Week 13 - Pictures!

YOOOO everyone, whats good!

This week was mas o menos tbh, pero siempre estamos trabajando! We are working all day, all night, and pretty much always tired! But having a lot of fun too! Finally got a package from my mom, so I have a camera now!! I am trying to figure out how to put pictures on here, but yeah so that's dope! BYU is #20 and UT is #17, so both my teams are killing it so I'm stoked about that! HOOk em!

This week has been a lot better health wise so always grateful for that. The Spanish is going great, its honestly so fun to know another language!  Love hearing from everyone! keep sending pics and emails! I will try and get back to you, but if you have waited for a while, shoot me another email because I might have forgot haha. But I still love ya all!

This week we had some trials for sure. One is a kid that we have taught for a while named Levis. He has 12 years old. His "political aunt", who is not related by blood, takes care of him cause his dad is in prison. He loves coming to church and wanted to be baptized. When his Aunt found out what he was doing, she beat him. We know this because he hid from us for a while because he was afraid she would hit him again. He even had scars and bruises to show us. And because of this, she decided that they are moving to the city for a while to get away from us. Its honestly really sad. WE didn't know this and we didn't want to cause any trouble for this kid, only teach him about God. It annoys me a little because most of the kids here in ciudad Espana grow up basically doing whatever they want, run around alone, and honestly have almost no supervision. You can see a lot of them grow up being gang members and drinking drugs, having babies as teenagers, all of that. I am not to judge, because honestly the living situation is rough here and kids grow up with bad examples. Here is the thing that annoys me. When it comes to doing hood rat things with there friends growing up, there parents don't care. but when it comes to wanting to do something good like go to church, baptize, things like that, they get angry, yell at them, hit them at times, yell at us. Its just confusing sometimes. You can definitely see the adversary working against us.


On the Positive side, God is definitely on our side. I have seen my prayers be answered immediately sometimes. Its crazy to believe, but its true. One time we were looking for a person, and had no clue how we were gonna find him. But it was necessary that we found him. We were like, okay, lets just walk down to the area, say a prayers and rely on the Lord to help us. Literally the second I opened my eyes after the prayers, the guy came running around the corner. Its crazy to see the miracles when you have faith. One thing I have learned on the mish is to rely on god with every decision in my life. If he sees you working hard, keeping his commandments, he will always bless you! That's kinda we my spiritual thought of the week! If you ever feel down or alone, always pray to God and he will help!

I have realized that sometimes my emails sound like I'm depressed, but honestly I am super happy to be here. I don't know why, its definitely the hardest thing I have done, and is going to be the hardest 2 years de mi vida, but what I do know is that when you are serving people and doing the work of God, you can always be happy!


Love you all, here are some pics!!

Week 12 - Hook 'Em

Hey Everyone!

Doing a lot better  this week health wise so thats always good. This week was just an average week, nothing significant happened, but I witnessed prayers be answered and I have seen my language improve tremendously! 

Herard that BYU beat Wisconsin, so I am kinda enthusiastic about that considering last season we may have been the worst team in the country. My Longhorns had a good win against USC too so Im pumped about that as well!

This week we felt a little behind because of being sick all last week, and on top of that our bodies felt a little weak but we have been determine to work hard always. One thing I say to myself all the time is, I remember before any sports game, football, rugby, track, ect., I would always say a prayer for God to help me through it, when I was tired, if we were facing a hard team, all of that kind of stuff. As a team in football we had 2 different team pastors who would come tlak to us and pray with us as a team the day before a game and before we went out on the field. In the end, we would always say "Always Give the Glory to God". And I dont know about everyone else, but I always truly meant that. In the grand scheme of things, obviously a simple sports game doesn't really matter that much, but God cares about what we care about, even if it is only just a game, and if we pray and show faith, he can help us with all things. This is something that I have always loved about sports.

At times, missionary work is really tough. We wake up at 6:30am every day, leave at 10 and dont come back to the house until 9:30. It is phisically and mentally exhausting. (Not to mention I am thinking and speaking in a foreign language 24\7, really tires out your brain sometime.) Sometimes I just want to rest instead of walking up and down giant hills, a million stairs. Soemtimes it sucks when you try and try, and people reject you. I love this mission, but why is this so hard? When I get this way, I always think of 2 things.

1. Jesus Christ literally suffered for every pain, feeling, sickness, and sin in the world. He was the literal son of God. He performed miracles, healed the sick, loved everyone with a perfect love. Taught the truth to people, and was the most perfect person and "missionary" to ever walk the Earth. Yet people still rejected him and his teachings. People still didnt have faith in him when they witnesssed miacles. He still suffered every pain in the world for us, so that through him, we can become clean. All of this for us, all of this for you, all of this for me. Suffereing for our sins was the hardest thing that was ever done by anyone. Now if it wasnt easy for the literal son of God, how can I expect missionry work to be easy for me? How can we expect life to be easy for us when it was never easy for him. This helps me when I start to think of only myself.

2. If I believe that God could answer my prayers and help me with my sports when I was younger, which I do believe he did help me and I give all my success to him, then obviously he is going to help me with this missionary work, his work, to bring people unto God and unto Salvation. This is literally his work, and is so much more important to him than any game, so obviously he will answer my prayers too!

People, always pray and God will answer. I dont have more more to write this week, I am going to try and respond to more people this week, so if I havent responded yet please dont be offended, I am trying to answer everyone! Also send me pictures everyone, funny tweets, ect! Love you all!

Elder Butler

Week 11 - Our here Dyin in da Club

Hey there people,

Well, I don't know about the whole week, but this weekend was the worst 4 days of my life I think. We have a lot of goals with investigators and have been working so hard this week to find people, and serve too, but this weekend my comp and I were sooooooo sick.

It started on Friday. For lunch, we went to a members house to eat, which is rare, but we did it. They served us this plate of rice and some sketchy "chicken". I say that because honestly, I am convinced that most of the meat here is NOT chicken, and its rare when we do get meat. I had a fishy feeling about this meat, but it is VERY rude to not eat all the food of your plate here because the people usually sacrifice to give us food, even when half of the time we don't want it. You DON'T refuse food, and you BETTER eat it. Usually I just say a quick prayer, tell Go that I am thankful for these people serving us, and just let "Jesus take the wheel" from there. 

Well immediately after, I told Frodsham that I felt like voy a crappiar en mi pantalones (you can probably guess what that means!) We had stuff to do, so I held it for 2 hours, went back and went to the bathroom, and we both felt so bad that we had to tale a 30 minute nap. I woke up with my entire body aching, and my head hurting, but we told ourselves that we had to go to our appointments with people, and if we finished we could come back home and rest because we felt sick.  

It turned out we ran into an inactive member that we are buddies with, so we stopped to talk for a second. He had a guy with him named Brian. He was way chill, and told me he knew Austin TX, which was awesome because I love that place with all my heart. I didn't know why, but I had a good feeling that I should talk to him.  We got to talking about how we were missionaries, and he got interested. He told asked us why we were here in Honduras, and we began to explain about how we have been blessed with happiness in this life through learning about Christ, and we want to serve the people and serve God and share this same happiness with the people here. He asked us if Jesus loved everyone, why didn't he visit the people of the Americas after the resurrection. WE were shocked. We told him that Christ did, and that he could learn about in in this book we had called the Book of Mormon. Very good experience that when God sees you working, he puts people in front of you to teach.

Well 4 hours later it was past 9 and we were still out. I thought I was going to die. I kept telling myself these things: 

"Jesus suffered all of my pains"

"The pioneers walked for miles feeling bad, and a lot of them died, I can do this"

Just stuff like that lol. WE ended the night having to give a blessing to a young sick kid, and I passed out at the end of it because I was so sick. That night continued to be the worst night of my life. Frodsham and I went back and forth to the bathroom throwing up every 10 minutes the whole night. Honestly, experiencing that with another person is a very bonding experience, we were both miserable together, so I guess there's a bright side!

Saturday we had a baptism, so we did that all afternoon which was awesome, but we were smiling through the pain and exhaustion. We went in early that night and After church on Sunday we basically spent the entire day just dying in our beds and taking a trip to the bathroom every 20 minutes, which makes no sense because we barely had anything but water in our stomachs lol. 

So yeah basically we out here dyin in da club rn, but we still have had some results haha. I ate real food for the first time today to test my stomach, so send prayers haha! Today is definitely better, I am so sorry for the graphic images I may have created, but honestly Today is better for sure! Love you all

Elder Butler

Week 10 - Reverse Racism

Hey Everyone!! I am sorry for those of you who I haven't responded to yet, I am doing the best I can, we don't always have a ton of time to write so I do what I can, but keep writing me! Yall's messages make my day you don't even know!

Busy busy busy week this week. A couple of fun things happened! Last Thursday, we did interchanges, which is where you switch companions with someone else for a day. Well my comp had to do some interviews, so a Latino that was in the Same MTC group as me named Elder Murillo did some exchanges in our area! I love him, he is such a funny guy and its a lot of fun having a Latino companion because it really makes me focus on using my Spanish literally 24/7! We spent most the time contacting, and had some success!

The Next day was my first multi-zone meeting. That did not go so well. It was 6 hours long, and half the time they weren't using a microphone so I couldn't hear or understand anything because there were like 70 people in this meeting, and the second half was our mission president roasting us for not getting good numbers as

a mission. Also told us we were banned from all music which is a real bummer because my mom just sent me

some CDs. He found out that people were downloading regatone songs and listening to them.  I'm a little upset about that, but hopefully we will get privileges back. 

Spanish is actually improving a lot. I can understand almost everything apart from Old people with no teeth. I met another missionary here that is from Magnolia, so that was sweet, small world! 

Saturday we did some service for this old lady, we chopped her grass, which was really just a field of weeds on top of a bunch of rock. Luckily I had some similar experience working for SC Builders this summer, so Mom tell Mike I thank him for that!

I had my first real experience with Racism this week. Of course a lot of people are subliminally racist to us because me and my comp are gringos, so as missionaries we just have to ignore it and not let it get to you. One day I got on a bus. The Bus ride was gonna be like an hour and a half, and they are usually full so you are lucky if you get a seat. Well I didn't want to stand, so I went to the back and there were 4 seats pen next to people. When I walked by I asked to sit and they all put there stuff on there seat and told me to keep moving, seat by seat, I was denied because I was white. Lol. I tried to ignore, telling myself not to get angry, but honestly was mad, especially at this one guy who was a jerk. All of the sudden, a Woman picked up her 5 year old child, and made room for me to sit and told me to sit down. All of my anger went away. Its funny to see how when someone shows a person an act of love, how it can change there whole attitude. I ended up talking with her and her family, and I paid for there bus fair too! awesome experience.

I want to share an experience I had with y'all. Saturday nights we usually walk to every investigator that we know and invite them to church. We have been teaching this Lady named Wendy, and one of our last stops, we took that hard hike up a mountain to invite her. Wendy lives in a very very impoverished area, even more so that the rest of the area. She has 3 kids or so, and a boyfriend. 

We found her sitting on a bucket in front of her house just contemplating life. We went up to her and greeted her, and invited her to church. She just told us that she doesn't know what to do, she has absolutely no money to feed her kids. She asked us how can I go to church in the morning when my children are starving and I have nothing to give them. This really struck me hard. Of course we know that when you show faith to God by coming to church, he will be able to bless you, but this is a hard situation to be in. As missionaries, we are not allowed to just give people money, because everyone here needs money. All I wanted to do was give her everything I had, buy her something, whatever, but also I don't want to break the rules.

We left, and honestly I was depressed. I thought about it nonstop for 30 minutes. My comp and I also had not eaten all day so we were starving. We went to the house of the bishop, and his wife handed me a plate of Fresh Tamales. Even though we were hungry, I knew this was an answer to my prayer. I told my companion after we left that we had to go back to Wendy's house and give her the food. I had been praying to know what I could do for her, and Food had literally been put into my hands. We hiked back up to her, gave her the food, and left.

I haven't seen her since, But I know that I was told by the spirit to do that. I have experienced some crazy stuff here, God is real and he cares about each and every one of you. Have faith, he will Answer.

Elder Butler