Doctrine and Covenants 84:88

"And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Doctrine and Covenants 84:88

Write to Elder Butterfield:

Current address:

Elder Nathan Butterfield
19014 Hickory Street
Sonoma CA 95476


Previous addresses:

155 Kathy Ellen Dr.
Vallejo, CA 94951

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.




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