“Converting to the Gospel Changed My Family,” Says Nevada’s Young Mother of the Year
Contributed By Kara McMurray, Church News staff writer
A family photo shows Richard and Nikki Butler with their children: George, 15; Posie, 2; Ruby, 8; and Lulu, 12. Sister Butler is the 2014 Young Mother of the Year in Nevada.
“[The gospel] has completely changed me and changed our family. It has brought just an element of peace and unity. As a family, it’s made us go toward the same goal that we can all work together on. [We are] so much more peaceful and so much more close as a family. We are a much better family for it. It’s just made it a better life to live.” —Nikki Morgan Butler
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HENDERSON, NEVADA
Raising a family takes a team, said the 2014 Young Mother of the Year in Nevada.
Nikki Morgan Butler and her husband, Richard Butler, have four children, and with her four children spread out in high school, middle school, elementary school, and the youngest at home, she said, “It’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever done.”
Her family helps her balance everything, though. “We work as a team,” said Sister Butler, a member of the Legacy Ward in the Henderson Nevada Green Valley Stake. “We have to make it all work. We all just kind of pitch in and learn from each other.”
Sister Butler said her husband and each of her children have taught her lessons, but one of the biggest lessons came from her youngest daughter, Posie, who is 2.
“[Life] can get really crazy really fast,” said Sister Butler. “Our baby taught us … to slow down and go back to the basics.”
One of her favorite things about being a mom is “just seeing [her kids] succeed and doing the things they love—just watching them flourish,” she said. “That’s the best thing ever.”
Six years ago, the Butler family made a huge change—Sister Butler joined the Church, and Brother Butler returned to church after 30 years of inactivity. The gospel, she said, inspires her family in ways she never imagined.
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“It has completely changed me and changed our family,” said Sister Butler. “It has brought just an element of peace and unity. As a family, it’s made us go toward the same goal that we can all work together on. [We are] so much more peaceful and so much more close as a family. We are a much better family for it. It’s just made it a better life to live.”
Though Brother and Sister Butler were both raised in Salt Lake City, she said she knows timing was everything in their decision to come into the Church and that the Lord put them in the right place. It was after they moved to Henderson, Nevada, that Sister Butler began taking the missionary discussions. She said it took a long time for her and her husband to decide to commit to the gospel.
“It’s an eternal commitment. I really had to think about it,” she said. “I said, ‘When I do this, I will do it forever.’ This needs to be for eternity. My husband was the exact same way. There was a lot of thought and prayer that went into it.”
A year after Sister Butler was baptized, her family was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.
“It was an amazing experience. It was such an amazing day,” she said. “There are no words that can describe it.”
