October 13, 2014
Hey everyone!
So I had made a list of things that I was going to talk about in my email... But I left it at home, haha, so I'll see how much I can remember.
So we were challenged by the Mission President to all give a Harvest Blessing this week! A Harvest Blessing is basically a house blessing. We ask people if we can leave a blessing in their home, and if they say yes, then we go inside and talk to them about who lives there, their needs, their desires, and we ask, "If Jesus were here right now, what would you ask from him?" and then we start the prayer and mention our priesthood, then pray for the home and everybody inside! It's a great experience.
One day, I can't remember which; we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders! I went with Elder Overson, from North Carolina. We started walking around in a neighborhood, talking to everyone outside and knocking on some doors. The first door we knocked on, a man named Jerry opened up. He was probably a 70 year old black man who lived alone. He let us in to leave a blessing! I left the blessing, and it was an awesome experience. After the blessing he opened up and told us about these experiences he's had where a girl/spirit walks through his front door at night and just like hangs around. He tells it to leave, and it leaves. He spoke English, so when we left we referred him to the English missionaries, haha.
On the same street, we walked past an open garage with a few ladies in it. We walked up and noticed there were 2 Indian (like, the country India) ladies probably in their 60s or 70s. One of them had a really long beard, it was weird…haha. We walked up and talked to them, then noticed there was a 3rd lady! She was lying motionless on a couch right next to where we were standing! I'm pretty sure she was like 130 years old. Not even kidding. She also had a beard. Well, these ladies were really nice and they offered us some food! And Elder Overson accepted! Long story short, we were there for an hour sitting on a couch in California talking to 3 ancient Indian women eating Okra and Mushroom soup that was so spicy I honestly couldn’t even feel my mouth anymore. I have no clue how I got it down. We talked about life, and their religious philosophies. One of the women had 3 kids who were all either lawyers or doctors who graduated from Harvard or other very elite schools. We spoke to them about our beliefs, but they weren’t interested. We left them with our phone number and left.
I've had tons of other experiences this week, but I can't remember them all!
On Thursday we had Zone conference with the President, his wife, and the APs. We learned a lot. At the end, President Alba talked about Meet the Mormons and how he wishes we could see it, but missionaries are discouraged from seeing it in theaters for a few reasons. 1) We might scare off people who want to see it but don't want to be preached too. 2) People don't want to pay money to talk to the missionaries. There were a few other reasons he gave, but I don't remember them. He kept going on about how sorry he was, then Sister Alba came running in, and was like (in a really cheesy way) "But wait! What if there was a way that we could show it to them right now!?" Then everybody cheered, and we watched Meet the Mormons, haha. The very beginning kind of made me nervous, because it reminded me of those other movies we have at home like, "Mormons in Europe" or whatever, where they just walk around asking questions…Luckily it wasn't like that. I really enjoyed it!
Yesterday was church! It was awesome. We attend the Spanish Branch. I've been told we usually have about 40 members attend. There are 8 missionaries and yesterday we had about 10 investigators come! We had a full house! It was a really cool experience. It's so different because all the classes and talks are basically directed towards teaching new converts and investigators, because that’s like 50% of the people. Yesterday we had fast and testimony meeting. Almost all of the members shared their testimonies because there are so few of them, haha. They were all very good and sweet and short, which is nice.
After church, we went out and contacted people on the street. One guy was riding his bike, and we said hi to him! He turned around, looked at us, and yelled "Yeah! Satan!" Haha, it made me laugh really hard for some reason. My companion got annoyed, but I found it funny.
Later last night we visited an investigator who we had an appointment set up with, but he was busy roping a goat. Yeah. He was tying it up in his truck bed so he could drive it somewhere. The goat was fighting really hard, and it was bleating murderously; haha, it was so loud!
We have two investigators that are getting baptized the 25th of this month! They are so excited! They talk to everyone at church and brag about their bap date.
Well, I'm about out of time, but I hope you all have a great week! I'm sure there are tons of things I forgot to write about, but this letter is long enough how it is. I love you all!
Love,
Elder Butterfield
Hey everyone!
So I had made a list of things that I was going to talk about in my email... But I left it at home, haha, so I'll see how much I can remember.
So we were challenged by the Mission President to all give a Harvest Blessing this week! A Harvest Blessing is basically a house blessing. We ask people if we can leave a blessing in their home, and if they say yes, then we go inside and talk to them about who lives there, their needs, their desires, and we ask, "If Jesus were here right now, what would you ask from him?" and then we start the prayer and mention our priesthood, then pray for the home and everybody inside! It's a great experience.
One day, I can't remember which; we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders! I went with Elder Overson, from North Carolina. We started walking around in a neighborhood, talking to everyone outside and knocking on some doors. The first door we knocked on, a man named Jerry opened up. He was probably a 70 year old black man who lived alone. He let us in to leave a blessing! I left the blessing, and it was an awesome experience. After the blessing he opened up and told us about these experiences he's had where a girl/spirit walks through his front door at night and just like hangs around. He tells it to leave, and it leaves. He spoke English, so when we left we referred him to the English missionaries, haha.
On the same street, we walked past an open garage with a few ladies in it. We walked up and noticed there were 2 Indian (like, the country India) ladies probably in their 60s or 70s. One of them had a really long beard, it was weird…haha. We walked up and talked to them, then noticed there was a 3rd lady! She was lying motionless on a couch right next to where we were standing! I'm pretty sure she was like 130 years old. Not even kidding. She also had a beard. Well, these ladies were really nice and they offered us some food! And Elder Overson accepted! Long story short, we were there for an hour sitting on a couch in California talking to 3 ancient Indian women eating Okra and Mushroom soup that was so spicy I honestly couldn’t even feel my mouth anymore. I have no clue how I got it down. We talked about life, and their religious philosophies. One of the women had 3 kids who were all either lawyers or doctors who graduated from Harvard or other very elite schools. We spoke to them about our beliefs, but they weren’t interested. We left them with our phone number and left.
I've had tons of other experiences this week, but I can't remember them all!
On Thursday we had Zone conference with the President, his wife, and the APs. We learned a lot. At the end, President Alba talked about Meet the Mormons and how he wishes we could see it, but missionaries are discouraged from seeing it in theaters for a few reasons. 1) We might scare off people who want to see it but don't want to be preached too. 2) People don't want to pay money to talk to the missionaries. There were a few other reasons he gave, but I don't remember them. He kept going on about how sorry he was, then Sister Alba came running in, and was like (in a really cheesy way) "But wait! What if there was a way that we could show it to them right now!?" Then everybody cheered, and we watched Meet the Mormons, haha. The very beginning kind of made me nervous, because it reminded me of those other movies we have at home like, "Mormons in Europe" or whatever, where they just walk around asking questions…Luckily it wasn't like that. I really enjoyed it!
Yesterday was church! It was awesome. We attend the Spanish Branch. I've been told we usually have about 40 members attend. There are 8 missionaries and yesterday we had about 10 investigators come! We had a full house! It was a really cool experience. It's so different because all the classes and talks are basically directed towards teaching new converts and investigators, because that’s like 50% of the people. Yesterday we had fast and testimony meeting. Almost all of the members shared their testimonies because there are so few of them, haha. They were all very good and sweet and short, which is nice.
After church, we went out and contacted people on the street. One guy was riding his bike, and we said hi to him! He turned around, looked at us, and yelled "Yeah! Satan!" Haha, it made me laugh really hard for some reason. My companion got annoyed, but I found it funny.
Later last night we visited an investigator who we had an appointment set up with, but he was busy roping a goat. Yeah. He was tying it up in his truck bed so he could drive it somewhere. The goat was fighting really hard, and it was bleating murderously; haha, it was so loud!
We have two investigators that are getting baptized the 25th of this month! They are so excited! They talk to everyone at church and brag about their bap date.
Well, I'm about out of time, but I hope you all have a great week! I'm sure there are tons of things I forgot to write about, but this letter is long enough how it is. I love you all!
Love,
Elder Butterfield
 |
| I'm standing next to my companion, Elder Akhmetov, then it's Elder Contla, who trained my comp, and then Elder Minhondo, who follow up trained Elder Contla. So we're from 4 generations and all related, in mission terms, haha. The one on the far right is the one from the Nash's ward! He's one of the ZLs who lives in our apartment. |
No comments:
Post a Comment