Transfers

Dear Family,
How is everyone doing? I am doing well here in Scotland. My days in Ayr have come to an end. I have been transferred to Elgin, Scotland which is in the Aberdeen Zone. It's in between Aberdeen and Inverness. So that means I up near the highlands now which is way neat. It's a branch there, but sixty people i hear come to church every week which is a good number to have. I'm in a car area again so hopefully i don't freeze this winter. Elder Bland is my district leader. He was in my district in Ayr before he moved six weeks ago to Inverness. So my companion's name is Elder Stewart. He's been on his mission as long as I have. I'm actually not even in Elgin yet. Right now I'm in Edinburgh waiting for me and another elder to travel to Aberdeen. I am spending time with the China town elders. So i really couldn't tell you what it's like here. I will be great though nonetheless. It will be different to travel to somewhere else in Scotland. Elder Baumann's new companion is Elder Musser. He's been out as long as I have as well. Also Elder Cloward who was in my district has been transferred to Kirkaldry. That's excited. This means that there is a possibility that i could be sent there as well.
As far as what has happened in Ayr. We continue to work with Robert and Alec. They progress nicely, but slowly. Robert was exceptionally hospitable yesterday. He gave us some sweeties and me a tie (actually three because we got into talking about ties and he wanted to show us all the differing styles like very wide ones and skinny ones. Sometimes I would say that I liked certain ties and he surprisingly gave me two more). It was a nice lesson where we talked about the New Testament especially in Acts 5 where the apostles or disciples I can't remember which, started living the law of consecration basically and had to sell all that they possessed and give it to the Peter to distribute. One sold all that he had, but only gave half and Peter knew this and rebuked him and he fell over dead. He was wondering kind of why that would happen. Basically I think it was a matter of being so surprised that he fell over dead. So the moral of this story is pay your tithing. Alec is praying about a baptismal date. I may never know if he does get baptized, but I'm sure that he will.
Patrick and Luke went to the temple last weekend to do baptisms for the dead. They really enjoyed it and loved the spirit that they felt there. They are so solid and I believe will endure well to the end. It's sad to leave such a place and the people. I hope that they do well. Siobhan continues to do well as well. She comes to church and Family home evening.
As part of coming close to winter now, I will be buying myself a coat. Hopefully I will get a good deal on one. You might be wondering what else I have purchased. I have bought myself a tartan tie with our families tartan and an electric razor so that my face doesn't get so torn up every time i shave. it's annoying. As far as conference goes. I believe that I will just watch it at the branch building. I know that in ayr it start Saturday from 5-7. Sunday 10-12; 1-3; 5-7; and then 9-11pm. It will be great to hear from the prophet again. I'm really looking forward to it. My only advice about BYU is to pray for them. Maybe Matt should try out and see what he can do. i hope that you all have a good week and bless me now to understand a new dialect. Hopefully it will be easy to understand now that i have been in Scotland for quite some time now. Do well and read your scriptures. By the way, how is you new calling Dad? Anyways I love you all.

Love,
Elder Buxton

P.S. Michelle, get married soon.

Another Transfer Almost Done

Dear Family,
I thank you for all of your support. It's really great that you email me every week and that i get a different point of view from all of you. Since this transfer cycle is almost over I would really, really appreciate it if Everyone would send all mail this week to the Mission Home until next Wednesday when I can give you my new address. The mission home address is:

Scotland/Ireland Mission
51 Spylaw Road
Edinburgh EH10 5BP
United Kingdom

Time has been going really quickly since I have moved to Ayr. Dad, you mentioned how green it is here. Amazingly in August and so far in September it really hasn't rained much. There are a few exceptions and for the most part, it rains at night or in the early morning. Gratefully it hasn't rained much when we go tracting or when we are out and about. It's unfortunate that all of our football teams continue to lose. That really doesn't concern me, but keep cheering and hopefully they will win again. Dad, the best thing that I can say as part of your new calling is to follow the orders Brother Albright gives you. Being a missionary, I would say that the best thing that you can do it be the bridge between the ward and the missionaries. Have coordination meetings with them to help them with their progress records and also be willing to come teaching with them. It's best when missionaries can take members with them to teaches or even having investigators taught in the home of members. On to Michelle's questions. Robert unfortunately didn't come to church this week since he went to Glasgow again to church with his sisters. Hopefully they can come in the near future so that they can approve his decision to be baptized. Right now, they are quite against it. The best story that i have for you is that yesterday during Family Home Evening at the church, a recent convert named Carla brought her new boyfriend, William. I think he enjoyed it. According to Bishop, he'll be our next baptism. We will meet with them again on Friday. Also I'm not sure if they have candy corn here or not, but at the grocery store, they are already selling Halloween stuff, but mainly just costumes and deccorations. I'll see as time goes on if they see candy corn. Now on to Mom's questions. yes at first it's different driving on the left side of the road, but you get used to it because that's what everyone else is doing. The difficult thing for me though when driving a manual car is starting off when you're stopped and you have to start going again. I still struggle to find the balance between the gas and the clutch, but it's getting better. It's not to bad anymore shifting even though i miss driving an automatic car. Oh and tell David Sneed that I know a missionary in the Colorado Denver North mission name Elder Kevin Hodgeson. He was one of my roommates at BYU. He's been there since May. Oh and the pope was actually in Glasgow on Thursday. I now that the elders there had a difficult time trying to figure out what to do that day. There's been a lot of talk about him here and the Catholic Church, but I won't get into that.

As far as investigators go. Alec progresses slowly, but forward. He has nothing, but praises for our church and his wife has stopped giving him stick for meeting with us. He wants to bring her to church soon as well. Nancy has found some comfort meeting with us. Hopefully with the fellowship of the Deweys, she can come into the fold. Oh and one more thing, we finally were able to hand back the keys for the Prestwick flat. we did so much cleaning in that and they were really impressed. Finally that is done so we can focus on being missionaries. On Friday it was Elder Baumann's birthday. The Deweys actually gave him a present of a tartan tie and some candy, even though he's trying to lose weight. Funny funny. Well I hope eveything goes well for all of you this week. Have fun camping mom.

love,
elder buxton

A Very Good Week

Dear Family,
Elder Baumann and I are doing very well here in Ayr. We've been trying to really fill our days as much as possible and as a result we have been really blessed. Robert is doing fine. He has some fears of joining the church, especially with his family. However his sister is planning on coming to church with him this Sunday. Hopefully that will clear up a lot of misconceptions people have about our church. The pictures you got from Brother McLennan were of us actually making a cake for Robert that we brought to Bishop's home since he was coming there for dinner. Hopefully this generous offer will also touch his heart. and yes they tasted good. We also meeting with a man named Alec Hughes. He's really great and was really impressed when came to church yesterday. He said that if more people came to our church a lot of misconceptions would be cleared up. That was well said. The only thing that really is preventing him of being baptized is a lack of knowledge of our doctrines, but he really enjoys learning about them so hopefully if all goes well he can be baptized soon. Michelle asks about Patrick's wife and as of now, she isn't really interested. Patrick really wants for her to be baptized and sealed in the temple. He has come up with a plan to take her to the beach in a white swim suit and come along by her and say the baptismal prayer and dunk her underwater and then forge the baptismal form and bam she's baptized. Well that could work, but for now she's not that interested even though she really respects our church. We are also working with a 12 year old boy named Kyle. His mom is less active, but we're trying to get him fellowshippped by the young men especially Luke Noonan (Patrick's son) and Jack Dewey. Hopefully he can feel at home when he comes to church.
Alright, now it comes time in the show to share a funny miracle that happened yesterday. So after church we went by this investigator that we found named Nancy Adams. She recently lost her husband and is trying to come to terms with that so i shared my experience with Corey and she was really touched by that and the Plan of Salvation. So we go over there and she tells us pretty much the whole story of her husbands death and I told briefly how i found out about Corey's death. She was really touched by my perseverance. So we asked if we could come back later that night and talk more about the Plan of Salvation with her and she agreed. So we went to this dinner appointment with the Deweys and asked if Jack Dewey (a deacon) could come with us teaching to her. So we were on our way there and Elder Baumann gets pulled over by the police because as he was coming out of a junction, he was driving a little sporty and his tires squeaked. So they pulled him over and gave him a warning, thankfully. Then we went to her doorstep and she looked at Jack and exclaimed, "Jack!" and we were so surprised to how they knew each other. It turns out that they used to live across the street from each other. So we had a really nice visit with her and she was so happy to have all of us over there. So that's two miracles in the space of a few minutes. The Lord really does work in mysterious ways and hopefully she will comes to love the gospel and the answers it gives to find comfort in knowing where her husband is. The gospel is true and I have found comfort in it. I hope you all have a very good week and I hope that Dad gets better soon. I'm also glad to hear that so many of my friends are willing to go on missions. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Buxton

Elder Buxton, Elder Covey, Elder Crockett, and Elder Baumann

Learning how to drive.....watch out Scotland!

The finished product

Almost Two Months in the Field

Dear Family,
How is everyone doing? Is Michelle engaged yet? She tells me that her friends are setting her up on dates. I just wanted to let you know that I found a pink tie in our old flat so I'm ready to have my picture taken in it in preparation for your wedding. So what's it like being on the top? I hope you make this year memorable since it will be your last year of undergrad. It was good to hear that BYU won last week. It's crazy who fast time flies. It really hit me last week that football has started once again. It's a shame though that no one here pays any attention to it. They really only enjoy their football (soccer). Nonetheless, there are some American missionaries that i can talk football to. I'm glad that you met with President David Beck and are really willing to give rather than recieve. I hope that this really helps a young man in need and helps to proclaim this joy we all have to those in need. I got a package from my friends this week with letters from them and american candy. Honestly, the candy they have here is terrible unless you like mallow covered in chocolate. Sure they have some american candy, but for the most part, I cannot believe that people really enjoy this. Oh, by the way, i thought of another thing that would be great to get: Life cereal. Amazingly, i cannot find it here. That would be great though.

In way of what I've been up to. We continue to work with Robert. Right now we trying to take it slow and try to encourage him to do things rather than force. Not to say that we were really pushy, but that's really how i think we can help him most. It was Stake Conference this weekend in Paisley, a suburb of Glasgow, and we had a visiting general authority, Elder Da Roche of the Area Seventy. He requested for a missionary, investigator, recent convert fireside on Saturday evening. So on Friday we invited Robert to this, but he wasn't really sure if he wanted to come or not. Then miraculously at 7:30 the next morning we get a phone call from him saying that he wanted to come. So we arranged a lift for him. He really enjoyed it especially when President Yates (the stake president) invited the recent converts to share their testimonies. He was really touched by some of them. Another thing is that his sister is curious about our church now so she will attend our church later this month. She is also interested in family history so we informed him of our free family history services. We believe that eventually it's going to hit him that the Church is the right decision for him to do. We don't know when, it could be tomorrow or in two years. No matter though, but i really only care that he is baptized. In response to mom's question on if we are teaching Patrick friend, the answer is that we have not been able to see. Patrick is really trying to get him to activities and lessons we have with him, but nothing really yet, but we can really see that this can change his life, he'll be so good. Siobhan still does well and we're really trying to get into contact with some investigators that we have. I'm excited for this week. It will be good, hopefully.

I hope everything is going well for everyone else. I still appreciate all of the love i have received from everyone. It's really great to hear from those that write me. Please remember though to not write to my former address in Prestwick, but either to the one in Ayr or the mission home. Thank you and I know that Christ lives and wants to bless us.

Love,
Elder Buxton  

Siobhan's Baptism