Week 24: Davis County Crew

March 23, 2015

Hi Everybody!

This week was full of service and new missionaries! Since transfers were this week, we got two new missionaries in our ward. One of them is straight out of the MTC. Her name is Sister Lewis and she's from Bountiful! The new Elder has been out about 3 months, and his name is Elder Mitchell. He's from New York. Taking into account the new missionaries, our ward now has 4 missionaries from Davis County (Davis High, Viewmont, Bountiful, and Woods Cross,) one 1 missionary from Orem, Utah, and 1 from New York.

This week we decided to go out a look for some places that we could do service for! We found an ecological center, which is basically just one big garden with all sorts of stuff! It's completely volunteer run, and we think it will be a great place to do service :) We went back on Saturday to follow up with service hours, and they asked if we had just a minute to help them lift something! Well, obviously we helped, and one thing led to another, and we ended up staying for 5 hours and building an archway/gate! It was sooo much fun. We were working with a retired carpenter who had volunteered to build it for the garden. He instructed us and taught us how to do things, and we built the whole thing from the foundation up, completely from scratch! I'll attach a picture. We decided that it was a bigger project than a lot of Eagle Projects. Haha

We have been seeing major progress with our main investigator this week. Things are going really well, and we are loving it here in Sonoma. Last Monday, to say goodbye to the missionaries leaving, we went on a hike! I'll attach a few pictures of that too. This morning, since it's Spring break, we came and played basketball with all of the young men in the ward! It was a ton of fun! 

Well, that's about it for this week! Love you all! The church is true!

Love,

Elder Butterfield

Elder Tooley (from Bountiful) and I! Byu crew

On the hike (Don't worry, I've already cut my hair).

Our District last transfer!

The gate and archway we built! It was like 9 feet tall!

Week 23: Staying in Sonoma! :)

March 16, 2015

Dear Friends and Family,

How's it going? Is time flying by as fast in the real world as it is as a missionary? Not much happened this week out of the ordinary. We got information on transfers, though! I'll be staying in Sonoma with Elder Smith, so nothing will be changing for me :). 

Oh, I forgot to mention last week, but I was assigned to give a talk in church yesterday. The member of the bishopric who assigned it to me said he needed a 5 minute talk to go before the high councilman, and not to go any longer, so the high councilman could have enough time! He assigned me the topic of loving one another.

So, it turns out that even as a missionary it is still easy to put off a talk until Saturday night ;). Haha, I had been studying on the topic all week, but didn't sit down and start writing until Saturday night. I made sure to prepare a short talk but when we showed up at church yesterday, turns out one of the speakers was sick! I was told to lengthen my talk to 10 minutes. I'd attach the talk that I wrote, but as I began to speak, I almost forgot that I had written anything down at all! I spoke for about 15 minutes, so the talk I gave was completely different than the talk I prepared, haha. 

Some really good news is that our most solid investigator is still progressing quickly! He went four wheeling with one of the members on Saturday, and is really creating a bond with the members. It's so awesome when members work so well with our investigators! 

Sorry that I didn't have anything exciting to report on this week. Hopefully next week is more exiting!

Love,

Elder Butterfield

Week 23: Free Food is the Best!

March 9, 2015

Hey guys! I don't have a ton to say this week, but I do want to tell a story that happened a couple of weeks ago!

So it was about 8:30 one night, and we didn't have any appointments, so we went to the city center to talk to people. One lady who was about to get into her car, called us over and asked if we were missionaries! She told us that her cousins are all Mormons and that one of her cousins was coming home from her mission in just two weeks! We were standing outside of a really nice restaurant (and very expensive), and she asked if we were hungry! We said no, because we had just come from dinner, but she told us that the restaurant, The Red Grape, was owned by her family! She brought us inside and gave us each a free $25 gift card, and told us to come back :)

That weekend we went back for dinner, and her sister was working there! She was probably about 24, and she came up to us and said hi, and told us about their cousins again. Then she gave us free appetizers!!

These people were so nice! We were blown away by how kind they were (and how good their food was!). We gave them our number and told them to call us if they ever need anything.. Hopefully we will be able to pay them back some day!

There's one other story that I'd like to tell from this week. On Wednesdays we teach English lessons to Hispanics. This week we had three adults and their kids come (two investigators and one member). This week’s topic was on how to pray in English, haha. We went over vocab and all sorts of grammar and things. We then finished the class by having everyone practice what we had learned! As each person struggled through their prayers, the Spirit grew and grew. By the last "Amen" the Spirit was almost overwhelming. My testimony of prayer grew tremendously through this experience. Also, thanks to this class, one of the investigators agreed to take the missionary discussions, and he has since accepted an invitation to baptism!

I want to bear my testimony that I know that prayer works. Through communicating with God, we are inviting him to help us in our lives. He wants to be a part of our lives so desperately, that he is just waiting for each of us to make the first step. I exhort all of you to kneel in sincere prayer tonight and just tell Heavenly Father how much you love Him and how thankful you are. If you do this, I promise that you will feel a confirming spirit that God is there listening. And I leave this with you, until next week, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love you all :)
Elder Butterfield

Week 22: Crab Feed!

March 2, 2015

Well it’s been 2 full weeks since I last wrote! So much has happened that I can't remember anything at all ;) I guess I'll just go all the way back to Tuesday, two weeks ago!

On normal Tuesday's we have District meetings, where my companion and I teach our district for about an hour and a half. On Sunday night we got word that our Zone Leaders would be joining us here in Sonoma. Then on Tuesday morning, during our pre-meeting, the three APs came in! So all of a sudden, instead of teaching the 4 members of our District, we had the 4 Sonoma missionaries, the 2 Zone Leaders, and 3 APs, haha. It was a blast! The meeting ended up going extremely well, and for my part I ended up talking about something completely different than I had planned on. It was a great experience being led by the Spirit. I had planned on teaching about "declaring repentance," but it turned into, "how can I become converted to the Gospel."

On Saturday we had a crab feed! Crab feeds are very popular here in Sonoma and Napa. A crab feed is a dinner with all you can eat crab, and bread, and Spaghetti. Usually they cost about $50- $70 a person. Our ward here hosts a crab feed every year to raise money for the youth. Tickets cost $35, and missionaries got in for free!! Never have I ever eaten so much crab in one sitting. It was great!!! And free!

For the past couple weeks we have been doing more yard work than ever before, on my mission. We have done probably close to 25 hours in the past 2 weeks. We pull weeds, turn soil, chop down trees, rake leaves, etc. It's a blast :)

I can't really remember what else happened, except that one of our new investigators has come to church the past 2 weeks! We have actually never taught him a lesson about the Gospel. He comes to our English class every week, and that's where we met him. He has already developed friendships in the ward, and one of the members is helping him find work! Hopefully we can find time to teach him soon!

I'll leave you all with my brief testimony that I know this church is true, and that Jesus Christ is our Savior :)

Love you all!

Elder Butterfield

Week 21: P-Day changed = no letter this week.

Week 20: Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 16, 2015

So basically the entire Nation and their dogs were outside on Valentine’s Day! Ask me how many of them wanted to talk to the missionaries. The answer is none. Haha, so yeah :). There was a super nice couple in the ward who took all the missionaries out to eat though! I got a California Cheese Steak with Au Jus, it was so good!

This week we were challenged to teach 3 lessons a day! The average for this area in the past has been about 3 lessons a week, so right off the bat we knew that we probably where not going to be able to up our lessons by 18 in just one week. We were able to teach 10 lessons though! We have also been challenged to, each day, contact 20 people, teach 3 lessons, and invite at least 1 person to baptism. On Thursday and Friday we were able to accomplish that goal!

Going into this week, we had not met or taught pretty much anyone in Sonoma, because we white-washed in. We weren't sure how we were going to manage the challenges, but in my personal study I was reading in 1st Nephi, and I came across my favorite scripture: (I'm sure you've all read it about a million times, haha)

1 Nephi 3 : 7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

This scripture always gives me strength, knowing that God will prepare a way for all of His commandments to be accomplished, but then I came upon another scripture that I haven't really payed attention to!

Verse 15 But behold I said unto them that: As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us.

Wow. This verse really hit me. This is the attitude we need to have when facing challenges and following commandments! So often we try to do something, and if we don't quite accomplish the task, we say "well, I tried my best! Oh well!" But that's not good enough! We need to have the same attitude that Nephi had, and not back down, not give up, until we have accomplished what the Lord has commanded.

I know that the Lord lives. I know that this is the true church. My life has been flipped upside since coming on a mission. I know stronger than ever, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and by following its guide, we can obtain eternal life. If you are reading this, and have never had the chance to read the Book of Mormon for yourself, please take my advice and drop everything of no value in your life, and READ IT!

John Bytheway once asked himself what his most inefficient time of his day was, and he decided that it was between 10-12 at night, when he watched TV. He decided that instead of wasting that time, he would go to bed at 10, and wake up 2 hours earlier. He decided to use that time in the morning to write a book. After only 4 months that book was on the shelf. What would he have had to show for his time if he had just been wasting his time watching TV?

I challenge you to look at your lives and do what John Bytheway did! Sacrifice a little TV watching time, and read the Book of Mormon. It will have eternal consequences :)
That's all I have for this week :) I love this Gospel, I love Jesus, and I love you all!

Love,
Elder Butterfield

That's my companion, Elder Tyson Smith from Farmington, Utah!