Rain, Rain, Go Away

Dear family,
How are you doing? I am doing good. The weather this week turn to be more Irish with rain off and on, especially on Saturday where it rained nonstop from the moment I woke up until about five that evening. It just kept raining and pouring and then raining some more, but we got through it. Today isn't so bad, it's just really windy. It sounds like things are going well for you. Michelle, I would say to you about your Book of Mormon challenge to pray about it, write your testimony in it, and then not to be afraid to give it to that person. If you do these things, you will have success. That person may not accept it, but that's okay since you did your part. I would also suggest that you give them a passage to read that is personally meaningful to you and to them. Then you need to follow-up on it and see that they read and continue to invite them to do other things especially coming to church. This next month, the Europe Area Presidency has asked each and every member to fast and pray on who they can bring to church whether its a less-active, investigator, or nonmember. They really want us to be in a habit of inviting people to come to church. Their goal is that within this decade that they want to double the active membership in Europe. It's more than possible to do. We just need to invite.
As far as other things go, our week was alright. We haven't been able to contact Emmanuel all week. We go by and call him, but no answer. It might just be best to leave it for a bit and see what comes. The Rostas family is doing alright, but we still don't really know their motive and why they still want us around. The best miracle though was that on Saturday we had a branch activity. It was a Mexican Fiesta which was mainly organized by this Mexican lady that lives in our branch with authentic food, dancing, and even pinatas! So we invited Peter to come and he came. He nearly didn't come, but then convinced himself to come and he really enjoyed it. We also had this less-active come who we just invited the day of.
So we are quite excited for this week since we are to be meeting with some new people that we found throughout the week and we shall see how that goes. We especially excited for this one lady we found yesterday named Amy who seems a bit solid. I would also like to inform everyone to use the mission home address if you plan on sending any mail the next two weeks as it is moves time once again. I'm quite sure that one of will be moving from here.
I'm sorry to hear about the church and the vandalism there. I haven't heard of anything like that happen hear mainly because they don't have A/C. I have heard of someone burning down the church dumpster. I don't think much happens because all of the churches have fences around them here, but even then stuff still happens. Other things that have happened are like heaters not working and things just broken over time or that are just faulty. Speaking of President Obama, I have heard that he is coming and all I know is that he will be in the Dublin area and back east so we have nothing to worry about. I have heard though that his visit is going to cost more than the Queen's and that there will be more road closures when he is around.
I hope that you have a fun trip to Utah and wish you all the safety of the world.

Love,
Elder Buxton

Sick

Dear Family,
So you know how you said on skype that I was looking really healthy. Well the next day I was at the Rostas families' house and started feeling really cold and ill, so I called Sister Giffiths afterwards and told her that I had chills and didn't feel good so I went in. Later Brother Flygare came over and he and Elder Manwaring gave us a blessing. The next day my fever broke which was a good sign, but my stomach still wasn't feeling very good and I had diarrhea. I tried to go out, but felt ill and miserable. So we stayed in Wednesday and part of Thursday as well. Sometimes it was very boring and I could tell that Elder Manwaring was going crazy and really wanted to get out and do something. Luckily I felt well enough to go to zone conference in Dublin with Elder Packer. He spoke about conversion and the 5 steps: Hear, remember, apply, understand, and become. It was really good. As far as our investigators go, we saw Emmanuel once and taught him tithing and he asked, "Is it alright for me to pray to earn more money so that I can pay more tithing?" We said that was appropriate. He is so good. Unfortunately, he didn't come to church on Sunday so we will have to push his baptism back a week. I so hope that he can come next Sunday so that he can be baptized. Not much else happened other than we were finally invited out to see President O'Toole and his family for dinner on Sunday. He lives out in the country and I really don't know how to get there (he drove). Oh and 1 more thing is that there is this new family that just moved into the branch from Atlanta. They are the Perrys. He is originally from Provo and served a mission in the Ukraine. He came last Wednesday and found a place to stay and she will be coming on Saturday. He is here doing some research with the University here on web search. He is a good member.
As far as things happening at home, no I'm not jealous that you're shredding because I'm in Ireland which totally beats that. And about that comic, that reminds me of people who would sit next to me hopping that something might rub off on them. Congrats Matt on getting a job and a new calling. Keep up the good work. I got my package and everything was fine in it. Thanks for sending that stuff. Well I hope that you all have a good week and do some missionary work.

Love,
Elder Buxton

Post Mother's Day Letter

Dear Family,
How are and and I hope that Mother's day was fabulous. It sounds like mom got some good bits of stuff. 

I think this email will be quite short since not much happened after I stopped talking to you. I'll just share one story with you though. On Saturday we went by this less-active named Johnson who hasn't come to church for years. Missionaries have tried countless times to get him back to church. Johnson is from Nigeria and speaks originally Yoruba, but his English is alright as well. In Dublin about a month ago I picked up a Book of Mormon in Yoruba and decided to bring it with. So we go and show him it and he was shouting for joy. We read some (now that I think about it, I shared with you this yesterday, but oh well. I've come this far so I'm not stopping) and asked if he wanted to come to church. He declined saying that bus fares were expensive. We then offered to work out a lift for him and his five year old son. After talking to his wife he agreed. Yesterday he came and he really enjoyed it and even fellowshipped one of our investigators.
For those of you who weren't blessed in hearing my voice yesterday. I'll just make one other comment in that Emmanuel came to church yesterday which puts him on track for being baptized next Saturday. We are thinking of baptizing  him in the River Corrib. That would be neat wouldn't it? Well that's it for now. One other thing is that this Friday we are having a zone conference with Elder Packer of the Seventy. He's President Packer's son. I hope all goes well and that my room gets cleaned in a timely manner.

Love,
Elder Buxton

Amazing Week

Dear Family,
I would first like to say, Happy May! You know the common saying that April showers bring May flowers, but I am not sure what happens if there aren't many showers in April what happens in May. We have been having gorgeous weather. The sun has been shining really non-stop. I don't really remember it raining at all last week. It might be different this week. Today is a little cloudy. So I guess I'll begin by letting you know about Mother's Day. We haven't really made definite plans yet, but I'll get back to you on Friday. If you could though, send me the user name or email address you'll be using to call so that I can have that come mother's day and let the people we are doing it with know. I'll probably call in the morning between 8 and 11. I'm looking forward to talking to you. Thank you also for sending back my package. Hopefully i can get it a week from Tuesday when I go to Limerick for District Meeting.
Speaking of the Royal wedding, I was actually shocked that so many people watched it here in Ireland. It was all over and we were allowed to watch it, but couldn't think of anyone we could go watch it with. No matter though, it was only a civil wedding at the heart of it. Thankfully we have the temple. Many of the members were speaking about that in their testimonies since they just barely had the temple trip.
Now onto more important things. All of our investigators are doing really well. Emmanuel came to church and loved it. He got up and bore his testimony and held up the Book of Mormon and said, "This book is true." We were amazed that he did that. Rada and her family came as well and are looking forward to being baptized at the end of the month. We are working on getting skype set up with this missionary in scotland who speaks romanian. Also on Thursday we were walking around and it was quite hot and I was thirsty so I decided to go buy a water bottle, but as I was looking in my change bag, we heard someone behind us call our names and looked and it was this man who we met a couple of weeks ago and he invited us over to his house right there and fed us a little bit and is really interested in learning about our church. I'll tell you more about him next Sunday. Hopefully there will more exciting things to tell.
So I was also wondering if you could email me some recipes for casseroles and lasagna. Thanks a ton if you can do that. Well, that's all the time I have for today.

Love,
Elder Buxton