Nov 11, 2012

Elder Buhler has sent me a couple of letters in the past two weeks so I thought that I'd share a part of each of them with you.  This first one is entertaining and came sometime around Halloween.

 

The second was too hard to take a picture of so I'll type it for you.  It is a testimony of how quickly the announcement by President Monson that our young men will be able to begin serving their missions at the age of 18 and that our young women will be able to begin serving at age 19 is effecting the individual missions:

"Yesterday was our zone conference.  The missionaries from the Lilburn and the Conyers stakes met together.  We had some good talks.
President Wolfert talked about have we all have so many opportunities to share the gospel with the election and the Book of Mormon play going on.
He also talked about how the mission is going to have 80-100 new missionaries,  half of those missionaries are going to be sisters.
We also had training on relying on the Spirit more so that we can discern our investigator's needs better as well as asking more inspired questions. Questions that give our investigators more time to think and feel that they are important, because they are."

Picture by Christa Cox

 Elder Buhler sends only a few photos with no captions or explains I'm not sure of his companion's names.  I know this pictures is not in focus but it's all I have.











I believe that the missionary furthest from him, on the right, is his new companion, Elder Loader.

 The trees are starting to change colors.  The days are still warm in Georgia, in the 70's when it's sunny

Georgia sunrise? sunset?  Probably sunset

The picture with the candy canes was part of the set where Vampire Diaries was being filmed.  Elder Buhler just happened to be tracking in that area one day.
























It's nice to see the Elder Buhler still has his sense of humor on his preparation days.

Picture of the Covington area.

November 11th E-mail to family: (slightly edited)
Hello,
The days are getting closer and closer to the end. Georgia is a republican state so their are a lot of people concerned about the out come of the election.

I cant believe that it snowed there(Utah) already. It is still 70 degrees here during the day. So its been pretty nice. Except when it rains. I have been staying busy, always trying to find new investigators. I have some pretty crazy stories.

picture by Christa Cox

The first one is about Patrcia Sweeney. She has a bap. date for the 17th.  Last Saturday she called us and told us that she thought that she was rushing into baptism and wanted to hold off a little bit. Then about 15 min later we got a call from Pres. Wolfert (mission preisdent), he said, " I'm calling right now in regards to Sis. Sweeney.  How has she been doing?" I then said that's a good question, she is starting to get cold feet. He than said, "I Know".  Ha-ha. coincidence? But the next day we met with her and told her that sometimes we get as far as we are going to get then we need to take a leap of faith. We told her some other things, then she recommitted to the 17th. So this will be my first baptism! Yea!

The next story is about one day we were tracking and we knocked on this door that said no soliciting. A lady answered the door and started talking to us though the glass door. Then her husband walked up to the door... He started yelling at us and telling us that we were soliciting, and to go away. He walked away and we finished talking to his wife, left her with a mormon.org card. Because we wanted to just get out of there. So we kept on tracking for another hour.  We were walking back to the car, when the same lady walked out and told us to stop. We thought she was going to yell at us again but we walked over there, and she told us that she checked out the website and wanted to learn more about the church. Her name is Jacklynn. We ended up teaching her, her husband Anthony and their son. They told us that they have some friends back in Utah and Louisiana that were Mormon and that they were great people and they were looking for a new church so they were going to give the Mormon's a shot. They are pretty Elect.

Well that's all that I can remember right now. Oh yeah, Elder Loader backed into a mail box. Ha ha. Well I love you all and hope that you all are doing well. Thanks for all that you do for me. I keep you in my prayers as well.

22 Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance.
Dont forget to read your scriptures!

Love Elder Kyle Buhler

Picture by Christa Cox

Remember Elder Buhler and Patricia Sweeney in your prayers.

October 15th 2012

 Part of an email from Elder Buhler last Monday:

It has been very busy for me and I have been learning a lot. So I told you last week that my trainer Elder Miller was transferred out of Covington, and he is now the zone leader in Athens. This was a surprise because he was supposed to train me for another 6 weeks. So now I have a new companion Elder Loader. He is pretty cool too. He is from Redding, California.  I don't have any pictures yet. I'm terrible with carrying my camera around.  I have been the leader this past week showing Elder Loader around Covington.  I have been planning our days out by myself which was tough at first but now I got the hang of it.  I really wasn't sure how to get to some places so we have gotten lost a couple of times. ha ha.   The first day of the transfer went pretty good but I felt like a lot of appointments fell through.  After Wednesday was over I planned out the next day.  The way I thought would be good.
    
   Before bed I prayed and asked Heavenly Father if he could make it a little bit easier for me, maybe some comfort that everything would be okay. So the next day I decided that we should bike to one of our investigators house. While we were biking I got a little lost and but I decided to bike in that neighborhood any way. We contacted a couple of people but nothing to good. So we continued on to the investigators house.  We got to our investigators neighborhood and as we were about to turn into her neighborhood, a lady yelled out to us and told us to stop. We waited for her to put her dogs in her house that were having a bathroom break.  She told us that she was a Jehovah's Witness, so we thought oh great she wants to bash.  She said she has been inactive in that church for a couple of months because she couldn't feel the spirit and she has been going around different churches trying to figure out which one was right. She told us that while she was taking her dogs out she was praying to heavenly father which church is right. Then about 30 sec. after she was done praying we pulled around the corner. She told us that she thought we were the answers to her prayers.... We then taught her the first lesson and she loved it and said that she could feel the spirit. She went to church with us last Sunday and she told us she loved it hearing the testimonies of other people. It just all worked out perfectly. She was the answer to my prayer as well. From that point on it has been much easier for me to be the leader.
  
    I also invited another investigator to be baptized her name is Wanda Morris, and she agreed to work toward November 3. So now we have 5 investigators with bap. dates. Her, Susan Jacobs Nov. 7, Chris Womack Nov. 7, Tommy Anderson Oct. 27, and Georgia. And we will have a date set for Pat Sweeny on Wednesday, the lady that called out to us.

October 1st

 Elder Buhler sent some pictures today but didn't explain any of them.  I thought that I'd post them and let you try to figure out what they're about with me.

This picture was probably taken while he was still at the MTC.  It looks like they are pointing to Georgia on the map.  They are showing us where they are heading to serve for two years.

This also looks like they are still in Utah,  probably outside the MTC.  We can guess this was taken the day before the group was to head to the SLC, UT airport.

When Elder Buhler first arrived in Atlanta Georgia, he was in a foursome.  There were not enough apartments for all the missionary companions to have separate apartments so they doubled up.  This could be a picture of that first group.

This looks like pictures of his apartment.  He has recently moved into an apartment with just his senior companion, Elder Miller.  Elder Miller is also a district leader and attends meetings at the mission home.  Elder Buhler goes on splits with the other missionaries on those days.  Whether these pictures are of his first apartment or where he is settled now,  you guess.

I

 I'm not sure why pictures of old buildings and pulling them down are important unless this was one of the service projects that he participated in.

Some pictures from Georgia that Elder Buhler would like to share.

Sun sets on Georgia

 

 

 

Self portraits are always interesting.

Elder Buhler has been busy teaching several different people the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He has challenged a mother and her daughter to be baptized.  He has shared his message with a preacher that he was helping in a service project.  He seemed to take the message well and like the missionaries. In Elder Buhler's own words, "That would be crazy to be able to baptize a preacher!!"

Always start a day of hard work with a hardy breakfast!

 Remember Elder Buhler and the good people of Georgia in your prayers.

Always start your day of hard work with a healthy breakfast!

 

Elder Buhler arrives in Georgia

 Elder Buhler leaves the MTC

August 28th at 6:00 AM  I received a call from Elder Buhler.  He was allowed to call form the SLC airport.  Of coarse he only had ten minutes before his flight left but it was good to hear his voice.  He told me that he was feeling well and was excited to get to Georgia and start preaching the gospel.

The state flag of Georgia.

I have this flag hanging in Elder Buhler's bedroom window.  A reminder of where his is serving.

  A map of the state of Georgia that is hanging in Elder Buhlers

old bedroom. The highest tack is where her spent his first night

and further south is the city of Covington. This is his first assign-

area.  He is staying in an apartment with his senior companion

Elder Miller and two other Elders.  In this area, the missionaries

use both bikes and cars to get around.

This is a map that Elder sent of the area of Georgia that his mission covers. He will be serving in the southern part of his mission.

Elder Buhler with the mission president and his wife

This is a picture of the seven new elders and two sisters that flew out to Georgia together from the MTC with the mission president and his wife in front of the mission home.

New missionaries are called "Greenies".  Yesterday I prepared a special package for Elder Buhler.  I hope he and his companions enjoy this fun treat when it arrives.

The "greenie" package.

Here is Elder Buhler's mission home address if anyone wants to sent him a letter and say, "hello".