I know how important it truly is to prepare.

Well this week has been really incredible. I have felt the love of our Savior this week abundantly. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to prepare for Zone Conference. Preparing for Zone Conference this time was different from the last times I prepared for it. I went into my study with a question in mind and received some wonderful revelation. I have really learned my purpose as a missionary. I am to invite everyone to repent. I have seen a drastic change in my teaching as I have applied the Doctrine of Christ in my teaching. I am so grateful for all the revelation I received at Zone Conference from the Spirit. I now know how important it truly is to prepare.

Well this week has been truly amazing. Sariah was baptized and confirmed this weekend. It was absolutely wonderful. It was a bit hectic but the Spirit was there to testify of the truthfulness of the ordinance. The Bishop said that this Saturday was going to be good and we would do it at 3. Well he forgot about his son's wedding reception so there was a lot of running around going on in the Church while we were getting ready. On top of that the Hot water wasn't working so the water was really cold. John (Sariah's Father) showed up 20 minutes late as well so we didn't start till he got there. Well all went well. Satan was trying to make everything not work but in the end everything was wonderful. I was grateful just to be apart of the experience. The ward really took over everything. She is going to be the key to helping her whole family become members of the Church. She is the reason why they started coming to Church. They told us yesterday that Sariah told her mom the she wanted to go back to Church. Well that night we showed up. The Lord hears the prayers of the Children. "Faith like a little Child" She was Confirmed on Sunday in Sacrament Meeting. We were really worried and on the edge of our chairs because Sacrament meeting had started and they weren't there yet. Well we had the hymn and prayer and they still weren't there. Thank goodness there was a baby blessing. Right when they had finished the blessing Sariah walked in looking so brilliant as she was dressed in white. She got called right up and was confirmed a member of the Church. It was amazing to be apart of that experience. I am so excited for the members to go over and teach her the new member lessons. It is going to be wonderful. I know that the Lord will soften the hearts of the family and they will begin to take the lessons as well. Darlene started meeting with the bishop a couple of weeks ago and told us that she would be getting baptized soon. Her father will be next.

Well we had a wonderful lesson with Ian this week. HE IS ON FIRE. He is always so prepared for our lesson spiritually and mentally. He is always prepared to learn and ask us questions. It is really exciting to see his progress. We found out that his concern is about temples. He is having a hard time understanding the principle of them. We told him that his problem would be solved when he understood the Book of Mormon and understood that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. I am so grateful for the October Ensign. It has really helped me out. I have learned alot about temples and we are excited to help him understand them more and help him receive that answer of why he needs to be sealed in them. We gave him a pretty bold promise this week. We told him if he started out his study of 3 Nephi 11 with a prayer, read through it and then pondered it for 15-20 minutes and then got down and prayed to know if the book of mormon is true that he would receive his answer. The spirit guided that promise and I know it will be fulfilled. We fasted and prayed about that promise and we know that he will receive his answer. We are really excited for him. He also came to the Baptism and loved it. He said it made sense and it was very peaceful and edifying. I am so excited for him. We are going to invite him to be baptized this week for November 27. He is truly ready. He has been to Church three times!

Well Sister Rodriguez decided that she is going to be moving with her family to Fountain, North Carolina. I think it will be best for her to get a new start out there. We are going to be meeting with her one last time and moving her date so that the other Elders can help her be prepared to be baptized. I know that she knows the Church is true. We are really excited for her to be a member. It has truly been bring her family close together and hopefully will help re activate he family. I know that the Lord has a plan for her and that he will guide her and help her so that she can live with him again.

Well we were able to see Jimmy for the first time in 6 weeks. It was so wonderful to see him. The whole family has changed. They have started praying and together as a family and have started attending both the Pentecostal and LDS church. They want us to keep coming back and to help them grown as a family. They are wonderful. I really feel such a great love for them and want them to join so bad. I know that the Lord will help us overcome whatever obstacles they have and help them do the same. I am really excited to teach them again next week. We gave them a proclamation to the family to read and study before we come back!

We also got another new investigator. The other Elders taught a lady in our area because they got the referral for her. So they did a great job teaching her. Her name is Sister Shock. We are going over to meet her this week and will be able to see what she needs. She had a baptismal date forDecember 11th but by the end of the lesson there wasn't a date. So we will see what happened and help set that date with her. She came to Church yesterday and really enjoyed it. The ward was really great. We will find out more information and I will let you know next week about her.

Well I am grateful to be serving here. I love Goldsboro so much and I love the ward as well. We are starting to work even more with the ward to try and find who we can teach. We got really fired up after the role play at Zone Conference. I really needed that role play. I wasn't sure how dinner appointments were supposed to go. We have already gotten a referral from applying this new way of teaching. I am starting to really realize my purpose as a missionary.

Trying to Talk to Everyone

Well things here this week have been really good. It was definitely a weird week this week. Since Halloween was on Sunday we had the whole weekend for trick or treating so we couldn't be out after dark. So we tried to get lessons and appointments but just ended up being with members which was great. We had alot of appointments cancel which has been disappointing but I am beginning to realize that the gift of agency can be used for good and bad. I am grateful that the Lord is blessing me with patience. This week truly has been a week of miracles. We have had alot of really spiritual experiences with our investigators this week and alot of people. I am learning everyday the magnitude of my call. I am beginning to feel really bad if I don't talk to someone that I pass. I am grateful that I am on bikes so that I can stop no matter what and talk to someone. Its scary!!! For some reason I get intimidated but the Lord is answering my prayers and I have seen a difference in myself this past week. I have prayed for the strength to talk to everyone. When I would pass someone the spirit would help me turn around and go and talk to them. It has truly helped our goal of reaching those 10 QGC's everyday. It is hard but I know if I talk to everyone the Lord will trust me to teach his elect and he will put them in my path. We have seen that this week with our tracting efforts. We knocked alot of doors and didnt have much success but the Lord did bless us for our diligence. We got 4 or 5 appointments this week from just contacting people. It was really wonderful. Definitely a tender mercy from the Lord!

Well our investigators are doing pretty good.

We taught Sister Rodriguez this week on Monday. She is doing wonderful. She continues to read her scriptures, specifically out of the Book of Mormon each day. We give her a phone call, along with her sister who is a less active, everyday and they don't answer most of the time but it definitely has increased my testimony of why it is so important to have daily contact with our investigators. We had a really great lesson with her on the first part of the Plan of Salvation. She is a bit of a slow learner which is actually a blessing to me. Its helping me learn to teach slower and ask alot of inspired understanding questions. I think that I sometimes take for granted that they know what were talking about but in reality they have no idea what we are talking about. So I am learning how to teach for understanding. The spirit was so strong in our members home, the Grays( Our ward mission leader). They have been the perfect fellowshippers for her. They call her a few times a week to make sure she is doing good. She didn't come to Church yesterday and were kind of confused why she didn't but we have a lesson with her tonight so we will figure out why she didn't attend.

Ian McLeod is doing wonderful. I can't tell you how excited I am for him. I have never had any investigator come so prepared for a lesson before. Whey we got into his home we sat down and saw that he had a pad of paper full of questions. We challenged him last time to write down any questions that he had and asked his wife to help him out with that. She is less active and doesn't know the gospel so well and so every time he would ask her a question she would write it down for him. He also wrote some questions down that he had when he was reading out of the scriptures and the pamphlet. It was so exciting to see that he was prepared. We prepare all week to go over there and teach him and it was really nice to see that he did the same. I can tell that he is becoming converted to the gospel. He even offered to give the opening prayer. Elder Scott and I were just beaming that whole lesson. The spirit was there so strong. The spirit was helping us ask inspired questions but also helping Brother McLeod to ask inspired questions. He is on the road to accepting the gospel. We taught him about the Restoration. He felt that it was true when we taught it to him. He just feels good and cheerful. His countenance is changing. I am so excited that I get to be apart of this significant experience. We asked him if he found out all this was true would he be baptized? He said her would if he found out all this was true. So were praying really hard for him!!! He is definitely on the road to finding out its true!!!

We met with Sariah this week and she is so excited for her baptism. Its actually quite comical. She talks about it all the time in our lesson. We finished teaching her the commandments and at the end of the lesson she was like "is that all I need to know to be baptized?" We told her "yes" and she started clapping for joy. " Faith like a little child" is definitely evident in this situation. It is truly bringing her family together as well. Darline's countenance is changing each time we come over. She really wants to be re-baptized. John (who is a non member) has really warmed up to us. He went from not talking to us to now talking to us to the point that if we kept talking we would be late for our next appointment. Having members come with us has been really key in his "changing of heart" We already have lined up, through the Bishops direction, who is going to be teaching the New Member Lessons. We are really excited about this couple. They are ward missionaries and its going to be really great. John already has a great connection with Brother Carroll and Sister Carroll and Darline talk a lot so its going to be great.

Our new investigator for the week, Matt Turcotte, is a friend of a member in our ward. He had been taught by the missionaries about 3 years ago. We read up on his progress record and had a really great lesson with him. He goes to the Church of Christ and has for a long time. He had some really inspired questions when we talked with him. He asked alot of questions on the apostasy so were going to help him understand the apostasy a bit better in our next lesson and help him see in the bible where it talks about it. He reads the bible alot and knows it very well so teaching him is going to help me become more acquainted with the bible and helping him see where it testifies of things in the Book of Mormon. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he is really excited to read out of it. He seems like he has alot of potential. He has a big family. He has 5 kids, who are all 8 and older. I think the Oldest is 19. So there is alot of potential with that family. We only met with him because I think he wants to get a feel for it before his family hears the message as well. So we will see how that goes.

We have been trying to meet with alot of the less actives and part member families. We just updated our map and area book this week and saw that we have alot of part member families in our area. So we are definitely going to be focusing more on them and helping them come unto Christ.

It Truly Makes a Difference When the Members Testify

This week has been really wonderful. We have truly seen some miracles in our area. We met with Sister Rodriguez at the beginning of the week. She has truly been prepared for the gospel. We met in a members home and that truly made the difference. The Gray family is wonderful. We had the Waters family there as well. We had a very powerful lesson on the Restoration of the Gospel. She understood it really well. Sister Rodriguez is more of a visual learner so we watched the Restoration video. The spirit was so strong in their home. The members all went around and bore sincere testimony on the reality of Joseph Smith. It was wonderful. It truly makes a difference when the members bare testimony. Sister Rodriguez felt the spirit and we invited her to be baptized on December 4 and she accepted. It was wonderful. She is doing really great. We are really excited to continue to meet with her so often.

We met with our new investigators this week, The McLeod Family. There is a ton of potential there. Brother McLeod is really looking for the truth. At the beginning of the lesson he told us that he was doing it for his wife. They have only been married a month! You can definitely tell that they have only been married a month! We Throughout the lesson we explained how this is a very individual journey that he is on and that he needs to do it for himself. Brother Creger (our exchange) bore a powerful testimony on why he needed to do it for himself and if he does do it for that purpose he will get his answer. Brother Creger was in the same situation. He married a member and started off by doing it for her but he got his answer when he started doing it for himself. The lesson was a very powerful lesson. We started from the very beginning with Jesus Christ and helping him come to the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ. It was hard from me to teach this principle. I had never done it before. I have never taught anybody without a Christian Background before so it was definitely a really neat experience. I was grateful that the Holy Ghost was there to guide my words and thoughts. It was amazing to see the change in him throughout the lesson and how that spirit was softening his heart. He went from saying "Well I believe this...." to asking inspired questions. At the end of the lesson we invited him to pray and he gave his first prayer. It was absolutely wonderful. He is on the path to finding out if all of this is true. We are so excited for him.

We met with Sariah this week. She was really distracted this week so it was a little bit harder to teach her this week. Teaching an 8 year old is a lot of fun. They are so sincere and they know a lot. We taught her about the commandments this week and it was truly wonderful to see how excited she was to continue to keep the commandments. She is really excited about her Baptism. She gave us her invitation and everything. I love being just a part of this experience and letting the ward do the rest. That's how it should be. I know that I am just an instrument and it's more important to get the members involved so they can be truly converted to the gospel.

We had a lesson with a less active member this week, Chad Daughtry. He is really a great guy. He needs to prioritize the more important things in his life but we are helping him out with that. His whole family isn't members and he wants us to come back and teach his family. I am really excited about him. He once had a testimony of the gospel and we hope to rekindle that testimony and fire it up so he can be a great support to his family. We set up another appointment to see him this week

We met with another part member family this week, The Saulman's. There situation is very difficult. Sister Saulman hasn't been to Church for about 22 years. She was a Catholic and then was baptized into the LDS Church and then went back and is now teaching the Youth at the Catholic Church. Her husband has no intention of ever going to Church again because he went 3 times a week when he was younger and that was just too much for him. We found out some concerns that she has. She wants to have an eternal family but she knows her husband won't change and so her attitude is almost "Whats the point?" So we are going to be trying to meet her needs and help her understand the Doctrine of Christ and build her foundation on that. She says she believes that Joseph Smith is a true Prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true but if she believes those things then she would act upon them. So we are going to try and help her out. Her daughter could have a lot of potential. Apparently she reads out of the Book of Mormon regularly so we are going to see if we can start teaching her.

We had a wonderful social activity with the ward on Saturday. The Chilli Cook-off/ Fall Festival. It was amazing how many members were there. There were over 250 people there and they only planned for 100 people. There were a ton of members of other faiths there. The members brought a lot of their friends. IT WAS GREAT. We talked to so many people and had a really great time sharing the gospel. We have a few appointments with some of the people that came. Our investigators were also there. They had a wonderful time there bonding with that ward. I am grateful for the love that our ward has for missionary work. I would say there were probably at least 20 non-members there and there were about 10 less active members. It was a huge success.
We got to carve a pumpkin and a watermelon for the event. It was hilarious. I got made fun of so bad. They were like " Is that a Canadian tradition or something." It was really funny! I get made fun of so much for being Canadian but its just makes me laugh.

Well I hope yall have a great week. I love you so much and I am glad that you had such a great week. I hope that this week brings great joy.

Love Elder Butler

Just Being More Descriptive for President; Hopefully Y'all Don't Mind

So I am constantly trying new things for the email. This week I wrote my LTP and took a part of it so that I am being more descriptive for President. Hopefully you don't mind.

Well this week was a pretty good week. I really have become so grateful for this area. We got to go to leadership training for a day this week which was wonderful. I was really blessed to have gone because I am not in leadership but President asked us to come. The direction that our teaching is moving into is amazing. The Spirit truly is testifying and teaching more and that's the way it should be. That is what are training is really all about. Everything is centered on the Atonement of Christ. Then you have the Principles of the Gospel going around it: Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism (or the Sacrament for us members), Gift of the Holy Ghost and then Enduring to the End. This is the Doctrine of Christ which we have been focusing everything on. (3 Nephi 11, 3 Nephi 27, 2 Nephi 31) I love it here. I wish this experience will never end and so I am trying to make the most of it. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Well I will tell you about our investigators and how they are doing.

Sariah is doing really well. She is progressing and is so smart. I love learning from an 8 year old Child. They know the simple answers which is all that really matters. Her favorite answer is "Choose the Right" to a lot of the questions we ask. We have started doing as you have asked and taking over a couple while we teach them. It is really exciting teaching with a couple. Darline continues to come to church and keep the commitments we are giving her. John, Darlines husband, is starting to really warm up to us. Every time we go over there our conversations get longer and longer with him. I hope someday we can figure out why he is so against the Church. It would be a miracle for that to happen but we continue to pray for it because we know "miracles have not ceased!" She is preparing to be baptized on November 6. Her family from Utah is coming to the baptism so were really excited about that. She is a wonderful young girl with a very strong testimony. It is really a humbling experience to teach her. We have to teach so simply that it really is helping me out a lot with my teaching skills. Its amazing what the Holy Ghost teaches a small and innocent child. I am grateful to be a part of her conversion.

We got a new investigator this week. His name is Ian McLeod. He just moved from Oregon with his newly wedded wife, Natasha. They are wonderful. Natasha is a member of the Church and has barely just become active. Natasha's family moved from Idaho a while back and stopped going to Church when they moved to Oregon. About 6 months ago Natasha and her mother started attending Church again. She has only been married a month to Ian. He doesn't have a spiritual background at all. He claims himself to be a Christian but doesn't have an understanding of Christ so we get to teach from the very beginning! I am really excited about them. They are wonderful. They came to Church on Sunday and we only met with them once before. Church was a great experience for him because it was the Primary Presentation. The Doctrine of Christ was taught through the mouth of Babes! The spirit was so strong and he felt it. He felt really comfortable being there! I am excited to start teaching him!!

We didn't have a chance to meet with Kelly Miller this week. We showed up for the appointment and waited a half and hour and she didn't show. We were really sad about that. Hopefully everything is going alright with her family. We invited her to invite her family to take the lessons as well and we are hoping that is not the reason why she didn't show up. She has a lot of great potential. She is a very smart individual and really feels different when we teach her. So we will hopefully be able to get up with her this next week.

We met with Sister Rodriguez this week and had a great experience with her. She came to the Church so I could help her out with a form for work or something like that and we gave her a tour of the Church. She felt the Spirit so strong. Taking our investigators for a tour of the Church is a great idea. It brought out her concerns of why she isn't coming to Church and how we can help. It was great. Her family, who is less active, is really holding her back. Its heart breaking to see. They are moving out of the house that she is living in, in the next month so that should help things. Sister Rodriguez truly has a desire to learn and feel the spirit. She is keeping all the commitments we are giving her except Church. We will hopefully resolve that concern by having her in members homes. We are really excited about doing that. We know that there is a power in having investigators in members homes.

We found another part member family that we are going to try and get reactivated and teach the husband. Sister Harmon is a less active member who says she goes to Church in Ashboro sometimes because that's where her family is from. She says that they are always travelling on weekends but they were going to slow down a bit now because of school. Her husband attends a church quite frequently. Its a Baptist Church. When we met with Sister Harmon he wasn't there but we asked if we could come by and share the message of the gospel with him and she said he has a very open mind so were really excited about that. They are a really wonderful family.

We stopped by Collettes yesterday and saw her for the first time in like 2 weeks. We have been trying to get a hold of her but she hasn't ever called us back. She is having a lot of marital problems and they aren't getting better. They are still planning to move to Ohio but are waiting to find a job up there before they go. They are going to live with her father and then eventually move out. I think that they are going to be her for a while though and they really need the gospel in their lives. They were so happy when they were meeting with us and loved Church. We told them that the adversary is working hard on them and that they need help from the Savior. We are going to meet with them in a members home this week which we are really excited about. I can't wait for that lesson.

Well that's kinda whats been happening in our area. We found out on Saturday that we are both staying here another transfer!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited to be here another transfer with Elder Scott. He is a really great missionary. We have a lot of fun together but we work hard. I am so grateful for the many blessings our Savior has been giving me. I hope that y'all have a great week

Love Elder Butler

That's All The Time I've Got

Well today was a really hectic day and I don't have much tim to write you. I will definately write a really great email on Monday. So much is happening here its wonderful. Know that I am safe and just loving the work. The Lord is truly blessing us so much and I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve out here in this wonderful mission. I am excited to write you about my last couple of weeks on Monday. Ahh chaged my mind I will write you now. I have made a goal to stop procrastinating. Its really tough but I am doing better. I will write you about my past week and then write you about this past week on monday. Things have been pretty crazy without a P-Day this week but have gone by really fast.

Well it looks like we are being kicked out of the Family History Center. Brother Twe is halrious. I love this ward.

Thats all the time ive got

Love Elder Butler