Sunday, April 29, 2012
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been a week full of experiences. On Saturday we spent the morning trying to finish the roof of a Less Active member. We still weren't able to finish, It is the fifth time that we have gone over to help. Hopefully the next time, we will be able to finish it. We got 3 investigators to church yesterday!!! It was so exciting. I haven't gotten that many people to church in ages and it felt so good! I am so grateful that our work has started paying off and that Heavenly Father is softening peoples hearts. We were even invited to dinner at one investigators house yesterday. We taught about the power of prayer and scripture study. We asked Jess(the investigator) to say the prayer because every time we have taught her, she said she would the next time but never has. She finally accepted and we felt the spirit so strongly. I believe she did too. It was such a great experience.
I will be getting my new companion in 2 days. It will be more new experiences. I am so glad that I get to see so many people changing their lives. I would love to see more but I consider it such a blessing to have the investigators that we do have. I hope you are all seeing the hand of heavenly father in your lives and working hard to be worthy of every blessing he has for you.
I love you all!
Joshua Butts
Dear Friends, and Family,
It has been a good week. We haven't found any more new investigators but we are sure working hard. Hopefully we will get our current investigators to really start progressing soon. One experience we had was pretty cool even though it didn't give us a new investigator. We were on exchanges and I was with Elder Reeder. We had just finished tracting and saw a teenager walking by. We figured it would be better to contact them and at least give it a chance. We said hello and started up a conversation. We found that she was a determined "I only believe in science", person and couldn't accept that god existed. she was about to leave and we asked her if she would merely give us one chance to tell her what we were about. She said, "OK. GO". We were caught a little off guard but decided that it was fair enough and taught the whole restoration lesson.
It was good and we almost were able to give her a Book of Mormon, but she still didn't accept it. We at least gave her a card and felt great because we had at least given her the chance to accept or reject that knowledge we had to offer.
Anzac day is this upcomming week. (it is basically like Australias memorial day). I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Elder Joshua Butts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Dear Friends and Family,
This week has been a little slow but we have still been seeing miracles. We got a part member family to come to church on Sunday which was so awesome!!! We have been working very hard with them and through the spirit in the lessons we have been able to get the less active dad to have a great desire to come to church. We are now teaching his son who wants to be baptised soon and his partner came to church too.
We also had a cool experience while biking around trying to visit some people. We had visited the last house which nobody was home. I remembered that we had tracted a street nearby only a few days prior and there was a specific house that nobody had answered. I really felt like we needed to go and knock on it. We went back and when we knocked on it, we met a man who had talked to missionaries in the past. He decided to stop taking the lessons but seemed a bit interested when we offered to talk. He is on vacation now but said we could come by and talk to him about the Book of Mormon when he gets back. I was so thankful for being worthy still to be lead by the spirit to go and visit him.
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!! We watched "Finding Faith in Christ". I love that movie so much, especially when Christ comes to show the people the prints in his hands and continues healing and blessing people. I love that movie so much! I hope you are all striving you hardest to find ways that you can be lead by the spirit and do everything you can to remember Jesus Christ!
I love you all! Elder Joshua Butts
This week has been a little slow but we have still been seeing miracles. We got a part member family to come to church on Sunday which was so awesome!!! We have been working very hard with them and through the spirit in the lessons we have been able to get the less active dad to have a great desire to come to church. We are now teaching his son who wants to be baptised soon and his partner came to church too.
We also had a cool experience while biking around trying to visit some people. We had visited the last house which nobody was home. I remembered that we had tracted a street nearby only a few days prior and there was a specific house that nobody had answered. I really felt like we needed to go and knock on it. We went back and when we knocked on it, we met a man who had talked to missionaries in the past. He decided to stop taking the lessons but seemed a bit interested when we offered to talk. He is on vacation now but said we could come by and talk to him about the Book of Mormon when he gets back. I was so thankful for being worthy still to be lead by the spirit to go and visit him.
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!! We watched "Finding Faith in Christ". I love that movie so much, especially when Christ comes to show the people the prints in his hands and continues healing and blessing people. I love that movie so much! I hope you are all striving you hardest to find ways that you can be lead by the spirit and do everything you can to remember Jesus Christ!
I love you all! Elder Joshua Butts
Dear Friends and Family,
We finally got some new investigators this week. Earlier this week, we were trying to go around to visit more members and less actives because we are still quite new to the area. While we were biking, we saw a guy standing by a pond and he was throwing a stick into it for his dog to fetch. I decided that we needed to go and say hello to him. We biked up and said that we just saw him and wanted to come and talk. We found that he had just recently gotten off drugs and is trying to clean up his life. He had been stabbed in the past and is an inactive Seventh-day-Adventist. We got to know him for a bit and he said he might be interested in learning more about god so he can get his life back into better order. It was such a cool experience that was very much led by the spirit.
We also had a cool experience with a part member family last night. Petina(the less active members partner), has been having a lot of troubles accepting the role of women in the church because some members have given her the wrong idea about it. She thinks women should rule the world basically. We decided to show her the Emma Smith movie because we thought it might help her to realize that women are much more important in the church than she might think. She didn't seem too interested in the movie while watching it and actually, it seemed like she took more negative things from the movie than good, but something incredible happened. Brett (who didn't seem to have payed too much attention during the movie) told us that it really touched him. He said he hadn't felt that way in a long time and now has a stronger testimony and wants to come back to church more. It was so cool how something we had brought for his partner, ended up being more effective for him. He now wants us to bring more movies so we are going to get some like "the testaments, and the prophet of the restoration".
I am so thankful to be here and receiving these blessings of the spirit and missionary work.
Elder Joshua Butts
We finally got some new investigators this week. Earlier this week, we were trying to go around to visit more members and less actives because we are still quite new to the area. While we were biking, we saw a guy standing by a pond and he was throwing a stick into it for his dog to fetch. I decided that we needed to go and say hello to him. We biked up and said that we just saw him and wanted to come and talk. We found that he had just recently gotten off drugs and is trying to clean up his life. He had been stabbed in the past and is an inactive Seventh-day-Adventist. We got to know him for a bit and he said he might be interested in learning more about god so he can get his life back into better order. It was such a cool experience that was very much led by the spirit.
We also had a cool experience with a part member family last night. Petina(the less active members partner), has been having a lot of troubles accepting the role of women in the church because some members have given her the wrong idea about it. She thinks women should rule the world basically. We decided to show her the Emma Smith movie because we thought it might help her to realize that women are much more important in the church than she might think. She didn't seem too interested in the movie while watching it and actually, it seemed like she took more negative things from the movie than good, but something incredible happened. Brett (who didn't seem to have payed too much attention during the movie) told us that it really touched him. He said he hadn't felt that way in a long time and now has a stronger testimony and wants to come back to church more. It was so cool how something we had brought for his partner, ended up being more effective for him. He now wants us to bring more movies so we are going to get some like "the testaments, and the prophet of the restoration".
I am so thankful to be here and receiving these blessings of the spirit and missionary work.
Elder Joshua Butts
Dear family and friends,
It has been a good week. The stake I am serving in, had a stake conference
on Sunday and it was an incredible experience. Elder Pearson of the
seventy
came and spend an hour talking to us and it was an incredible talk. He
talked of how we must start now to prepare ourselves to receive the
messages that will be given at general conference so that we can get the
most out of it. When we have the holy ghost in our lives, we have so much
more the advantage to gain the knowledge we seek and to progress toward
our
heavenly father at an ever more rapid rate.President James Hamula also did
a zone conference with us earlier this week which I learned so much. He
focused on how to bring happiness more into our lives and to learn to like
things we don't like. He told the story of an elder who came up to him and
said "I simply just don't feel like tracting"
President Hamula could not believe that the elder was so caught up in
simply not wanting to tract when there was nothing more effective to do at
the time. He told the elder that he was just going to have to do it until
he wanted to. I have also realized that it works with most everything,
that
we are judged on our actions and our thoughts when they affect our
actions.
We don't have to want to do something to do it, and just doing something
brings us to enjoy doing it.
I have been learning so much while working here and my faith and
has grown astronomically. I love serving so much. I hope you are all
having
success in you service for the lord and others back home too.
I love you all.
Elder Joshua Butts.
It has been a good week. The stake I am serving in, had a stake conference
on Sunday and it was an incredible experience. Elder Pearson of the
seventy
came and spend an hour talking to us and it was an incredible talk. He
talked of how we must start now to prepare ourselves to receive the
messages that will be given at general conference so that we can get the
most out of it. When we have the holy ghost in our lives, we have so much
more the advantage to gain the knowledge we seek and to progress toward
our
heavenly father at an ever more rapid rate.President James Hamula also did
a zone conference with us earlier this week which I learned so much. He
focused on how to bring happiness more into our lives and to learn to like
things we don't like. He told the story of an elder who came up to him and
said "I simply just don't feel like tracting"
President Hamula could not believe that the elder was so caught up in
simply not wanting to tract when there was nothing more effective to do at
the time. He told the elder that he was just going to have to do it until
he wanted to. I have also realized that it works with most everything,
that
we are judged on our actions and our thoughts when they affect our
actions.
We don't have to want to do something to do it, and just doing something
brings us to enjoy doing it.
I have been learning so much while working here and my faith and
has grown astronomically. I love serving so much. I hope you are all
having
success in you service for the lord and others back home too.
I love you all.
Elder Joshua Butts.
Dear Family and Family,
This has been an absolutely wonderful week. On Friday we had a big
conference with the General Sunday school president (Pres.
Osguthorpe), The general young mens president (Pres. Beck), and Elder
Watson of the seventy spoke to us. It was a great meeting filled with
the spirit. I learned so much.
We had a neat experience yesterday too. We were tracting and most of
the housed we knocked on the people weren’t interested. The other
ones, nobody was home. We finally got to a house that had an elderly
couple in it. The husband came out to talk to us. He was quite
friendly and showed us around his garden in back. He had many flowers
and other Lilies that were uncommon. He told us about how he had been
married for 70 years and had just had his wedding anniversary. We were
quite impressed that he had been married for so long considering the
state that society has come to. They didn’t smoke or drink which was
also very impressive.
He told us about the dementia that his wife had been coming down with
in the recent years. She has slowly been losing her memory and was
becoming increasingly incapable of taking care of her-self. He told us
of the many things he does for her and showed us an article in the
newspaper that had been written about the couple because they had been
married so long. We asked if we could talk about the gospel but he
wasn’t willing to be taught, but we were still very grateful that the
lord led us to someone who was able to give some time to talk to us.
On Saturday we had the annual Branch Dance activity. They set it up in
a dance hall and it was medieval themed. My Companion and I told them
we weren’t allowed to dance because of the white handbook rules but we
were quite happy that we didn’t have to considering that it was pretty
much square dancing. I wasn’t too keen on looking that silly. We had a
good time though and were able to talk to some non-members which was
fun.
We are still working very hard in this area and though it is slow, we
are still seeing the hand of Heavenly Father in the work. Thanks for
your prayers. I love you all!
Elder Joshua Butts
This has been an absolutely wonderful week. On Friday we had a big
conference with the General Sunday school president (Pres.
Osguthorpe), The general young mens president (Pres. Beck), and Elder
Watson of the seventy spoke to us. It was a great meeting filled with
the spirit. I learned so much.
We had a neat experience yesterday too. We were tracting and most of
the housed we knocked on the people weren’t interested. The other
ones, nobody was home. We finally got to a house that had an elderly
couple in it. The husband came out to talk to us. He was quite
friendly and showed us around his garden in back. He had many flowers
and other Lilies that were uncommon. He told us about how he had been
married for 70 years and had just had his wedding anniversary. We were
quite impressed that he had been married for so long considering the
state that society has come to. They didn’t smoke or drink which was
also very impressive.
He told us about the dementia that his wife had been coming down with
in the recent years. She has slowly been losing her memory and was
becoming increasingly incapable of taking care of her-self. He told us
of the many things he does for her and showed us an article in the
newspaper that had been written about the couple because they had been
married so long. We asked if we could talk about the gospel but he
wasn’t willing to be taught, but we were still very grateful that the
lord led us to someone who was able to give some time to talk to us.
On Saturday we had the annual Branch Dance activity. They set it up in
a dance hall and it was medieval themed. My Companion and I told them
we weren’t allowed to dance because of the white handbook rules but we
were quite happy that we didn’t have to considering that it was pretty
much square dancing. I wasn’t too keen on looking that silly. We had a
good time though and were able to talk to some non-members which was
fun.
We are still working very hard in this area and though it is slow, we
are still seeing the hand of Heavenly Father in the work. Thanks for
your prayers. I love you all!
Elder Joshua Butts
Dear Family and Friends,
I have been moved to a new area. I am in Forrestfield. It is in the Kalamunda ward which is one if the city wards. I really was sad to have to leave the branch that I was most recently serving in, but I know that the lord does things for a reason and I am doing my best to accept where I have been moved to and work my hardest. We have already been seeing the work progress in this new area. Just in the few days of us being here, we have met 3 investigators with heaps of potential for baptism and gotten 4 or 5 addresses of people we have street contacted who have accepted to have us over for a chat.
My companion is Elder Rockwood. He is pretty cool and we seem to get along quite well. He is also from Sandy and is on the movie "Turn Around", But he goes home in 5 weeks so I won't get to serve around him long. He is my 10th companion. We have been doing heaps of biking and on saturday we spent all morning roofing. We were putting up sheet metal panels on their house and got really sun burnt by the time we were finished. It was fun though.
Thanks for everything. I hope for the best for you all!
Love Elder Joshua Butts
I have been moved to a new area. I am in Forrestfield. It is in the Kalamunda ward which is one if the city wards. I really was sad to have to leave the branch that I was most recently serving in, but I know that the lord does things for a reason and I am doing my best to accept where I have been moved to and work my hardest. We have already been seeing the work progress in this new area. Just in the few days of us being here, we have met 3 investigators with heaps of potential for baptism and gotten 4 or 5 addresses of people we have street contacted who have accepted to have us over for a chat.
My companion is Elder Rockwood. He is pretty cool and we seem to get along quite well. He is also from Sandy and is on the movie "Turn Around", But he goes home in 5 weeks so I won't get to serve around him long. He is my 10th companion. We have been doing heaps of biking and on saturday we spent all morning roofing. We were putting up sheet metal panels on their house and got really sun burnt by the time we were finished. It was fun though.
Thanks for everything. I hope for the best for you all!
Love Elder Joshua Butts
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