"I will go and do . . ."

Institute Building in Lawrence, Kansas - Haskell Indian Junior Collete

 July 19, 1984 - Pueblo, Colorado -- On Monday afternoon I received a call from the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City which will alter the life style we have enjoyed so much during the past year and a half.  Don't get me wrong; it is the kind of call we knew would come sooner or later, and we are grateful for it with all our hearts.

Dad's notes from the telephone call

The voice on the telephone said, "This is Brother John Clifford calling from Salt Lake City, Church Office Building.  Is this Brother Louis Butler?"  When I told him that it was, he said that he was calling to ask my wife and I to consider accepting a call to serve the Lord in the Church Education System in Lawrence, Kansas, at the Haskell Indian Junior College Institute of Religion.

Our call is administrative.  They have an Institute Director, who teaches the religion classes -- he is a Navajo.  Our main responsibility is to assist him with the socials, Family Home Evenings, counseling, and general guidance activities in their Indian Branch.  We are not proselyting missionaries; we are Church Service Personnel.

 He explained that it was at a junior college for Indian students from all over the United States.  There are about 1,000 students in the school, and 92 of them have been identified as LDS.  Last year about another 100 non-LDS participated in the Institute program.

I told Brother Clifford that I would call him back the next day to give him our answer, though I could have told him we would accept.  When I told Leona about the call, she just said, "Of course we will go."

Leona beginning a new assignment

Lou is ready for a new adventure

"I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, . . . for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

1 Nephi 3:7