Another Miracle

Hello Family!

Well to start off I'll explain why I haven't emailed until now. This Thursday I'm going to Manila with the rest of the foreign missionaries going home with me to do some visa things for my departure in November. Since getting down off the mountain is not the most convenient thing when it comes to time and money and key indicators we just planned our preparation day to be Wednesday down here in Bacolod since I have to stay the night here to make the morning flight to Manila.

I'm actually pretty excited to see the "big city" for a day tomorrow, although I'm going to have an interesting time trying to communicate in Tagalog since I'm not totally fluent to say the least. At least the flight to Manila will bring a little more realization of the fact that I am going home soon, since I still am having a hard time really picturing it. But ready or not, here it comes.

This last week another set of Elders arrived in Colonia Divina to start working solely in Siwahon! I'm so excited for the progress and growth that will be happening in the future for the members in Siwahon, but also experiencing a little of the bitter with the sweet in having to say goodbye to the people that I've been teaching and having baptized there and turning them over to the care of the new missionaries. There were a few teary eyes in those last lessons that I had with Sister Jamera and Sister Lapid and the Alay family, but I know that the goodbyes we have here in the gospel and Church of Jesus Christ are never permanent, and I gave them all the promise that if and when they come into our Father's Kingdom that they'll find me there, and we'll have all of eternity to rejoice and be happy together then.

But along with saying goodbye to Siwahon, we get to say hello to being able to spend all of our time and efforts now in Colonia which has also been progressing at a very hastened pace. We still have plenty of souls to still save and more people being prepared to hear the message of the restoration.

One story in particular that I want to share is the miracle that happened this week with sister Mary Joy. Sister Mary Joy is the half sister of Sister Riblora, who was just baptized and confirmed this last Sunday, and she actually came to church on her own two weeks ago. At first I thought that Sister Riblora had invited her to come but then later realized that she had just come on her own out of the blue. We talked to her after church and found out where she lived which was La-on, a place we didn't go very much because there were no members there yet, and we got her permission to visit her and her family later that week.

Due to lack of time between Siwahon and Colonia and also not being to able to find her house on our first try out in the area, thinking it was a lot farther than it was, we were unable to visit her that week. But to our surprise this Sunday she and her children came to church AGAIN, completely on their own, so we talked with her again to get a better idea on where she lived and set a day when we would visit her, much more determined to get there since we no longer needed to work in Siwahon.

The next day, Monday, we went out again in search of where she lived, and this time we apparently walked past where she lived but we came to a house that Elder Peralta and I had shared a quick message to months ago. It turned out to be Mary Joy's parent’s home, and Mary Joy was there with them and she was looking very sick and exhausted.

The first times we saw her at church she looked generally tired, but this time she looked very pale and like she hadn't rested in days, to which we found out from her mother that she hadn't been able to sleep for more than a few hours a night for over a month now, and that she had lost a lot of weight as a result. They weren't sure as to why and were planning on taking her to be consulted, granted they didn't have the money for that, and somehow the mother knew that we gave blessings for healing so she told her daughter that she should ask us for a blessing. So we taught a brief lesson about the priesthood authority of God, and why we could give blessings in the name of Christ because of the restoration of the priesthood and how the blessings were conditional on faith in Christ and His will, then gave her a blessing.

I also gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and told her that if she had a hard time resting her mind to just keep reading it until she felt at peace again.

We came back to visit her the following day (yesterday) and were very happy to find that all of the color had come back to her face and the bags under her eyes had all but disappeared. She said that she had been able to sleep the whole night and that when she read the Book of Mormon that it helped her feel at rest and fall asleep. We then were able to actually teach her the full message of the restoration and she accepted and understood it so well, having actually read the pamphlet we gave her several times already, and she had even tried asking God if it was true, again completely uninvited by us but just followed the instructions on the pamphlet. She told us that she just felt a good feeling and that it was true, and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon was true. Needless to say I was filled so much with joy to be the missionary to have the privilege to teach this incredibly prepared person, and I know for certain that it was her faith in Jesus Christ that made her whole.

We then committed her and her child, 9 years old, to be baptized this October 19th and she accepted whole heartedly. We now are trying to teach her husband who we haven't met yet, he works on their farm most of the day and is shy to go to church, but I have high hopes for this family and I know that they will open the door for the gospel to be spread in La-on.

Wow, this has been a long email...I wanted to write about the baptism of the Riblora family as well, but maybe I'll write that next week. I'll also send the pictures next week since the computer shop I'm at right now is having trouble uploading photos.

Don't worry Katie! I've been taking lots of pictures of carabaos and other animals for you!

I love you all!

~Elder Butler