August 26

Dear Friends and Family, It has been such a spirit filled week! We got 13 lessons which is pretty much a record for this area. We also have some amazing and exciting news. We will be having a baptism this Saturday! It is for Pracilla. We have been teaching her and she finally got an interview with the branch president at church yesterday and she passed it with flying colours so he suggested that we get in contact with the mission president and set up a time for the next interview. We called up President Lindsay and he said it was so great that she is going so well and that after he Skype's her on Tuesday that she is ready for baptism. Since Elder Case is going home next week, president suggested that we set up the baptism for this Saturday. there are many members of the branch who are leaving town but he said that if we felt good about it, that we should set it up for this Saturday. We both felt pretty good about it and after making some calls, we decided to go with it. I am super excited. We also are teaching Pracillas uncle as of this week too. We got a random call from Noretta (Pracillas sister who was baptised last November) and she said she had been talking to her Uncle Victor and he had some great questions about how our body is a temple and about other Mormon temples. It was an incredible lesson that we got to teach. He apparently went to a YSA activity the other day with one of the other YSA. The next step is to just get him to church and keep teaching him. On Saturdays we usually help out with some community gardens. While we were helping, we met Kurt. He is from Queensland and has been traveling through Australia. He is really big into Tai Chi so he likes meditating a lot. Sometimes he just stops whatever he is doing and stars doing hand and leg movements like he's dancing, or he'll sit on the ground with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. I didn't really mind, but sometimes it was a little strange to be mixing cement for a flower bed container and he would randomly disappear. He told us he liked reading the bible a bit and we shared with him about the book of Mormon. He seemed a little interested so we offered to give him one. The next day, bro Otto had talked him to church. That was a bit surprising. We found out that as bro Otto was driving to church, he saw Kurt at the side of the road. He asked what Kurt was doing and Kurt told him that he wasn't really doing much. Bro Otto just decided to bring him to church. He really seemed to enjoy it and I was glad that he came. Hopefully he will contact other missionaries on his travels. I am so thankful to be out here witnessing all these miracles and I really hope you are all finding people to share the gospel with also. Thanks so much for all your love and support. I love you all, Elder Joshua Butts