November 11

Dear Friends and Family, It has been such an amazing week! We had a bit of a miracle happen on Thursday. Kelvin contacted us and said he wanted to be baptized on Saturday...(LAST WEEK). That meant we had three days to plan it. I was so surprised but happy that he made the decision to change his date to the original date. It was incredible. We were able to get everything set up in time and the spirit was felt so much. When he went in the water, I felt the spirit more than at any other baptism since I've been in Karratha. We had 4 investigators show up too. Zakir and Reza, the two men from Afghanistan came, which was really surprising and Emma came for about 5 minutes during the video so she didn't get to watch the baptism but we were so glad that she came. We met Emma about a month ago and it was from contacting. She didn't have time to talk to us but an hour after contacting we went to a teaching appointment. As we were walking in, we saw her walking out so we talked to her for a minute. She said she was actually a bit interested in finding out more about the purpose of life and she likes learning about what others believe. We told the member to set up a teaching appointment for us but that never happened. About a week or so later, we were tracting and remembered that the past missionaries told us about a woman they tracted into a few months before. We went to the house to follow up and when we knocked, who could have answered but her. She didn't have time to talk but we were able to arrange an appointment and get her number. While talking at the doorstep, we didn't quite know what to expect at the appointment because she seemed a bit timid and we were unsure about how committed she was but with all the experiences before, we felt that there was a reason that we have been led to her. Our appointment was Friday and we were in for quite a surprise. She had all kinds of notes she had written about the bible and what she believes. She asked us questions about verses in the bible and we had no idea how to answer them. We taught her about the plan of salvation which she found quite interesting but still had a bunch of things she had questions with the bible. We are pretty excited for our next visit and are hoping she has read some of the book of Mormon. We have also been blessed to teach Peter and Julie. We actually met Tia about a month ago from street contacting. Tia is their daughter who just graduated from high school. She didn't seem very interested but told us that her parents like talking about religion. We made our first stop with president Lindsay and Julie answered. She didn't seem too interested at first but after a bit of persuasion, we were able to convince her to allow us to come back. The next week she told us she was going to talk about it with her husband, Peter and for us to come back in 2 weeks. Well we were finally about to get an appointment with them for Saturday, just before the baptism. It was great and Julie has so many questions. We ended up teaching them the Plan of Salvation AND the restoration. They just kept giving us plenty of questions, most of which we couldn't really give answers to(such as if someone is talking to spirits for people as a business and giving those people a sense of peace, is that from god or the devil). We were able to get them to understand that they can know if it is true by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. Julie told us that she was a bit skeptical because she grew up in an environment where her father was constantly saying negative things about Mormons and she has gained a bit of a bias because of that. They didn't want to obey all the rules such as the word of wisdom and tithing, but I believe that they will receive an answer and eventually know the truth. I am so thankful that heavenly father has given us the opportunity to meet them and I really hope we can change their lives. Things are going very well with our investigator Ardi. He is Indonesian and we were able to have our first Real lesson with him when President Lindsay was here too. We retaught him about the restoration and it was like a light bulb lit up in his head. He understood why there was a need for the Priesthood to be restored and he said he would be reading the Book of Mormon more intently now. He also said he wants to come to church next week to see what it is like. That was a bit surprising because he has been going to the baptist church and we didn't expect that he was so willing to find out if this is true that he wants to see what our church worship is like. I am going to be praying a lot this week that he will follow through with his commitment. I know that he is very special to heavenly father and there is something planned for him. We had a lesson with Caitlin at Albertos house which went really good. She even came to the baptism on Saturday which I believe she got a lot out of. She completed her reading assignment from the Plan of Salvation lesson but didn't get too much out of it so we are probably going to teach it to her again sometime. She is moving to Perth in 5 or 6 weeks though so we hope she will gain a witness that our message is true. We taught her the restoration on Friday and showed her the movie. It seemed like she got a lot out of it and she told us about her friend Anita(who we exterminated her birds last Saturday). Anita has been thinking about what we said a bit and we stopped by to see her yesterday after church. We told her that the reason she hasn't been very happy lately is because she has distanced herself from god. We taught her about the Restoration and told her about some experiences that helped us know if the church was true and strengthened our faith. She said she really doesn't even know if god exists sometimes and she doesn't feel like she gets answers to prayers. We hit her with the comment that "Maybe god IS answering your prayers by sending two young men to teach you about his true church. We are really praying for Anita to have some kind of spiritual experience to help her gain answers to her prayers and know the truth. Well that's a bit about our week. I know.. kinda crazy. I have so thankful that heavenly father has been blessing us with so much work here in karratha. I hope you are all finding people that are willing to let god bless their lives through you! Love Elder Joshua Butts

November 4

Dear Family, We had a great baptism this week for Ti Whenua and JJ Erickson. They were Baptised and confirmed by their dad on thursday the 1st of september and Kelvin is scheduled to be baptised on the 15th. We did a lot of tracting this week. We met Emma and we are very excited to teach her. We had actually tracted into her a few months ago but she was busy and said to come back some other time. This time must have been the charm because she seemed to have a desire to learn about the plan of salvation and other things about Jesus Christ. We are going to teach her this week! The rest of things have been going a bit slow but I still think we can get another baptism aside from Kelvin before the end of the year. We taught Rachel the Plan of Salvation this last week too which went amazing. She is very receptive to the gospel. We have also set a goal to activate her before the end of the year because she is already a member. She told us that we answered questions that she didn't even know she had. We had a great experience while we were at Volleyball. Since the branch did the youth trip this year, there was nobody who showed up except for the 2 men from Afghanistan. Zakir hasn't been able to read much more about the book of Mormon but while I was sitting on the chairs, Reza came up to me and asked what we did all the time. I told his about our schedule and the plan of salvation. Fortunately I had some pictures that I was able to put out and I went through the plan of salvation with him. it caused him to ask questions about why there are so many churches in the world. I was able to share the restoration and Joseph smith with him which made him really quite interested. He said he wanted to look at the website and learn about it. we are really hoping that we can teach him. I hope you are all having a wonderful week! Love Elder Joshua Butts

October 28

Dear Family, It has been such a great week! President Lindsay came up and we took him out to do some visits with us on Wednesday. I don't think it could have gone better. He loves the work we are doing and we taught two incredible lessons(one of which wasn't even remotely planned). We went to visit Rachel, who we found out is a member but doesn't know really anything about the church. She ended up being busy so we set up an appointment to visit tomorrow. We didn't really know who we might be able to catch home at that time but I remembered Ardi, an Indonesian man whom we tracted into and gave a book of mormon to two weeks ago. When we visited with president Lindsay, he was miraculously home and invited us in with a friendly smile. He is a christian and goes to the baptist church but is open to new ideas and was curious about the Book of Mormon when we told him about it last time. We showed him some Scriptures in the bible which talk about the book of mormon such as Ezekial 37, and John 10. He had some questions about baptism and we helped him understand that the gospel has been restored by Joseph smith. This week we are going to teach him about the Apostasy. Our mission president was quite pleased with the visit. We next had an appointment with a woman named Jen who we had also recently tracted into and given a book of mormon. She was so inviting to us and President Lindsay. After some conversation we taught the lesson of the restoration with the movie. It was so amazing the spirit we were able to feel and I could tell that she was thinking. She lit up after the movie and told us that Now she understood what the book of mormon is. It is not our mormon bible, but it is additional scripture. Later in the week she told us she had been reading and was looking forward to our visit this coming week! We have also had many other great experiences including exterminating some pests from a woman's yard to teaching Jayjay and Ti Whenua. They are going to be baptised this Thursday. It is simply so amazing that Heavenly father has seen fit so bless us with so many of these baptisms. We were able to teach them and Kelvin(who will be baptised in the next two weeks) about the baptismal interview questions which they answered the questions with flying colors. I feel so blessed. They also did the primary program in this branch yesterday. I must say, it was quite a comical event. I always love watching the children sing and talk about how the church has blessed their lives. There are going to be many more blessings seen in karratha in the near future. Have a great week! Love Elder Joshua Butts

October 21

Dear Family, It has been such a great week! Prestons baptism was friday and it was such an amazing experience. There were even a few non-members who showed up and we were able to give one of them a book of mormon. I was given the privilege of confirming Preston on sunday. It was a very spiritual experience. I believe that he will be such a great member of the church. We have had lots of success this week with investigators and lessons. Alberto has a neighbor that works in the school system with him. She is in her mid 20's and her name is Caitlin. We were finally able to teach her at his house on Wednesday. We taught her the plan of salvation and she was really intrigued by it. She said she'd read the book of mormon, so we are going to follow up with her the next time we are able to meet with her. We have gotten 3 more baptismal dates with other investigators this week too which has been so rewarding. We are teaching Te-Whenua and Jay-Jay. They are both children of Regan. He is an active member and is getting married to another member in November. He told us that he wanted us to start teaching his kids a while back and we finally got to teach them on wednesday. Since they already come to church, they are pretty clued on and know a lot. The lesson was a breeze and we asked about them being baptised. We were able to set it up for November 1st. I am very excited. We are going to have to compact the lessons a bit, but I'm sure they will be able to handle them. Kelvin is also doing really well. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it. He has a brother who died a few months ago because of bad decisions but Kelvin was very comforted to know he will see his brother again. He even called us yesterday and told us that he was telling his mom about the plan of salvation and she had a lot of questions. He had no idea how to answer them and asked for help. We are going to try to find a way to get missionaries in Busselton(where she lives) to be able to visit her. I am very excited about the progress. Kelvin is scheduled to be baptised on November 10th. All our hard work is starting to pay off. I will have been blessed to participate in 5 baptisms since being in Karratha. I know the Lord has really been in the work here. We also have a lot of other potential investigators who are coming to church and schedules appointments with us. A month ago we were tracting and met a family who had been to church before. The mothers name is Joanne. they are aboriginal. They are all non-members but used to go to church quite regularly about 2 years ago, but just stopped. We invited them to church a few weeks ago but they never showed up and when we went over to their house, they didn't seem too excited to see us. Surprisingly, when we were in sacrament meeting yesterday, they just showed up. It was quite a shocker for me. When I was talking to her after church, she said her little boy had to go to the hospital during the week and it must have caused her to start thinking. She said she did want to start meeting with us again. I am so excited for our appointment this week. It will be good if we can teach them and eventually help them to get baptised. It is hard with aboriginals because of their culture but hopefully that won't stop this family and hopefully they will be active. That's a little bit about whats in Karratha right now. have a wonderful week everyone! Elder Joshua Butts

October 14

Dear Family, it has been such an eventful week. I don't even know where to start. We have a baptism this coming Friday with Preston. He is so prepared. He begged his mother to allow him to go to general conference on Sunday even though she was sick. His brother dropped him off and we kept an eye on him during the session so his brother could pick him up afterward. He is pretty excited. We are having his interview with the branch president tomorrow. Volleyball went so great on friday. The two men from Pakistan (Zakir and Reza) came and brought their volleyball because ours is flat. The week before, I gave a Farsi book of Mormon to Zakir. I asked him about it last friday and he had read 20 pages (about to 2 nephi). I was astonished and I think he will start having some questions soon. They are both Christian. One last cool fact is that a week ago, we built a sand sculpture of the Brigham city temple at the community gardens. well, I guess that people liked it so much, they left it and it's been up over a week. I wonder if we will be able to get anyone to investigate because of it. People seem it like it though. We have been making a big influence on the library as well. They have commissioned me to do a poster sized charcoal drawing of the SLC temple to put up and they have changed all the backgrounds on the computers to temples. How is that for making an influence. We had such an incredible experience yesterday. We got a call from a woman who we hadn't even heard of (It turned out that it was because she was on the branch list but the name said "DO NOT VISIT" on it so we never bothered). Well the call was to ask us to teach her husband who isn't a member and consequently is the reason that we weren't allowed to visit. Apparently 10 years ago he told his wife that in 10 years he would take the discussions. Yesterday was our first discussion and we taught the restoration. It was so incredible the spirit we were able to feel during the lesson. He works a lot, but hopefully we will be able to see him progress in Book of Mormon reading and in the gospel. General Conference was so amazing this past weekend. I hope you were all able to get a lot out of it last week. Love you all, Elder Joshua Butts

October 7

Dear Family, It has been a very good week full of great spiritual experiences. We are SO super excited. We got a baptismal date with Preston(Toni's son). He has been thinking about baptism for a while and now he is finally making the decision. He wants Bro Otto to baptize him on the 19th of October. We were also able to get Kelvin to start coming back to church. He wants us to start teaching him the lessons again and get a baptismal date at our appointment this week! I am so excited for Preston. It was amazing to see him and his mother start coming to church 3 months ago and now he has made the decision to be baptized. Miracles truly have not ceased and god has not ceased to be a god of miracles. We had another really cool experience with talking with everyone last weekend. We went to the community gardens as usual to do service and we met Deklin(a 14 year old boy who was there last week also). It is hard to find a way to slip gospel conversation in with the other people who help there because bro Otto has pretty much told everyone about it and they aren't really interested. We have never talked about it to deklin though. While helping I decided that we didn't need to wait for him to ask who we were so I asked what he was doing on Sunday. He said just sitting at home doing nothing. I asked why he didn't go to church and he explained that he does bible study classes during the week and occasionally attends the Anglican church on some Sundays. I started talking to him about some of the passages in the bible and then started getting into the book of Mormon (which he had never heard about). I asked what he would think if god called another prophet right now like Moses. He said that it's possible and that he wants to follow the bible as closely as he can. We then invited him to church but the problem is that we didn't talk to his parents yet so we told him to see if it was OK with them and that we would love to explain more. It was so amazing how Heavenly Father was able to give us that teaching opportunity. I am very grateful for the work in this area. Have a great week everyone! Love Elder Butts