March 12, 2013

Dear Family,

It has been a great week here! So many great things have happened. The sites are picking up, work in the area is going well, and I couldn't ask for anything more!

The only downside to the week is that I threw up this morning, but don't worry, I'm feeling a lot better now! Sister Madsen has been taking good care of me, and Elder Searle and Elder Poulson gave me a blessing. It's not as good as having my parents to take care of me, but it will do :) I'm grateful to be surrounded by so many people that care about me! I'm taking it easy today so I can get back to work. 

Last Tuesday we got to go to a transfer board meeting with President and the APs. Oh my goodness, the whole face of the mission is changing so fast! We have 10 new sisters coming in this transfer, which means we need 10 of the current sisters to train. We currently have 12 areas that serve at the sites, which means the majority of them will have a new missionary in them next transfer and a few new areas opening (or in the case of Newark, opening back up). It will certainly be interesting to see what happens!

Another huge exciting miracle and experience this week was that the traveling cast of the Book of Mormon Musical came and toured the sites and we got to take them on tour at the BOMPS! There were a lot of media requests to come and cover the tour, but church headquarters didn't want it to appear like we invited the cast. We were simply accommodating them just like we would any other tour. It was so amazing though. We weren't sure if they were going to be hostile or not and ask a lot of controversial questions, so the Searles went to each site with them, President spent time with them at the Hill, church PR was here in case the media came and they had the APs and the Palmyra North Zone Leaders come on the tour. It ended up being a VERY positive experience with absolutely no issues. There were about 30 people in the cast that came so we split them in two at each of the sites. They were all very attentive and asked questions that weren't controversial but genuinely showed interest. They were all so kind too. It was just a very interesting experience because I was working at the Deseret News when the musical first came out. I remember thinking, "If these people only knew the truth" and here we were able to share our testimonies of the truth! I don't anticipate any of them quitting their job and joining the church, but I know it made a difference. They talked about how there are copies of the Book of Mormon all over the set and some of them read parts of it in between scenes. I am sure a lot more of them will do that now. It was interesting too because I don't think any of them are participating in the musical out of malice. To them it is just a job and another thing they make fun of. I just pray that they all will recognize the truth one day.

Anyway, I'm about out of time now. I'm going to go rest some more before we go grocery shopping. Don't worry about me though, I really am feeling a ton better!

Thanks for all the love and support! I miss you all tons and pray for you all the time!

Love,

Sister Butters