Dear Friends and Family,
This has been a bit of a slow week but we have still had some fun
experiences. We went to the cromptons house earlier in the week and
had a lesson. It was a little strange at first because the daughters
didn't want to even listen or talk to us which was a little odd. We
taught the mother about Jesus Christ and Prophets but she kept telling
us that she didn't believe it and wouldn't pray. They told us not to
come back and teach them anymore which was a little bit of a blow. We
found out the next day that a few other investigators had only been
"just friends" with the previous missionaries and one of them(who we
met only once for about 5 minutes) called our mission president and
told him nasty things about us.
After some thought, my companion and I decided that the reason we both
were sent to this area was because past missionaries weren't teaching
the way they should so we got the entire area book(aside from a few
less active members and formers) and we threw out all the records of
those that had been dealt with in the past and we started over. It
felt so good!
We have already been seeing the success from it. We have been doing
much more finding and talked to many more people. On Tuesday we did
the art class which went super great! The first class had nobody show
up so I went out on the front lawn with the eisel and painted for that
time in hopes that some people would come talk to us. We had a few
people but we determined that it wasn't the right spot. Later in the
night, we did the second class which was heaps successful. We had 4
nonmembers show up and they loved the lesson I taught. The one
tomorrow is expecting a very decent turn out! I am very excited for
it.
On saturday, we went to bro Gericatanos house because he was in need
of some help with his house that he has been remodeling. Our job was
to paint the bricks outside. It was pretty fun and I didn't get any
paint on my nice white shirt!

We went later saturday night to the park to do some more painting on
the canvas and it went really well. I started out painting for about
15 or 20 mins but some teenagers walked over and started asking some
questions. They asked what I was painting and I told them it was a
temple for our church. They mentioned that they think it would be cool
but they would never be able to afford it. After telling them it was
free they became more interested! It was really fun to talk to them
because they were so open. It ended up leading to another group of
kids all between the ages of 14 to 17 and they were all asking
questions about life and we had answers! I didn't get much painted
which was great because I spent all the time teaching these kids the
plan of salvation and gaining their interest. Before they left I told
them briefly about Joseph Smith and told them to pray. We won't be
able to teach them again until they ask their parents permission so
hopefully they do. We will be doing much more contacting this way
though.

Thanks for all your support and prayers. Feel free to sent me paper letters too!
Elder Joshua Butts

Dear Friends and Family,
This week past week, we have had so much going on. We had our first session of the art class on Tuesday and it went great. One of the kids brought one of their friends and she was a non-member. Her parents came into the chapel and we were able to chat with them for a minute. We have also been doing quite a bit of visiting with members. There is a less active whos name is Brian. He has been split up from his wife for 3 years but they aren't divorced. He is from South Africa and konws some of the Rudmans. That was pretty cool and we were able to teach him an awesome lesson. We told him about LDS.org and he had a lot of problems that we said he could find answers to there.
We went over to the Cromptons house this week and were going to teach them about prophets and Jesus Christ. They seems to have a lot of problems with the fact that prophets, god, and priesthood holders are men. It is Jane (the mother), and her two daughters and son. The mother and daughters are kinda feministic though. Last week we tried to help them understand who god was and stuff about the bible but they said, "The bible, book of mormon, and everything else is all run by men."
We explained the immense importance of women in the church but they didn't understand. We told them that the only way they were going to find out if the message we share is true, is by studying the book of mormon and praying about it. When we followed up this week, only Kate(a daughter) was home and we weren't able to teach them. She did say, however, that her mom and other sister prayed about knowing who god was. We were super glad to hear that and we are going to see what kind of answers they recieved when we see them next. I really hope this family gets baptised. They really need the church so bad and I can see all the blessing they would receive from it.
We went on Saturday to see a part-member family (the Farrils) and I was on exchanges so Elder Webley was my companion and he had served here before. We went over there expecting to teach a simple lesson but Sister Farril up and told us to follow her in the car right when we got there. We drove to a place almost to Cowaramup(about 20 miles away) and she showed us the new house they have been building for the last year. It was MASSIVE and the architecture of an airplane hanger. It was about the same size too. While We were walking around her kids (from baby to 12-yrs-old) were jumping around me and swinging on my arms. It was heaps fun and it reminded me of when we would look at our house while it was in construction. They also had some huge water tanks and about 30 acres of land. It was so cool to explore the place and the whole time she was talking about how blessed her and her family were. She only joined the church a year or two ago. We are hopefully going to teach her husband. They were such a nice family and we were able to see them at church for the first time in a while yesterday too!
Yesterday at church was way funny. In our branch the missionaries get to church early(so we did that) to prepare the sacrament and bless it. Nobody plays the piano so I have pretty much been called as the ward organist. Elder Scragg and I also had to do a musical # in church yesterday too so I was running back and forth all of the meeting. It was fun though.
I have really been loving it here while serving Heavenly Father and I hope everyone is doing the best they can to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Find every oppurtunity to be a missionary!
Love Elder Joshua Butts

Dear Friends and Family,
This has been a very nice week with lots of work being done. Since we have gotten a new mission president recently, there have been some changes occurring in the mission field which are really getting missionaries to be more obedient. We have been helping one of the YSA in the ward to encourage him to want to serve a mission. He has even been going on splits with us a couple times. His name is Locklin and he is 21. Heis pretty cool but doesn't do much aside from stay at home, however, we are changing that now.
We went over to an investigators house on Saturday. Her name is Lila. She is about 60 and she is so great and has a strong testimony. She hasn't been taught many of the lessons but she knows quite a bit. The other day when we were over, we spent a couple hours doing service in her backyard. She was so appreciative that she even fed us lunch and while we were eating, I drew a big map of the plan of salvation. We taught her about it and she was quite quick to accept it and she really does believe it. We are going to teach her a few more times and then we think she will be ready to give us a baptismal date. We have been trying to keep in fairly good contact with most of our investigators and to contact her the other day, we called her and sang "Nearer my god to thee".
So last week for P-day, we went to a lighthouse over on Cape Nat'ralist. We werent allowed to go closer that 200 meters from it so it wasn't as exciting as we thought it would be. We did get to go on a small trail though that led to a whale watching point near the cliffs by the ocean. We got some way awesome pictures but the whales don't come till September so we missed them. It was still pretty fun. And the other day we went to a members house and for dinner and they had kangaroos that would come out when it got a little later and I got a picture with them. It was the first wild kangaroos I have seen!
I am excited to be in this area. It is really pretty and the art classes that we put up last week are going to be awesome. There are quite a few people who said they would probably go to them so I am hoping that we can get some new investigators out of it.
Hope you are all doing well.
Elder Joshua Butts

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks Everyone for all the love and support. I loved being able to talk to you all on christmas day.
I have just recently moved into a new area. It is called Busselton and it goes all the way down to Margaret River and Agusta. It is in the South-West australia region. The area is very beautiful even though it is quite far from many people and we have to travel pretty far to many areas where we teach people. There is an awesome branch here. We have church in an old Nunnery that has been kinda converted into a meetinghouse. It is funny because there is a sink in all the classrooms and the chapel isn't big enough so they have an overflow room with a TV in it that connects to a camera in the chapel so the people in the other room can see the speaker. It is a fun little meetinghouse and there are still some crosses on the pillars in front.
We have been comming up with some new teaching ideas and we have a couple that we think will be quite fun. Since we live about a half mile from the beach, our ward mission leader(who is a carpenter) offered to make an eisel for me and there are some ward members who would like paintings. The members are going to get me the materials and I will sit on the pathway near the beach and paint pictures of temples and such while people nearby see and ask questions about the picture.
The other thing we are going to do is I will be teaching Art classes and we have been advertising it around on public notice boards. I never really thought the stuff I learned in college would be things I could use for teaching in the mission field.
I hope you are all doing well and making the most out of every moment.
Elder Joshua Butts