Hastening the Work

April 21st, 2014

Hello Family!

What a full week this has been for me! It feels like a lot has happened and there is so much potential coming out from our area that it's almost hard to keep track of it all!

In the main news, I would like to talk about the two baptisms we had this Saturday, in which both of the candidates have had quite the experience in their journey to the true church.

The first I'd like to talk about is Sister G, a mother of two of our recent converts who I have been working with since I first arrived in the area. I remember at first, when we were teaching her children, she would not want to be a part of the lessons and would often go some place else or find some chore to do in order to get out of talking with us, which she even mentioned in her testimony after her baptism, and it appeared as if there was little chance that we could make any progress with her.

Then one night when we came by to visit we caught the whole family at home and in one place inside the house, and of course seeing the opportunity and before they could scatter we invited them to all listen to a short message and Sister G agreed to stay and listen.

We taught what I felt was a very powerful lesson, with the Spirit really helping us along to say what she needed to hear, and from that time the mom would always stop what ever she was doing and listen to us whenever we came by and taught.

Granted after that it was not a straight road heading up to her baptism, with confusion having other preachers come and talk to her and feeling persecution from her neighborhood because she was now listening to us, and every week when Sunday came around there was always something that would get in her way to coming to church, be it fear, sick/cranky child, unexpected work load (she does laundry by hand for other people for her work), and so on.

Finally, as she related in her testimony at her baptism, she felt so confused and lost that she just wanted to know what was true, and after a lesson where we brought her sister with us who was a very strong member and bore a very powerful and sincere testimony and told her to pray to know, she prayed and told Heavenly Father that she wanted to know, and that she was going to go to church and hope that there she would feel an answer.

That following Sunday she finally came to church for the first time, after having taught her consistently for almost three months, and after church when we visited her she said that she just felt light and free, no worries and just happy, and she committed to be baptized and went to church every week since.

We are now working on teaching her older sons who have recently become more interested since their mothers conversion.

For me, it's the investigators that take more effort to help them come into the church that give me the most joy, because when they finally make it you know that they are rooted in the right place and have a bright future ahead of them after the dark night they had to endure to make it to the other side with the light.

The other investigator that was baptized was another sister. She actually was a very unexpected blessing that we were not expecting at all.

Elder Baird and I found her back in February from a member who said that her family had been taught before. Having faith in the converting power of the gospel we taught her and within a few weeks she actually came to church!
Her family was taught by missionaries before, and her mom (who we are teaching now) wanted to join the church, but their father was (and still is) a huge obstacle, so they never were able to be baptized then.

When we first starting teaching her she was very receptive, but we were never able to teach her often because she would always be out and about and switching between her family house and it was hard to catch her at the right place at the right time. But we were able to teach her a lesson at some point from Alma 32, about recognizing an answer through the Book of Mormon, which she accepted like our other lessons but we didn't feel like it was a huge break through, and after that there was a pretty large space of time where we were unable to teach her.

She had only been to church once and hadn't come since, so she kind of fell off our focus list, having a lot of people to keep up with. But we were able to come back to her about 2 and a half week later and she shared with us how she had this really personal experience, involving plants that she was trying to grow herself, and everything just clicked and she understood it and said that she feels that it all is true.

We were pretty taken aback at the sudden change, and we also noticed how she was starting to be and look a lot more feminine, but she said that she was leaving soon to Manila to work again since her family is really struggling financially, so we gave her a personal copy of the Book of Mormon and told her to find the missionaries in Manila.

The following Sunday (which was general conference) she came and attended all the sessions. Afterwards she told us that she really wanted to be baptized, which is a great thing to hear as a missionary, so we took her aside in a classroom and had a quick lesson about the Law of Chastity and told her that she would need to be interviewed by President Lopez, who miraculously was going to be coming down that following Saturday (and since our zone is so far from Bacolod it's very occasionally that he comes down), and that we couldn't make any promises, but we would visit her every day until the interview to make sure she knew all the doctrine and lessons.

She soaked up everything and on Saturday 2 PM she was interviewed, and 2:30 PM she was baptized.

In short, I believe that it is a complete miracle and such a blessing to see the gospel work such a great change in this wonderful, sincere woman and daughter of God, and I know that she has only just begun a much greater journey.

I just love being able to be a missionary at times like these.

I wish I could write more about the baptism, which was very spiritual, being combined with the other elders in the newly created branch near by, but this is getting a little too long.

The work is moving so fast and the progress is truly miraculous. I get to see a miracle happen everyday as I get to be a part of the hastening of the work here in Hinobaan. We're getting close to opening up a new branch, and starting the processes for opening up another one in the further south part of our area.

The Church is true and it's growing!

It sounds like the flu took a pot shot at everyone this week :) I couldn't help chuckling at the image of that night everyone got sick simultaneously. Memories.

I love you all!

~Elder Butler