Being Brave

Feb. 24, 2014
Hello Family!

I hope that things are still going well back there in the states! Here in the Philippines it's still hot as ever and rainy as ever and generally Filipino as ever, but I suppose that's to be expected. :-)

Time keeps flying faster than I can even realize, and every day is a new adventure still. I'm just trying to savor as much of it as I can while I still have this precious time to serve with all of my efforts in the name of my Lord and Savior.

Our work here in Hinoba-an has continued to progress and we are starting to come close to reaping the fruits of our efforts.

One very inspiring group of investigators to me have been a group of four girls that I have been teaching since the middle of January. When I first met these four girls, all ranging in age from 13-16 years, they were all about how I would describe regular Filipina teenage girls: Very shy, a little attention deficit, and very distracted whenever there is a white man in a shirt and tie trying to teach about the deeper things of life. But the change I have seen in these girls has been nothing short of miraculous.


The one girl that we would always focus on, J, is the "leader" of this small band of girls. Each of them have some kind of hard situation at their own respective homes, such as loss of parents, hard family situation etc., and she would always be listening intently to us and had lots of good questions after we would teach. She even learned how to pray before we even taught them about it by sitting in on another one of our lessons at another home, and then taught all of her friends how to pray.

One of the pivotal times was when they shared with us how they have been experiencing a great deal of general persecution because of their listening to us (people making fun of them and their other friends trying to convince them to not listen to us). We told them to simply find out if this was the truth, and then be willing to do whatever it takes to follow through with it. The next time we followed up with them J talked about how she had prayed and she had felt a super strong feeling of peace and comfort, and how all of the heaviness she had been bearing was just lifted off and she felt light and free, and she was more sure than anything that what we were teaching was true and it seemed like the rest of the group of girls seemed to have had similar experiences (to varying degrees).

Now all four of these girls (with a fifth now starting to listen joined in) are absorbing everything we teach them, and are reading with each other from the pamphlets and the Book of Mormon and supporting each other and have become mature, intelligent, and very impressive young women. The other day they shared with us  about how after they started learning from us their lives have changed and they now feel empowered where before they felt timid and shy. Just another miracle of the power of the gospel in the lives of others that I get the privilege of witnessing.

They have almost all been given permission from their parents (which is our next step hopefully in our teaching of their parents as well) to be baptized and I hope to be sending some baptismal photos soon.

I attached some photos that I've been procrastinating to send.
The picture with the older lady is a member in our branch who has the funniest wry humor I've ever heard, and her stature and demeanor just makes it all the better. I think she is going on 80 years old and probably less than half my size.
The rest are just scenic ones of Hinoba-an. It's absolutely beautiful here.

I love you all!

~Elder Butler