Hello Family!
First off I just want you all to know how much I love and appreciate everyone of you and I know that I am being sustained by your collective faith and prayers on my behalf. I feel very much as Ammon did when he said, "Yea I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God (and the faith of my Family), for in his strength I can do ALL things..." (Alma 26:12). Thank you so much for all of you being who you are and your great examples to me that pick me up when I need it.
In response to Grandma Butler's query, the way that I deal with the mosquitoes is well... just dealing with it. I try to use the bug spray when I can remember and I occasionally spray my bed/sheets with the cedar wood smelling bug spray when I feel more eaten than usual, but it's pretty hard to avoid bugs whilst in the land of the Philippines.
I also am able to keep my shirts white by soaking them the night before in a combination of bleach and oxalic (basically an oxidizer/bleach thing here like oxy clean but more concentrated I think). It makes them white and gets rid of almost any stain. Any other stain you can spot shot with bleach after soaking and scrub it out.
In addition, remembering something from a while ago I think that I read in G-ma's email. This is for G-papa (grandpa Butler), I would be VERY interested to read your story. :) I'd probably pay good money in fact. Just saying. And I think the rest of the Butler grand kids would agree with me on that.
Now to the happenings of this week!
Despite not being able to work in our area for a good portion of the week due to travel/meetings/trainings, we were able to see some great progress in our area in terms of the branches relationship with us and also in several investigators that we have been working with.
One fun story in particular happened during our sacrament meeting yesterday. Elder Baird and I were assigned to speak in sacrament meeting and were up on the stand, and I noticed that one of our investigators came up and sat on the stand just before the sacrament meeting started. I didn't think much of it, since this was her third time at church and she was progressing very well towards her baptismal date on Feb 22. I didn't feel to tell here that it might be better if she sat in the audience, thinking we'd just cover it later in her lesson.
Later during the meeting, and to my great surprise, after my companion had just given his talk (he being first on the program) our investigator got up very quickly and walked to the podium and announced that she wanted to share her testimony.
After signaling to the branch president and the others in the congregation from the stand that everything was OK and not to react, this Sister shared a very interesting testimony, including her brief "life story" among other things, and for an investigator she did quite well. She then thanked everyone for listening and promptly sat down. I then got up and continued to give my talk as if nothing happened and everything continued as normal for the rest of the meeting.
I figured that since last week was fast and testimony that she probably thought that we did things like that every week. We explained to her very gently after church a little more clearly about that and she didn't seem too embarrassed about it.
I'm thinking she'll make a great gospel principles teacher once we get her baptized. :)
A quick update about the golden contact I had last week: We went on splits so it was just some members and I that went to them yesterday and they were still as golden as ever.
As soon as I sat down with the husband he immediately fired off every question I thought was possible about church organization, excommunication, qualification for members, even getting into tithing where amazingly he already knew it was an ancient commandment from the Old Testament AND he even knew it was 10% and that we needed to pay it. He didn't like how he saw all of the other churches just getting rich with having a paid clergy so he said he just gave 10% to those who he saw were in need/donated to charity. I was able to answer his questions satisfactorily, and before he could run off another round I asked if we could share real quick so to try and avoid a repeat of last week where we almost were stranded.
His wife then came in and sat down, and immediately after the opening prayer she fired off a lot of questions about the restoration and very good questions based out of the Bible. This couple is probably the most well read and understanding couple of the Bible I have ever met outside of the restored church.
She then expressed how she just wanted to understand everything from the beginning. To which I smiled (having been wanting for a chance like this my whole mission) and gave the most detailed lesson about dispensations I have ever given to an investigator, starting from Adam down to Moses and the law down the line of succession with the Apostles. They soaked in every word (this time 100% Ilonggo since I think they missed a few things last time when I used some English) and at the end I offered the most convincing testimony I could muster about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. To which they committed to baptism and to come to church this coming Sunday.
I am out of time (this is a long one)
I love you all!
~Elder Butler
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