Hey everyone! Happy days happy days. As a lot of you may know, before as a missionary I was only able to have a video call with my family twice a year, on Christmas and Mothers Day, but all of the other days I was only able to talk to my family from email. Also about 4 weeks ago we got banned from using chat on gmail, so I was literally restricted to only emails. WELL GUESS WHAT?! Good News, The First Presidency of the church came out with a statement saying "We Love our missionaries, and our missionaries love their families.." and welp, now we are allowed to talk with our families for more time, use chat on google with anyone, and video call WEEKLY, and also on all major holidays and Birthdays of your parents. Oh I love President Nelson. Guys, when I first went to BYU, they started allowing Coca-Cola Products on campus with caffeine, and in the mission they changed the rules to video call all the time! The church has to be true, no other explanation but revelation ;)
This week was another normal week, the baptisms we had planned fell through, so a little sadness there. I'm coming onto my last 2 weeks in my area, which is like the last mile of a marathon. I'm really trying to stay motivated and work hard, and so far I'm being successful with that. Just pray for me to persevere to the end haha.
We had to go to the hospital today because my comp had a return appointment for this rash thing he had on his head, so I got a pretty late start on everything today so my thought are jumbled. I took a picture of Pikachu, which is not a Pokemon unfortunately. Its like the Honduras Great-Value Brand big bag of cereal version of the big Jesus the Christ statue in Honduras, so that was pretty cool! Unfortunately they don't let the people from my mission have permission to go up to it in person anymore because its technically in a different missions borders, but it was cool to see from a distance!
Got to eat Wendy's today while I was in the city, this place may have been the largest Wendy's to exist in the world. It had 3 stories and a playground connected to all three. The Wendy's and the McDonald's here in Honduras are only for the rich people, and they don't have dollar menu stuff. I was talking to a missionary from here that had a friend go to the states and told him he was eating McDonald's everyday so he figured he was rich, when afterwards he found out that pretty much the only ones who hit up McDonald's in the states are homeless people, semi-truck drivers, Moms with five little kids, and poor college students (I fit into this category, every Sunday night at 12 o clock) Wendy's was nice but if anyone can ship down a Whataburger or Chick-fil-A, would be much appreciated.
Well everyone, today I just wanna say how thankful I am for my friends and family. You guys are awesome. I am so thankful that I had two amazing pairs of grandparents, who spent their lives working hard for their kids, and teaching the ones who I would end up calling my parents. I have two great examples in my life of how to sacrifice for their family, and I know they learned it from their parents. I am beyond grateful that I had a dad that was always willing after a long tiring day of work to go play catch, a mom who drove me to every single gosh darn practice for the 50 sports I played. You guys rock. My siblings rock too, Thanks for allowing me to be the favorite sibling in the family, and always making me laugh. I also forgive you all for the Winds incident and the Boogie Giner ;) But for real, Families are the center piece for the plan of happiness God has for us. I love my Family!!! Love you all
Elder Butler
Hey everyone! Another great week here in Honduras! Super busy and stressful, but successful!
Went to a dope Chinese restaurant slash Money laundering business for the cartel haha, biggest restaurant I've ever been too lol, without a single person inside. A member told me that a friend from work knows the owner, and confirmed my theory about the money laundering. It was pretty dope though, there were pools, playground, paddle boats, and a huge lake behind that you could pay and fish, and if you catch it you can pay to keep it! Pretty sweet, we are going to try and bring our Zone to go there on P-day one day!
We had a meeting on Thursday with the stake president, the president of the mission, and the assistants over a bunch of stats and materials, and my comp and I had to put together a ton of excel spreadsheets and gather all of the raw info in zone like 2 days, and transfer it all into the presentation in the span of 2 hours before it started. My comp was stressed, but last second project in high school was my specialty, so I let him know not to worry, we got this. We got it done, thanks to God, and my Excel class I took freshman year in college. We had all the data present, and everyone was happy, but my comp and I were mentally exhausted haha!
Well we had a multi-zone on Wednesday, and the meeting on Thursday in the night, so we had to sleep overnight in the city with the assistants. One of them is named Elder Madsen from Cali, and is one of the coolest people I've met in the mission.
Ill be seeing him at the Y hopefully.
We only had 2 days to work during the week, but we still had success! Ended Sunday with a baptism of an 18 year old named Brian. Hes a kid we have been teaching for a while, and weren't exactly sure if he was going to be baptized until Friday evening! He is very hard to find a lot, because hes never home and doesn't have a phone, so being able to talk to him was a miracle in and of itself. I found him a few months back, and he continued to have doubts about a lot of stuff, but I don't know, I saw a lot of characteristics that I had myself about 3 years ago. He got baptized on Sunday, and it was awesome. Being able to see the happiness and joy that the gospel brings to peoples lives is invaluable.
Its crazy to look at who I was at 18 and who I am now (almost 21 ;) ). I am very much the same Steven that you all know, with a little pinch of Spanish, but I have also developed a complete different aspect on life. Some can say its because I'm in a third world country, which is partly true, but the truth is that I've grown a lot. Through experiences of losing my most beloved friends, to seeing the hand of God in my life. I am out here serving in the Lords work because when I was in a dark abyss, when I felt like I was bitterly and hopelessly alone, I felt the Holy Spirit comfort me. I never understood why I went to BYU for College, a school I never wanted to go to, over all the schools that gave me 80 percent and higher scholarships to assist their school. I didn't find out until almost the end of the year, that God never left me alone, but put people in my life that were meant to help me. God is real. Just know that when you feel defeated, and can barely stand because the pain and sorrow you feel is unbearable, just know that there is one person who knows all about your pains and afflictions that you are going through, and maybe for a moment in your life, just a moment, you can understand just a little of what Christ went through for you. I am in his debt, and without Christ and this gospel, I don't know where I would be.
I love each and every one of you on this list, I hope you all know that. My friends and Family are the most important people in my life! Love y'all!
Elder Butler
Hey everyone, happy late Superbowl. I am a little happy that the first Superbowl I have had to miss was kinda a sucky one HAH! Tom is the goat, I cant go for the pats anymore though because Danny Amendola dueced to the Dolphins, so now I'm Good I'm a Dolphins, Texans guy.
Well this semana was a pretty slow and boring one to be honest. Me and my new comp are getting along pretty well actually. I like having a comp where I speak in Spanish 24/7 better, plus I am learning certain phrases from Mexico now too. Always trying to expand the vocabulary.
At first I'll be honest, I thought my comp was a little strange, but what I have learned is that all of my weaknesses are his strengths and vice versa. We really complement each other. I am a lot more outgoing kind of person, I can get people to open up. I also contact in a more direct manera, and teach in a distinct way. My comp is a very patient man. Patience has probably been one of my largest weaknesses throughout my whole life. This is a fact that I've basically always have know and wanted to improve. In the MTC, I was in a trio where one of my comps was sent to me to test my patience. Wanted to poke his eyes out every time he talked to me. Don't get me wrong, I have patience with people when they are logical, but when they aren't logical, or are rude, I have to bite my tongue a lot of times. Here when people are hypocrites or illogical, lie or are rude, my blood pressure goes up a little bit, and I wont lie I think bad stuff. These thoughts do not come from Jesus, they come from the other dude. My comp has really shown me a great example of patience and how it brings more love for the people you teach. When we both teach, we have a good mix. The aspects that he faults in, I can pick up. All in all, we are in like a Good cop, Normal cop situation (No ones mean haha)
Some dope stuff that happened is that when we were walking there were a bunch of paratroopers jumping out of helicopters. They were just running drills, but it reminded me of Red Dawn haha. I just told my comp to run lol.
My comp was Assistant medico before coming to me, so he had to worry about the Health of over 160 missionaries, go take people to the hospital at 3 am sometimes, and was stressed out all the time, so he developed some rash on his scalp from all the stress he had before, so on Tuesday we took a nice ole trip to the Hospital. The Hospital was pretty dope. Apparently its the nicest and most expensive hospital in Honduras, and all the people that were inside weren't wearing used clothing so that says a lot. Was a culture shock for me being inside for sure.
My comp told me when he arrived in Ciudad Espana, that this is probably one of the poorest areas in My mission. My mission is the poorest of 5 missions of Honduras. Honduras is the second poorest country in central america, and there aren't missionaries in Nicaragua right now because of political stuff. I have come to a point where I am completely 100% humbled. I live around most people with nothing. Times I have joked about the poor quality food that I eat, mostly beans and Rice, but I am always grateful for the sacrifice that people give for me.
Love you all so much, Keep rockin out there. Shout out to my girl Gladys Knight, way to stick it to Kapernick. God Bless the USA. Send me emails if you love me :)
Elder Stevo Butler
