I'm so sorry

Hi Followers of Elder Butler,

This blog has been discontinued due to privacy issues. I know, it's a disappointment to all of us. I enjoyed sharing his letters with you. If you are interested in receiving a copy of his letters sent by email send me a little note and I will do my best to send them to you. Again, I am sorry for any inconvience this may cause to you. Thank you for following Elder Butler. He'll be back soon.

His mom

6/13/11

Greetings from the Springs

Things are going pretty good here. This week was pretty decent. On Tuesday we were on exchanges with our district leader. That was pretty fun and a good change of pace. Elder McG* found a new investigator that day. Her name is F*. I haven't met her yet but we'll be going over there tomorrow cuz she has work off. Wednesday was a pretty average day. We went tracting and this lady started bashing with us. She was kinda crazy. It was pretty funny. She kept saying stuff that totally contradicted the bible and she was saying how the angel Moroni is from the devil because of what it says in Galatians 1:4 i think. The part where it says that if any man or angel proclaim another gospel let him be accursed. But then we told her it was the same gospel but she wouldn't believe us. Then we told her that the gospel was faith, repentance, baptism.. then she stopped us and said that baptism isn't the gospel and you don't need it you just have to say you believe. And apparently Jesus' baptism was a different baptism. Lots of crazy opinions.

Friday was a cool day. We went to district meeting and then we got brand new phones! The mission switched from Verizon over to sprint. We all have the LG Remarq I think it is. Its square and has a sliding full keyboard. Kinda looks like a blackberry. Anyways they re pretty sweet and we now have 300 minutes and unlimited texting. I have a feeling that will get taken away pretty quickly though.

On Sunday all the missionaries in the zone sang at the north stake conference. We sang a song called faith in every footstep. It was printed in an ensign in like 1997 or something. Anyways we did that then went right to our church. We didn't have any investigators show up. It seems like we find all these investigators and then we lose contact with them and they never keep commitments. Its really annoying. Anyways Pday will be on Tuesday next week and that's when we find out transfers. President Pfile goes home in two weeks and President Anderson will be here. It ll be interesting to see what changes he makes.

I think dads idea for the opening of youth conference is awesome. Sounds like it ll be pretty funny. That's crazy that everyone is moving all over the place. I got a letter from Amy and Kristen a couple days ago and one from Spencer and his family. They sent me those talking cards. One of them wasn't working so i cracked it open and fixed it so its all good now. Any luck on finding my watch warranty? I went to JC Penny and they told me what i needed off the receipt or something so that i can get it repaired. I'm pretty sure that the receipt is with the other stuff in the little relic can it came in.

A recent convert's husband is home for R&R for the next two weeks and she said that he had a couple Camelbaks that she'd give one to me so I'm good on that. My bike is all good. I got a new cable for it and put it on so its fine now. And that's pretty much it. Good luck with Youth Conference and I hope Everything goes well.

Love Elder Butler

6/21/11

So me and Elder McG* will be staying together in the 6th ward for another 7 weeks. I kinda have mixed feelings about it but there's not much I can do. I would like a little change just to make things different but there's some reason why I'm here just have to figure out what it is. The new mission president gets here next week so it ll be really cool and exciting to meet him. I don't know if hes gunna have a little zone conference or something to meet all the elders or what but I expect we'll find out soon.

That's sweet to hear that youth conference went so well. So what exactly did you do? What were the different workshops and stuff? I send a package home yesterday with a bunch of letters and stuff that Ive gotten. I addressed it to myself cuz its my stuff so don't open it and just put it with my other boxes.

So far the texting hasn't been taken away. I think the only reason they would take it away would be for if elders text people from back home or just are texting way too much. I don't think it ll be a problem at least for me.

Pretty much we don't really have any investigators. No one answers our calls and they're never home when we go by to see them. So pretty much we have to start from scratch. Ive been really tired a lot lately. I usually have to take a nap during lunch and even then I'm still super tired. And at night sometimes i don't sleep very good. I don't know its weird.

Spencer emailed me and told me that he got his call to Utah, Provo Spanish speaking mission. That's super awesome for him cuz the Provo mission is the highest baptizing in the US. I don't know about Spanish but it prolly is. that's way exciting. And the Provo mission is pretty big too. Its not just Provo but pretty much everything south of there too.

For some reason I'm drawing a blank. There was something i was gunna say but I cant remember. On the way to the library today Elder McG* got hit by a car. He was going through an intersection and this car was gunna turn right onto the street but decided to stop like 6 feet past the stop sign and caught the back end of his bike. he didn't fall off or anything. It was kinda funny but ridiculous at the same time.

Anyways that's all i can think of for now. I hope everything keeps on going good for you guys. I love you all!

Elder Butler

6/27/11

Alrighty, so this week was alright. Wednesday morning I woke up with a little bit of a cough so I took a shower and rested for a little bit and I was fine after that. This week has been real hot out. A member in the ward have me a water backpack so that really helped out a lot. But the little back pack that it comes in is too small to fit anything else in it. So I cant carry any book of Mormons or my scriptures or anything like that. So I've been trying to find a way to put the water bladder in my back pack that wont make it hard to use the straw thing.

So something really cool happened yesterday. We were talking with our ward mission leader and he said that there's someone in the ward that we can baptize. This family moved into the ward like a month or two ago. We started teaching the kids cuz they had just been baptized in January. The grandma lives with them and we assumed that everybody in the family was members. They came from Utah and the parents are members (I think they are just recently coming back to activity though) and all the kids who are baptismal age are already baptized so we assumed the grandma was too. But she was talking to bishop and she thought she was a member but when they requested her records nothing came up. So She actually isn't a member . She is getting surgery on the 11th so we'll teach her all the lessons in the next two weeks and she'll get baptized on the 9th. Its pretty sweet cuz we haven't had a baptism here yet. Everyone in the ward always tells us about how they had like 12 baptisms last year. But there is only one person that is still there. Everyone else has gone inactive or moved away.

So this morning we wake up and we hear this weird chirping and rustling outside the window. We look out there and there was a little baby bird stuck in the window well. It couldn't fly yet so it was trying to get out but it couldn't. The member we are living with gave us some gloves so I climbed down there and eventually got the bird out of there. It kept flapping around so I couldn't get it for a little while. I didn't want to just grab it cuz I didn't want to crush it or something. But its out now. It was weird cuz at first I thought it was a squirrel. Cuz on Saturday we were tracting and we heard this really weird noise. We thought it was a bird but it was two squirrels like yelling at each other. It was kinda like the sound Brian Regan makes for the rabbit impression.

Anyways have you guys had any luck finding my watch stuff? It should be that hard to find. I'm pretty sure I gave it to dad with the stuff for my razor. If not it should be in the smaller box that I left before I left.

Well that's pretty much it for now. Hope you all are doing well.

Love Elder Butler

7/5/11

Alrighty so this week was pretty sweet. We started teaching Sister D*. She passed her baptismal interview and will be getting baptized on Saturday and then confirmed on Sunday. It will be my second baptism thus far. Well third if you count Jammie's wife who got baptized like 2 weeks after i left Antonito. Anyways its really exciting. We have interviews on Friday with President Anderson. Ill finally get to meet him.

The fourth of July was pretty fun. We went around and visited different families and did some service for a few of them. It was a lot of fun cuz we were on exchanges so we were with our district leader and his companion.

Hopefully we'll find another new investigator soon so that after Sister D* is baptized that we will still have someone to teach. Its weird to think that at the end of this transfer I'll be basically halfway done with my mission.

Sounds like the cabin was fun. Did you guys light any fireworks or go to any fireworks shows? I heard that its been so dry in Pueblo that no one was allowed to do fireworks in the whole city. Apparently its been in the 100's like all last week. Luckily we've got some rain here. The other day we were just leaving dinner and as soon as we got outside and on our bike it started pouring. I think they were the biggest raindrops I have ever seen in my whole life. So after about 15 seconds we were already completely soaked so by the time we got to the house we were dripping wet and had to go change. It was nice though cuz it was the first time since Ive been here where there has been a really good rain. Usually it just sprinkles for a few minutes but this was real nice. Anyways i hope you all are doing well. I miss you!

Love Elder Butler

7/11/11

I want everyone to know that I'm doing just fine. President Anderson is really cool. Hes from Kalamazoo Michigan. He seems to be a good mission president. He hasn't really made any changes yet except were not suppose to use the word "greenie" anymore. Something to do with respecting people or something. But the mission bought every companionship a portable DVD player and a copy of both the preach my gospel DVDs. So we can use those for studies and stuff in our apartments. And don't worry I'm not gunna abuse it. I'm not dumb enough to watch movies on it.

The baptism went really well on Saturday. The only hitch was that our ward mission leader (who was just released not because of this though. he was it for 3 1/2 years) didn't make programs. He thought that we were gunna make them. But we don't have a computer so I don't know how he thought we were gunna do it. But everything else worked out perfect. Then she was confirmed on Sunday and I got to confirm her which was really cool.

But not much else happened this week. We did get to give a lot of blessings this week which is always really cool but not much else. I got the package you guys sent. I liked the pictures in it. Ive been feeling a lot better. I'm not as tired as I have been lately. things have been going really good. Its nice to hear the news about everyone and stuff. Tell Amy to email me because there's people that she knew and taught that are in my area that want to hear from her. I love and miss you all!

Elder Butler

7/18/11

This week was very interesting. Tuesday was a pretty normal day. We went and tried to see some former and potential investigators. No one we tried to see was home except one guy who asked us to come back on Thursday. So that was good cuz he was a referral from Woodland Park. His daughter was recently baptized there. Wednesday we weekly planned and then tracted. Nothing too special. Thursday we went tracting with one of the youth. As we were biking to the area where we were gunna tract elder McG*'s rear derailer snapped in half. So his bike is totally out of commission. So for the past couple days we've been walking or getting rides from people. So its been hard to get things done when you have to walk everywhere. Hes hoping that he can get some money to fix it up in the next few days so that we can get back on the bikes.

So that's been the week thus far. I still take the gummy vitamins but some mornings i just forget on accident. I'm running out of stamps. I think I only have like 3 or 4 left. But other then that i think I'm pretty good. I only got to meet president Anderson that one time. We only see him like once a transfer. so not very often. That was the same way with president Pfile. We only see them at interviews and zone conference.

So what made you guys choose the KIA over the other cars? Does it get pretty good gas mileage? Whats the warranty like on it? It sounds like a pretty cool ride. Good choice on the color too. I live those dark cherry red cars. You guys need to send me some pictures of it.

As far as food and meals and stuff go. We only do breakfast and lunch for ourselves. Our members that we live with don't really cook much and their not home very often. hes the chief of staff for Colorado springs and shes now the relief society president so they stay pretty busy. But we get fed dinner pretty much every night. I think there may be like 1 or 2 nights in a month where we don't get fed but that's nice sometimes.

It sounds like everyone is doing pretty good though. Its weird to think that I'm almost half done. It hasn't felt like Ive been gone for very long. Did the package that i sent home for myself ever come? I sent it like a month or so ago. Ill prolly need to send another one home with shirts in it because I have too many t shirts and I need to get rid of stuff so I don't have so much to lug around with me. We'll be having to move out of our members house the beginning of august because they're gunna be gone pretty much all of that month and then after that their daughter and her husband are moving in with them. As far as I know that haven't found anyone for us to live with yet. So we might just be moving back into the apartments. So we'll see what happens.

That's pretty much it for me. Hope you all are doing well. I miss you!

Love Elder Butler