A River of Blessings

Frederick

Those observing (his sister is the one standing in the pink)

This is the bridge going across the river to Siwahon from the highway going to Colonia. It's pretty high up.

Hello Family!

It's been another week of blessings from the Lord and I am so excited for the future of my area, and especially the future of those we are preparing to baptize in Siwahon.

I think I'll just start by talking about this Sunday where we had such a wonderful experience with the baptism of Frederick.

Frederick is a 15 year old young man that Elder Peralta and I found in a fairly interesting way. After one of the first few lessons we had with Sister Hemera we were about to leave to go to another area when we saw in an open doorway (of the house directly across from Sister Hemera's house), a young man reading the Bible by himself. Of course, seeing someone that young taking initiative to read the Bible in a culture that has a hard enough time reading the pamphlets, we felt prompted to go over and start talking with him, which then resulted in a 5 minute lesson about the restoration. That was the start of the conversion for Frederick which would involve him making the hour plus walk to come to Colonia to come to church with the rest of the group that comes from Siwahon and sharing everything we share with him with his other younger siblings (he being the eldest) and his parents.


Our plan was to baptize him with the two elderly women this Sunday, but they will both be interviewed again by the counselor in the mission presidency so we had to move them to next week. So instead of having the baptism in a further away place that was more accessible to the two sisters, we were able to have the baptism right near his home in the river running by their town, to which his parents and family, (who we had met and shared a little to but not had an opportunity to really teach them due to time conflicts with them working in the field), were able to attend and observe. We even held the baptismal service inside their home.

He was then confirmed shortly after at the special sacrament in Siwahon, which was another great spiritual experience, to which his whole family was able to attend as well.

The wonderful thing was that during the whole process Frederick’s parents were able to observe and be apart of the whole thing and went from just consenting to being a lot more interested and really feeling the spirit.

We returned to Sister Hemera's home later that evening, needing to attend to some issues first involving correcting some anti-mormon info that was fed to parents of a recent convert, and Frederick’s mother was talking to the two sisters out on their porch. And again, Sister Lapid makes me love her even more when we walk in hearing Frederick’s mother say something like, "I hope that we would be able to receive the gospel as a whole family..." and Sister Lapid responds without a seconds hesitation, "No, don't just "hope", press forward and do it!"

You have to love that woman. And she's not even baptized yet! :)

We then went to Frederick’s home and were able to teach the whole family together for the first time. His parents were so prepared and touched by the spirit. Frederick's mother said that they just all feel so light and happy as a whole family after seeing their son be baptized and confirmed. And they received the message of the restoration so perfectly that I felt like we were hardly teaching anything, more like the spirit just put it all in their hearts. We then committed the whole family, parents and the two younger sisters of baptismal age, to be baptized at the end of this month and they accepted immediately.

This family is such a blessing and I know they've be prepared so well by the Lord. My heart is just full of gratitude to be apart of so many great peoples lives and see the gospel start to grow in the hearts of these people.

Frederick is already making plans to go on a mission, and his parents are in full support, and even though the family is already starting to feel the pressure around them with the rumors and gossip already starting to reach them, they are rock solid and following the shining examples of the two elderly sisters by sticking with what is true first before what is popular.

I feel like that's all that I want to share this week. This week marks exactly 3 months before I need to say goodbye to this mantle, and it all seems too fast and fleeting, but I'm still planning on making the best use of the time I have left and leaving everything in the field.

I love you all!

Halong pirme! (Take care always)

~Elder Butler