Success is in the Invitation

December 30^th, 2013
Hello and Happy almost New Year!

The Philippines have been getting ready for the New Year by lighting off their preparatory fireworks which are made for the sole purpose of making lots and lots of noise. For both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s night we have been instructed to keep a strict curfew of 5 p.m. and not leave the apartment at night since there tend to be a lot of injuries that happen here due to people getting a little too enthusiastic with the amount of powder they put in their often home-made explosives. :) Wish us luck sleeping these next few nights.

I was so grateful that I was able to video call you all back home. I'll have to try and be more prepared for next time and hopefully I'll have something good to say. I'll also have to remember to tell you to come with questions prepared since I have the hardest time thinking about what to talk about or what you want to know. I am also very grateful I was able to share my testimony, albeit on the second try, and share a little bit of what I feel and how much I love you all. I have a hard time expressing my personal feelings sometimes in person and I hope I'll be better next time, but I'm sure you got the message.

This Christmas week was fairly successful for us in the work. We were unable to hit all of our goals, granted we set them pretty high so we could stretch, but I am finally starting to feel like we are making some real progress with the members and with finding whole families to teach.

One blessing this week has been a family that we having been teaching for the last week and a half or so where the wife is house help for one of our very active members who is the Stake Primary President. She asked the parents if it was OK if she brought the kids in the family to church. That is where we met them and asked if we could also teach the parents, to which the parents agreed. Since then they have been progressing every single visit and are preparing to be baptized at the end of January.

One of the interesting things I found though was when I asked about what her experience has been with our church before and religion in general.  She said, "I've wanted to go the Mormon church for a long time now, but nobody has invited me until you two did."  I found this fairly surprising since I'm sure she has been surrounded by missionaries coming through and visiting this very active member of the church for which she has worked and hadn't ever had a chance to hear the message herself.

It just built my testimony of how you never know if someone is ready to hear the gospel until you extend the invitation, and sometimes there are people placed right in front of us that are just waiting to be asked. Sister Nene (the mom that works for the member) is such a prepared person and really feels and recognizes the Spirit. She said just last night, "I've learned about Jesus before and I've gone to other churches, but this time it just feels different and I keep getting excited every time I think about being baptized here. I can't describe it, but it's just different from anything else I've felt."

This is the first whole family that I've found and hopefully will be able to baptize so I feel very privileged to have the chance to be a part of their conversion.

I love you all so much!

Keep keeping the faith,

~Elder Butler   

The Best Remedy

Hello and Merry Christmas! Paskwa!

Well the Philippines is all up and about getting ready for Christmas to come. Today was probably the busiest I've seen of just about everything. Long lines and lots of crowds rushing here and there. Still sweating it out since it is still a consistent 80 degrees here (Fahrenheit) and showing no signs of changing any time soon.

A thing they do here that I find funny is that lots of people here go "caroling" at night, especially kids. But when they do caroling it’s more of them chanting some Christmas related poem at you in Tagalog and not leaving you alone until you give them something. (And I thought the "bring us some figgy pudding, we won’t go until we get some" part was a joke... apparently it isn't here...)  So we have been giving out lots of pamphlets and such to the little kids who come by spreading Christmas cheer with their best "you'd be really mean not to give me something" face. :)

In other news, I get to call you all in a few days! I guess we could try the Google hang out again if you want. I will be getting on probably around 10am or 11am on Christmas day here, which will be Christmas Eve for you at home. I can't wait to see all of you again!

We are still working hard to make use of the Christmas spirit and invite as many people as we can to come unto Christ through His restored gospel. I've been studying the writings of the apostle Paul in the New Testament a little and I really feel like I have a friend in Paul. His passion for the work, along with the fire in his heart for the Savior, and also the love that he felt for the early saints before the Church was lost. The scriptures seem to just jump right out off the page for me now more and more, whether I'm reading the Old or New Testaments, The Book of Mormon, or any of the words that Christ has revealed to us.

We've set some pretty high goals in our companionship this week since the best remedy for homesickness is work. So we'll be stretching ourselves and showing our faith by giving everything we have as our gift to Jesus this Christmas. 

I love you all so much! Take care until Christmas!

~Elder Butler

A White Christmas

Hello and a Merry Christmas to you all!

This week has actually a very rewarding week in our area here. We've found many new investigators and we've seen many of them progress so quickly in their faith and testimony in just a few visits. We only have one of our investigators being baptized this Christmas, but after this last week, we are looking at having a very white January and February in place of our hopeful white Christmas.

One group of people we are teaching is a family whose parents have been less active for over 12 years that we found through the ward membership records. The first time we met them was interesting since they live a good 15 minute walk away from the main highway, and the whole time we were looking for them my companion was having some lower bowl problems, to put it delicately, from some bad water that he drank earlier. So that 15 minute walk for him probably seemed a lot longer, especially since we had to ask around a bit to find the house. Once we found the group of houses where their house was suppose to be, my companion was just about to nearly “burst", so he urgently asked one of the neighbors to use one of the bathrooms that was there (which was basically a cinder block out-house, but we're in the Philippines so we can't be picky).

It was at that time, while my companion was otherwise occupied, that I met the mother of the family who came out because we were asking around for her name. I still remember introducing myself and then pointing to the out-house and saying "and this is my companion Elder Ballad...say hello Elder!" to which my companion’s voice sounded from the inside of the out-house and introduced him self very politely.

After my companion had finished, we then talked a little more with the mom, who was a little resistant, but agreed to let us say a quick prayer for them and share a short message.

After we said the prayer we saw her countenance completely change. After we shared about the blessings she and her family could receive from living the gospel again, she told us that we could come back again and reteach them the missionary lessons.
Ever since we've been coming back she and her children have just been soaking up everything we've been teaching and her kids are all preparing for baptism. This Sister is looking so much more at peace. She shares with us that she feels better now that she is coming back to church.

I am just so grateful for the Spirit which led us to them. I know that the Gospel has so much power to change hearts and to give peace, which nothing else is able to give.

I can't really think of much else to say--there are more stories from some other families that we have had success with, but all of them would take a long time to write, so I'll save them for next time.

I love you all!

~Elder Butler 

Just Ask

Hello and maayong aga sa inyo tanan! 
 
During a lesson this week that we had with a member of the church and his nonmember family members, I could see that they were just willing to listen, but had no desire whatsoever to actually know if what we said was true and it made me a little sad. And I felt the Spirit teach me a lesson as I also shared with them about the principle of asking our Heavenly Father and His willingness to give us what we want.

How many times does it say in the scriptures that if we ask we receive, seek and we'll find, knock and it will be opened? And in what I realized in teaching it, it doesn't say you "can" ask, or "if you want to" you can knock, instead it is put in a way that it becomes a command, not optional, and if we want to receive something, we must seek it first.

These family members of the member we were visiting were good people, they had good hearts and the light of Christ, but they had no desire to ask, seek, or find. They are content. And even though the gospel may be sounded in their ears, they will never see or hear it unless they want to see or hear.

So it just taught me about how important it is for me, that I never become "content" with what I know or the light I have received. I am far from having perfect knowledge and far from celestial glory still, but I can never receive it unless I am constantly seeking it, and I will only receive it line upon line and in the amount that I can handle now. Enduring doesn't mean just continuing, it means growing!
 
I love you all and have a very merry month of December!

~Elder Butler    

Thankful All the Time

First picture is another cool sky/view of the tubo (sugar cane) fields in one of our outside areas. Man I love being back in the country. :)

And as my mission president would say, Aloha! :) 

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I'll admit that I didn't know it was thanksgiving day until one of the mission couples texted us wishing us Happy Thanksgiving, and since Thanksgiving is an exclusively American holiday, I actually was not able to get stuffed with turkey this year and fall into my annual turkey coma.

Faith, Hope & Leadings of the Spirit

Greetings from Kabankalan City!

I hope all is well back in the states, and that you are enjoying the winter cold setting in. While I on the other hand am still over here sweating it out in the Philippines. Who would have thought that I would be sweating my way through Christmas?

This week has been a great week with some good progress in our work, finding many new investigators and feeling the guidance of the Spirit. I have been able to grow my faith a lot more by simply trusting that things will work out in the end as long as I continually have hope and keep working.

One cool experience this week was where

My Heart is Aching

Wow. I mean wow. My heart aches every time I see any pictures or video footage from the island of Lete. Not to mention how those missionaries must be feeling right now having their entire mission just swept off the map. I've actually lost a little sleep a few nights just thinking about it. I don't know what I would do if I wasn't able to come back to Bacolod after something like that happened there.
 

We received an announcement that we will be receiving some of the missionaries from Tacloban that have been reassigned to our mission, so we hope that they can find a home here in Bacolod and move on somewhat from what they experienced.

All is Well in Kabankalan City

Hello everyone!

So to relieve the tension (though I know that my mission president already announced this on faceboook) our mission is ok and we are all in one piece! No injuries and all happy! :)
 
Just some wind and rain and a little more wind and a little more rain. We never experienced the eye wall I think so there was very minimal damage that happened in my area, except maybe a very little in the poorer areas where their houses are open bamboo huts, but that wasn't too surprising.

A Beautiful Blessing Story

I promised this story last week so here it goes.

So some background first. Sister Clarita (or "Lola" which basically means grandma here) is 84 years old, grew up in Bacolod and is a devout Catholic. Her husband died several years ago and she never had any children. She has been living with a member family for a year and has been actually going to church for a long time, with most of the members thinking she was already a member.  But upon further inquiry we found out she wasn't and asked her if she would be taught and she agreed.
Another thing to add is that Clarita is very deaf, not completely though, but enough to where we were almost "shouting" the whole lesson at her. She was fine with being taught, but 84 years of Catholicism it pretty hard to change, and she had a hard time grasping a lot of the concepts, especially about needing to be baptized "again".

So now comes the blessing story. One day we came by to teach her again, and she was not in a very good state with her body. Everything hurt, and she said that she was unable to rest all the night before and that her head was in significant pain constantly. I remember very vividly as she told us with tears how it was almost too much for her to bear, and that she was praying to the Lord to just take her right then and just end the pain. We taught her then about the part in 3 Nephi where Jesus healed the sick and afflicted, and told them that it was because their faith was sufficient. Now Lola's faith in Jesus Christ, all be it based in what she grew up in, was very apparent and strong.  So we offered to give her a Priesthood blessing, and added that the Priesthood that we held was an evidence of the truth of the restored gospel.

So we sat her in a chair and my companion performed the anointing and I gave the blessing. I was at first a little worried, since I knew that the chance that Lola would be able to hear the blessing was small, due to her hardness of hearing, but I felt the Spirit direct my words as I gave that blessing in Ilonggo, and I remember adding something along the lines of "your time hasn't come yet, your work isn't finished..." and other things, and as I closed I knew that somehow she understood what I had said.

After the blessing she grabbed both mine and my companion's hands and with tears of gratitude thanked us for what we had done. She said the pain in her head was gone, and she was so happy and looked so much more at peace. She then said that she knew we were sent from God and that she wanted to be baptized in our church as soon as possible. I knew that as she was looking at us with such great love and gratitude that it wasn't really for me, but she was looking at Jesus Christ, and recognized the power that we held.

She is going to be baptized this Saturday, and even though her health is still in decline and she has a harder and harder time understanding the concepts, every time we teach her she says "So when am I getting baptized? Soon?" Even though I haven't known her for very long, I truly love that woman, and I know that she loves us. Just another time where I have felt the honor of being able to stand in Christ's place and show His love to others.

And that is all for today! I love you all! About the baptism photos, I sometimes perform the baptisms for the Sisters, and there was a big stake baptism where our whole zone had their candidates baptized right before stake conference. I am also kept very busy doing interviews for our district here. I think if I were to estimate, I've probably personally interviewed somewhere around 30 candidates since I've arrived here.
I hope you are all well!

~Elder Butler

Consider the Lilies of the Field--The Lord Provides

(Letter from February 23, 2013--One of our favorite experiences!!~K)

One of the days this week I was reading in the Book of Mormon in third Nephi when Jesus visits the people and teaches the beatitudes and such. As I read about how the Lord will provide for all of our needs as long as we do our part and have faith I initially thought about the people here and how, for many of them, if they don't work on Sunday then they don't eat on Sunday.

As missionaries we are asking them to keep all of Gods commandments including keeping the Sabbath Day holy. And for me I would sometimes hesitate within myself, because I know these people's situation and I know what it means for them to not work on Sunday and instead attend church.

But it is a promise of the Lord, and the Lord knows that we need physical things as well as spiritual things, and if we put our priorities in the right place and show our faith in the Lord he will make sure that we are taken care of. He takes care of the birds and clothes the lilies of the field in raiment that is more impressive than Solomon's temple.