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