12-27-10

This last week was really amazing. Tuesday night we went and taught
Ja* part of the commandments. We taught him obedience, pray often,
study the scriptures, keep the sabbath day holy, follow the prophet,
and the law of chastity. We were kinda nervous about the law of
chastity because he isn't married and his girlfriend lives with him.
So our goal was to teach him the law of chastity so that he would want
to be married and baptized. We went in and we started teaching him
some stuff. Part-way through the lesson my companion asked Ja* "how do you feel when you read the Book of Mormon?" and Ja* said
really good. Elder Guymon then asked him "where do those good
feelings come from?" Ja* said the spirit. Elder Guymon then asked
"what does that mean?" Ja* then told us that it means that the
Book of Mormon is true. Right there we had our investigator tell us
that he had a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true. Thus meaning
that he had a testimony that this church is true and that Joseph Smith
was a prophet and that we have a prophet on the earth today. We went
on to teach the law of chastity and then asked him if there would be
anything stopping him and his girlfriend Ne* from being married.
They told us that beside the money there would be nothing stopping
them. So we scheduled their marriage for Friday which was Christmas
Eve. Then the baptism would be on Sunday.

The rest of the week went on and I was in Manassa for exchanges on
Wednesday. Thursday came around and we did our weekly planning and
then some tracting. Later that night we went and finished teaching
Ja* the commandments. He accepted everything and it was wonderful.
Then Friday came around. It was supposed to be a really awesome day
with Christmas Eve and the marriage and everything but in the morning
we were gunna go and get a marriage licence but all the courthouses in
the county decided to take the entire day off instead of a half day
like everyone else. So we had to move the marriage and the baptism to
Monday. We had district meeting and then came back to our apartment
and had lunch. The zone leaders then came over so that we could go to
Ja*'s house for the baptismal interview. Everything went well and
he"s good to be baptized on Monday after the marriage. After the
interview we went back to our apartment and spent the rest of the
night there because we had to have our car grounded by 6. So we
talked and listened to some Christmas music and then went off to bed.

Saturday morning was CHRISTMAS!! we woke up and opened all our
packages. We had a ton of fun playing with our little toys and things
people sent us and eating all the candy we received. After opening
our gifts we got dressed and went to a members house for Christmas
breakfast. We had breakfast with their whole family and then made our
phone calls home. It was really nice to talk to everyone again. We
talked for about an hour and then I had to get off the phone per
mission rules. We then went to the Manassa Elders house and hung out
with them. On Wednesday when I was in Manassa for exchanges me we
"stole" a few of their things. We wrapped them up with wrapping paper
and on Christmas gave it to them as gifts. They started opening them
and they laughed and yelled at us. It was pretty funny. We don't
really ever have anything to do on P-Days, now that all sports of any
kind have been banned, so my whole district has gotten into Pokemon.
We all have cards and we play each other because we have nothing else
to do. Later Christmas night we went over to a member in one of the 3
Manassa wards for dinner. It was really weird because they had
already eaten so it was just us four eating while the members talked
to us. But it turns out that their son is now serving in the Chicago
mission. He just left the MTC and is in an area downtown. They said
that Soldier field is in his area? I don't know but his name is Elder
Norton and hes prolly the only one from the San Luis valley in
Chicago. After dinner me and Elder Guymon went to the Sanford Elders
house and spent the night there because Elder Guymon and Elder Smith
have meetings together with the stake president every Sunday morning.
At their house we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.

Sunday was pretty normal. We went to church and Ja* came but Ne* didn't which was a bummer. We came home from church and had lunch and
then talked on the phone with our branch mission leader making sure
that everything was good for the baptism. Oh and by the way. I was
asked to be the one to baptize Jammie so I'm really excited about that.
And that's about it for this week. I hope everyone had a wonderful
Christmas and I would like to thank everyone that sent me a card or a
package or anything like that. I love you all and I miss everyone!

Elder Butler

12-13-2010

Hey everybody,

This will prolly be a quick letter cuz both me and my companion aren't feeling very good. The past week has been rough. Tuesday i got sick so we stayed in all day. We spent most of the week tracting but we did have quite a few lessons. We have 2 new investigators. One is going to be a work in progress. The other one came to church with us yesterday so were really excited about that. I got a present from Kristin and Andrew and some pictures from them. I really enjoyed that. If anyone wants to send me something for Christmas it needs to be sent by the very latest on Friday cuz mail takes a week or more to get here. Anyways not too much happened this week. I wish i was feeling better so i could write more. I love you all and miss you

-Elder Butler

12-6-10

This week has been very interesting. We have had very high ups, and very low downs. On Tuesday we taught Fr* again. We taught some of the commandments, obedience, follow the prophet, keep the sabbath day holy,... and the Law of chastity. We weren't sure how it would turn out but it actually went pretty well. We resolved mostly everything but we got to make sure on some of the stuff. Anyways later that day we had a lesson with this guy named An*. We had tracted into him like a week or more ago. We started teaching him and he was really interested and didn't really have any religious knowledge but did believe in God. So that was really cool.

On Wednesday we spent most of the day weekly planning and cutting more wood for service. And that was pretty much it not a lot to that day. Thursday wasn't too exciting either. We went by Fr*'s again and then did some tracting. Friday we had district meeting. After that we went home and decided to try and see Ju* who we used to go over and see all the time. We read 2 Nephi 31 with her which talks about the doctrine of Christ. Then we got on to the topic of church. We asked her to commit to come to church. She brought up every excuse and concern why she wouldn't and we smashed them all. Then a the end she agreed to take a church tour with us.

This is where things start to get bad. Saturday we were supposed to see Fr* at 1. We go over there and theres no answer. So we walk around for a while and try again. No answer. We left him a note and stuff to tell him that we came by and to give us a call. Then we had one of our members come with us over to Ju*'s to go to the church building. The member picked her up and we all drove over to the building in Fox Creek. We get there and show her the building and the sacrament table and sing a hymn and show her the baptismal font. It was one of the most spiritual things ever. Then as we are leaving our member invited her to come to church and she said no. She basically said that she would never change from catholic. And that she may have received her answer but that she wasn't listening to it. We came back home from that and we were both pretty mad, sad, disappointed, discouraged. We then tried to see one of our investigators, An* but her car wasn't there. SO we went back to the apartment and did a little bit of cleaning. We decided to try her again so we went by and she was home. She finally said that if she got better that she would come to church (because she had a cold). So we gave her a blessing and later called a bunch of missionaries to pray that she would get better. After teaching An* we went to La*'s house to read from the book of Mormon with him. We were on 1 Nephi 19 and he decided to just finish the book of 1 Nephi which is 4 chapters, two of which are Isaiah chapters. So we read all 10 pages and that took about an hour. We finally got home at like 8 and ate dinner.

Then came Sunday. We called up An* at 8 to remind her of church and she said that she wasn't coming because she had been up all night coughing. That put a huge damper on us. We were both pretty down because that happened. We get to church and the branch presidency chastised us because we had brought Fr* to church last week. They were mad because he is apparently a health hazard. The health department said that he wasn't allowed near the hot deli in the grocery store that's owned by a member. So that was real helpful for our day. After church we went to our apartment and had a few hours to work before the Christmas devotional started. So we tracted a little and tried to see some people. The Christmas devotional was really good. I liked how president Uctdorf referenced the Grinch in his talk. Any ways that was pretty much it for me this past week. Hopefully this week will be better.

I did get the package today. Thank you. I'll be printing out pictures at walmart today so ill send you my card soon. other then that there's not much to write about. I love you all and cant wait to talk to you on Christmas!!!

Elder Butler