July 3, 2013

Dear Family,

Pageant is now the story of my life.

After 15+ hours working on the schedule before transfers with Sister Madsen and about 10+ working on it with Sister Killen, the schedule is printed and ready to hand out tonight. I would never ever, ever, ever wish the pageant schedule upon anyone! ha ha it's pretty much been the bane of my existence for the past month and a half, but I'm glad Heavenly Father gave me the opportunity to do it. It's a really complicated schedule. Each companionship will spend 6 days working at one site and 5 days working at another. Anytime someone isn't at a site, they will be doing studies and referral calling for the thousands of referrals we are about to receive. On top of that, we had to schedule where the Spanish speakers would be and when, where everyone would be living (which for some changes half way through the week) and who will work at the information booths. We had to make sure the cast trainers were where they need to be and coordinate all that for 19 sets of sisters. Party, right? Ha ha now it's just the execution of the schedule we have to worry about :)

I officially have a new mission president! President Francis and his family arrived Monday! I'm so excited to meet them! We have mission leader council tomorrow so I will get to meet at least President and Sister Francis and potentially their kids as well. What a great way to spend the Fourth of July, right? (And no worries, I already have my outfit picked out. My blue polka dot dress and my red shoes. Very patriotic if I say so myself :D)

As excited as I am to have the President and Sister Francis here, it was SO HARD to say goodbye to President and Sister Christianson. They spoke at site meeting last week and all of us sisters just kept passing the tissue boxes up and down the rows! As would be expected though, his last training was top notch. He talked about the love of God and how we can capture that love in our work. He shared a lot of scriptures about love (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:17-19, etc. Look them up :D). The entire time I just felt an outpouring of Gods love. He talked about how there is a direct correlation between one's ability to love and one's ability to obey. He said, "Christ obeyed perfectly so when the zero hour came He could love perfectly." It's so true. I feel so blessed to be able to have come out here to understand a little bit more about God's love, and I still have so much more to learn. I owe President and Sister Christianson SO MUCH. They have changed my life and I will love them forever! President ended his talk saying, "I've become what I'm supposed to be in this process and now it's time to move on." How profound. I want to be able to say the exact same thing when I'm ending my mission.

Things were crazy busy at the sites last week but have slowed down a bit this week. No one wants to come to the sites the week before pageant: they either already came last week or are coming next week. Last Friday I was on exchange with a Sister and we worked at the Hill. In our 6 hour shift we had 529 guests come in... and it was just the four of us taking them through the whole time! We were a little bit exhausted by the end of the day :) The next day Sister Killen and I drove down to the Peter Whitmer Farm to help in the morning because they were supposed to have several buses in a row. Well, the buses ended up showing up at the EXACT SAME TIME of course :) ha ha we went into pageant mode and I stayed in the chapel for about 2 hours telling the story of the Whitmer involvement in the restoration and the three witnesses. It was a good exercise in following the Spirit and making sure you don't just get stuck in a rut.

Sister Killen and I have been so busy with pageant prep that we haven't had as much time in our area as we would like, but things are still going well.

Yesterday after Sister Killen and I finished the pageant schedule our brains were totally fried so we walked up the Hill Cumorah during our dinner break. We spent some time at the top just looking out over the valley it was seriously breathtaking. The trees were so green and there was a slight breeze. Storm clouds were starting the roll in and I just thought to myself, "I've fallen in love with this place." I love the scenery. I love the history. I love the people. I love EVERYTHING! And the reason why I've grown to love everything is because it is here that I have grown to know my Savior. It made me think of Mosiah 18:30, "And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the ^awaters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall ^bsing to his praise forever." And that is exactly what I will spend my whole life doing: sing his praise forever!!!!!!!!!!

So next week I have a split P-day before pageant mode starts on Thursday. Half my P-day will be Monday afternoon and the other half will be on Wednesday morning, so I'll email again on Wednesday. Then after that, it's off to the pageant unknown :) Ha ha I may be able to email once during pageant. Hopefully I will. We are telling all the sisters if they have time, they will be able to email once during pageant for an hour as it fits with the schedule. So hopefully I'll get to email. :) Ha ha I would imagine I will have an hour at SOME point to email, but I'm sorry that I won't be able to give you much advanced notice as to when that will be.

Anyway, I love you all times a billion! Thanks for all the love and support!

Love,
Sister Butters

P-Day Adventure, they have been told there is a pond in their backyard so they went exploring!