Zooming with Super Bowl champ coach!

hi friends and family! it has been a great couple of weeks since I wrote last so this email might be a long one. 

Elder Buckwalter's roommates / fellow missionaries in his Las Vegas apartment and district

A few Wednesdays ago, we had a mission wide devotional over Zoom with Chad Lewis who played football at BYU and later in the NFL! Chad's nephew is currently serving in our mission and he's one of the president's assistants so that's kinda how that happened.  Chad told us his life story including a miracle of fasting and prayer for his dad to recover from a stroke or something like that right before he left on his mission.  He talked about the stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon being firm and undaunted and he told us he used to write those 2 words on his football cleats. Definitely 2 great words to live by. 

As if Chad Lewis wasn't good enough, this past Wednesday, we heard from Andy Reid and his wife!! He is the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs and they literally won the Super Bowl last season!! President Reese, my mission president, casually told us that they are good friends. Needless to say I was freaking out and will try to include a screenshot of the Zoom call, haha. He has 4 things that he and his team live by which he shared with us:

• eliminate distractions
• fear nothing
• attack everything, and 
• bring the energy

I love that so much. Eliminating distractions is all I did leading up to the mission!! haha. 

This past Tuesday we did a service project with Salvation Army and let me tell you about this tender mercy. They had a huge speaker and were playing oldies like "Sweet child o mine", Journey's "Faithfully", etc., Wow, talk about #blessed. About 30-40 missionaries with some other volunteers there were able to fill about 1000 boxes with nonperishable foods so that's awesome. It was a good time. 

Some ladies volunteering with us asked if they could just call me "Checkers"...

My mom send me this checkered mask...

Many other great experiences these past couple weeks, but I'll end it there. Love you guys. I'll include some pics too. Some of them are way funny. Look for the panaroma of me with like 6 legs and my arm randomly floating in the air. 

From,

Elder Buckwalter (or Elder WaterBottle as the Tongan sister in my zone calls me...she's still working on her English)

Repping BYU Hawaii -- corona bowl look ;)

what's stranger: snow stickers or this short tie?

Sports, the Park and Gospel Singin'

Nick's district play a lot of basketball right now; luckily, it's his favorite sport! Ballers!

They also expend some energy at the park, as they're told to stay active where and when they can.

They sing hymns, read scriptures, listen to General Conference talks, study...

Singing buddy, Elder Clark of American Fork (loving them some hymns)

And they are calling and zoom meeting with their local congregation as well as friends of ours (and our Herriman congregation) to practice teaching. We are hearing AWESOME feedback from these friends of how much they enjoy these video discussions. Go, Elders!

Man in the Mirror

Elder Buck's letter 5/4/2020

Good mornin' everybody! Yes, I am alive, I know I haven't written in a while. I am still here in the great Las Vegas where its starting to heat up. This past week was in the 90s. I mentioned to some other missionaries that I, like many other normal human beings, don't like sweating or exercising when I don't neccesarily have to and now they are all just giving me a hard time about it ha-ha. 

Yesterday was actually my companion's birthday. To celebrate we had some delicious ribs made by our zone leaders. The combination of ribs just being amazing in the first place and all of my hunger built up from Fast Sunday made out for a remarkable meal which I decompressed from with a steaming bath. 

{The Elders have been asked to clean the chapels, so this is how they make it fun}

And yes I am at 2 months. I entered the MTC on March 4th. It's been a wild ride and I'm constantly reminded that life just isn't easy. I recently heard this though. "Christ isn't the light at the end of the tunnel, he is the light by your side in the dark tunnel."  I read 2 Nephi 25:29 last night and it says, "the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul". I absolutely love that verse and The Book of Mormon as a whole as well. I plead with each of you (member, nonmember, inactive, whatever the case may be) to do whatever it takes to read the Book of Mormon on a weekly, even daily basis. 

Gonna include a few pics as well. Love y'all.

Elder Buckwalter