I come to you all today in my new area. I have now been in Antioch for a full week now, and HOLY CRAP, I feel like I am serving in a new Mission! There have been so many changes thrown at me all at once, and it's been a little overwhelming.
Anyway, a little about Antioch. It is a nice little utopia smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, and hot...BOILING HOT!!! It's a pretty cool area, though. My new companion is Elder Ratliff, a missionary from Massachusetts. We are pretty similar; we are both the second of six kids and are the first missionaries in our families. Fun thing, we entered the MTC on the same day and will return home together as well. He is a pretty cool guy. We have really enjoyed quoting movies and cracking jokes together. He's teaching me to really have fun, which I need to have more of! Work wise, we are the Zone Leaders here, and we cover two Wards, Oakley 1st and Antioch YSA. I don't think I could've been transferred to a more different area than what I've been used to in the Chinese program. Not only does everyone speak English here, but we work with people my age! It's really kept things exciting and different to what I am used to.
We have dived right in this week. Elder Ratliff and I are teaching a few people right now. We were able to add someone new to our teaching pool yesterday, a guy named Chad. We were able to teach him the Restoration, and he had a lot of great questions about prophets and modern day church leadership. I'm grateful we have leaders to direct us and help us know where to go. He agreed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and seems like a genuine and sincere person. We are also teaching some people who have been taught for a long time, who have questions about the definitions of Priesthood Keys and the Abrahamic Covenant. Teaching them has led me to go more in depth in my studies, which keeps studies exciting.
There are some very interesting people here, and we have had some pretty crazy experiences with all of them. Some of those people include Tina (a lady with a massive personality who runs a kitchen for the homeless), Danny (a recent convert who is applying to go into the military police) and lots of members with absolutely insane family stories...some of which I wish they weren't as open to share with us as they were. Anyway, we've had a couple of really fun days.
I think the spiritual highlight of my week came as Elder Ratliff and I prepared and gave our first Zone Meeting. We created a Zone Vision with our missionaries, which will hopefully inspire them to work hard and work to become the missionaries they imagine themselves becoming. That has led me to think a lot about that idea for myself. We also had some really great lessons on hard work and forgiveness as part of Sunday School classes. One of my favorite quotes was about forgiveness and how the Atonement helps us to forgive:
Forgiveness is when we allow the Savior to carry the burdens we can't carry on our own. By saying I forgive you, Christ can take burdens from us.
You'll forgive me if I don't have much to share spiritually...most of this week has been a blur of learning my new area and my completely new situation. Lots to get used to, but Heavenly Father is proving to me that he will keep my mission interesting right up till the very end!
We had fun this week... Elder Ratliff and I built the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," we quoted movies, sweated like crazy, etc. Antioch is proving to be a crazy area.
Things continue to be interesting. I am grateful for all of the love and support you show me. Thank you for being my rock. I hope you all are safe and happy. Heavenly Father loves you all! So do I!
Love,
Elder Butters
包长老
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