Dear Friends and Family,
This has been an awesome week! Ian was baptized!!! and not only that, but he truly showed his commitment to the gospel on Sunday when his fellowship and family was sick and couldn't make it to church (Most people would use this as an excuse to stay home) but he still drove himself to the ward and showed up to church alone. Fortunately we were still there and he wasn't completely alone at church. It was such an incredible experience to help him get baptized and I will not forget it ever.

After the baptism the ward did their Christmas party at the foreshore and we ate there for the lunch. It lasted quite a while so Elder Fatupaito and I decided that rather than wasting time, we would go proselyte for a while on the sidewalk along the beach. We had little success but then we offered a card that had a picture of Jesus Christ on it to a guy who was smoking and his girlfriend. He then started asking us all kinds of crazy questions about Jesus Christ and the end of the world. When we would start answering his questions he would interrupt with more questions and we felt like we were getting nowhere. We decided to ask him if we could say a prayer with him. I started praying and he interrupted during the prayer by talking as if he was continuing the prayer for me (which I figured was good because he was making an effort) but as he was talking, his words all the sudden became directed at us so we didn't get to finish right off. He talked about how his life was so bad and we asked if he believed if he had ever followed Jesus Christ. He replied with a definite NO. I told him how he had already chosen to follow Jesus Christ in the spirit world and that is why he was on this earth. He started crying heaps and we didn't know exactly how to react. He all the sudden said thanks for the chat and left. It was quite an interesting experience so Elder Fatupaito and myself said a prayer together to thank Heavenly Father for the experience and to finish the prayer we had started saying while we were talking to the young man.
Another quite spiritual experience I had with Elder Fatupaito was when we were at the same foreshore but this time we were doing some creative finding. I had gotten a large sheet of paper and some pictures of Jesus Christ and we sat in the middle of the sidewalk while I would draw pictures of Jesus while people would walk by and some of them would ask questions. Nobody was really stopping by much and the flies were getting so bad that I was afraid that if I blinked, a fly would get stuck in my eye. I asked Elder Fatupaito if we could say a prayer that I could draw with the convince of not having flies buzzing all around my face. Almost instantly after we prayed, the flied left(with the exception of 2or3 here and there. It was such a tender mercy from the lord.
We also had the mission Christmas activity by the temple last Friday and there was a really good turn out. Over 1000 people showed up to it and we even were able to receive some referrals and get some non-members interested in investigating. It was a great night full of fun and the spirit was felt greatly, Even though we did get home a little late.
I am very excited for Christmas this next Sunday! I hope you are all doing your best to gave the Christ spirit in your lives and doing everything you can to think about how you can give to others.
I love you all.
ELDER BUTTS

Dear Friends and Family,
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well probably more-so in Utah considering that there is no snow here but there are a few people here and there who have been putting up Christmas lights. In fact we helped out putting some up for Ian, Our investigator we will be baptising this week! I am so excited. We asked him all the questions in our last interview and he answered them so well and bore an incredible and sincere testimony.
This past week has been pretty darn slow. My companion has been having back problems for a good while and one of the zone leader elders had gastro so I exchanged with his companion most of the week while our sick companions stayed at the flat. We did a lot of work though. We taught a couple of their investigators about the plan of salvation and people like me to draw it for them, So while he was talking about it, I would draw each level of it and people seem to like looking at all the steps and the pictures that represent each one. They probably liked it because it was a little more elaborate that a bunch of circles.
We did so well together that we even got 8 lessons in one day. It was a very productive day. We also sang at a retirement home on Saturday and it was hilarious. Fortunately they were all old people and most of them probably couldn't hear to well because we were terrible. Well... not in gods eyes because we were doing service but I would probably never willingly go to a concert with singing like what we did. One song we sang was "Once in Royal Davids City" but when we started, apparently nobody knew the tune of it so they started singing it to the tune of "Hark the Harold Angels Sing" and eventually we got to the end of the page and ran out of words but there was still tune left. Our choir director freaked out and stopped us immediately and had someone from the choir give a sample of how it was supposed to sound and we resumed by starting over. During another song, one of the pages was missing and nobody knew the words so we sang quite nicely during the first half of the song and then all the sudden you could hear everyone mumbling their own version of what they thought the words might sound like if there was a page adjacent to the first. At least this time they were doing something to the tune. It was quite an eventful service project that I will probably never forget and will always enjoy the memory of it.
I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas season full of joy and giving!
Elder Joshua Butts

Dear friends and family,
It has been a good week but a little slow. My companion has been having some health problems and we were at the doctors for a bit while he had to get an X-ray and we found out that he has spinal problems but nothing too serious. The aboriginal lady we ran into last week that said she wanted to get closer to god wasn't at the appointment that we had made for her. We ended up feeling a little suspicious because of her requests but we are still going to go back this next week and try to help her out.
Ian, our investigator who we are baptising soon is the man aye. He has been keeping all the commitments that we have given him and doing everything in preparation for his baptism. Yesterday at church, we taught him about baptism in the Gospel Principals manual and the importance. We asked him what baptism meant to him and how it would be a new start. I am SOO excited for it and it is going to be a mean baptism.
The other day we were on exchanges with the missionaries in Rockingham and I was with elder Fatopaito. It was way fun, but super hot aye!! we biked out into this country area and tracted for a little while with flies buzzing all around us. It was fun but nobody was interested so we went to our next appointment in our zone leaders area. We did service for a lady in the ward by helping her weed her entire backyard for her house inspection the next week. It was super hot then because it was the middle of the day. It ended up being 98degrees outside. We later went to the ward mission leaders house for a BBQ because one of the YSA is leaving on a mission soon and he had some non-member friends we were going to teach. When we got there, we sat around the pool (sadly we weren't allowed to get in) and we talked with the other guys who were swimming. We ate and afterward chatted a little while one of the other young men was playing the guitar. After a little while the non-member friends started asking us why we weren't allowed to get into the pool and we told them about some of the many mission rules we adhere to. They were quite interested and we started talking heaps about standards of church member. I am so grateful that I had a 'For strength of Youth' pamphlet in my bag because I was able to read segments in it to tell them why we do the many things we do. We talked about the word of wisdom, tithing, law of chastity, and especially about the book of Mormon right at the end. I told them that there is no way in heaven or on earth that they would find out if what we had been talking about was true unless they read it and prayed about it. The spirit was felt so much that night and they committed to start reading it.
It is so amazing to see what Heavenly Father does for us when we work hard.
Elder Butts

Dear friends and family,
What a crazy week it has been. It has been getting very hot here. It was 90 the other day and it is only going to get hotter. One of the days, we were out biking and my companion skidded down a road with his brakes on and since it was quite a hot day, his rims were soft and his weight on the back tire bent it and so we had to walk the 4 miles back to our flat, one of which included carrying the messed up bicycle till we could leave it at a members house. It was quite an adventure. Since his bike was unusable, the next day required us to walk all around our area to our appointments. My feet were quite sore by the end of the day. We even got to the point of laying down in the middle of the sidewalk because Elder Sualevai has back problems. It was quite an adventure. We had a good amount of lessons and were very productive though which showed how much Heavenly Father will help us as long as we are willing to go out and work.
Thanksgiving was such an incredible day. I had an enormous feast, but it was feasting on the spirit and love of Christ in the temple. I can't think of a better activity to do on thanksgiving that spend it in the temple, learning about covenants and receiving personal revelation. As for an actual feast, well. . . . A peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a pretty decent meal considering there are so many other people in the world who have so much less and I was very grateful for it.
Another interesting experience that we had this week was while we were biking. We passed a house and this aboriginal lady came shuffling out of the house with a sad look on her face and she was calling out to us. We stopped to see what was the matter and she told us this long story about how her brother had committed suicide and her aunt was dieing in a hospital ages away and her son was apparently contemplating suicide. She asked us to pray for her and we did so. We gave her a book of Mormon and invited her to church and she said she would probably make it sometime. Later she asked us for money so she could get petrol(gas) so she could get home from the hospital which her aunt was at. While talking she also asked us to come in her house and cast out some evil spirits that were making her house a place that she couldn't stand to live in. We walked into her house and felt nothing different so we said a simple prayer that she would be able feel the spirit and be able to discern right from wrong. She told us about how much better she felt and we talked with her a little more about coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon. It was a very unique experience and hopefully it sparked her interest to learn more.
I have been having heaps of good experiences here and I have been learning so much more than I have ever learned. I hope for the best for all you reading this.
Elder Joshua Butts