Monday, February 10, 2014

Email, Monday, February 10, 2014

Dearest family and friends,

      Hello again from the beautiful New York South Mission, mainly
the area of Flushing Queens, I hope and pray that all of you are doing
quite splendid and every day gettin' better! I apologize for the lack
of letters and emails, I normally can't think of anything to write,
and I apologize for the short letter today, who knows it might be a
long one.
      First order of business is to say Happy Chinese New Year!! My
entire zone participated in the parade (I learned it is parada in
Spanish :) and also hielo is ice :D which there is a lot of here) and
I was the head of the Chinese lion, so much fun, and now I understand
why Chinese people have massive shoulders! But it was soo much fun,
and I got to pass out these red envelops with LDS flyers in them, and
a piece of candy :) they go NUTZ for them, so we feel like
celebrity's, :)
      Second, Happy Valentine's Day in advance, I want to give a huge
shout out to my "girl-waiting-for-me-at-home" she has done sooooo much
for me and I love her soo much! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY MOMMMMM!!! Haha
I love each and ever one of you! And also I want to thank you dad, for
literally everything you have done to me, especially those thing I
didn't enjoy to do at the time, I know how to fix things that are
broken, and how to do missionary work, and I have you to thank for it,
I love you!  Thank you Amber for keeping Mom busy with epic ideas and
for the awesome Road trip, I love and miss y'all, thank you Jeff for
always being there I love and miss your family!  Amy! Thanks for
having me over for a summer! It was a blast, and I love you and your
family so much! Give Annie a scratch for me! And keep the Beautiful
cakes coming! I love looking at them!  Matt! You are such a amazing
example to me, you have taught me so much about being a father, and
always being there for a family, (bet you had a slight thought that I
would mention the sniffing ;) ) I love y'all so much! Scott, my
bestest best buddy in the whole wide world, I love you so much, and
your family, you my dear friend, have a Beautiful Family, and thank
you for all you have done for me, for going into the Army, for being
my big brother, for protecting me, Sam, I love you and your family so
much, who else could I easily listen to country music with while
eating sunflower seeds, haha you have shown me that no matter what you
can make it through any trial, when you have a amazing family like you
do, and also when you put The Lord in your life, and also when you
know how to shoot ;)  Jonathan! Or should I say Jonny English? Haha I
love you so much! For being the pioneer to serve The Lord like I am
now, just south of me, that helped hundreds, no millions of not just
lives but ETERNITIES! I thank you for that, I love everything you and
your family has done for me! Benjamin! My last companion, Elder
Heywood reminded me of you so much, blonde hair blue eyes, and the
Butt chin! Yours is much more grand tho, haha thank you for serving a
mission, you helped our family become untied! And Jaz, I love you too,
thanks for the support you have shown, and you better not have a
boyfriend and when you do when your 18 or so, I have to approve, and
so does the rest of your brothers. :)
      I have been doing a lot of studying on the life and gospel of
our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and something I have been
learning slowly, is the unconditional love that He has for every
person, every one of us.  To think that he bled, suffered, and died
for me, I can't comprehend the infinite-ness of it, and I doubt I will
ever truly know, this Valentin's Day, I want to try harder to love my
neighbor, like myself, which is super hard to think about, but it is
possible to do when you are a missionary here in NY, you couldn't
really do it if you weren't a missionary here. I love each and every
one of you, I pray for you all, I see by notifications from Mom that
my prayers are being answered and that you all are being blessed!
Which makes me soooooooooooooo happy!
      Story Time! Well, more like cool things,
-okay number one, there is something my companion and I are doing,
that is gonna be big, and I will involve Facebook, but that is all I
can say for the moment on that one,
-number two, I am finally seeing the "reapings of my hard work" on
Facebook, I have a good chance of teaching a high school friend about
the church on Skype this week! So wayyyyy cool
-number three, I love the pictures and testimonies! I hope to use them all!
-number four, and weird fact of the day, you automatically feel so
much better, the farther you are away from Flushing, hahaha soooooo
many Chinos! And the smell is ummm interesting to say the least, but
there are some cool shops here, but we are going to green point where
there is supposedly more cool shops, so yay!!
-number five, I never knew how fun it is learning another language, I
LOVE Spanish people, food, culture, and the Language, it is incredible
how awesome these good people are! But some have sass, and they all
are supper touchy, and will get offended easily, so we all have to be
nice... Bust still amazing people,
-number six, so we are teaching another young man, his name is
Guillermo (William in English) and he is 14, and is progressing well,
I taught him once before on a exchange, so when he found out I would
be teaching him now he was thrilled saying Elder Parkour is here now
haha xD

I love flushing so much, I never want to leave here, I hope I can stay
for a while, missionaries will be staying in there area for as little
As six months, so I have at lease another transfer or two, and I hope
I don't get transferred to Long Island, cause I don't want a car, I
love the city too much, and the island is too lazy driving everywhere
hahahaha!

Well that is all for now, I am deeply surprised at the length of this,
I hope y'all have a amazing valentines day!
I love you all!

Your "Brother in the Field"
Elder Buffington

Ps. How is the Mutant? I miss it :) I love y'all so much!