we tried to contact him, without success. we called the members who were going to come with us. they were sad about it and said they were excited to come teaching with us. that night, 4 more lessons fell through. we had a member named hillary hughes with us. she is preparing for a mission. we decided to go visit gerry, even though he asked us not to. when he answered the door, he immediately invited us in. we happily accepted! (extra happy because we had hillary with us! we couldnt have gone in without her!) the lesson went very well. he had a couple of concerns which were very easy to clear up. (lehi and family sailing safely to america) the spirit was there this time and it was a wonderful lesson. at the end, he said a prayer; he thanked heavenly father for our visit and expressed gratitude for us!!! to the lord!! it was grand. he also set up a return appointment! it was a wonderful evening!

this week has been good! i just need to figure out how to calm down sister caffall! she worries like crazy!! i love you! thank you so much for the love and the emails etc..!!!

love, sister lani buxton