Faith in Jesus Christ

President and Sister Lopez (Brooks' mission president and wife) paid a special visit to the mountains for Elder Peralta's last Sunday! What a tender time it must have been! (And the reason we have these great pictures!~K)

Teaching the youth during Sunday school. So beautiful!

President and Sister Lopez are on the left.

Hello Family!

This last week has been another very packed and exhausting week, but I think that I can quite easily say that it has been one of the most successful weeks of my entire mission when it comes to finding and teaching people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It was the last week before transfer day, and also the last week before Elder Peralta goes home, so we decided to have him go out with a bang and set our goals higher then we would have thought possible. We then knelt in prayer and acknowledged to Heavenly Father and to the Lord that we could only accomplish the things that we had planned through Him and His power, and we asked in faith, believing and know that we would receive, that we would be supported in our righteous desires.

We then went to work.

The days that followed were somewhat of a whirlwind...We saw little miracles everyday and I feel like to document it all would take far too long and perhaps defeat the point that I am trying to get across from all of this, but after putting all of our trust in Jesus Christ and working as hard as we could, and after teaching or trying to teach what feels like the entire population of our area, we finished out this week having taught 150 lessons to investigators and having found 168 new investigators, coupled with the baptism of Sister T, the first in her family to be baptized.

I think it is sufficient to say that Elder Peralta and I know and have talked with and taught/sang for so many people this week that I feel like I've lived in Colonia for  half my life.

Now I have the monumental task of following up and beginning the harvesting process for many of the prepared people that we found.

I just want to share this as a testament that I KNOW that my power as a missionary does not come from my talents and abilities, but it comes from my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I would compare this week to the experience of the brother of Jared, where after he saw the finger of the Lord his faith became unshakable, and after I have seen this week I know that all things are possible to those that believe.

Granted I am very far from claiming perfect knowledge.

We were also rejected quite a bit more than we were the last time we found a large amount of new investigators, but I feel like every time someone said no it only made me more excited and happy for the next person that said yes.

We even started to see the fruits of our work in the area as we feel like the whole attitude of our area has changed and there are now many people that call out to us and say hi, and all of the false rumors about the church no longer stand since so many people have talked with us and had a spiritual experience with us.

In response to Mom and Dad, the "jungle" where Elder Peralta and I taught about the Atonement is actually where we teach the youth class during Sunday school hour.  And the reason why Elder Peralta and I have our heads above the beams is because we are just on our toes, those beams are actually only about 5 and a half feet high and I bump my head on them all  the time. I'll meet my new companion probably tomorrow or on Wednesday, so next week I let you know.

Saying goodbye to Elder Peralta was as Mom said, bitter sweet. I have some big shoes to fill and I will miss his dedication. He will have a hard time taking of the tag, but it will have to come, and I don't feel too far behind him. The day I go to Bacolod for the last time will be an extremely bitter sweet day for me.

I love you all!

No pictures since my camera is acting up and I don't have another to borrow for the moment.

Halong!

Elder Butler

Stay in the Light

Hello Family!

This week has been a bit of a refiners fire for me to say the least, but it has also been teaching me a lot about the power of prayer and the need for Christ-like attributes if we are to make it back to our Heavenly Father and to be truly happy in this life.

I'll start by giving an update about the family of the former branch president that went less active and then had the experience of coming in contact with not so friendly influences from the other side of the veil. In good news, they've started coming back to church these last two weeks and the wife was able to resolve some of her concerns about why they had stopped in the first place. In not so good news, things hadn't gotten much better at their home. They said that they had been experiencing strange things in their home and their 18 year old son has been acting out in a very extreme way, doing things as if he were under a bad influence (throwing scriptures into a pond, talking about Satan a lot, and doing and saying very very hurtful things to his parents). I don't want to dwell on all the bad things, but I just wanted to share what I felt while visiting this family and doing our best to help them.

The main thing that I thought of was how it is so much better to have never left the light in the first place than it is to have to pay the price to come back. I know that through Christ all things are possible and forgiveness is always available, but that doesn't change all of the harm that you could have prevented by simply just continuing forward instead of letting pride pull you off the path and have to pay the price to get back on to the path and keep moving forward.

Things will now start to improve, and when you gain faith again you always have a new hope, even when the path to return may have some recompense to be had. But in the end the promise of complete forgiveness still stands for all those who submit themselves fully to the Fathers will.

That's all I have for today,

I love you all!

~Elder Butler