Sunday, January 25, 2015

Paybacks...

Kia ora whanau,

Far out.. the weeks are going by fast as!! It feels like I just sat down yesterday to email you crazy people! ;) It was a solid week though.. Manurewa continues to be a gold mine... We got 2 new baptism sets!! Holy cow... Everyone we invite says yes!! :) We're absolutely pumped for Keanu's baptism.. He's so excited!! 

I thought i already talked about this last week.. so if i already did. I'm sorry! But i met a Basketball player on New Zealand's professional team, the NZ Breakers. He was chillin at our investigator's (baptism set's) house. So me.. being over confident told him that as long as I am companions with Elder Lingwall.. We will not lose a game in New Zealand!! So i told him to go get his friends!! ;) haha he thought we were so sick! We were telling him about the dunks we were throwing down the week before, and he was amazed. 

We have a new investigator named Panapa. He's from Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. He. is. massive!! Do you know the TV show "America's strongest man" (i think that's what it is) Where they pick up cars and stuff.. and dead lift ridiculous amounts of weight... ya.. Panapa is on the New Zealand's strongest man!! He's probably a good 350-400lbs. We were at his house the other day with brother Haurua and Panapa's brother.. I thought the house was going to collapse. There were 3 guys over 350lbs in 1 room!! He said he had a friend that's 475lbs.. Crazy!! :) 

I found my new favorite food! It's an islander food called Lu. Really popular in Tonga and Samoa!! It's Meat and Coconut Cream wrapped in Taro leaves!! Dang.. it's nice as!! ;) 

So.. remember when i made fun of Lingwall when he wrecked his bike a couple weeks ago? man.. I got payback. I was being stupid trying to ride my bike up the stairs on our flat.. and just totally fell straight on my butt!! ;) Pretty funny!! 

This week we went to our Baptist Pastor friend's house. We talked about the Book of Mormon for 2 and 1/2 hours!! It was unreal!! I had to pee when I got in their house.. and i never went.. When we got out of there finally.. i thought my appendix burst or something.. it hurt so bad!! ;) 

We went to the Coopers for dinner last night... They are Maori/Cook Island!! She is a Mean as cook!! wow!! I ate so fast.. that when i actually digested my food, i had to hurry and ask for the bathroom because i was literally on the verge of throwing up. I had to take some deep breaths!! ;) And Desert wasn't even on the table yet!! It was so nice though!! ;) 

That's about it for this week!! I finally got my SD card.. so i'm just pumped as to watch the videos on it from the whanau back home! :) I love you all!! :) Have a wonderful week!! :) 

Love,
Elder Butler 

Monday, January 19, 2015

Manurewa is a dang gold mine!!

Sadshriakal my wonderful family... (a greeting in Punjab) ;) haha,

This week was crazy!! Well.. one day was crazy! Let me tell you. So me and Lingwall fell asleep at about 10 and i was completely out. Then in the middle of my sleep i hear, "Elder Butler, get up, hurry!!" So I rushed to the window to see about 2 massive mobs of about 20 people each (about 5-7 feet away from our bedroom window) just beating the crap out of each other!! They were destroying our fence by ripping off the boards with massive nails and beating people with them. Girls were getting their hair ripped out and people were getting slammed into the fence of our house. I've never seen anything like it in my life. So Elder Lingwall hurries and calls the cops... They came a few short minutes later and we watched them jump the fences and run. The cops turned the corner and then turned his lights on... so we don't know what happened after that! But it was unreal... We guessing it was a gang related fight.. seeing that there were about 40 people involved. But me and Lingwall got front row seat action!! It was mean as!! ;) 

Now on to the more spiritual side of the week. Keanu (our baptism set) is doing great!! He's the man!! He has been telling us lately.. "man.. it's crazy how you guys showed up just at the right time!!" and we're like.."nah.. not really that crazy... pretty normal actually!!" ;) We taught him the first 4 lessons in a week and 1/2.. and he's taken all of them really well!! We're shooting for February 7... so we're hoping/praying he can do it!! The other day he saw my long black Nike socks with my church clothes.. and he was pumped!! He was like "man.. the only long nike's they have here are fake... and the nike is upside down (from China)!! ;) So i brought him a nice pair of untouched, black Nike socks.. He was so dang excited!! I'm all..."bro.. i have like 15 pairs back at the flat." :) 

I don't know if i've told you yet.. but we got another new set also.. after Keanu. His name is Paul. He was a referral from the office. We set him for baptism on the first lesson. So sick!! Manurewa is a dang gold mine!! I'm just disappointed because i'll be leaving soon.. most likely!! :/

Last but not least... Clinton (our last baptism) is an UNREAL carver. He has his own business called Tribal Designs. He makes Ukuleles, cultural war things and.. just some amazing stuff!! It would literally blow your mind. So i've been trying to have him make me something for ages!! But he's just so dang busy!! But the last couple weeks he's been letting us come over on P day to make something. He said he would show us how to make a little gift.. but we got to his house last week, and he had the design for a massive Cook Island war club!! It's mean as!!! He showed us how to make them.. and he helps us with the tools and stuff.. then he pretty much just cleans it up for us after... then he's going to carve patents in it!! I'm so pumped! 

So that's about it for the week!! Nothing too crazy.. besides a massive riot!! But it was a good week overall!! 

I love you guys a ton!! I miss you heaps!! Thank you for all the letters and emails!! I absolutely love them!! ofa atu.. and laterz!! ;) 

Arohanui,
Elder Butler

They stole the boards off of our gate to smash people...Freaking insane!

 Our Samoan friends!! #lunchtime It's way too hot to wear our pants.. so i had to rep my Utah shorts!! ;) 

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Never ignore a prompting...

Kia ora everyone!!

Solid as flippin week bros!! :) dang... 

Starting out... last P day we went to the park to go play volley, way fun.. we met some islanders there and they all joined. But after they left it got a little boring... so i looked around and found some ballers over on the courts. So i told Lingwall and Koi that we needed to go smash them. so we went over and asked if we could play... they had 4 and we had 3. But being the over confident person that i am sometimes.. i told them we could handle playing 3 on 4. We started out... I hit a shot from up top.. they all started freaking out... so we got the ball back next play.. i just throw it down. They almost died. We absolutely wrecked them. I threw some alley oops to LIngwall.. and we were just hitting everything. We made good friends with them.. but at the end they were like, "man... we're never coming back here again!!" It was hilarious!! It's always nice to show everyone that missionaries are real people also!! ;) Oh.. we started getting a good little crowd too!! I loved it!! :) 

Here's my cool story for the week!! So we were tracting down a road I haven't been on in months.. and i had this crazy prompting to go talk to these two ladies who were sitting outside the house smoking. I was way hesitant because i've delt with people like this before!! But I got the guts to go talk to them finally.. and they were pretty nice.. but just didn't care about what i had to say. So i was questioning myself about why i received a feeling to go talk to them. Then at the end.. they gave us a referral. So we contacted the referral right away. We met this brotha named Keanu (Maori/Pakeha) who was literally searching for Jesus Christ and the truth in his life. We taught him the Restoration, set him for Baptism, and brought him to church 2 days later. It was a miracle!! He's had some crazy things happen in his life.. and the gospel is exactly what he needed. 

I'm bummed we had to push some of the Baptism dates back a little bit.. because i don't think i'll be here any more!! Hopefully i get to see at least 1. But if not.. that's okay.. It's all the same work!! :) 

So there's the cool story for the week.. but i also have a bummer one. I don't know if i told you about our investigator...the one with cancer. She was the nicest little lady I've met. We saw a bunch of people outside her house for a get-together. So we joined in.. knowing that she wasn't well. The doctors gave her a day to live.. so we went to go say goodbye. It was so sad!! I've never seen anything like it before. But I'm so glad we were able to give her a blessing and teach her the plan of Salvation only a couple weeks earlier. 

So that was too bad.. but other than that.. my week was solid! We went over to a Samoan house for a lesson.. and they gave us this massive feed!! I finished the first serving.. thinking that was all. and they piled it up again!! I absolutely love the islanders!! Me and Elder Lingwall had to come up with a plan so we could eat most of it though.. and not throw up!! It was dang nice though!! :) 

We do something called Rescue Visits every Sunday where we go to all the less actives houses and see how they're doing, and share a message. So we had that yesterday.. and while we were at a house.. we looked across the street and this full-on fist fight broke out between heaps of drunk people!! It was terrible.. It was hilarious to watch.. but they all had little kids.. so i felt terrible. 

That's it for the week!! I love you all!! :) Ofa lahi atu!! :) 

your favorite Elder,
Elda Butla 

For some reason they LOVE climbing on mine and Elder Lingwall's backs.  Not anybody else's.  Just ours...

Brother Harris' (Ward Mission Leader) kids...they are the craziest in all of New Zealand I'm pretty sure!

This is what we do at MCM.  They grab my legs and sit on my feet and make me walk.  You guys would love these little kids!!  They are HEAPS of fun!! :)

I got distracted during studies and drew out a detailed version of the Plan of Salvation! :)


Monday, January 5, 2015

What Went Down in NZ This Week...

What's up what's up my favorite people!!

I hope you all had a great week!! Mine was pretty slow.. but here's what went down!! ;)

First off... me and Lingwall have been struggling getting food for some reason because we didn't get paid last week. So yesterday we were talking to Clinton at church and he was like.. "Brothas.. come over for a feed today." So we couldn't (would never) turn it down! So we get to his house and puts a big thing of meat in front of us, with fish and just heaps of food. I was curious what the meat was because it was really rubbery. It was an Ox heart. I was like.. uh.. okay!! ;) It was nice though! Then they fed us a Cook Island delicacy... Fish Roe. If you don't know what that is.. It's the dang egg sack of a fish. It's about as big as my thumb and has little seed like things in the middle (i'm guessing little baby fishies.) But it was weird.. wasn't terrible.. but not the fave! They also gave us something called tapioca. It's pretty similar to the Taro root we so often eat, which is like the tasteless potato. But ya.. I love trying the weird food here. Some is absolutely amazing... some unbelievable terrible. There's just so much of it though.. we had 3 dinner appointments just yesterday.. I thought it was Christmas all over again. 

I hope Elder Lingwall's family reads this Email on my blog because they'll know some things that their son probably won't tell them!! ;) Ha he had a rough week!! Starting off.. We just got done talking to a new investigator when he tried to hop the curb on his bike... totally biffed it!! His legs just buckled and he went down!! He was so embarrassed... and (after I made sure he was okay) I just laughed my head off!! :) Next... He was walking down the road.. while looking at his planner, wondering where we need to go, when he runs straight into a tree. This hurt him pretty good though.. He was out rubbing his eyes for a good 5 minutes. Poor guy!! ;) 

Last of all!! Hanna's farewell!! Holy cow she killed it!! Thank you mama for sending it to me!! She's going to be such a great missionary... and absolutely going love Brazil (even if her mom's not too excited) haha!! :) You're welcome for the shout out Hanna!! :) 

Oh.. last thing!! I thought of my Uncle Shawn this week. I knocked on a door and this nice little man in a wheelchair opened it up. He is quadriplegic also, but from a car accident. So i told him all about my Uncle Shawn!! :) Cool stuff!!  

That's it for this week... pretty slow!! But that's okay!! I love it.. I'm continuing to learn daily!! I love my Rewa home!! 

Arohanui,
Elder Butler 


My boy Elder Prasad is off to Glenview!! Sad day!! We have been together since day 1.