High on a Mountain Top

The first two photos are the meeting house, next is one of the other towns about an hour walk from Colonia Divina, and basically looks like all the rest of my area (minus the houses... people are pretty spread out here), and last is how you grow rice in the mountains, pretty cool right?    

Hello Family!

Well first I'll start by saying that I was transferred this week, and as all transfers are here this one was announced with very short notice, but transfer day was coming and I was partially expecting it since I've been in the area for some time and I know that President doesn't usually keep zone leaders for very long.

I did have enough time though to let some of the members and recent converts know before I left. I will miss many of the members in that branch and I know that there are many more good things to come for them and much growth that will take place in the coming years.

[Here Brooks is responding to my letter asking about how the sister was doing that he mentioned last week...]
It was bitter sweet saying goodbye, but that's how the mission goes and how this church operates and I know that she will be strong until the very end with the faith that she has.
It is such a blessing that she was able to leave her awful situation. She looked the happiest I had ever seen her and so free of a burden she had been bearing for years. It was the gospel that gave her the faith and courage to be strong enough to finally do what she needed to do and free herself. She and her children will always have a place in my heart and I look forward to the day where we can meet again at Jesus feet.

But the mission moves on and now I need to explain why I am writing this at night and not earlier this morning.

There is a lot to say, but I'll have to summarize so bare with me.

My new area is in the Sagay Zone (the exact opposite side of our mission) and is called Colonia Davina (or Divine Colony in English) and is hands down the furthest and most isolated/rural area in the mission. To my understanding if you zoom in on Google maps all you see are clouds. And as the title of my email suggests it is quite literally high on a mountain top.

My companion is Elder Peralta and he is one of the mission’s former assistants to the president and is a very impressive and dedicated missionary. He goes home this transfer and is determined to work as hard as possible before he goes home. I know a lot about Elder Peralta and could go on, but it sufficeth me to say that I am very honored to be his companion and I am going to learn a lot and hopefully do a lot of good while I have this chance to be his companion.

OK. I’m going to try and describe my area as bullet points.
To get there from Sagay (the closest city) you need to take either a 2 hour ride in a Jeepnee or a 1 and a half hour ride on the back of a motorcycle (they call it habal-habal here). There is only one Jeepnee that goes up the mountain, and it leaves Conlinia Divina at 3 am and then leaves Sagay at 11 am, and that's all. I took the Jeepnee up with my luggage and I can officially say that I know how clothes feel after they have been through the washing machine (the path is mostly just a narrow dirt road with lots of rocks).

Also, I am fairly certain that this area is the poorest area I have seen yet in my mission, and I don't think I'll ever see poorer. Granted people are poorer than other poor people here in the Philippines, but as a community as a whole this place is completely devoid of any worldly wealth that I can see.
There is also no running water anywhere in my area to my knowledge. We get all of our water from a well behind our house and have to draw water every morning to take our bucket showers and do our laundry. But we do have electricity! :) Which a lot of our area tends to go without, using mostly kerosene lamps once you leave the town center.

My area also recently progressed from an independent group to becoming a branch, thanks to Elder Peralta, and the members here are super great. Before they didn't have such a great view of the missionaries, due to missionaries being so isolated that they felt like they could get away with not acting like a missionary, but Elder Peralta has changed that around and they love the missionaries now. We have several members/recent converts that walk for over 2 hours up and over the mountain(s) just to go to church.
Our church by the way is a nipa with lots of holes in the roof (which made sacrament meeting interesting when it rained) hut next to the branch president’s house which is a 30 minute walk up the mountain from our house in the town center.

I wish I could tell you more about the history of the area, how the people ended up there and why it is called Divine Colony, but I'm out of time. Maybe you can google it.
Basically, in short, I love my new area (isolation and all) and I love my new companion and we're going to get work done this transfer.

Also, the reason why I'm emailing now is because we are working in the morning and come down the mountain in the afternoon to do our shopping and email. From now on while I'm in this area I'll be emailing around 5 pm my time.

I'll attach some pictures. Sorry no pictures of the house! My camera died and I forgot.

I love you all!

~Elder Butler

It's Always Up Hill in Zion

Hello Family!

Well it has been quite a week for us here in Hinobaan, a lot of great things and a lot of not so great things. The work is definitely hastening here, but as sure as I know that Christ will hasten His work in His time, Satan is hastening his at the same pace.

I'm reminded of the scripture in 2 Nephi 28, "Wo unto him that is at ease in Zion!" The surest sign to me that you are doing some good is that you feel an increased volume of opposition, and the surest sign that you are being bound by the adversary is that you start getting lulled into a sense of contentment and security. 

This Saturday was the baptism of M! The younger sister of SJ. We are starting to see the gospel take effect on SJ's family and we are hoping that eventually the rest of the family will be following soon enough.

Also the C family, who are the recently reactivated family that live near SJ and B our recent converts, have been doing great missionary work and have been working with us to teach their family and friends in their barangay (like a small town) and we are always very busy teaching because of them. Also another recent convert family, the M family, have been awesome in helping us find people to teach! Although we have had a few experiences with finding those who are not quite ready yet, but it has been a good growing experience for them and their testimonies and their desire to share haven't diminished in the least bit.

The not so good news is about a recent turn of events in the family of a sister, our recent convert of about a month now. Her two older children have taken an interest in the church and both have a desire to come to church, but this sister's husband, who allowed her to be baptized at first, has taken an extreme turn for the worst.
Starting last week he has been drinking very heavily, and he has taken to threatening the life of his wife and kids if they keep going to church, which eventually lead to physical violence against his wife and children which had him put in jail, but still telling this wife to "watch out" when he gets out, forcing her and her family to leave their home and go stay temporarily with her sister, who is a strong member, until they can figure out where they can go next. This sister has been persecuted by her husband and her husbands family for years now, and she and her children can no longer stay where they are now which is surrounded by her husbands family.

I don't feel I need to say more, but in short I feel like the adversary has been gripping the hearts of as many people as he can to do as much damage as he can to counter act all of the good that is happening.

In a bright spot thought, I have not seen a single iota of fear coming from this Sister through all of this. When we found out from her that their lives were being threatened for going to church, she was at the church, and not ashamed or afraid. Her faith has been shining through it all and her only concern has been to keep her children safe. We can use all the prayers we can get here for her and her family, but I know that she knows that it will all work out in the end, and her faith in Christ has been sustaining her through this very difficult time.

And moving on from that, I just wanted to let you all know how grateful I was to be able to speak with you last week! I felt so much love from you and from my Father in Heaven for having given me so many blessings that I can't even begin to count.

I love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers and your love.

Halong kamo!

Elder Butler

Feeling Thankful

Hello Family!

I just wanted to say first of all that I love you so much and always feel so overwhelmingly grateful to Heavenly Father for  how great a blessing He has given me to be apart of our wonderfully blessed family. You're all the best.

I'm also very excited for the opportunity I get to talk with you, especially Mom, one last time before I go home. Where did the time go?? I sometimes get pangs of panic when ever I think about how short my time is. Nevertheless I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone hopefully via video chat. Although I'm not 100% positive if there is a place in my area that is video chat capable, being really far out means that internet options are a little more limited than usual. But I am planning on video chat for now. Between 10 AM and 1 PM my time is when I'm supposed to do it. My time limit is 30-45 minutes.

Please come ready with questions! I have such a hard time thinking of what to say in the moment. I'll do my best to prepare my thought beforehand, but if there is anything that you want to hear from me personally just try and write it down before the call starts. If I am unable to video chat I'll just call Dad's phone.

This last Thursday we were able to meet with Elder Ardern of the Seventy in the latter part of our Mission Leadership Council. Our mission has been preforming quite well in a lot of areas and Elder Ardern, who is going to be the new area president, came to observe and ask us questions to see what might be applicable to the other Philippines missions. It was a wonderful revelation filled meeting and I took down over 10 pages of notes and impressions from all of the trainings that our were given by our President and by the APs and all of the former APs (in our mission president rarely sends missionaries home as Assistants or Zone Leaders, so we had 6 former assistants in attendance as well that gave short messages)

I feel so blessed to have been assigned where I have been assigned and I am very grateful for all of the growth I have been able to make while under the leadership of President Lopez. Missions are basically the best.

Also in other news about our area, we finally found a house in our area that we are hoping to start a branch in, granted it's not the most luxurious house (it doesn't have any running water so we'd have to get our bucket shower water from the hand pump out side), but it works for what we need, and we're going to move there as soon as we can get it approved and start up the Asia branch here in Hinobaan. I'm really excited for the progress that can happen here and I really am hoping that I can stay assigned in this new and starting up branch for a while more.

It sounds like things are running well back home, and that quote that you used Mom from PMG (Preach My Gospel) was actually one of the things that Elder Ardern brought up in his training on Thursday. I think that I need to reset my goals a little higher since I feel like I've almost been getting in a routine lately. It's time for me to take another leap and see if I can stretch my self a little farther while I still have the opportunity.

I love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers and support!

Your Elder,

~Elder Butler