Letters for the MTC

Daniel is off to Taiwan! He was excited about leaving the MTC to finally meet the people and see the country. Although he is confident that he will be able to find his way around well enough....Edwin and I fear that he may become disoriented in a large city with millions of people and unable to read the street signs. We wish him the best!

Here are some of the things Daniel had to say about his experience in the MTC:

September 10, 2007

Companion- Elder Lewis

Language- The grammer is simple but the pronunciation is complicated. He can pray, bear his testimony, and introduce himself in Mandarin.

Choir- He joined the choir so he could sing the songs in English!Food- Let's just say he's still eating it

Fun- He is still playing soccor, but has learned that playing in his dress shoes is not so good!

October 15, 2007

He taugh his first lesson this week in Chinese. He enjoys learning but is concerned that he is gaining weight (it's okay...he can afford a few more pounds on him before he goes to Taiwan). He enjoyed conference and loves the gospel of Jesus Christ.

October 29, 2007

Daniel sounded a little overwhelmed by the things to do during his day. However, he is taking Edwin's advise and sleeping. He seems a little frustrated with his language skills. He has a great desire to know and understand everything and wants to know it all now. He is confident that with time he will learn to understand, speak, and read the language. Whenever he doesn't know what to say he opens up his scriptures. I think that is a great way for him to share what he is feeling and allowing other to understand him.

Daniel shared three scriptures with us this week.

2 Nephi 33:10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.

2 Nephi 9: 38 And, in fine, wo unto all those who die in their sins; for they shall return to God, and behold his face, and remain in their sins.

Mosiah 1:6-7 O my sons, I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true. And behold, also the plates of Nephi, which contain the records and the sayings of our fathers from the time they left Jerusalem until now, and they are true; and we can know of their surety because we have them before our eyes.
And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers.

November 12, 2007

Daniel is looking forward to sharing the gospel with people. Although he has appreciated the learning experiences at the MTC he feels they are no substitute for ordinary people who feel the spirit. He is currently in a threesome and it is "interesting" as he puts it. He says it will help him to grow, so I feel that it has been a bit of a struggle for him. Overall...Daniel is SUPER EXCITED to go to Taiwan!

Entering the MTC

Well yesterday Daniel entered the MTC. There was crying and smiles. I bet you can guess who the smiles were coming from, Yep thats right Daniel was smiling, and everyone else was crying. He was super nervous and also super excited. It was so good to be able to go and see him off. It is also kind of crazy for me because he is just up the street, but I can't see him. He is off to do the Lord's work and is going to be great. Mom, Dad, Rachel and Anthon, Joseph and Suzanne and Ali and Ethan, David, and I were all there. We went to breakfast at Mimis Cafe and ate super fast. Especially Daniel. He scarfed down his food. I thought he was going to be sick, and he kind of was, but that was because he was so nervous to be going on his mission. The food was great and once we were done, we headed off to the MTC. Daniel is the sixth in his family to go on a mission. He has had four brothers and one sister serve before him. So he has many great examples to look up to. We love you Daniel and know you will do awesome. Oh yeah I almost forgot his name tag is so cool. Lets see you read it!

Uncle Daniel Where are you!

Well, I just got back from my trip to Houston a little while ago! it was a really fun trip, I enjoyed it a lot! We went and saw some fine art, looked at a huge mall, went to the beach, saw some gators, had tons of fun playing with nieces and visiting family. It was great!

I leave in 2 days for the MTC, so I don't think there will be very many more posts made by me on my blog, but I did ask Jennifer to post some stuff about my mission, and I need to ask leonora to do the same! thanks everyone, I love all of you!

Elder Butler

talking and such

Well, today was the last time I went to my home ward for 2 years. I spoke in church of course, both Brent and I spoke because we are going to be leaving for 2 years on our missions! I am getting so excited to go and serve the Lord for two years, and to represent him to the people in Taiwan. It is going to be very interesting though, because most all of the people of Taiwan know nothing of God or Jesus Christ, so I will have to teach them from the very start, and in their own language, which I do not know yet. I know the Lord will bless me according to my faith though, because I am on his errand and doing his work.

I would like to thank everyone who came and supported me, there were a lot of people there in sacrament meeting. I would also like to thank everyone who would have loved to have been there, but who live to far away, or who had prior commitments. Thank you to all!

bathroom,

well, we finally finished the bathroom, here are some pictures of it all done. well, mostly done.

Fire and Rain!

Well, I didn't update last week, because I didn't have a super exciting week last week, I was getting better from having strep throat, and spent most of the week lounging around at home. I did try and fly my kite, but it wore me out in about a half hour, and I did go rock climbing, but that wore me out super fast, and I got stung by a wasp about 5 minutes after I got there. I did go to the dentist, and he fixed one of my teeth that had chipped again, it broke after he fixed it last time. I also went and bought some gym shorts, deodorant, a razor, and stuff like that too. That pretty much sums up last week, oh I did have a good Birthday, and thanks for all of the Birthday wishes, they were very nice.

Last sunday we had Elder Hales come and speak at our stake conference. It was a very neat experience having an apostle of the lord come to our stake conference and speak. Sunday morning there was a youth meeting, where all the youth in the stake were invited to come and here him and his wife speak, and then everyone got to shake his hand after the meeting. The chapel was packed for it, and stake conference was even fuller, its sad that stake conference isn't always that packed, and that people don't always show up that early for all church meetings.

Well, this last week was my first and last week working for HK. I decided to work for them so I could cash the check I get from them, and take that with me to Taiwan to buy my bike when I get there. It was an interesting week, there is a fire right by where the Job is. Monday they had the road closed and wouldn't let us come up and work. Tuesday they opened the road again and I worked up there all day, there were lots of firefighters driving up and down the road, and helicopters were dumping water on the fires. We would stop and watch the fires every so often while we were working. There were a lot of small places where it would just smolder, and then sometimes an entire tree would just go up in flames. It was pretty interesting to watch.

On Wednesday, the road was closed again, but they let us work, because there was no immediate fire danger. they were even more firefighters driving around, and the helicopters were more active. Around noon or so, the ridge across the canyon caught on fire, and there were huge flames and lots of smoke from it. It was pretty crazy. Thursday the whole job was covered in smoke, and we still had to work the whole day. Thursday night, we ordered a pizza from the employee pub at lake village. It was an interesting place, there was all kinds of graffiti on the walls, like they let whoever wanted to just write on the walls with a sharpie. We called ahead and ordered the pizza, and then went and picked it up, and promptly left. Friday we only worked till 10, because there was a heavy rainstorm that picked up, so that helped the fire die down, and they opened the road again. So we left promptly and I got home around 3 on friday afternoon.

Saturday, I made another attempt to go and hike Borah, the weather report said there was a 20% chance of rain, and we got halfway there, and the whole valley was dark gray and a pretty intense thunderstorm was taking place. so that put a damper on our plans to go and hike Borah, so I spent the day lounging around, waiting for Mom, Dad, David, Jimmy, and his wife to get home from yellowstone. When they got home we went out to eat at sizzler. It was pretty good. Then we came home, and I went and bought Fearless, and we watched that. Except I fell asleep near the end, because I had stayed up till 2 friday night, visiting a friend in blackfoot before she left for college, and then watching a movie when I got back home at 12. Then saturday I got up at 5 to go and hike Borah, and I didn't take a nap all day. So I'll have to watch the end from where I fell asleep, we listened to it in mandarin, with english subtitles, it was pretty cool.

Today at church, Dallin Jolley gave his welcome home talk, it was pretty good. He went to New Jersey for his mission. I can't wait to go and serve my mission, I leave in 2 and a half weeks! I speak next sunday, and I got my topic from Brother Landon today. I'm pretty excited for it. Its coming so close, and I'm ready to just go and leave right now! I am glad that I still have some time though, so I can visit all of my family and friends before I leave for two years! I'm getting really excited to fly down to Houston to visit Edwin, Jennifer, Grace, and Anne! It will be really fun! Well, the church is true, and it is led by an inspired man of God, a prophet who is the Lord's mouthpiece here on the Earth!

Colorado!!

Well, this week was another busy one for me, as usual. I went through the Idaho Falls Temple on Wednesday Morning, it was an awe inspiring experience. Then we went out as a family and had breakfast afterwards.

Thursday we left to go to Fort Collins, Colorado to visit my Brother Ben, his wife Shanna, and my nephew Rohan. It was a pretty uneventful drive most of the way. We drove to Boulder, Wyoming and spent the night at a campsite there. On the way, we passed through Pinedale, Wyoming. It had a sign in the town that said, "Welcome to Pinedale, all the civilization you need." I thought it was pretty funny.

Friday morning, we got up around 6, ate breakfast, packed up our wet tents, (it had rained most all day thursday, and rained off and on during the night; my new tent is pretty great at keeping me dry!) and then left to drive the rest of the way to Fort Collins, dad wanted to take the "scenic route" though. so what should have only been a 5 hour drive, ended up as a 9 hour drive through boring wyoming, and some cool parts of Colorado.

Saturday we went to Rocky Mountain National park, and went on 2 short hikes there. We drove up above the tree line for a couple of miles. It was pretty cool, driving up that far. Then Saturday night, we just hung around Ben and Shanna's place.

Sunday we went to church there in Fort Collin's. I asked Shanna to take some pictures of me, for mission pics. She's a great photographer, even though in half of the pictures I managed to have my eyes shut! Its all good! Unfortunately on Sunday morning, my throat started to hurt pretty badly. I was ok after a nap and some mint tea Shanna made for me.

Monday morning we woke up around 6 am and left to come home around 7 am. it ended up being a 9 hour drive home, and my throat was killing me the whole way home. So as soon as we got home, I went to the doctor, and he told me that I have strep throat. He said I could either take pills for 10 days, or get one shot. I opted for the shot, not knowing that it was going to be in my bum! So the nurse came back in, and stuck me in the bum and gave me my shot. My bum is still a little sore, but I'll get over it.

I am truly thankful for modern medicine that we have. Last week I just finished getting all of my immunizations that I need for my mission. My last two shots that I got were a typhoid vaccination, and one for meningococcal meningitis. It is truly amazing how we can get vaccinations to protect us from life threatening diseases, I know the men and women who came up with these vaccinations had to be inspired of the Lord.

I only have one month left until I go to the MTC to serve my Lord for two years of my life. In the grand scheme of things, two years is not a very long time to serve at all. I'm truly grateful that I am able to have the opportunity to go and serve as a representative of the Lord for two years in Taiwan. I can't wait to learn mandarin chinese and to invite my brothers and sisters who live in Taiwan and who know nothing of God or Jesus Christ to come to the true church and receive the blessings that we can get from attending the True Church. I know that we have inspired men on the earth that lead this Church how God wants them to. I know that if we follow the counsel of the prophets that everything we do in righteousness will be for our benefit. I'm anxiously awaiting the time when I can go and serve the lord by inviting them to come unto Christ, Repent, and be baptized in His name!

Cliff Jumping, boating, climbing, caving, oh and some shopping too

My weeks are just getting and staying busier and busier, this week I worked up in yellowstone monday through wednesday. had my stake president interview wednesday night for my temple recommend. Its going to be an awe inspiring thing, going through the temple next wednesday. something I knew I would always do, but something that I thought would always be in the future, and now its finally here. I guess I'm growing up, whether It feels like it or not.

Thursday I went shopping for some more stuff for my mission. I went and bought another pair of slacks, some white shirts, and a really cool tie. I also bought some sheets, and stuff for my first aid kit, and things like that. Then I went to mission prep that night, and then spent the night at Brents house.

My roommate Devin Burns came up this weekend, we were going to go camping and hike mount borah on Friday, but the weather over there was rain, and thunderstorms, not weather conducive to hiking to the top of a mountain at 12,600 feet. So instead, we mowed Brent's lawn, to help his mom out, and then we went rock climbing and cliff jumping at the Ririe reservoir. It was pretty fun, then when we were leaving there, my friend Breck Duffin called and invited us to go boating, so we ended up going boating for 4 hours at Gem lake. It was pretty fun, I tried wakeboarding, but couldn't get up, so I water skied instead. We also went tubing, which was a lot of fun. I got sunburned on my legs, and Brent put sunscreen on my back, and purposefully tried to leave a blank spot in the shape of a smiley face on my back, he didn't make a smiley, but I do have three fairly big red spots on my back! After we got back from boating, we ate dinner, showered, and then went to the drive in and watched Harry Potter 5. Quite a rough day, seeing as how we couldn't go and hike Borah like we wanted to!

Saturday, I wasn't feeling so good (I've had a cold all week) or we would have gone climbing again that morning. Instead, we went to a store called hidden treasures, here in shelley, and bought some ties for our missions. Then I gave Devin one of my suits that I bought at the thrift store, because he only needs a suit for while he's traveling to his mission. He's going to sierra leone Africa. He's going to the MTC in Ghana. Then after that, I told some friends that I'd take them to the ice caves up by rexburg, so I took them up there and showed them how cool they were, we also drove a little farther up the road and found some bigger ice caves, that had about one or two feet of water on top of the ice, so we had to be careful not to get soaked in the cave.
after we were done we went to wendy's and got frosty's and some food. it was pretty good. then I came home and read in harry potter 7 for the rest of the night. A very full weekend yet again.

Brent can walk on water!

Family Reunions and Rock climbing dates

Well, this week was yet again, another busy week in the life of Daniel. I worked up in yellowstone monday through thursday. Driving up early monday morning to yellowstone and then working all day up there, is not the funnest thing I discovered. It was worth it to spend more time with Susan and Paul while they were around.

Yellowstone is a pain right now, because the project is just about finished, but they still need us to come up and make sure everything runs smoothly. My uncle Allan used to say "its too bad the contractors aren't a bunch of pretty girls, because you have to hold their hands half the time."

We were able to leave thursday afternoon, at 12 to come home and go to the family reunion, it took us FOREVER to get out of the park, traffic was backed up for about 4 miles in one spot, I'm not sure why, but it took us half an hour to drive those 4 miles!! Then the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful.

The family reunion was fun, I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while. Friday, I went to the ice caves that are in paris canyon, and explored those, climbed in one way, and out and up through a narrow slot in the rock, it was pretty fun. then we went to bear lake, and I tried water skiing, it was really fun. Then after that I went to Minnetonka cave and took the tour through the caves there. It was pretty neat how big they were, and all of the stalactites, stalagmites, and such that are there in the cave. then I just spent the rest of friday around camp talking.

Saturday Dad, David, Leonora, Richard and I climbed to the top of Paris peak. it took about 3 hours longer than we thought it would take us, it was a pretty fun hike, on the way back, I took the keys and ran down the mountain to grab the car and take it farther up the road so we could hike out a lot shorter distance than we hiked in.

Saturday night, I had a date set up, Brent and I took dates rock climbing, and then had a campfire and made some smores. We had a fire at the bottom of the cliffs we were climbing, there is a pretty steep road down to them so we took the jeep down there and then had fun getting back up the hill. It helps if you put it back in gear after you shift into four low! It was a fun date though. We picked the girls up at 7, and I got home from the family reunion at 6:30, barely enough time to change, eat, and get evertyhing ready that I needed to. It was a fun night though. I took Kiya, and Brent took Mindy.

My Brown suit

Well, I finally got a picture of me in one of my new suits. so here it is! Theres also a picture of a mountain totally engulfed by a cloud on the way to work one morning, it was pretty crazy, it looked like we were going to have a pretty rough day at work, but it cleared up luckily. I'm glad that I'm almost done with the project in yellowstone, so I can have time to spend with people before I leave for my mission. I'm getting really excited to go and serve the Taiwanese people, and to learn mandarin, and to spread the gospel and serve the Lord for two years!

Well, last weekend I didn't do a whole lot because I was sick, not a whole lot of fun, but I'm feeling better now. So this week, I did a plethora of things, mostly driving. I went to Paris, Idaho for the morning of the fourth, and did the fun run that is there. I walked it with Leonora and David. Then went to the parade there, and then drove back home for the fireworks show in Idaho Falls. I went there with the family, and then walked over and watched the firework show with my fhe sister who was up from texas visiting. Then Thursday I helped Joseph move some of his stuff out of his apartment and load his uhaul, he had most of it done by the time I got there. So I helped with what I could. then I took Katelyn, David, and my fhe sister Lindsay to the Ice caves north of the sand dunes. Then I came home and went to mission prep at the seminary building. After that was over I went over to Kenny's and watched him open his mission call. He's going to the Brazil, Sao Paulo North mission. I also learned that my climbing buddy breck got his mission call to Korea Daejon Mission! Then thursday night I packed my stuff to go backpacking over in the stanley area with Dad, David, Richard, and Dad's friend Brent Palmer. That was pretty fun, minus all of the mosquitoes, I about got eaten alive. The lakes there were pretty inviting and it was a chance to get out of the bugs, so I went swimming in the lake, richard and I found some logs to throw in the lake to play on, and it was lots of fun. then the next day we hiked out, after going to several other lakes in the area, the fishing wasn't very good in any of the lakes, but we did manage to catch 6 fish between the 5 of us at one lake, david kept one of the ones he caught. Then we hiked out, on the way out, I saw two small black bears, that ran away as soon as they heard us coming. I opened the hood when I got back to my jeep, because the radiator had boiled over on the way in, and found about 5 mice that had crawled up under my hood. then we drove home. It was a fun filled week, that gave me greater appreciation of the beauty of the world that was created for us. The lord really loves us, and I'm looking forward to going and spreading the word about the gospel of happiness to the people of Taiwan.

Zai Jian!

Suit Shopping and rock climbing

Well, this weekend was an expensive one for me, I went and bought two suits for my mission, a pair of shoes, some slacks, socks, and baptismal clothing, oh and a mandarin chinese pocket dictionary. then that night i went rock climbing and had a pretty fun weekend. Saturday night after I went rock climbing I set up a projector outside and played mario kart with some friends. it was pretty fun.

Hiking to the Table

Well, I have never hiked Table Rock, so I decided that it was something I was going to do this summer, I put together a trip and 5 of us spent the night in the teton campground area that night, and then two more people drove up there saturday morning to hike it with us. There were 7 of us all together, David, Richard, Linden, Brent, Kenny, Luke, and me. It was a fun hike, we hiked up the face trail, and then hiked down the huckleberry trail. I prefer the face trail because it is a lot shorter, it is a consistent up hill climb the whole way though, but you don't have to ford teton creek 3 times, and its about 1.5 miles shorter. sounds like a good deal to me! Some of us also hiked out to inspiration point, which is a point on a cliff where there is probably at least a thousand foot vertical drop off the edge, it was pretty cool! It made for a fun trip!

Around the World!

Well!! I finally opened it! I'm going to the Taiwan Taipei mission! I'll be leaving september 5th! It was definitely an exciting sunday yesterday! I was pretty nervous the whole time. I was even having trouble opening my call with the knife they gave me! I have some pretty cool pictures from when I was opening it, but I'm in yellowstone again with dial up internet so I'll have to upload the pics later! Adios!

well, its a weekend and I have highspeed internet, so here are some pics!

I hope they call me on a mission

Well, an exciting piece of mail was waiting for me when I got home from Yellowstone this week. Its addressed to Elder Daniel Antti Butler and its from the office of the first presidency! Thats right, my mission call came today! I can't open it yet though, because I'm waiting for my dad to get home for the weekend, so I'll be opening it sunday! more updates to come!

Backpacking through Idaho

Brent, Tyler, and I decided to go on a backpacking trip over the memorial day weekend. We left from my house at about 9:30 in the morning on Friday and started hiking in at 10:45. We parked at the palisades creek trail head, and then took off up the palisades creek trail. It was a beautiful day for a hike, there was a slight breeze and it was a little cloudy, not too hot or too cold. When we stopped moving to take a break for lunch though we got a little chilly. There was a neat chipmunk that ran up to us when we stopped for lunch, so we tossed it a little bit of our sandwiches. We passed three groups of hikers and then didn't see anyone the rest of the weekend until we were about 2 miles from the trail head on the way out Saturday. We hiked past the lower lake, where we took lunch, then we kept on going to the upper lake. We saw several moose along the creek between lower and upper lake. There was a cow moose and her calf pretty close to the trail that we had to dodge because the cow moose starting walking towards us and was looking pretty vicious. so we headed up the trail and up the mountain as quick as we could, and hid in the trees as we went around the moose. it was looking around for us though. It was a pretty exhilarating experience playing hide and go seek with a cow moose. We then had a pretty uneventful trip the rest of the way, just lots of switchbacks and lots of pretty scenery until we made it into waterfall canyon. We hiked up the canyon about a mile or two. We stopped and played on some snow that had avalanched down into the canyon. We ran up to the top of it and then skied down it. It was pretty fun. We then kept on hiking until we found the waterfall. We then decided it was a pretty warm day and that going and standing under the waterfall would feel pretty good, since we had gotten a little sweaty on the 10 mile hike to the waterfall. So we hiked up to the waterfall, and then stood underneath part of it that wasn't coming down very hard. It was a gorgeous valley. We then waded through the ice cold pond back to our packs and dried off while sitting on some fallen logs by the pond. Then we set up camp and got a fire going to cook the hot dogs we brought up with us. We stayed up until about 9, then we went to bed because we were pretty tired from our hike in. We woke up the next morning and spent about an hour and a half trying to get a fire going, we were down to our last 3 matches when Tyler got his lighter working and we were able to start a fire by burning some of Brent's socks. We then filtered some of the delicious mountain water and started our hike out. As soon as we started hiking out, it started raining on us, and rained for about an hour. We decided to hike out a different way then we came in, and starting running into a lot of snow real quick. We were headed up the canyon from where we were camping and had to start hiking over snow drifts that were still left. The trail started to switchback up the side of the canyon, and through trees. It was covered with snow and we had to stop to scout out where the trail was going. It was marked by two slashes on the side of some trees every couple hundred of feet, and we looked for logs that had been cut by chainsaws to clear the path. several of the logs had the initials DB carved into them. Every so often there was a sign with an arrow on it pointing which way the trail was going. We kept losing the trail and finding it for about a mile, until we came up to about 9000 feet, where it came out into a bowl that didn't have trees and that was snow covered. We totally lost the trail there, so we decided to hike up to the top of the ridge that was going along the bowl and see if we could find the trail in the valley on the other side. We ran into a couple of mountain goats near the top of the mountain, but they took off quickly. When we reached the top of one of the peaks we stopped and ate some energy bars, and saw the valley that the road was in through a saddle between two peaks that were about a quarter mile away. so we hiked along the top of the ridge to one of the peaks that the saddle formed. By this time the rain had stopped and it had cleared up a little, it looked like it might still be threatening to rain though, because there was a big gray cloud to the south of us, but the sun was shining on where we were. When we reached the top of the peak we could see the trail down in the bottom of the valley. So we started the easy part of the trip, where it was all downhill now. We didn't find a trail that was going downhill, so we just started going straight down the slope, and sliding down on some of the snowier parts. There was a draw that was full of snow so we skied quite a ways down it and that helped speed us up. We had to be careful after that though, because there started to be small 10-15 foot cliffs that we had to work our way around. Once we got down the valley, we found the trail and followed it out. It was all downhill still. We ran into a group of people four wheeling, and some hikers on our way out. We came out on the sheep creek trail head, and then took a small break, and ate another energy bar. We then started hiking out on the dirt road, when a truck stopped and offered us a ride, they said they were headed to the palisades creek trail head and could take us all the way there. We were pretty grateful because it saved us from hiking another 6 miles to get back to my jeep. We started hiking out at 9:30 saturday morning, and made it to the jeep at 3:30 in the afternoon. When we made it to the jeep Brent got his cell phone from it, and found out that his mission call had come in the mail while were gone. So we hurried back to Brent's house, dropped him off at 4:45 so he could shower, then we went back to his house and he opened up his call. It was a pretty exciting weekend!