This has been a busy busy week for the three of us.
Firstly, Francoise is still doing great! We taught her the Restoration on Thursday, and were able to help her solve some of her concerns related to prayer. She was worried that because her prayers wouldn't be long or have any fancy-sounding words, they wouldn't be good. We told her that the opposite is quite true. I'm grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that wants to communicate with His children, regardless of how beautiful or sophisticated their prayers sound. I would definitely be in trouble if prayers had to be fancy. I've been saying quite a few recently, and I'm grateful to know that there is always someone listening. Anyway, Francoise is enjoying the Singles Ward and is now asking a lot of questions about the Temple. We are excited to relate Temples to the Gospel of Jesus Christ this next week.
With other work and appointments, we tried to contact more of our Elders, unfortunately to no real avail. We also had a dinner appointment with a potential investigator, where we were able to talk about the power of Personal Revelation. We had a District Meeting on the new improved version of Preach My Gospel (printed copies come out in August, and I could not be more excited to get my hands on one!), and a whole bunch of last-minute service out in the sun. We did a massive finding blitz in Oakland Chinatown, where we sadly met some really rude people, but had a memorable conversation with a marine corp veteran. I also had a fantastic interview with my new Mission President, Pres. Durham. He is a great example of kindness, charity, and sincerity in my life already. He's AWESOME!!
This has been a week of realization for me. Elder Graham is a missionary that I learned a lot from. Unfortunately, we said goodbye to him this week as he returned home. I will be honest, I had a difficult time relating to him, and I feel like I could've handled the situation differently. I thin kit might have been a missed opportunity to grow a little more. However, like I said, the weeks we had together taught me a lot. I learned that no matter how much we try, other people have their own agency, and we need to respect that. I learned that I need to step up my game in some parts of my service. I learned that I need to do better at trusting God, and putting away "false Gods" I might be worshiping instead of Him in order to trust Him completely. I learned more about the Allegory of the Olive Tree, and I learned that I want to make changes in my life, but need patience and focus in order to do so. Yeah....when God sends me an opportunity to learn, I guess He dumps a whole lot on me. When it rains, it truly pours!
In other news, Elder Mitchell and I are back to the two of us...for the next five days. We will be welcoming Elder Lee into a trio with us on Friday. Now, lest we get confused, this is not the Elder Li that trained me. Elder Lee will be returning to the mission field after a short hiatus to be permanently assigned to our mission. He'll be jumping head first into a really really busy week! However, Elder Mitchell and I celebrated by challenging each other to eat really spicy ("atomic," in fact) chicken wings today. That was fun!
We are always moving and always involved in something right now, and I like being busy. Thank you all for your prayers that are contributing to that. Good things are happening. I'm grateful to Heavenly Father for the experiences He gives me, and I hope to learn from my mistakes. I want to encourage you to remember that when you have a trial, its for your good. I hope to make sure that next time I take more advantage of such situations. I think their is more growth for all of us.
Xia Ci Jian!
Elder Butters/Bao ZhangLao
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