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8-14-2013 Letter

8-14-2013

Hey all! 

I know it's been a while, but Elder Buckley is here, still in Yonkers! For those of you who don't know, I am currently training, just over 6 months in the field, and now am working 2 areas! Pretty crazy being the only Spanish missionaries in Yonkers right now. We take on a lot, but coming back to our ghetto apartment each night, tired as all get out, is a good feeling.

Gotta make a quick shout-out to Saul Marquez, giving thanks for visiting me in Yonkers while he was in New York. It was a good time, pretty cool to say the least. I'll always appreciate it.

So, as far as the work goes right now, it's going decently well now, especially for the summer time. We are getting some cool new investigators and some cool results from the awesome activities that we hold, like English class and noche de amistad. Fun stuff. Also, the weather here is cooling down and getting a lot nicer. It's a beautiful day today, and there not a lot of humidity. Thankfully, it was hard with the humidity, so nasty. Especially not having a car for that time.

Elder H and I are doing quite well, getting along great and working the areas well. Members are great, things are going smoothly but a little slower, which I can't complain about. The life of a missionary.

So, I'll probably only be in Yonkers for 1 more transfer cycle which is weird to think about. Most Spanish training is done with 2 cycles then they take over the area, although I was trained for 3. We'll see!! (: Any guesses as to where I'm going next?? City or far upstate? E-mail me and we'll see who guesses it! Hahaha.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well and that everything is going good back home. I miss it, but I know I am doing the right thing by being out here and there's no other place I'd rather be right now. Love you all, have a great week. I'll send some pics a little later this week.

Love,

Elder Buckley 

8-7-2013 Excerpts from personal letters to my family!

8-7-2013

...We're doing well over here in Yonkers, same old, same old, except for that the weather is a ton nicer right now. I'm still living with Elder R, love that kid, but now it's my comp Elder H, and Elder O. I love both of those guys, everybody is great. And yes, I'm slowly getting the new area down and integrated, it's just so hard. All those members are used to sisters, and are weird around the elders, but its fine (:

 ...Heavenly Father never has and never will give us more than we can handle, I can testify to that.

...We had an awesome week, let me write to you what I wrote to President: "This week has been pretty decent, and I hope yours has been as well. Elder H and I are doing quite well, and really I only wish to relate one experience to you that we had this past Tuesday evening. We had one of our members, Hermana T, set up something really cool for us missionaries to participate in. We have this park next to an old police station here in Yonkers, and there was an event in the which the police, other officials and specifically the mayor, gathered together and walked around all these tables with different events, free things, and other offers. She got us a table and we set up a great table with a lot of materials, and we got to talk to so many people. We taught a lot of lessons and shared with many people, gained new investigators, and even saw some really less-active members and got to reconnect with them. It was a great experience that us and the English elders got to enjoy, and it really gave me a stronger assurance of how strong and helpful, as well as essential, the members are. I hope you have a great week President, and that the family is happy and safe."

...Our members really are awesome and they help so much.

...One of the things I've loved to study about lately is faith and hope and how they intertwine. Romans 8: 24-25 and then Moroni 7: 40-43 are really good with this. One of my favorites of the week.

7-17-2013 Letter

7-17-2013

Hello everybody!! (: Elder Buckley here, and its been a while since I've written a group letter I'm sorry about that. Its just been so hectic, its been hard.

As an update, I'm currently training here in Yonkers, and just took over a 2nd area, because the sisters were taken out of it for a while. So, Elder Hall and I are the only ones here speaking Spanish, its super crazy! But I know that the Lord can't and won't give me anything I cant handle so its all good!

So, before, we had 2 baptismal dates. Well, we don't anymore. The 2 people we were teaching told us they don't wanna hear it anymore, but that's alright. Everything in the Lord's way, the Lord's time. But, we are having things pick up here in Yonkers, we're working hard. I had some ideas about how to make things progress a little quicker, and so far they're working! Super happy about that, and super happy to just be out here, preaching the gospel!

So, funny story. We were in Manhattan today for P-Day, and I spotted the Book of Mormon play. So, we had the idea to walk past everyone waiting in line to see what would happen. Everyone stopped talking and just stared hardcore at us the whole time we walked past. Pretty funny.

Well, we don't have a lot of time, so that's about as much as I'll be able to write today. Everyone that I haven't gotten back to, I promise to this week. I love you all thanks for the prayers and thoughts, they're felt all the time.

Love, that Mesa Elder,

Elder Buckley

6-5-2013 Letter

6-5-2013

Hello everybody back home! (: Can you believe I've been gone as long as I have?! I can't either, I will hit my 5 moth mark (almost 1/4 of the way on my mission) on the 23rd of this month. SOOO crazy!! Time just flies, I don't even understand how or why it does like it does, but it just... does I guess haha.

Just want to say first, thanks to everyone who wrote me this past week, it really means a lot. When I open my email once a week and see names of those I know and love, it just brings a huge happiness and a knowledge that I have people that are looking out for me, which is awesome.

So I hope everyone had a good week! My week has been good, so so so crazy and is continually getting crazier, but it's awesome. We had our only white ward member, and 1 of 2 in our ward to serve a mission, Hermano Jon T. leave the Yonkers Spanish ward for Colorado. It was a sad day, in the which we ate A LOT of food. And, speaking of food, Elder P. and I tried this place on South Broadway called, "La Pupusa Loca" which is Salvadorean food, and it was amazing. I decided to go out on a limb and try the buffet. Smartest decision ever. For $7 I get unlimited food and drink for 2 hours, and it's all delicious. Whenever we don't have a dinner appointment we are for sure headed there haha! And last comment about food. This past memorial day, we went to Hermana Ruth's house to have a lesson, and on the way over there we just started seeing a ton of people outside just having BBQ's, on every street corner. Lo and behold, Hermana Ruth was having one as well, and we just ate a ton and just chatted and didn't really even have a lesson. It was a nice treat for memorial day.

So, now for the craziest part of the week. Either today, or tomorrow we have to take the car in to Scarsdale to get it fixed and they say it'll be in the shop for like a week and a half. HOLY FLIP. We're all just going to be walking to our appointments in Yonkers just sweating real good. I don't even know how we're goiong to walk to everything, we have so many packed days, it's nutty.

Speaking of having a lot of stuff going on, we really do. We've got a guy named Edwin Magdalena who came to us saying that he knows the church is true and that he wants to  be baptized and he is actually the nephew of one of the sisters in the ward. It's pretty awesome I'm excited, we're going to start working with him to reach that goal really soon. Also, we have a Mario G., who's been inactive for forever saying he wants to return to the church. We're working with him really hard as well and clearing up anything he needs to. And we have a martin and an Andy that are reaching that point where we will ask them to be baptized. And we also have a lot of past investigator work that we're doing , it's all just great stuff and I'm really excited.

Now even amongst all that I had the amazing privilege to go to a Yankee's game this past P-Day and lemme tell ya, it was awesome. I never thought I'd be in NY on the mission, let alone going to a Yankee's game it's sweet.

Well, that's all for now. The church is true, like, all the way, and I want to let you all know I'm doing just fine in ghetto Yonkers.

With love and highest regards,

Elder Mitchell Buckley

Picture of the newly remodeled Toyota

5-22-2013 Letter

5-22-2013

Wow, how the time flies!! As of this thursday (tomorrow) I will have been out on the mission exactly 4 months! What the?! Where the flip did the time go? Haha, it's crazy how fast the time passes on the mission and I think it goes even faster in New York. I hope everyone is having a good time, that things are going well. I know that life has it's moments, but like Gordon B. Hinckley said, we're here to be tested but we're here to have joy too. Lately, I've found this to be especially true. Right now, the summer is starting and the humidity is rolling in. People are leaving but a ton more are coming, people are getting pressured to do bad things and the heat is nasty. We come home drenched, especially on the days we don't have the car. But all at the same time, through all the sweat and nastiness it still hasn't lost it's charm for me. We love seeing everyone we know on the streets, having the sweet hookups that we have, having good members that take care of us on the regular, and teaching people that are so ready for the gospel.

We do a lot of less-active work, and also teach a lot of investigators. We have 350 some odd number of members that are on the records but only 145 come regularly. Kind of regular I know, but it's interesting to see those numbers from a missionary's perspective; I just want to get everybody back to church and then gain some new members haha! (: Sadly, it doesn't work that way all the time, but hey, I can dream and pray (: As of right now, we are teaching and trying to reactivate some cool people. Martin is one of them, an english class student. He comes every time there's english class, and always is wanting to learn more about the gospel. He's so far had fun/learned a lot from everything we've done/taught him, now it's teaching exactly to his needs and seeing where he's at with his progression. Next lesson we're inviting him to church and we're goiong to try to get him to set his own date to be baptized i think that'll be cool. And we have the Cruz family, annie cruz is the mother. They like speaking english so we just speak english with them and right now she has a lot of problems. Trying to decide whether or not to stay in the spanish ward, or move to english, and there's just some family problems that are going on right now. I found a cool ensign article that I will try and relate to her and her needs tonight as we teach her and im going to invite her to come back to church and talk with the bishop about her problems. Those two people are the ones that are closest to coming either back, or to the gospel.

Also just the other day i was on a split with an Elder who is nearly done with the mission, elder noguiera from Brazil, and so I didn't speak a lick of english when i was with him. general conversation and lessons, everything in spanish. It was a crazy time, and I learned a lot of things, including piano, spanish of course cause he doesnt like talking in english, and cool stories and scriptures. It was nice.

Aside from the work, life has been great. Elder Pickard will probably be transferred out and I will get a new companion andI'll start driving and taking over the area, which will be cool and I'll pick up spanish a lot faster, but I will miss him. I love the guy, he never really annoyed me, and he was my "Dad" haha he raised me. Freakin' mission lingo haha it's so awkward. Elder Rydalch and I are pretty good buds now, and he'll probably stay for at least another cycle so that's cool too. (Elder Rydalch is kind of like a Connor Flake hahahaha, real tall and fun/funny).

And the highlight crazy story of the week, which will include pictures: the english elders that we live with and share the car with got hit pretty darn good in the toyota. The pictures say it all, but the story goes that the crazy intersection that we live by is where they got hit. They were turnning left and had to stop in the middle of the interseccion to wait for a pedestrain to cross. A big moving truck was coming fast coming the other way, in-line to t-bone them, but elder aagard floored it to try and miss getting hit, but the truck slammed them in the back left side, busting up everything and tearing the bumper clean off. They skidded and then hit some scaffolding with the front of the car. Needless to say, drving in Yonkers is ridiculous, but quite necessary cause its so hilly. everything, and I mean everything including lights, trunk and the gas flap are fully functional and the car is still drivable and not unaligned, so the mission will let it go and get it fixed fairly soon.

Well, I love you all. Know i am well, trying not to lose anymore weight, and I am loving the gospel, spanish, the whole work. Everyone keep safe, pray for those lives lost in that recent tornado, and God bless.

Love,

Elder Mitchell James Buckley