Photos from Dunkwa This Week

Managed to make a cake!!

Heading to Zone Conference - look how neat his closet is.....

A baptism set for Saturday was postponed to Sunday because the power went out and there was no way to fill the font high enough so they waited one more day....

This kid can carry anything on his head!

The new Dunkwa Team!

The Praso and Assin Fato Zones - he is in there, keep looking!

A New Companion, A New Title, A New Apartment and Lots of Dirt

Well Hello everyone. I love you all so much. I am so short on time today. I am so sorry but I will try and get down what I wanted to talk about. Just know that I miss you all and am so ready for the next challenege that Ghana can bring.

This challenge will come in the form of being called as a Trainer to a new companion, moving to a new place in Dunkwa (the area is huge), and living with four missionaries instead of two.  We will be so busy.  Our new area is massive - dirt homes everywhere and store fronts alongside the homes - lots of walking and lots of getting used to being the trainer companion!  Elder Stephens will remain in my apartment but will be training another missionary while I train mine.  Crazy, huh?!

So I wanted to talk about something that I have begun to realize. I want to teach you all how to see the Finger of our Lord in your life!!!! I figured it out!!! So all you have to do is this: everyday sit down grab a pen and a book and write the small nice things that happened that day. Anything , from things like, you got to eat your favorite food, you got to see a friend, school didn't suck.... anything works. All you have to do is write. We know everything good comes from God, and in turn the Savior. So recognize those small blessing and the amazing moments that really change your day. What made you smile? I want to challenge you all to do this for a whole year! Yes a whole year, don't complain. I won't even be home yet when that year goes by. DO this for a year, everyday and you will be able to see our Lord's finger in your life. It may not be exactly like the Brother of Jared's experience but it will change your life. 

I have realized that there are small comforts given to us each day that we take for granted. We should never allow this to happen at any point in our life. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Thiose small things can change your lfe, if you understand where they are coming from. 

I Love you all, I know life can be hard but always remember that you are not, nor will you ever be alone. You have a Father in Heaven that has loved you since your first instant, and his mind does not change. Search for his love and you can find it, every moment, every instant, shows His love for you in some way or another. Just remember if you are not looking you can never find what you aren't looking for. Only when we search with all our effort can our search be successful 

Please know that I am here for all of you even though I am on the other side of the world.

I miss you and cannot wait to see how you have all grown when I finally get back home.

Love you - 

Elder Edison Butters

Week 17 Letter - A Baptism Coming; Speaking at Zone Conference!

Hey everyone, time is flying today, we have had so little time to do anything because we have to travel to a new area for zone conference. So that will take up a lot of our day, I am just glad that I get to talk right now, to be honest. I love you guys so much, I know you are all doing amazing things and working to improve each day.  Keep working hard!

Today I want to talk about friendship, this came to my mind when writing the beginning paragraph to each of you and I have decided to go with it. Now, friends, what are they? What's their job? And how should I be a good and better friend? 

Friends, whether in your family or just people that you meet, can change your life. People that start as friends can often grow to be more like family, so choose wisely who you make a friend. Friends are supposed to be the people that raise you up in ways you didn't think you needed to be lifted. Friends teach you how to become better, stronger, and improve in all aspects of your life. Harry Potter stated that he could find his own friends without the help of Malfoy, we all have to be able to do the same. If we try and use being cool, and popular to find friends we will only find people who want to use us. When we search for friends to raise our popularity level we can only become friends with the people that are using us the same way. Search to find friends to help, not people to help you. When we search more for a way to give, somehow we always end up getting in some way or another. Be the friend you wished you had and sooner or later you will find, not the person you wanted, but the person that you need.

Be an angel in someone else's life and then you can see the hands of angels more fully in your own. Friends change who you are and what you can do, so be smart, find the ones that you can lift because then in one way or another you can be lifted as well.

I love you all so much, you are all amazing friends to me, I hope you know just how amazing i know each one of you are. Keep trying.  Keep working and never give up.

I love you all, and you have all been amazing friends ;) I hope that you can share it with others because this world needs your light more then it needs any more shadows taking up room. 

We have a baptism planned for this week!  That is always a wonderful thing for everyone involved.

I didn't catch the new mouse living in our house - we will keep trying on that one.

My companion and I have been asked to give the teaching lesson at Zone Conference tomorrow - Teaching with Power!  That's a bit scary.  We also taught the investigator lesson at church yesterday and the APs were in the class visiting along with the Mission President's wife....oh man, no pressure!

Have a great week and I will keep walking and walking and walking.

Love, Elder Edison

Photos from This Week!

Edison and a special investigator - and a handsome haircut he did all by himself!

A great family flanked by great missionaries - best companionship in all of Ghana!

Looking good, Elder Edison!

Another Week, Another Mouse!

Hey everybody.

I want to start off with a line that me and a member of my district came up with. "I'd much rather be a son of God then a man of men"

I want to just explain it a bit. We are always told we have to grow up, to be done with things, to stop being childish, and to think about our future. These are all things that take a different effect on each of us. Today I just want to say how I feel about this. If I have to change and grow up, if I have to do all these things then I am going to make sure I am a child of God rather then a product of man. 

We all have divine potential, we all have the chance to do amazing things in our lives, but if we are too busy trying to please the world and change to fit where it thinks we belong, we will miss our chance. 

Being a child of God is hard because when you actually follow him you stand out, and stand up against the world. Be strong and know your God is bigger then any problem Man can throw at you. 

You have all been blessed with countless strengths, learn them, point them out to others. Become what you can through God. Be a child of God rather than a product of Man.

I love you all so much. this past week we have discovered just how hard it is to unite people together. Becoming strong where you are weak is always going to be difficult, but if you keep trying and praying for help it will happen.

I had to kill yet another mouse!!!! We keep our apartment so clean because we have nothing else to do on P days except clean, yet there are mice!!! I cannot wait to get back to homes that only have one, if that. I am averaging one a month. My mission is going to be fun when I can measure in mice killed.

No farming this week even though we had it planned. It always seems to fall through, but I have leaned to trust in God's timing and let it all happen.

I love you all so much, I will talk next week.

A Short But Beautiful Experience

To everyone,

Hey everybody. I hope you are doing well. Today I want to share a quick story that happened to me on an exchange this week. We were walking and a young girl called us over. She immediately asked for a book (everyone here loves books of any kind and they know we carry lots of Book of Mormons with us)! The other Elder gave her one. On the back we have our names and our number so that investigators can easily reach us later. The little girl realized that the zero we had written was different from the rest (we wrote it too small). She came to us and asked us to fix it. Most everyone who witnessed her do this, laughed at her and told her it was alright. She was told that if she could recognize it as a zero then why does it need to be changed.

As we walked away I began to understand the beauty of what I had just seen A small child saw an error in something and her first desire was to fix it. All the adults around her just laughed and said it was good enough. This is why Christ asked for the little children to be brought to him. They understand perfection and meekness in ways we never can. We see errors or sins in our lives and immediately justify them, we act as if they are alright. This is not okay, we all have to correct all errors, no mistake no matter how small we need to fix it. But through Jesus Christ we can, if only we turn to Him. So look towards him and be like the girl and her zero.

I know this letter is short but I do love you guys so much. I appreciate all the emails and letters and every single thing I am finding in my emails. I can't do Mondays without them so keep them coming, please! Keep working hard and I will too!

I Love you all

Elder Butters

First Photos of 2018

After discovering that the church had been burglarized, Elder Butters help replace the bars on the doors and windows.  A TV and Edison's fast offering envelope were stolen.

The dusty roads walked by these amazing missionaries day after day to do the work of the Lord!

Priceless little friends being made each day.

The Elders provided Christmas to some select children and their families!

The Cape Coast congregation Christmas and New Year party!

A happy face that makes so many smile - love the star on the tile floor.

The conditions he lives in - I remember vividly packing up those toiletries, ties and shirts several months ago.  Keep up the good work!

Mice Killings and Impalings! Letter 16!

I am so so sorry that this is a day late because of New Years. \We couldn't come and send an email, but we got permission to switch P day to Tuesday this week. Please forgive me.

SO Highlights this week: Mr. Mouse's Murder, Christmas Catastrophe, Oh look I've been impaled, Happy New Year!!!!

Okay, well after Monday last week when we finally got back to our apartment we found the mouse that has been living in our apartment. It took a while but using two of our machetes I was able to trap it and kill it. So far I have been forced to kill three on my mission! When i get home I should put exterminator on my resume.

When we went to the Chapel the day after Christmas we discovered that we had been broken into. Whoever it was got a TV that instructions are done on, and my fast offerings (only my fast offerings.......). As a result we spent plenty of time with the cops this week. This week was weird.

This one is my favorite:  after a lesson outside under a great big tree we began walking to our next lesson. I took a route behind the tree and I realized that my companion was still talking so I pivoted to turn around. When I rested my foot on the ground, a nail decided to go through the sole of my show and into my foot. That was not a nice feeling. Luckily we had the equipment to clean it up and make sure that there was nothing wrong. Something that I did notice was how it nearly hit the tendon in the bottom of my foot. On my mission if you can't walk or are having issues with walking comfortably you get sent home, so if the tendon had been damaged I could have possibly been sent home. I am happy to receive the blessing of still being out here.

Oh, Happy New year to all. I miss you so much, make sure that you set some amazing goals for this coming year. I want to see how all of you change and grow into the people you need to be. It will be amazing.  I have a list a mile long but will try to modify it into a more possible list.  The biggest thing for me is facing the coming "dark year" where I will be on my mission and away from all of you for the entire calendar year.  That is difficult to swallow right now but others have managed and so will I.

Now onto a bit more spiritual thing, I had been planning on talking about something else this week but this morning I found a different topic. I want to talk about getting answers from God. If any of you know me really well you know I get stressed out when faced with decisions. Most of the time I turn to prayer to get an answer, however the answer never seems to come. I have never really understood why, until recently. Sometimes we are left without an answer so that we have to decide on our own and when we make a decision we can then go to God in prayer and ask if what we have decided is following His will.

Yet doing this doesn't always let you get an answer either. When this happens know that God trusts you enough to make the right choice, He knows that you are in line with His will enough to choose correctly and move closer to Him. It can also mean that no matter what the choice, no matter what the outcome, you will fulfill His work. Sometimes it doesn't matter because wherever we go whatever we do, His work will continue.

Don't be scared. God trusts you to do your best and then He will work through you. Don't be afraid if you don't get an answer, sometimes it is the fact that we don't get an answer that allows us to show God and Jesus Christ that we love them more then we fear the shadow in front of us. I am not sure where the quote comes from but it describes a scene where you are surrounded by shadows and we are told to step forward, we must all have the faith to take a step and know that either our foot will hit the ground and we will then see the full next step or that if we begin to fall we will be taught to fly.

I love you all so much. I miss you

Elder Butters