WEEK 12: I'M A DAD!!!

December 22, 2014

So in mission terms, I'm a father! My son, Elder King, flew into California Tuesday morning, and we were paired together Tuesday night. Transfers were different this last week because of our All- Mission Christmas party. I had a day of training on Tuesday to help me train my new companion, then on Wednesday was the party! Since all of this happened in Santa Rosa, I spent the night with some other trainers at one of the senior couple's home. Their house was awesome. We woke up the next morning to blue berry French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal, and a smorgasbord of juices. It felt like Christmas morning, haha.

After breakfast we drove to one of the big churches the Mission uses and we started our party! We had a devotional first thing in the Chapel where we had a Christmas program with singing and some instruments. It was so awesome. We have some really, really musically talented missionaries in our mission! Then after the devotional we had an awesome lunch/dinner while every zone performed something on stage, and there were some more individual performances as well. Our zone sang Little Drummer Boy, haha. It was... interesting. I was singing in the bass group and the only thing we sang over and over again, was, "Hrum Pum, Hrum Pum, Hrum Pum..." haha, very exciting.
After the party, we drove to the Mission Home, and we got a brand new car! They retired our old 2011 Toyota Corolla and gave us a brand new 2015 Corolla. It's sooo nice. It had less than 30 miles on it when we got it :). Gotta love the smell of a new car.

This week has been one of the best weeks out on my entire mission! I've had so much fun with my new companion and we've already been seeing a lot more success than in the past! My companion, Elder King is from Pleasant Grove, Utah and played football and wrestled for them in High School. He graduated the same year as me, and he's actually older than me by like a month!

It's been a really fun time training so far, and it's definitely stretching me to do more than I knew I could! I can definitely feel the Lord's help and support in my life right now. I find myself relying on Him more than I ever have before. If anybody is going through a rough point in their life right now, I challenge you to look for help in the scriptures and pray for answers to your problems. Prayer works, inspiration is real, the church is true,

I Love you all, Merry Christmas!!

Love,
Elder Butterfield

WEEK 11: Transfers! I will be training a greenie! Christmas parade, party and Chorale!

December 15, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

So it's only been like 3 days since I last emailed, so there's not a lot that happened. Well I guess that's a lie; there was a lot that happened, just in only a few days!

So in Benicia, the rich town south of Vallejo, there was a trio of Elders. Two of them ended up going home early, so on Thursday night, my companion and I got assigned to team up with the one Elder left! We spent almost the entire weekend down in Benicia, because we cover that area as well.

During dinner, on Friday, I got a call from the Mission President informing me that I will be training a new missionary next transfer! Transfers are coming up on Wednesday, and I'll be meeting him then :) I'm super excited!

On Saturday morning there was a Christmas parade in Benicia! We set up a booth with free hot chocolate and candy canes. You can never go wrong with free stuff ;) right across the street from us were the Boy scouts, selling hot chocolate and candy canes, so I felt bad for stealing their customers, but they still made a lot of sales, haha.

Saturday night was the English ward's Christmas party! We had some cool investigators there, and we had an AWESOME dinner. There was turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and just awesome food in general!

Last night was probably one of the most fun nights of my entire mission! Every year, the church in Benicia hosts what is called the "Christmas Chorale". They invite all the local churches of other faiths to come together in our church building and they have the different choirs sing songs! It. Was. Wild. I don't remember all of the churches that attended but there were a few different Catholic churches, an Episcopalian church, a Baptist church, a Tongan church, and another one I think. They were all so different and awesome! It was really weird because for this special event, they allow everyone to clap and cheer sing loudly in the chapel. They had a drum set set up and everything. One of the churches played "Wade in the Water" with a Saxophone and everything! It was so exciting. The King Solomon Baptist Church went last, and it was INSANE. It was so loud and so intense.

Well, that was pretty much my short week! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Butterfield

WEEK 10: Cockroaches and Hoarders!!! A visit to the Oakland Temple.

December 11, 2014

Hello everybody!

Ahh, sooo much has happened this week! Well, basically the last two weeks, cause I haven't written in so long. But first, let me tell you about an experience we had with a Russian family a few weeks ago! I completely forgot to tell you about it, haha! So, my companion and I were tracting in Benicia, a really rich, really nice city, just south of where we live, in Vallejo. We cover both, because there are hardly any Hispanics in Benicia. Well, we were walking in downtown, along the pier, right next to the bay! It's a super beautiful place, and there are the BEST sunsets every night! As we were walking along, we saw a young couple with a baby just out for a walk. As we got closer, I recognized that they were speaking Russian! We got closer, and we asked them how they were doing. They were walking past us, and just sort of smiled, and kept walking. At this point, I blurted out, "Hey! Did I hear some Russian?? He's from Russia!" And I pointed to Elder Akhmetov. He turned around and said yes, then kept walking. My companion asked if he spoke English, and he turned again as he was walking away and said, in his Russian accent, "sometimes."

Haha, I don't know why I found that so hilarious, but it really reminded me of living in Russia, haha. We had a good laugh about it. Oh! And I also took a picture of one of the beautiful sunsets! I'll send it at the end :)

So, on the last day that I emailed home, after dinner, we went and visited a recent convert/less active lady. There's a lot going on in her life right now, and I won't say much about it. Basically, she has an abusive husband, and on Sunday, the day before, his 11 year old daughter called the cops and he was taken to jail. Well, he posted bail, and came back to their house! On Monday, we went over to visit the lady, and he answered the door! He invited us in to talk a little, it was all really weird. When we got in, we started to teach him a bit, but I started to notice things moving around all over the place. Their house is basically one room, and they have junk EVERYWHERE. Well I started to pay attention to what was moving! And as I looked around, I started to see that they were cockroaches--hundreds of cockroaches. First I noticed them running up and down the walls, then I looked at the ground, and there were like piles of garbage just moving around, then I looked down at the bed that we were sitting on, and there were 4 or 5 cockroaches, about an inch and a half long, running right between my legs! I've never had a panic attack in my life, but this is definitely the closest I have ever gotten! Right at this point, my companion started the closing prayer, and I just sat there, eyes wide open, praying that we could get out of there fast! Man, talk about CREEPY!

Then the next day, we had a service project which was basically an extreme makeover of a hoarder’s house. We had 23 missionaries there. It was pouring outside, and she had about half of the Elders outside digging out weeds and trees in the rain. It was one huge mud pit, because there was no grass! The rest of us were inside, scrubbing, sweeping, mopping, etc. The house was a mess. Hahaha, there were a couple of sisters that were assigned to clean the kitchen. They loaded up the dishwasher, and then started it! I guess they didn't know that you're not supposed to use normal dish soap. Before we knew it, the entire kitchen was full of soap suds! Gotta love service.

Last week was also the annual Christmas Tree Lighting in Benicia! Benicia is the really rich town just south of Vallejo. There were thousands of people flooding the streets! We had to park a mile away from where we were! It felt like the 4th of July back at home! We set up a table with free hot cocoa, cookies, pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon. All the missionaries in the zone where there, and we all walked around all night just talking to people! It was such an awesome night!

Then, as we were walking back to our car, after it was all over, some guy from another church walked with us and was trying to convince us all that we are wrong and are following the Devil. He actually walked with us the entire mile, haha. We just let him talk, then invited him to read the Book of Mormon for himself, before he starts making stuff up that we believe in :) he said no, haha.

Transfers are next week! We find out where everybody is going tomorrow night, but I'm almost certain that I'm staying here for another transfer, so my address should stay the same! I love you all and hope you're enjoying the Christmas season! If you haven't had a chance to watch the new video called "He's the Gift" then you should definitely watch it! It's a really short video about Christmas. You can find it at christmas.mormon.org. Love you all, talk to you on Monday!
#ShareTheGift

Love,
Elder Butterfield

PS: So, we are emailing today because today was our temple trip! On temple weeks, we don't get a p-day. That's a new rule, because missionaries in the past have abused the temple trips and just spent the whole day outside of the mission, which is really, really bad. It was actually interesting, cause when we drove across the bridge, into Oakland this morning, we had officially left our mission, and I could actually feel like an emptiness inside of me. Almost like the Spirit wasn't as strong! It was really weird, but a cool way to help me notice how strong the spirit is inside the mission!

Before our endowment session this morning, we did baptisms with the member who drove us there. He had never entered the temple, but is actually only missing one interview for his full access recommend! We hadn't planned on doing baptisms, but it was a super cool experience. Missionaries don't usually get to do those.

WEEK 9: Thanksgiving, Cali style!

December 1, 2014

Hey everybody!! I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving week! We definitely did over here in California.

First, before I forget, we won't be emailing next Monday! We'll be writing on Thursday, December 11th instead!

So, I'll just go ahead and describe my Thanksgiving to you all!

We were blessed with basically a free morning to play sports! At 8:00 we started our turkey bowl, football game! We played with one of the English wards, for about 2 hours! It was tons of fun. Then, immediately after, we went back to the church and played volleyball for like 2 hours! There were 18 of us, so we played with 3 teams of 6. We actually have some really, really good players, and our games got really intense! Then, we finished off with an hour of basketball, my favorite :).

After the sports, we went and showered and changed. Then my companion and I, and two other elders, Elders Debora and Jeske, decided to go out for lunch.
As we were driving around, looking for some place to eat, we passed all sorts of restaurants. We saw Olive Garden, the Habit burger, Applebee's, Red Lobster, a sushi bar, a steakhouse, and some others that I can’t remember. They were all closed for Thanksgiving. The only places that we could find open were IHOP and Denny's! Haha, we did not want to spend our Thanksgiving in either of those, so we kept looking! We finally found a diner called Black Bear Diner and it was open! We went in and the food looked really, really good. Elder Jeske and I decided that since it was Thanksgiving, we would splurge a little, and we both ordered a steak! Pretty much everything here in California is expensive, and this diner was no exception. The steaks were $16 a piece!! A couple of minutes after we had all ordered, a man that was sitting at a nearby table, walked up to us and wished us a happy Thanksgiving, then told us all that all of our food had been paid for! I was in so much shock, that I didn't even know what to say! We thanked him tremendously, and wished him a happy Thanksgiving, and he left! A couple minutes later, the waitress came back over and informed us that he had also paid for 4 desserts! We were definitely thankful this Thanksgiving :). I'll send some pictures of the food we got!


After lunch, we had about 2 hours until dinner time, haha. We spent that time visiting with members and just kind of hanging out. Then for dinner we had a really, really good, traditional Thanksgiving dinner, with turkey and stuffing and everything :) It still didn't compare to Mom's though!


The next day, we were invited over for lunch to have some AWESOME turkey sandwiches! They were some of the best sandwiches I've ever had.


OH! And I weighed myself halfway through Thanksgiving! I was 161 pounds! That's 13 pounds heavier than I left home as ;) I dropped down again after, but I'm still at about 157, haha, so I'm already gaining tons of weight.


On Sunday, I gave my first talk as a missionary! It was 15 minutes long, about the sacrament. It was a really cool experience. I could definitely feel the hand of the Lord helping me communicate in Spanish with ease. Can't wait for my next chance to speak. Haha. Not. ;)


Well, there were some more things that happened, that I'll probably write about next week (including a shooting at a gas station, a couple miles from our apartment. 3 people died.)

I'll talk to you all on Thursday, December 11th! Love you!


Love,
Elder Butterfield

Oh, and I totally forgot to mention the dinner we had yesterday! It's called Menudo. It's the lining of a cow's stomach. Basically the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten. Only I and one other elder ate it. Here is a picture of it! And some more pictures from the week :)