Second Week

Dear Family,
It's been going great here. I've reallly learned a lot and continue to learn to much. Next Wednesday I go wherever they send me meaning I leave the MTC for Scotland or Ireland. I'll know on Tuesday where I go. Today though we went on a church history tour to the Ribble River where Heber C. Kimball baptized the first saints in England. We also saw where President Hinckley stayed for his first area while he was on his mission in 1933. At this flat he wrote he father home and told him that he'd given up and was coming home and his father wrote back that he should forget himself and go back to work. We also went to this town owned by the local lord where they made the town look like it did in the 1800s which was cool to see how the houses looked like. I took a lot of pictures and will probably send that home soon or i'll download them when i have more time on p-days in the field. That reminds me. Can you send me my camera cord that is probably on or in my desk along with my floss dodad thing that i use sometimes. i think you can forget sending me gallon plastic bags. i just wanted those to put my soap in as i caried it to the bathroom. since i'm leaving soon anyways it's not big deal. I may or may not have thought of other things to send me, but maybe i'll remember, but don't worry about that. This week as well President Clegg changed the coat policy to summer meaning that we don't have to wear our suit coats anymore. What a relief that was. It can get pretty hot especially in classrooms that don't have AC. Yesterday it rained for like the second time and so for exercise they took us to a park to play soccer or basketball since the stake center is closed for renovations and they didn't want to make the gardeners mad and mess up the field. it was fun, but very slippery. we tend to always play soccer for exercise. i'm okay with that since i normally only play defense. On friday we went street contacting-something you can only do while in the England MTC and no where else and we go tracting this friday-it was tough to find people to listen to us. we had some good conversations with people and gave away a couple of pass along cards, but that was it. it didn't really help that we outside the train station in manchester and people we really rushing to get to places. I really hope that i get better at street contacting and talking to people. I would really like to guys to pray for me so i can get better at this. I should have asked this earlier, but how's everybody doing? How does Squirt (Corey) feel about getting braces? Can you do up layup yet Michelle? It must really be hard for you to learn since you don't such a great teacher there to show you how (namely me). Does Corey usually play with you? Who makes the jokes now that I'm gone? I also exhanged all of my money to pounds that i came with since american money does me no good. This might not be such a good idea if i go to ireland since they use euros there which means i might have to exchange again. another thing is that they use a lot of coins. the smallest bill is £5 which means that they have a £2 coin (£ mean pound) £1 pound coin, a 50 pent coin, a 20 pent coin, a 10 pent coin, a 5 pent coin, a 2 pent coin, and a 1 pent coin. Soon i'll need a coin bag to put all of this in, but i plan on using my debit card most of the time for mission-related stuff.
a cool insight i learned i got from a devotional that Elder Bednar gave that we watched. He was asked repeatedly how we discern between the Spirit and our own thoughts. Simply he said: don't worry about it. you be a good girl or boy and keep the commandments and your covenants and the Lord will lead your steps. This was great news to me and will be a great help as i get out into the field. Later one of the teachers added on and said that you should always act upont he promptings of the spirit and if you're not sure, do it anyways. It seems that you're all having quite a bit of fun as am i. I love you all and hope you appreciate all this great stuff i'm sending you. Hopefully better stuff will come as i get out into the field. I love you all.

With love,
Elder Buxton

This is Jeff and the rest of the missionaries in the Preston England MTC. See if you can find him!!!

First Week

Dear Family,

My P-day is on wednesdays as you can see by the time I sent this. I get 30 minutes on e-mail, so |'ll only write one letter to this e-mail. Hopefully you'll get to read this. Concerning my flight to England, I was the only missionary on my flight. Before this though I was going through security and when i was putting my shoes back on, this boy about 17 years old came and talked to me about how cool it was that i was going on a mission to scotland. Then this guy talked to me on the tram for a little bit. I was planning on talking to the guy i was sitting next to, but he was out by the time the plane left the airport. So | read the magazine that was in front of me. That was real exciting. now i know so much about the world cup, pittsburg, and national parks. (I hope you catch my sarcasm). Then I took a nap. Throughout though I would look outside and for the most part just saw desert until | woke up and we were in Georgia. there were a lot of trees there. i'm sorry that i didn't call you there. as soon as i got to my gate, there were missionaries that were already there and i chatted with them unitl i boarded. during this time though i had my last meal in america which was pizza since i thought i wouldn't have pizza again while here in england. it turns out that i saw a pizza hut on my way to the mtc and we had pizza the other day. Anyways, the fligt the england was LONG! It was a good thing that i can sleep anywhere. After taking off I talked to Elder Barton from Mesa AZ, then i read from preach my gospel and scriptures and then i took a long nap. periodicially though i would look outside, however this was only good until it was dark, then you couldn't see anything. on the plane we had the usual drinks and peanuts. for dinner I had a vegetarian pasta that was okay. it came with a salad, roll, cheese, and a cookie bar. Then for breakfast we got a egg mcmuffin-type thing that wasn't all that great. there were some things in there that made me gag. i wouldn't be suprised if it was seawead. anyways, we get to england and land and everything is hunkydory. after landing we stood in a line to get out passports checked which took forever. then i was able to get my baggage which all of it was there. those missionaries that flew from Salt Lake didn't get any of their baggage, but they got it the next. still it was a bummer for them. by the way michelle, i didn't cuddle up to any missionaries. i stayed on my side and he stayed on his. going on, i skipped through custums since i didn't think i had anything to declare really. ( i had no alcohol or milk or anything like that which i had to pay duties on). Then we finally boarded a bus and headed to the mtc which wasn't far. it didn't really freak me out to drive on the left side of the road. everybody did it and was fine. although it kinda seemed like the lanes were smaller and of course the sign were different. I looked out the window and saw houses, building, neighborhood pastures of sheep and pastures of cows and even a pasture of cows and sheep. Anyways, we got to the mtc which is smaller than you think. if you look of google earth, the mtc is only the building on the southeast corner of the temple complex. the one next to it is for temple worker living quarters, and the one across the square is for temple patron housing. the buildings at the top of the square are for family history and a distribution center. there's also a stake center and the temple of course.

 

so we met with the temple presidency, got some more name tags so i don't need matts. over the past week. we've been learning a lot. especially like what you do when you get into the home. it's really focusing on the needs of the investigator. we don't have to start with lesson one. so that has been interesting tailoring lesson plans which really can't plan for, otherwise the lessons turns into something they're not interested in. as far as food goes. it different than what ryan said. you get your first helping and sit down and if you want seconds and there's some left, you can go and get some. plus it's difficult to carry around fruit since we're not aloud to bring our backpacks around which okays seeing as how the entire mtc is in 1 building. my companion is named Elder Butikofer from rexburg, id. he's cool and we get along. as far as things i would like some stuff that i can't think of right now, but have my pants come yet? I might send you letter of stuff that would be nice to have. things like gallon plastic bags would be nice. I'll let you know, i've thought of some things.

 

and no michelle, i don't have an accent yet, but sometimes i think in it, so kinda of weird.

 

So be good yall

 

Love,

Elder Buxton

Airport Send Off

Well as we speak, Elder Buxton is in an airplane flying to Atlanta and then off to Manchester England later tonight. Here are some of the final pictures of Elder Buxton in Las Vegas before he left!

Tony Stark picture. Why not??
 

Elder Buxton's Address

Elder Buxton will be arriving in Preston England on Friday June 18th.

He will be there for three weeks (until July 7th)  his address is as follows:

Elder Jeffrey Ryan Buxton
Scotland Edinburgh Mission
England Missionary Training Center 
Temple Way
Chorley
Lancashire
England PR6 7EQ