Stay in the Light

Hello Family!

This week has been a bit of a refiners fire for me to say the least, but it has also been teaching me a lot about the power of prayer and the need for Christ-like attributes if we are to make it back to our Heavenly Father and to be truly happy in this life.

I'll start by giving an update about the family of the former branch president that went less active and then had the experience of coming in contact with not so friendly influences from the other side of the veil. In good news, they've started coming back to church these last two weeks and the wife was able to resolve some of her concerns about why they had stopped in the first place. In not so good news, things hadn't gotten much better at their home. They said that they had been experiencing strange things in their home and their 18 year old son has been acting out in a very extreme way, doing things as if he were under a bad influence (throwing scriptures into a pond, talking about Satan a lot, and doing and saying very very hurtful things to his parents). I don't want to dwell on all the bad things, but I just wanted to share what I felt while visiting this family and doing our best to help them.

The main thing that I thought of was how it is so much better to have never left the light in the first place than it is to have to pay the price to come back. I know that through Christ all things are possible and forgiveness is always available, but that doesn't change all of the harm that you could have prevented by simply just continuing forward instead of letting pride pull you off the path and have to pay the price to get back on to the path and keep moving forward.

Things will now start to improve, and when you gain faith again you always have a new hope, even when the path to return may have some recompense to be had. But in the end the promise of complete forgiveness still stands for all those who submit themselves fully to the Fathers will.

That's all I have for today,

I love you all!

~Elder Butler