Monday, December 29, 2014

Email, Monday, December 29, 2014

Well this week seemed like it dragged on forever, but it flew by, its weird.... Christmas week was amazing, singing carols on the the trains, sharing He Is The Gift, utilizing every phrase, or word in other languages that i have learned over the years to talk to people, in return they try to teach me a new phrase in their language, which is always fun! I thought it would be weird sharing The Gift after our christmas, but in actuality its easy, cause one, Spanish people celebrate three kings day, which to some is celebrated bigger than christmas, and Russians have a different calendar so they celebrate Christmas January 7 this year. And i can pick out Russians and Latinos quite easily now :) plus they are almost always on their phone, which is in their language, or they are reading a book in Cyrillic or Spanish, which makes it easier or approach them or start a conversation, which I ALWAYS kick myself for not learning Russian, i could have benefited from it :) but oh well, 
We have been seeing miracles this week, from less actives that we haven't been able to get in contact with for a while calling us out of the blue asking when church is and coming, and participating, to investors gaining permission to be baptized! 
#ILoveChristmasTime
Im still working on my secret santa, so i am sorry recipient of the secret santa! 

I love yall, thanks for the plethora of packages, 

Pictures!

Pic 1) 2.71 get off my gas prices! ;) #NYC


Pic 2) okay waking up at 4 to go to plainview for christmas concert was not on my bucket list haha


Pic 3) yes thats my companion, and yes he does have a alligator hat on, and yeah he made the face...

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Email, Monday, December 15, 2014

Hey! How is everyone doing?!

The big apple is doing great! Some cool stuff is going down :) 
Okay so this week was transfer calls I'm getting yet another companion, Elder Cottle, he is in the other pool so i only have to move my stuff 20 to 30 minutes walking distance, not to shabby considering my two hour train ride bringing my stuff here, at lease i know where i will be for Christmas, so we got a sweet referral from Utah, a lady got her patriarchal blessing, felt strongly to send missionaries to her father, told the patriarch, who told his grand daughter which is a sister in our mission, who called us, and explained how the patriarch felt that we should take the plan of salvation, so we did just that, the first time we wanted to just show up, we didn't know it was a hour bus ride, this would be after after a 20 minuet train ride.  So we go out, and he wasn't home, but we talked to his son, he was super cool, so we called the second time, last night, and asked if we could come over, he agreed, so we traveled again for a good distance, and met him, super cool guy, he is a Dominican, he has a raspy voice, and needless to say we both had a hard time understanding him, we taught him about the plan of salvation, where he was super excited for his resurrected body, cause he has diabetes, and has a prosthetic leg, and he doesn't think he will live very much longer, we committed him to be baptized on the 11th of January, i think he will be ready the week before! The spirit was so strong, we promised him that he has the chance to live with his entire family forever after this life, and he loved that idea, super good lesson
Also next Sunday will be beautiful! I got permission to return to Rego to view the baptism of Olga!  She has asked if i would baptize her! 

Well i love you all, i will get to talk to some of yall next week, via Skype, 
Hope im making Yall proud! 
Your elder in the field!
Elder Daniel Buffington 
Pictures!

1)Elder Hellewell after a bad storm, his umbrella died :( 

2) okay so this is a ninja turtle! So during dinner they said somthing about a turtle that i didnt catch, so we sit down for the lesson and im looking around like, where is the box for the turtle?? They have a dog, maybe they were making fun of it, so about two minuets into the lesson something catches my eye, this little guy was chilling in the middle of the floor, all hidden in its shell, like it was the there the entire time! (I couldn't resist making the joke of how we use turtles in South Carolina to make soup)

3) only in New York do you find mobil billboards, TVs, and display cases! Hahaha




Monday, December 1, 2014

Email, Monday, December 1, 2014

Hey there!
This week has been a crazy fun week, like every other week, monday we
plaied football in preperation for turkey bowl, and met Elianny for
the first time, she is the ten year old that was taught in the area
next to us and needed to be baptized here, met the family, all
dominicans, way cool people!
Turkey bowl was Thursday, and my zone did better than my last years
team, we won the first game and lost in the next game (they ended up
getting second place, and they had a zone more than twice our size and
we could only sub out two elders and a sister) but not complaining
haha after that we ended up playing rugby, so it was fun! We ate at a
members house for thanksgiving and met and mingled with there family,
most of which are nonmembers.. But we taught this sweet less active
family Friday, (due to work) and they fed us chile rellenos which is
the stuffed chilies, oh my goodness, it was awesome, picture one is
the first one, which wasn't as pica, spicy, but the second they said
was very spicy, but is wasnt bad, but so much better, super smokey,
mmmmmmmmm then a fruit salad, but it was chopped fruit and sweeted
condenced milk, super good! Then Sunday we had church where i gave a
talk, which i found out about the night before, so it was short, but
to the point, and then we had the baptism! Super fun! I made rice
crispys which everyone loved,

But that be my week!
I love yall!
Remember who you are,
;)
Elder Daniel Buffington


Monday, November 17, 2014

Email, Monday, November 17, 2014

So i just finished my first week in my new area, Midwood Brooklyn, and
it has a different feel than queens, for one it is a lot cleaner, the
population is mainly Jewish, Russian, or Spanish, and it has been
filled with emotions and some stress.  So Monday i finished visiting
most of the families i loved, didnt get to see them all tho, queens
has a big chunk of my heart, and the majority of that piece is in
rego, Tuesday was transfer day, my new companion is elder Hellewell he
is alot like me, in some ways, but he is cool, was born in VA but
lives in UT, ummm oh! So yesterday we had a super funny story to tell,
so we are knocking this building, and we get to this door and we can
hear people talking, so we knock, wait, knock again, wait... When my
companion was about to turn away i knocked once more, finally we heard
footsteps coming to the door, the door cracked open and we was a
lady's face, her eyes got huge and she screamed and slammed the
door... O.O my companion took that as a no and was about to walk away
cause we heard the chain on the door, but she opened it again and
started talking to us, and so I apologized for startling her, then she
closed the door again! But she unchained the door and opened it up,
she was super jumpy and we told her who we were, she asked if we had
I.D.s so i showed her my ministerial certificate, and apologized again
cause it was in Portuguese, she looked at it for a while as we were
talking to her, but she let us in, apologizing for screaming, but she
was not used to having people over, she had a friend that was staying
with her so we were able to go in, they were high school friends that
kept in contact through college, super fun people, and they just asked
questions, and it was nice to have that working for us, they gave us
herbal tea cause they heard that mormons dont drink regular tea, haha
super fun, at the end she kept telling us how clam she felt that we
made her day a little better,

And we had stake conference at the Marriott center in Brooklyn, cause
the owner is LDS! So it was cool and Elder Perkins was there, of the
regular 70? I dont know, he works with the prophet and the 12 so its
cool,

All is well here :) i love yall so very much, im sorry for any wrong
doings i might have done, i pray that yall could forgive me of being a
bonehead
Elder daniel buffingon

Okay hopefully yall can see the video we heard some loud music, so we
got up on the roof and checked it out, maybe a jewish holiday? Or a
party? Idk
Super interesting tho...
Well ttyl


Monday, November 10, 2014

Email, Monday, November 10, 2014

Yesterday and today are my days to say goodbye to everyone, I
defiantly have more friends here than anywhere else, this is my home,
but its time to move again and make new friends, this week we smashed
our goals out of the water! So in a sense i am leaving with a bang,
#cameinlikeawreckingball was our hashtag for the three transfers elder
trujillo and i were together! And now on to companion 8 :)
That has been the hight of the week, we have almost 4 people lined up
for baptism with dates, and 2 other progressing investigators that
will soon have baptism dates, and about three families that we are
supposed to have in the coming week, im leaving the area in good
hands, we fliped it around, and now im off to another area, :P

Oh! This past Tuesday we had the funeral for the mother of hermana
pepin, and we sung, amd elder trujillo played his clarinet, it went
nice and smoothly, but after a couple members asked for the number of
the martinez family, cause they were all old friends, then one called
brother martinez, and talked to him for a second, then handed me the
phone and told me to say hi, so i got to talk to brother and sister
martinez, haha they told me they were just with you all at the church,
i could hardly reconize sister Martinez's voice, it was weird, but it
was good, it started in english and ended in spanish, so it was fun
haha.

I love you all, i hope what i am hoping for comes true,:) which is to
go to brooklyn for 4transfers and return to rego to finnish, this is
the true promise land.
Please be safe and stay warm, dont catch ebola, and stay true to what
you know, you all are all loved dearly, and prayed for,
Your friend
Elder buffington
Okay so there will be a few emails today, with all my familys and
friends which have pieces of my heart.

Picture 1) sister Lujan, and her son Sammy, an awesome pruvian family!

Picture 2) Olgita! You can see the little red drink, its a fruit salad
drink she makes and sells, but ALWAYS gives us a cup, she has a
special place in my heart, where she has given us food and saved us,
more than once, she gave me a jersey of ecuador so i never forget her,
(probably my hardest goodbye which will be almost be tied to the pepin
family tonight) but its okay, she might be moving to brooklyn, to a
place i can possibly go, so i pray that happens so i can keep teaching
her!

Picture 3) my first family i meet here in Rego, the family casteñeda,
a columbian and dominican family, one son is missing at work, so only
one could be in the picture, the sons are less active, but we have
been working with them, so we will see how it goes,

Monday, November 3, 2014

Email, Monday, November 3, 2014

Hello there my beautiful family! How are you all doing?! I am doing well!  This last week was another struggle. We had cancelation left and right. But yesterday one of our investigators passed on, and is being taught on the other side, she was passing from cancer, she had a good 70 years, and her daughter and her family are all members, a little less active while the grandma was in and out of the hospital, dominicans are fighters, the grandma was given 24 hours, 3 weeks ago, she didn't let that get her, i have grown to love that family, even
tho half the time i cannot understand them haha dominican slang, its like going from England, to the deeeeeeeeep south hah

So yeah life as a missionary is a new story every day, im learning so much! And we are starting week 6!! We find out our fate this Saturdaywhether we are staying or leaving..

But hey look picturessss!



1) a unfiltered sunset of NY! Bam



2) costumes on halloween (At chipotle you can get a massive burrito for three dollars originally 8, if you wear a costume, so i was clark kent aka superman, and my companion was a newsie!) hahaha

3) a wholesome breakfast of crepes and nutela and bananas and whip cream, and chocolate syrup, i didn't add a scoop of ice cream



Monday, October 27, 2014

Email, Monday, October 27, 2014

It was another tough one this week, needless to say Satin is working at full throttle and does not want to let up, by the end of the night i just want to sleep, its physically draining, spiritually depleting, mentally exhausting, work, when you have stuff planned and you are ready to go with a lesson and they cancel, not because they don't want to have a lesson, but either their family is over to morn the death of a family member, because someone got in trouble, so they live with someone else in a completely different area, not with members either so getting missionaries over now is pretty much impossible. I want to say, i want to give up, but i know that is what Satin wants me to say, but it was just draining, then people just tell me all of their problems, which i do not mind, it helps them, but the only time away from all the troubles of the world, is with my guitar at my pad, practicing for anything, it has always been a release for me, i miss my guitars at home, not sure how they are doing, :P but i got mine here, which i enjoy playing! Which reminds me, in the upcoming weeks a video will be posted of a sister and i doing a duet of a song that she rewrote the lyrics to, the song 'falling slowly' and we will be posting it on FaceBook so keep your eyes peeled for it! Its crazy how your talent expands dramatically while you serve the Lord :) its sweet! Oh, EVERYONE needs to get the app DuoLingo to learn another Language, and then find me and follow me, and i will follow y'all back and we can all learn together, i defiantly recommend it! Email me your user name, or just look up 'danbuf' that one is mine :)

And thus another week has gone by! Press forward, siga adelante, les amo! 
Yall are awesome, stay that way, 
Your missionary in the field!
Elder Daniel Buffington 

Okay pictures
1) we made dinner, and these are plantains done right :) like a chip! Or a french fry! Combined
2) the senior couple that lives in the same building as us made cafe rio! I was stuffed, they use coke not dp, which is wierddd but it looks pretty,



Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Email, Monday, October 20, 2014

Hello how are yall?! 
Im doing well! Would someone please tell me who is telling the weather to be Bi-Polar? Its cold this morning, but tomorrow it wont :P  the temperature needs to make up its mind :P but this week was a lucha (si la lucha es real) besides a few experiences that make this week worth it all! So we had a fist lesson with a couple, the wife was the one in our potential list that answered and asked us to be there Tuesday to teach her, her husband, and her sister, supper exciting! So we get there and the sister couldn't be there, all good there, :) but we taught a sweet lesson and committed them to the 16th of November for their date of baptism, and they accepted and told us they wanted to first attend church, and have more lessons before they get baptized but accepted the date as a goal!! Yayyyyyy!! But yeah, our other investigator, Johanna couldn't be baptized this past Saturday so praying that we can establish another, she is ready, but we are seeing miracles! Saturday was a miracle day! So we had a street sweep talking to some interesting people, one of which had some interesting theorys about how no one was going to return to Heavenly Father, cause we are all sinners, so we talked alot about the plan of salvation, but on to the cool point of the day.... We went to go knock on doors and we found a nice building, so we tried, but there was no way in. Sooo we ended up crossing the street to a more sketchy building, and got in so we knock building from top to bottom so the top two floors were filled with scents of weed and annoying dogs barking, then on the 5th floor, we knock and everyone that we talked to wanted us to come back, so we have 5 different lessons set for this next week, super exciting! They all are families! Im super excited for tonights lesson cause the father almost let us in but the wife didnt want to cause they were eating food, but he shown interest. And the pictures for this week is in the next place i want to serve, Brooklyn, bushwick, :) its scary at times but people are alot nicer than you think, but this is a warehouse of studios, this one is super cool,  its walls are just a big graffiti attraction, and inside these are make you feel like you are in manhattan but really your in east NY Brooklyn, there are a couple that are nicer than others, The reason we were in Brooklyn is cause we were helping with Operation Shepard to find all their Less actives, we were helped by a huge Biker gang, they were super nice to us, we also met some sweet people, 
It was weird to see white people... 

But thats the news for the week, went by quick, we are seeing blessing

Your Misionero 
Elder Daniel Buffington 

So i was re reading and the pictures part didnt make sense, the inside
of the studios are super noce and classy, like manhattan but as soon
as you walk in to a Hall your back in brooklyn.. That sounds better

-Elder Bufí (Buffington)-



Monday, October 13, 2014

Email, Monday, October 13, 2014

Hey yall! 
    I just want to start by saying i love yall! And these next three months are gonna be crazily blessing filled! And it already has! Okay soThursday we had presidents interviews, which i look forward to, but some interesting stuff is happening, so to begin with, i am acting as district leader with my companion, so i go to leaders meetings with him, and we had a combined interview, i have never heard of this before... Have yall? Well we also have in this mission whats called 5-5-5, so our yearly goal is 500 baptisms - 5000 church attendance - 500 RC/LAs to the temple and we only had 300~ 3600~ 200~ ish last year so we were stunned by this, right now we need 260 baptisms our highest mission attendance was 4200~ and we have somthing like 450 RC/LAs to the temple, so president has our combined interview and writes up the wards goal, 5-8(meaning 8 returning to church)-5 and president asks us how many people are in the borders of Rego Park 2, we reply "a lot" and he then asks us, how many are spanish, we reply that most are spanish, he then looks at the numbers on the board and says from all of these i dont think these are the lords numbers, so he told us to pray with great faith, and to seek how many people for each category the Lord wants us to find, baptize, re activate, and take to the temple, and our original quarter goal was 2-2-4, when we prayed we discovered we were holding ourselves back, and our goals for this quarter is 5-7-8, which when we saw this we got nervous but then we got fired up and we have a new investigator this week, and we have a possibility of three more this week, but i testify that the adversary is working his hardest right now, and it is sooo apparent, it is so true that the family is under attack, and we all need to hold fast to our testimonies, we all need to do a self check and reinforce our testimonial fortresses, but i also know that our father in heaven is working just as hard thru his missionaries, (us all) oh, go watch Meet the Mormons, today if possible! 
We saw it at transfer meeting, way gooooooooood, sooo  i had a experience on the train, and i was shocked but it was still awesome, there was a man on the subway, i sat across from him and looked around me to find someone to talk to, i saw him looking at my tag and back to me, so I engaged him in a conversation asking about his book he had on his lap, he kind of ignored my question and requested that i look up Acts 18:9-11, before i could pull my ipad out to read it, supposing it to be something rebuking me or something another along those lines, (something (spiritual prompting) thing then pressed me to read it then and i was curious) but before i could get to it, he got up came over leaned down and conveyed the lines paraphrasing "be not afraid, but speak, for the lord is on your side, no man will hurt thee." Told me that im doing a good work, Then he shook my hand, told me his name and walked off the subway saying god bless you. I barely got to say thank you, Pretty epic hu? But yeah, we are seeing tons of tender mercies, and we are looking everywhere for people, oooh another scripture i recommend for every missionary, is Mathew 7:7, it is meant for missionaries, we have it written on our mirror, 

Crazy stuff is going down, and im soooooo excited for it! 
Yall are the best family ever! And pst, yall should do the family reunion when i get home in july ;) just saying..

I guess thats all, till next week, 
Elder Daniel Buffington 

Oh! Wait why is my writing red, is it red to yall? What is this?????!!!!! 
Well cant figure this out,  this just randomly changes....
Ummm 
Oh look pictures! 
Pic one and two is the before and after pf making agua panela 
Pic three is of Mangu! A Dominican dish of mash potato styled plantains and summer sausage yummmmmmmmy, (only when eaten together) 
Yeah
Okay ill leave now :)



-Elder Bufí (Buffington)- 




Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Email, Monday, October 6, 2014

Hey! 
GENERAL CONFERENCE... THAT WAS TOTALY WICKED!!! -young boy on trike from the incredibles
Well i must go backwards in the week cause well thats me, okay ...conference was indubitably (yes i know big words and im working on more) amazing and i found if you go humble and prepare yourself to learn from every talk, you will learn, thank you President Uchtdorf, i loved that talk from him, i want to get a copy of the ensign from this and study it for next conference but also i took elder Hollands talk seriously and gave blood between sending session and priesthood (new york blood center is high tech, they have these strip thingies that they use to take temperature) (they complemented my veins :) #BigVeins) priesthood was awesome of course, we got home at 10:45 it also didn't help we caught the wrong subway and took a scenic rout.. Butttttttttt anyway :P and then sunday morning was cold and only got up to 61! Brrrrr (meanwhile in TX its ~100°F) 
Nothing really exciting happened this week, all of our investigators are good, OH thats something! So one of our investigators has a pastor life long friend, who told her that we believed that Joseph Smith was god, (but she told us it confused her cause when we taught her to pray it was to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ) soooo we are confident that she is deciding for herself what is true. 
But besides that all is well, my companion and i had a ummmmm interesting experience, so we were heading away from the church when we find this girl sobbing walking up the street going the opposite direction then we both stop (#sentimientosdelespíritu) turn around and ask her if she needs help, she is probably 10-12 ish and through her sobbing said yes, that she didnt know where she was, and she needed help finding her home, so we got directions and started on our way to the place she was meeting her foster mom, she is from long island, that was her first week there, soo we were getting closer and i kept thinking about you mom and how you would have acted, i thought it sooo clearly and i could practically hear your voice saying calm down its all okay, weird but we got here there and she remembered where she was, then we went to our lesson, :) another epic day and serving the people of NY, remember the lady that was struggling? We dropped by to fix her computer again... She doesn't understand pop ups, through her broken english, too funny :) but i stuck some church hymns on her computer that are beautifully arranged into guitar instrumentals, and she has texted every day sense thanking us for the music cause her son likes it, (and it invites the spirit into their home) he thinks its cool.. But yeaahhhhhh that is all for today, i might send more pictures :)

Till next time, stay classy, and real
Elder Daniel Buffington 


(Note from Crystal...Only 2 pictures were attached...but you can see what he meant to send : )
Pic1) dominican plate- rice, spaghetti, and chicken in a weird but yummy sauce
Pic2+3) we had lunch at a LA part member families home, and one of the sons is a sue chef so he made this, not sure if this is considered Mexican food, cause thats where they are from...
(Mashed potatoes had nutmeg)

-Elder Bufí (Buffington)- 

Pic 4) i donated blood, finally! It was supper quick, like 4-5 minutes, but yay!
Pic5) Saturday morning conference breakfast!

Pic6) okay so i got probably 75 or so of these, and this talk touched me alot, and made me think, am i a good son (both to my earthly parents, and to my heavenly ones)? Brother? Friend? Or as another well said quote askes the question, "Am i my brothers brother?" Im trying as hard as possible to be, im trying to make yall proud, as well as serve the Lord, be peoples friends they never had, and save families and their eternities... It isnt hard, but yall make it worth it, your never ending support is an inspiration to me, and serves as a catalyst to my 'fire' to work... I love each and every one of you! Never forget that you are loved by me, and your Father in Heaven! 


ElderDBufé


Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Email, Monday, September 30, 2014

Week one transfer 10 (uh oh... Double digits)

Transfer calls came in, and i am staying with Elder Trujillo for
another transfer! Yayyyy so he will have been with me longer than any
other companion!  Super fun but this week was super fun and helped me
grow!  We did quite a bit of "spur of the moment" service, helping in
tiendas is always fun! We did a wide variety of things, from
organizing very unorganized jerseys to dusting off cans of food, i
have to backwards in the week to get stuff right so okay Sunday,
hermano Sarmiento found a baby bird struggling our side, so he brought
it in gave it some water and named it Domingo (Sunday) let it hop
around ward council and then let it outside and it was much better,
(meet Domingo in pic three) we had FOUR investigators and THREE less
actives come to church!! And one investigator and two LA is a family,
the son has a daughter and oh my goodness she is precious and
defiantly a choice daughter of God! Francisco was talking to me about
how when she is with him, every Sunday  morning she is the first one
awake, and goes around and wakes everyone up, okay she is four, and
she wakes up and she is the main reason they get to church on time if
comes to church at all! (And mom told me about when i was younger i
would cry through church) then after church the was a family baptism
of Four! And another Baptism!! Sooooooooo awesome! Three hour service
with food at the end, awesome but tooooo long haha.  Saturday we had
the mini mission (picture one has our visions goals and plans for the
day next to the board from left to right is Aldair (Albert of
Albertico) juan pablo (pablito) and Miguel (chontaduro) ) was way
awesome! And met sweet people.  And that night we were blessed with a
beautiful sunset behind the skyline, (pic two)  as we went to a lesson
to one of our investigators we taught about patience and after ward
she told us about a food so she goes around her tienda and brings two
full bags of groceries to the counter and just gives us them, and
tells us she is going to fast all day Sunday (she is needing her
business to be successful) and attended sacrament meeting! So we felt
bad cause she gave us all this stuff, i took my last dollar of my
monthly lot and gave it to her to buy a cocoanut, so she tells us the
only way they are good is if they have milk in them, (gotta remember
this) so we go and none of them have milk O.o soo we are like well now
what? So she grabs one, and chucks it on the floor busting the coconut
open revealing a black inner where it went rotten, so she tells us to
start breaking the rest hahaha so we sat there breaking about ten
cocoanuts to find any good ones, there were three which she gave us,
she was laughing at us trying to break cocoanuts on the floor,
especially when one of them couldn't be broken, so we all took turns
throwing them at the ground till it broke she was laughing quite a
bit, so it all ended with high spirits!  and transfer calls that night
too... But i think that has been the only big exciting thing, I'm
getting more confident in Spanish, i want to be fluent by the end of
my mission, it is one of my many visions for the mission, after all
the mission is a Microcosm of my life (i know big word right?)

I love yall!
Stay classy
I have less than ten months :(
But i still got more than 9! :D

Every day i am reminded about how our Father in Heaven loves and gives
us tender mercies every day, its our choice to recognize them, also my
hidden treasure for yall is in Ether 12:27 (Scripture Mastery?)

Till next week,
Elder Daniel Buffington

Ps

THANK YOU ALL FOR EVERYTHING, MY BIRTHDAY WAS THE BEST EVER!! MY LOVE
IS ALWAYS HEADING TO YALL, REMEMBER THAT!


<3<3<3<3<3<3<3