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