Monday, March 25, 2013

hello :)

tis good to hear from you.

i laughed at the stories of my nephews. cute kids.

thank you for the updates of my friends.

we got our transfer call! i am staying here in the bedford 2 area and i am going to be training a new sister missionary who is probs on a plane or in an airport. sister caffall is going to be opening a new area and training TWO new sister missionaries! man oh man! does that tell you how amazing my trainer is? well it should. she really is great. we have had some lovely times together.

she is sad to be leaving the people here, but she also hasnt written the boy she likes for 4 months! so she will be writing him today. that will be good for her. she hasnt been writing him because his dad is our ward mission leader (who you met). which i still laugh about at least thrice a day. man that is so funny. did i tell you that she also dated another boy and his brother is in our ward? gosh! so FUNNY!

it is exciting to train! good thing the lord qualifies the called!

this area has truly caught fire! when we first got here, missionaries hadn;t been here for months. now we hardly have time to eat! last night we had dinner at 9:30 after we planned for  the next day. it is amazing how prepared these people are. i love being out here and it had been a blessing to open this area with sister caffall 4 months ago. that sister is great.

this week some really cool things happened. jackie duran finally got baptized! she was baptized thursday at 6:30. boy was it a wonderful event. her mom even came to the baptism! we saw jackie the next day and she was definitely the happiest i have ever seen her. on sunday she was confirmed. her mom came to church and stayed for the whole 3 hours! that was great.

robin handlin is a happy lady too! we read alma 34 with her and now she is happy and excited to start praying more often and read the bom more, too! after the lesson, she said a sweet, heart-felt prayer expressing how thankful she is that the lord wants to hear from her more often.

carolina's storm is finally passing. we visited her last night. we met her oldest daughter, elizabeth, for the first time. she is 19
she sat down with us and read the bom. oscany told us that she has been praying more and she has felt a difference and she finds comfort through prayer. carolina cried with happiness and told us that her 3 oldest daughters are coming back to live with her again. she has been praying for this to happen and she knows the lord is answering her prayers. she is so thankful! she loves her family so much! she informed elizabeth that they are going to the church on sundays and that oscany goes to mutual on wednesdays. it was so great to see carolina being so confident about the church!

before we left, i asked the family if they would all read some of the bom before we come back on thursday. they all said yes. elizabeth said "yes! i will! i am going to read a lot! i really want to. i have been wondering what religion i should be a part of." she said this and she doesnt even know what the bom is or where it came from! wow!

this really has been a great week. we see miracles every day!

pray for my mission! we are receiving 26 new missionaries tomorrow! ah! please pray for me to raise my new child well! she will need it!

 something really cool happened also. sister caffall borrowed a skirt of mine which ended up ripping pretty badly before the end of the day. i knew i couldnt fix it without a sewing machine, so i was considering sending it home to you. then, like 2 days later, we went to a relief society thing where we did a service swap. i was looking at my choices of service i could take advantage of. i thought i wouldnt be able to find anything. i mean what could i use? i have no time and no need and also a full belly. but then, to my complete surprise, i saw it. "mending and altering clothes". woWIE! i took that one real quick! my skirt is being mended now :) wow. what a blessing. and i didnt even have to ask for that one!

well.

i love you!

love, sister lani buxton

Monday, March 18, 2013

hi bob!

so first off, thank you for the email and the letters, i got a couple this week! thank you!

the rs dinner sounds fun. there is a city in my area called goffstown. their high school just put on a wizard of oz play. the whole town got into it and put up green lights and stuff to advertize. i think i might have told you, we got to help put some lights on trees. that was great. apparently the play was really really good and i think all their shows sold out! nice going g-town students!

also its good to hear that milo and logan are smart enough to know that the most comfortable position to sleep in is with feet on you. :) i hope erin is having a good time! sounds fun to me!

so this week was pretty great. remember samantha? we taught her and her 9 year old son one time and it went really well, but we havent been able to talk to her since. well. we did this week :) she has been going through some rough times, but we comforted her a little bit and she set up a return apt!

we found a woman who has been taught by the missionaries in the past. she was so happy to see us. she told us how much she loves the bom. she has a testimony of it and of joseph smith! she struggles with wow problems but she wants to get baptized and all that! wow! wowie! her spirit is so sweet. she told us that her favorite thing the missionaries taught her was that we lived with heavenly father before we came to earth. she said that when she learned that, it seemed familiar and it made so much more sense. now it is easier to talk to people and to love people because you know where they came from and you know that god loves them. man she was a cool lady.

on saturday we got up earlier than usual so that we could go down to boston to hear from..... ELDER BALLARD! wow it was great. also elder christensen and eyring from the 70 were there. they were all wonderful speakers and helped us with our missionary work. elder ballard took the time at the beginning to shake all of our hands. it was really sweet of him. i got to shake his hand! isnt that one of the coolest events!? yes. yes it is.

well when we got back to nh, i checked the phone. 2 voice mails. hm. i wonder who this could be.

it was a man named bob francis.

so i think i mentioned bob francis in a previous email. he is the one tha t is a born again christian and i learned from him that i am one too! we met him 2 weeks ago. he is very spiritual and he thinks mormons are cool, he even defends them when people are rude. but he just cant buy the whole book of mormon thing and all that because it is just too weird for him. he was a really funny and respectful guy. when we met him 2 weeks ago, i challenged him to read the bom, maybe just like a chapter or two, then to pray about it and to tell heavenly father that he will follow through with any answer he gets. he committed to do it! we asked if we could come back next weekend. he told us 'no, no, i will be out of town. dont come next weekend. i wont be here. but yes, you can come back sometime.' so we figured we would in maybe 2 weeks or so. that was 2 weeks ago. so.

back to the voice mail.

he left us 2 messages. he really wanted to talk. he wanted us to come over right away! he told us that he read the entire bom and wanted to talk about it. woWIE!!!!!!! so we call him back and agree to meet in an hour. we took a wonderful member of the church with us named brother mcgurn. when we pulled up to bob's house, he was outside waiting. he was so happy to see us. :) we had a lovely chat all about the bom and all that stuff. bob and bro mcgurn connected so well! it was amazing. they were practically the same person. bob told us that he read the bom every day since we met him. 5 or 6 hours a day. he wanted us to come back so bad that he rushed home last weekend when he said he would be out of town. he waited for us at his house from 1:00-5:00 just hoping that we would come, even though he told us not to, because he was going to be out of town.

he has a testimony of the bom! he says he can't deny it. he knows its true! wow. i cant tell you how shocked i was and am and also how happy!

he wants to come to church and all that. he said he feels trapped though because his wife and family would never go for it and they are all happily involved in another church. he loves his wife and his family so much. he doesnt want to cause contention. he doesnt want to disturb the peace that they finally found. he really just feels trapped. 

poor bob.

but i am not worried! this work is a work of miracles. little by little she will see that we arent bad. she will see that he will become an even better man and husband and then maybe things will start turning from there. i dont know how long it will take or when it will be, but it will get there. in the mean time, we are going to visit him again on saturday and i am so excited! wow! i just cant even... wow. 

ok one more story before i go.

jackie scott is a sweet old woman who i hope i have told you about. she was raised catholic. raised to fear god.

well.

we have met with her a few times. we visited her yesterday. she said she has been praying the way we taught her to and that she now feels god in her life. she isnt scared anymore. she feels calm now, even though her life is still a little scary. she has more trust in the lord and she knows he has been answering her prayers. gosh :) that right there. that is what makes everything worth it. just like d&c 18  says. my joy is full! just with this one person, my joy is full. but the thing is, there is so many miracles going on in this area! it is so amazing to see! it is amazing that i can be a part of it! man! i love being a missionary! its so good!

well, i best be off now.

i love you all and i am so thankful for all the support and love and prayers. thank you!

i love you!

love, sister lani buxton!

whoopie!!