Letter 67 - A Baptism and a Transfer

DaJia Hao! Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Chinese New Year to you all! This week was a great one to celebrate a New Year AND (sadly) my last week in San Francisco...

This has been a week that I fully consider to be 16 months of missionary service in the making. The greatest event of all (of course) is that KAI GOT BAPTIZED! It was a spiritual highlight of my mission for sure. I have had the opportunity to baptize someone in the past here in the field, but its never been someone I had the pleasure to find, teach, and baptize. I am so grateful for Kai and his baptism. It was a day I will never forget. I am grateful that he was able to find so much hope and a new positive attitute toward his future. It was a pleasure to share that day with him.

In other work this week, we've been doing okay here. I went on exchanges with Elder Iglesias to the other Spanish Area that missionaries cover in my District. He has a great attitude of diligence and drive, but also a great sense of humor and is a very pleasant and humble missionary to work with. I had a good day with him of doing service as well as a very good session of tracting in the hills of Daly City. He also had the chance to do a demonstration with me in District Meeting, so it made for a good day. 

We've been doing a lot of service this week, mostly through members reaching out to the non-member friends and volunteering our services. We've been cleaning out messy garages, scooping brownies for Valentine's Day lunch at a soup kitchen, and weeding the side of a hill in Golden Gate Park. I sure do love this area.

Which brings me to the bad news...after 30 glorious weeks in the city by the bay, I have been transferred. I will be honset, I am pretty sad to leave San Francisco. I have loved my time here and will miss this city terribly. Our last few rounds of street contacting in the city have brought back a lot of cherished memories. I have learned a lot from beign with Elder McKean these past few transfers as well. This week, he taught me a lot on what it means to access the "enabling power of the Atonement, which is something that I have been longing to understand a little more ever since I began my service. I am grateful for the fun times we had together and for the chance I had to train him. I will miss working with him a lot.  

I leave for Oakland tomorrow morning, to begin serving with my new companion Elder Carns. We will cover the majority of the East Bay, and we will have a car, which will be pretty different to what I'm used to... New things a comin'!

Love you all. I miss you and think of you all the time. Most espeically, thank you for your prayers and faith in Kai. Without you, he wouldn't be the newest member of the church today.

Love

Elder Butters/Bao ZhangLao