newbie first timer questions

Hey all, first post on these forums. Been lurking for a few weeks and bought an akorn last week and seasoned the grates but that is as far as I've gotten. My only experience is on a gas grill and I've never smoked before. On the gasser the food usually comes out dry and over cooked. I have a maverick on order waiting for it to be delivered. I know I want to do a pork butt as my first smoking experience so I went to a local meat market to pick one up and I left confused.

I asked the guy at the counter if he had any pork shoulder/pork butt and he replied by saying they had pork roast. Is that the same thing? He asked how big and from reading these forums people are smoking in the range around 8 lbs so I said that and he said their roasts were around 4 lbs. I then asked if there was anything bigger and he said do you want the whole shoulder we can get you one they are around 14 lbs. That sounded too big so I left with nothing. So am I clueless here or did this guy not know what I was taking about? Also I'm in northeast south Dakota does anyone have suggestions on good places to buy meat from around here. I eventually want to do ribs and brisket as well.

Thanks for all the replies. I did ask the meat market guy to see the butts but all he had were frozen and wrapped in white paper. I figured they would have some fresh not frozen ones but they didn't. From the pics posted above and the size of the packages I'm thinking they were pork loins he had so I prolly won't be going back there. I will go check out Wal-Mart. I saw they had spare ribs there the other day but when I mentioned to my wife she said no Wal-Mart meat haha. I'll just buy it when she isn't along. I will definitely post some pics when I get this thing fired up.