Beauty in Diversity

Elder Butler with the four young women who will be baptized this Saturday!

Hello Family!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week! :)

Our training for zone conference went very well and I know that the Lord had a big part in that. I gave a training about communicating with your companion, focusing on applying Preach My Gospel chapter 6, highlight patience and humility, and my companion gave a great training about working with members from Preach My Gospel chapter 9.

In preparation for training I really wanted to treasure up as much as I could about what I was training and I also wanted to base everything I could out of the scriptures, using them as a source more than just a support, and I actually used mostly the New Testament (with additional scriptures from Proverbs that Elder Baird had done studies on previously) to teach the concepts that seemed important.  All in all I feel like our training was a success and all parties came out with some new revelation on the topics we presented. I've come to appreciate the value of leadership training meetings like zone conferences and trainings and such after having had so many great spiritually feeding experiences that result in fast tracked spiritual growth after being able to apply the revelation I've received.

Update on the four girls we've been teaching: they have all been officially signed and interviewed and their baptism is this coming Saturday! I'm very excited as well as the rest of the branch, and of course the girls themselves. Being able to reap the fruits of your labors is one of the most rewarding part of this work and makes all of the other things that you may have to struggle with all worth it.

Something that I realized a little this week was about how the gospel of Jesus Christ really thrives and is beautified in diversity. The world is always talking about how we need to break out and be different, this being a counterfeit of Satan which usually ends up with all those involved having to conform to fit some mold and everyone ending up the same. But when we introduce someone to the gospel, suddenly the things that the world scorned and painted to be typical and not unique become beautified and enhanced, making weaknesses strength and each person’s spiritual identity becomes more defined and expressly "theirs", only showing the master craftsmanship of our Heavenly Father who created everyone one of us different and unique.

I saw this as I saw four teenage girls who before were caught in the lie of the world that they needed to conform and be accepted into an ever more wicked world become freed from those shackles, all the while being mocked and put down for it. They rose to their divine potential as daughters of their Heavenly Father, their differences not being looked any more at as flaws, but master strokes in a much larger painting from the hand of someone much wiser than they.

The world will continue to mock and to scorn, and call good evil and evil good, but they will never be able to separate them from the simple truths they have learned by the Spirit that cannot be counterfeited or reproduced by any effort of the adversary.

Just thoughts. I rambled a little there, hope it was worthwhile. :)

Well that's about all the time I have for today.

I  love you all!

~Elder Butler

"We Want to be Missionaries Like You..."

Elder Butler with a group of missionary leaders at Zone Conference in Bacolod.

Elder Butler giving a training session to the other mission leaders at Zone Conference.

Hello Family!

So in explanation of the few days late email, today is my P-day [preparation-day] instead of what is usually is supposed to be on Monday. Reason being that we have zone conference this week up in Bacolod and we are all staying over night in Bacolod, which is a 6 hour bus ride from our zone approximately. So for the sake of the work we've postponed our P-day a few day to use our time more effectively.

Ah! In more news about the four young women: They are all doing great, every time I go by they make me smile with how fast they are growing in their testimony. The other day we came by after they had just finished a group study they conducted themselves (which always makes me smile) and they asked almost a little shyly "Elders?.... would we be allowed to maybe go with you two to some of your other people you teach? We want to observe and learn how to teach other people better because we want to be missionaries like you are when we get older."

I was smiling about ear to ear again at hearing that wonderful question. :) 

Keep Moving Forward

At the mission home in Bacolod for training and being fed! Yum! (More photos at the end.)

Hello Family,

I'm really grateful that I have a chance to be companions with Elder Baird. He has quite the sense of humor and is always looking for reasons to have a  laugh, and we both have a pretty distinct wry sense of humor that can lead to some good laughs at the end of the day when we need to just laugh and unwind a little.

I think Satan has been throwing absolutely everything he can at J just to try and stop or slow her down from getting baptized, but thus far he has been unsuccessful due to that girl's shear testimony in what she knows is true. At the exact time we started teaching the girls about the law of chastity, all of the sudden, J and the rest of the girls in the group started feeling more pressure from their "friends" at school with regards to being exposed to filth and being made fun of for their values and the way they dress now.

Being Brave

Feb. 24, 2014
Hello Family!

I hope that things are still going well back there in the states! Here in the Philippines it's still hot as ever and rainy as ever and generally Filipino as ever, but I suppose that's to be expected. :-)

Time keeps flying faster than I can even realize, and every day is a new adventure still. I'm just trying to savor as much of it as I can while I still have this precious time to serve with all of my efforts in the name of my Lord and Savior.

Our work here in Hinoba-an has continued to progress and we are starting to come close to reaping the fruits of our efforts.

One very inspiring group of investigators to me have been a group of four girls that I have been teaching since the middle of January. When I first met these four girls, all ranging in age from 13-16 years, they were all about how I would describe regular Filipina teenage girls: Very shy, a little attention deficit, and very distracted whenever there is a white man in a shirt and tie trying to teach about the deeper things of life. But the change I have seen in these girls has been nothing short of miraculous.

A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible...

Hello Family!

This week has been rather fast for me and I'm having a hard time thinking of the important points...

Although in general news, I can definitely feel my faith and understanding of the love of Jesus Christ growing daily. 

What I think has helped me as well was my companion and I being able to go on exchanges with the Assistants to the mission president assigned to our part of the mission (having 4 APs in our mission because it is so large) and I was able to just have a good time working and still having fun at the same time, of course within mission standards.

In the Strength of the Lord

Hello Family!

First off I just want you all to know how much I love and appreciate everyone of you and I know that I am being sustained by your collective faith and prayers on my behalf. I feel very much as Ammon did when he said, "Yea I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God (and the faith of my Family), for in his strength I can do ALL things..." (Alma 26:12). Thank you so much for all of you being who you are and your great examples to me that pick me up when I need it.

"Exactly What We've Been Looking for"

Hello Family!

We decided to travel to Bacolod first today and then write our emails, which means I've just gotten off a bus ride that was 6 1/2 hours long from our area to Bacolod city...

Main news: My new companion is now Elder Baird! He is actually one of the missionaries from the Tacloban mission, but he decided to take a short rest period back home before he came back out and finished his mission. So he is having quite the time switching his language from the Waray-waray that they speak in Tacloban to the Ilongo of our area.