9-23-10

So there is a reason why i didn't email on Monday. Simply it was because i was out of my area for a Leadership Training in Pueblo. Basically They taught us a simplified curriculum (er however you spell that) for the new Preach my gospel essentials which is the new eight lessons. So starting in May at the MTC they will only teach the eight new lessons which basically teach how to be a missionary. So stuff like how to give commitments, the doctrine of Christ and how to teach people not lessons. It will help missionaries more effectively teach investiators to their needs instead of just reciting the Three lessons in PMG (preach my gospel). So when missionaries get to the field they will learn the gospel lessons from their trainers and such.

OK now to try to answer some of your questions. Yes Antonito is very small and its dusty and theres abandoned broken-down houses everywhere. There's stuff all over the place in peoples yards and pretty much everyone has a dog(s). Dogs walk around the street and some are pretty nasty and most are super annoying. We have a branch but its in Fox Creek which is like 15 min drive from Antonito and im pretty sure its the one west of us. The members are unreliable and same with the branch leaders so we have to do all the finding on our own. We Tract and ITL most days and try to go see people that were teaching.

So all the people we had baptismal dates for before aren't following through and pretty much don't have a date anymore. But the good news is that we have three new investigators that we found last week. Two of them are this old couple and have baptism dates for the 3rd or 10th. We taught the plan of salvation first because we found a teaching record for them and on it it said that Judy didn't want to go further basically cuz her dad was Catholic and she didn't want to disrespect him. So we emphasized the spirit world and she says that she agrees with everything we've taught and we have answered all her questions. We also taught them (Ju* and To*) the restoration. Were hoping to get them to church this week so they get into the habit of that. The other investigator is this kid named Gr* who is the son of a recent convert. We were just talking to him about like sports and video games and stuff then my companion said to him, can we practice a lesson on you? So we taught him the restoration and committed him to baptism on the 10th I think. He says hes pretty interested. We'll only get to see him on Saturdays cuz that's when he comes home from the college he goes to.

Besides that, that's whats been going on. I found the scripture i want on my missionary thing. Its Alma 28:9. Umm for the coat the 3 in 1 sounds good cuz then i coud use it in the rain and stuff. I finally got the pants at leadership training cuz they were sent UPS so they couldn't forward them to me. If you are gonna send a package to the mission office for me it has to be US mail cuz they can forward it to me for free. And today i got three packages. one from jack and two from you guys. I haven't opened it yet but i will as soon as i can.

That's so awesome about Peter. I sent him a letter but i don't know if he got it yet. I heard Neal is working for Brother Milner. You know what kinda stuff he does? Apparently Sister Pfile has some Butler relatives so maybe you guys could look into that. I need money in my chase account cuz i need flu shots and Hep A shot. so just keep that in mind. I hope you guys have fun at the BYU game that sounds like a blast. There's this one elder in La Hara which isn't too far from us in Antonito, but hes from Hawaii and hes and amazing artist. HE is a convert and was 15 days away from getting married in the temple when the bishop asked him to think about going on a mission. Him and his fiance prayed and now he's here. Hes been out almost 6 months and hes like around 24. He is such a cool guy. He left his company back home called Hawaiimaco or something like that. They make custom shirts and surf board and snow boards. Hes an amazing artist. Its way cool.

Well anyways I'm doing really good and I cant wait to hear from everyone soon. Ill be emailing again on Monday. I love you all

Love, Elder Butler