Richard Buckner y'all (Ben letter 9/23/2019)

I so wish I could have been there to see the mornin burnin golden on the mountains in the sky. 

This week was a good one. We had no more cleaning packing or planning left to do, so we could really hit the streets and focus. We are really trying to get into people's homes instead of have he lessons at the church, because it is way easier for them. Plus they feed us most of the time, which is a major plus. After we eat, we tell then how good it is, and they ask us what we eat at home. I usually say bread and water as a joke, but I'm not really joking. This week a lady told me I need to get a Moldovan wife so that she can make me food. I rejected the offer but she assured me she knew some people. 

 

Also this week got cold really fast. Last week it was in the 80s probably, and this week it was around 45 at some points. Can't lie and say I'm excited for winter. However the fall looks really good here so far, and it really reminds me of Chicago. 

 

We found another family this week to teach, a mom and her child, along with her mother in law. The husband is working in England. So she is leaving to go there in the next couple months so we gotta work fast. But this has been an ongoing problem for me, as she will be the 4th person that we have taught to have interest in baptism, only to leave to another country.

Another investigator we have is amazing, and she really has felt the spirit. She is the music teacher at a kindergarten, and we got to go and visit her work. We learned some Soviet children songs and dances needless to say, and yes I did dance with her. She is also the one who called me stanislav, which now almost everyone calls me. Or stas.

 

As for a small thought, everything we do works in a general way. A desire which leads to faith which leads to acts. If I want to turn  off he lights, I will first want them to be off, then I will have faith that if I touch a switch, it will turn off the light. After that, I physically get up and touch the switch and it will turn off. Same principle in following Christ. You have to want to, then have faith that it will be a good thing, then you have to actually do it. In alma 32 it is all about how all we need is a particle of faith, and then to experiment to see if the result is good. It is like that with everything in life, hence work/job, dating/marriage, tom/Jerry, etc. But that is where God comes into the picture. If we put Him first and have a desire and faith and works to follow Him, everything else will take its place. I believe it is the acts that are the easiest to perform. The desire is something natural, but that faith is where us humans struggle. To read the scriptures everyday, to go to church, to be baptized is easy! The actual physical action is easy. However our natural and carnal mind stops people from physically doing these things. These acts however, is what builds our faith. This is why faith without acts is dead! We cannot do any acts without faith, and faith doesn't exist without acts. It is impossible to turn of the light without the faith or the action. Hai deți  to ACT with out faith that we have, nomatter how small. 

 

Vă iubesc pe voi cu o inimă sinceră

Vîrstnicul Станислав

The Catagories of Khan (Cubby letter 9/23/2019)

Tuesday September 17

A solid day I suppose. It started with our shower not working in our house, along with the rest of our water. After that the Elders going to Washington came with the Menzies to have us drive them to the airport. So usually when we don't have water, we would just tell Elder Menzie and he would fix it, but he went to Washington, so me and Bartley had to go talk to the people who do something with water and the government. And on top of that, right when the Elders going to Washington were about to get on the plane, my old companion, Elder Geertsen, asked for my watch, because they had no other way to keep time. So I also got a new watch today. We finally had a solid amount of lessons set up for today. A couple fell through, but we gave one on Ether 12 and how we have to excersize and work our faith to get the miracles we need in life. We made some new friends in the branch as well at dinner, and we ate a ton.

Wednesday September 18

Day started as usual. Woke up and did the push up sit up lab. I studied this book called Teaching in the Savior's Way. It's pretty good and caused some good introspective thinking. We had district council as well today. We got some comments from the senior couple that our district appeared kind of sloppy, so I had to try and give instruction to the district, which I didn't enjoy very much. We had three lessons planned for today, but all of them fell through. It's okay because we just contacted as we went. We also found some members and less active members, which is always fun I guess. 

Thursday September 19

I decided to turn up the work outs today, so I did some running and sprints. I'm a little restless now that we sit in the car to travel. The rest of the day went well. Studies were good, per the usual. In opposition of yesterday, all our scheduled lessons went through, and more. So there is a couple that the previous Elders were teaching, but when we went to find them, the wife had moved because of an argument or something. So we went about diligently today to try and figure out where she lived so we could give a referral, but lo and behold, she was there with her husband. We were a little more than mildly surprised, but not too surprised. We had a couple more lessons after that. We also saw a helicopter today, which was also mildly amusing (Becky mom always gets on me for not writing what I do during the day, so I'm just writing down random events). On our way to dinner, which is within walking distance of out house, we kicked the crabs that we came across. I don't like them because the dig holes and make the back roads hard to drive on. 

Today we taught a lesson to a 9 year old girl whose grandma wanted us to lesson with her. I told her that Jojo would be cool to come and marry her. But also we taught the simple and straightforward Restoration lesson ever. It was so simple, we wrote on a piece of paper. It went almost exactly like this: Jesus built his church. Jesus's church fell. Then His church wasn't on earth. Then Joseph Smith received a vision. Then there was His church. And now there is a living prophet. It's so simple. Sometimes we get wrapped up in complex things, but if we can get our brains around these small things, then everything will be all right. 

Friday September 20

Another average day I would say. After studies and what not, we had to go to the other missionaries' house to take their garbage to the dump. We also had to haul some bikes from London etc., etc., boring stuff. It also came that time of week to weekly plan, which I will be the first to say it is needed and effective, but it is less than thrilling. After that we went hunting down people that which did not have a time with us. During that time, a saw a kid with the worst hand, foot and mouth disease I have ever seen with my two eyes. We also sniffed out a previous person being taught by Elders before us, who we have been looking for since we got here. Actually we sniffed out two. One of them told us that Elders Strauss and Lenthe were his two best friends, and then asked us why he should trust us. The question went unanswered, because I figured it was rhetorical, but he seemed to like us by the time we left his gazebo. 

Saturday September 21

Another joyous day in the village of Banana. I bought some eggs yesterday, but during the night, a rat was messing with them. The good news is that for the most part, rats cannot gey through egg shells. Bad news is that the lucky rat managed to push one of them off the counter. So I didn't get as good as a workout because I had to clean up egg. I'm sure mom woulda spanked Sam pretty good for that one. The rest of the day was pretty average. We did learn some cool stuff about chopping coconuts though. Apparently if you split 1000 coconuts, it usually turns about to be $600 (AUD don't get too excited). And then we met this one dude who turns over about 700-800 a week. That is definitely enough for Kiribati. Dinner was pretty exciting, we had mantis shrimp for dinner, which is essentially like lobster, but better. We also brought ice cream for the family, and by the way they acted you'd think that we brought edible gold. Anyways, dinner ended and we got a phone call from the sisters saying that they locked their keys inside of their house. So we had to make the drive all the way there and all the way back. And then they asked us to buy bread for them on our way back, I didn't do it, a little bit because I wanted to get back on time, and a little bit out of spite. 

Sunday September 22

Good day, typical Sunday I suppose. More people were at church this week, but none of our investigators came. After church, we taught the Tuan te Mauri (the law of health ie the Word of Wisdom) to this guy and he seemed pretty excited. He was also a bit confused as to why nobody had ever told him about it before. We brought the sacrament to our old lady friends, which is never boring. It reminds me of when me and Cole or me and Ben would bring the sacrament around. But instead of being offered candy we get offered eel. Our dinner tonight was pretty good as well, they made this stuff called tuei (suei of you're a northerner) which is made out of pandanus fruit and coconut milk. It tasted like something from America but I couldn't quite but my finger on it.

I tangiringkami ni kabane

Elder Cubby

I think that damage is from the rat

Crabs that cause potholes

A beautiful sight. The advantage of being on an island closer to Hawaii (1300 miles)

Lover, Robber (Cubby letter/pics 9/16/2019)

So sorry no emails these past few weeks, I've had a weird past couple pdays. I have a phone now, so I'm going to try to write several times a week to improve my emails, because Becky mom can be a grumpy one.

So as a recap: transfers happened, I'm staying on Kiritimati but moving to the village of Banana. I have a car, a 201? Ford Ranger. It's a manual, which I'm new at, but I'm picking it up faster than I thought I would. I have a new companion, Elder Bartley. From Grantsville, Utah. He's my first comp who has not been a missionary for as long as I have.

A Seventy from the Area Presidency came to Tarawa, so all the missionaries came in. Us from Kiritimati had to stay for about 2 weeks on Tarawa and it was quite boring because we were out of our area. The good thing was that we got to fly through and spend a night in Fiji going to and from Kiritimati.  We ate a lot of really good food inside of the Fiji Gateway Hotel. We also got some Burger King. 

Beenibiti (Sulu's? Not sure what they are called in English) got okay'd for missionaries to wear on Sundays and formal occasions, so I bought some. 

Recap over, I'm back in my area now, so I can write regular emails (hopefully improved)

Thursday September 12:

Today was alright, your typical start to a white wash. We woke up and studied as usual, went over transfer goals and set up ground rules for the companionship. After that we got started on buying food for the week, but Kiritimati is out of Skippy Peanut butter, which is quite unfortunate. We got into the area book to find out who are investigators are, and we made a goal to find all the progressing investigators the previous Elders left for us. That took up just about the entire day, considering addresses/street names haven't been invented here yet. We also figured out Banana is a lot different than Tarawa/my other area on Kiritimati. Some of the places we went to reminded me of Abaiang (for those of you with a poor memory, that is an outer island). Our house is also quite small, and we only have enough electricity to have lights and charge small electronics. The toilet works off a hand pump as well. A lot of the people speak faster and more slurred. 

I also had a really clear guidance given to me by the Spirit today. We were meeting with some of the people Elders Strauss and Lenthe left for us, and we were deciding on which reading from Ana Boki Moomon to give them. I've been trying to be more lead by the Spirit recently, so I said I quick prayer to myself and asked God for direction. And then I had a really clear thought to give them the fourth chapter in the Book of Mosiah. I remember thinking "what in tarnation is even in that chapter." I quickly read the chapter heading and decided it would be good. We have a follow up lesson on Saturday, so we'll see if that chapter is going to be anything significant to them.

Friday September 13:

Pretty normal day. We made a lot of progress in our whitewash, basically we dug through the area book some more and tracked down our people that we are supposed to teach. But all the houses we decided to find were in this weird place in Banana that consists of a vast amount of bush with houses speckled in. So in short we did a lot of driving on weird sketchy back roads to find the houses. We only got lost twice I think. We met some members during our adventures, and we asked them all if we could have dinner in their house's because I'm not super fond of eating noodles and tuna for dinner. Speaking of that, we had dinner with our Branch President, who had previously told me that the more Elders eat, the more people like them. So I'm currently pretty bloated and lethargic. 

Saturday September 14

A different day. Started off with a phone call home, because father Itaaka started his Victor Strasser year. After that I got a look into what being a zl really means, I got to take stuff that other missionaries need to them, because I have the superpower of driving a car. The rest of the day was kind of the same as the previous days in the week, driving around the bush in our car. We ran into some interesting people, but we never found the guy we started out for. We did find the place where I drank alcohol that one time though. I asked them why they gave us alcohol and they said something about how it was only a little bit. 

We had a lesson with those people that I gave Mosiah 4 to. When we first showed up to house, we asked the woman how her day went. And no joke she said: "My day went very well. I was overcome with joy when I read those scriptures you gave to us. It is exactly parallel to our lives and I'm grateful that it was given to us." Slow down lady, we haven't even said the opening prayer yet. Anyway, it lead into a really good lesson, which was pretty needed because I think they were wary about having two new Elders. 

Sunday September 15

So our first Sunday in Banana. We were assigned to teach the lesson after sacrament meeting because it was our first week, and then we were assigned to speak because nobody else had anything, and also because we're new. The rest of the day was about the same as the rest of the week, except we were more courageous going through brush today. We brought the sacrament to an old lady, but we forgot to bring a tithing slip for her so now we have to bring icecream for them on the sixth day (Saturday). We wore sulus (lavalavas?). A good day.

Ngaia anne, I tangiringkami ni kabane ao Ia kabo ma ngkami ma ni katokaa baumi bwa te Mauri, te Raoi, ao te Tabomoa, kam bati n rabwa.

 

 

pretty sure this is eating in Fiji during their layover

Always looking for the best ginger beer and a good challenge

much,much nicer than what he drove at home!

 

I don't bite but....(Ben letter 9/16/2019)

Salut 

This was another good week. I got a new companion, elder Gailey and he is from Washington as well. We are the same age but I will be with him for his last 2 transfers, so we are going more for the "go out with a bang" rather then the "kill him softly" type of killing. 

 

This week we mostly just moved. So essentially I was put in charge of closing down 2 apartments, and moving into another one. So we switched companions on Wednesday and cleaned until Friday night. All day for 2 days just cleaning. And let me tell you they should have filmed it because the before and after was crazy. Some missionaries just live like pigs or hoarders, or something in between.

But besides that, Elder Gailey and I have been working hard, and we have a lot of optimism for this fall.

 

For a spiritual thought, I was thinking about cleaning the apartments. If they were to have kept the apartments clean by doing their weekly cleaning, it would have been easy to move and close the apartment. But because they did not clean, it took more time and energy to clean. Also they did not get the privilege to live in a clean apartment. The same thing can relate to us, and how often we repent. If we procrastinate the day of repentance, it becomes harder to clean up. But even more importantly, you lose the chance to be clean, and be happier. Wickedness never was happiness. If we repent daily, we will become better, and be more happy.

 

Vă iubesc pe voi cu toată inima mea.

Vîrstnicul Stanislav 

Ps. An investigator couldn't say my name so she just calls me stanislav, so now I go by stanislav because it's way easier for people here to say

Some pictures and a video (Cubby 9/9/2019)

Volleyball and Basketball in very dirty bare feet

 

New Comp. At the airport headed back to Kiritimati via Fiji

Called to Serve 

He always includes a picture of a bird

Frog in a Shell (Ben letter 9/9/2019)

Mission President Kaufferman front and center with the rest of the missionaries serving in Moldova. 10 are Romanian speaking, the rest are Russian

new companion

For those of you who don't know, "frog in a shell" is how you say turtle in Romanian, and I think that's hilarious. 

I am still in Moldova, in Chișinău. Things are going very good with Elder Cromar. Sadly we are going to have to separate, but luckily we will live 10 mins from each other. We are teaching many people repentance, and some of them like it. 

One of my favorite things we do here is pray with people on the phone. They " beep" us, meaning they call us only for a sec so we call back because they don't have mins, and then they pray. But we don't say much. Just the fact that we listen makes it a better prayer I guess. And man, let me tell you, the prayers are beautiful. Sometimes we say them and help them what to say, so thank you chancho and jojo for preparing me when I was younger. I do so much every day and meet so many people and have so many experiences it's hard to write it all, so I just won't. Tee hee.

What is really important though is what I am learning and teaching spiritually. About Jesus Christ. Sometimes we focus too much on just how much he suffered for us, and not how he can actually HELP us personally, everyday, through revelation. When he suffered, he suffered not only for our sins, but also for our temptations. He has felt every temptation and sin we have done. Our mission president explains this concept very well. Use His atonement! I wish I could write more but I'm out of time.

Love y'all 

Vârstnicul Stanislav 

56 Flaming Woks (Cubby letter 8/26/2019)

Mauri!

It's been a good week. I got pretty sick Friday night, it's okay though, my Scottish constitution is making for a fast recovery.

We heard about transfers on Tuesday, I'm staying on Kiritimati, but being transferred to the village of Banana. I'll be getting a companion from Tarawa, so that will make for the 4th whitewash in a row (out of 4). I'll be getting a car as well, a manual (stay off the sidewalks everyone). I will also be the Zone Leader out here, so I'm gonna be demanding a lot more respect from you people. 

Besides that, not a lot really happened this week, besides a lot of lessons fell through. And we taught the plan of salvation to the most uninterested unaine (old lady) I have ever met. Things are going well, We're still just doing a lot of street contacting and having random convos with people. We found out all the different names of martial arts, so that was cool. That actually makes up for a lot of conversations, just asking people about odd bits of Kiribati culture. Apparently you're not supposed to wish people good luck when they go fishing, which I have been doing for awhile. 

We had a really short lesson the other day, no longer than 10 minutes long, but it was full of the Spirit, it was a remainder to me and Elder Geertsen that the beauty of the gospel is not always complex, but the simple things are really what brings peace to the heart. I can testify that this gospel is the true wayto happiness in this life and the eternities. 

Anyways, hit me up with Questions so I can improve the quality of my emails

I Tangiringkami

Elder Cubby