Nov. 22, 2011

honestly nothing really new or amazing happened this week, i am pretty much just excited for thanksgiving so i can get fat and then lose it all painfully by working out. but things are going good out  here, we are gong to see some more baptisms in the next month or so. our mission president really wants to make the yearly goal of 2400 baptisms this year and he is really pushing us to make that goal so hopefully with the baptisms in our area that will help out.

Nov. 15, 2011

the baptism on saturday went really well. thanks for asking it was actually a little funny too. but anyways so i baptized chris and then the next baptism, his name was michael and he is a little afraid of water because has like really bad ears and so when he goes under water goes into his ears really easily and so whenever he was baptized he would always jerk up and so it actually took 5 times to baptize him and his sister, cyndi, was baptized by my companion, elder behrmann and he is honestly not the best baptizer so he whenever he would try to get her down he wouldn't get her all the way down and so he tried 4 times and then he gave up and told me to do it so i went ahead and baptized her and then her younger sister crystal i baptized her also but it was a really good service and the next day on sunday we had them confirmed and so that was really awesome. and also chris and micheal were give the aaronic priesthood later in the day so now they are priests. but it was really aewsome teaching them and it was a great oppourtunity to baptize them.

but things are going really good out here. yesterday we actually helped some old people play bingo because we are teaching this one guy named sam, who is not going to get baptized until January, but it was really funny becuase we got a couple of missionaries in our zone to help and this old lady that i was helping kept on falling asleep and i am pretty sure that she had Alzheimers because she kept on forgetting if we were playing bingo but i pretty much played bingo for her, but anyways after wards she tried to get up and was like can you help me stand up?? so i had grab somebody to come help her. but anyways things are also going good, we have started to teach this guy named C.G. and he is a typical grease monkey and works on cars all day but anyways he is planning on being baptized on the 3rd of december, but i am really happy in this area, i really like clearfield when at first i thought that i would hate it, especially with the small apartment and all.

Nov. 8, 2011

 

things are going really well out here. our one investigator clara got baptized on saturday and it was really awesome to see her get baptized on saturday, she and her husband are really funny and awesome! i can pretty much see them in a year getting sealed in the temple which is going to be really awesome! but also this week we are gong to have another 4 baptisms of the Lee kids. so that is that one family who has the son whose name is also Chris and we were also born on the same day, but i am actually going to be baptizing him which is going to be really cool, so i am excited for that, which is going to happen this saturday. we have also been teaching this one guy named sam, who lives in a nursing home, and he really wants to get baptized and we actually have set a date for him on the 19th, but what happened was that the man who is going to baptize him is going to be gone on the 19th and won't be back until the beginning of december and so we moved up his baptismal date to this saturday because the guy baptzing him is going to be around, but then on sunday when we went to church with him he said that he wants to now be baptized in january.... so that is really gay, but if he has his eyes set on that date, that is good. so that was a little disappointing but oh well...

 

but we have been teaching this lady named jocelyn for the past couple of weeks and she wants to get baptized but she has never been to church and so we taught her on saturday night and she said that she was acutally pretty excited to come to church, but when we went to church she didn't show up which was really lame, so we went to go visit her afterwards and what had happened was that her little 4 year old daughter put their cat in a sleeping bag and jumped on the cat until it died... yeah it was pretty messed up but that was the reason why they didn't come to church, so anyways but she still wants to come to church and get baptized which is good.

 

Nov. 1, 2011

but this week has been pretty good, we spoke in 2 sacrament meetings
this week and all i did was pretty much speak on member missionary
work. it always seems that is always what i speak about...but i guess
that is because i am a missionary, but we have our
investigator, clara getting ready to be baptized this upcoming
saturday and we are really excited for that. but anyways she and her
husband tyler are awesome, i love them, i can honestly see myself
hanging out with them after the mission, but anyways  yesterday was
halloween and we had the night off, and so we got together as a zone
and we like spent the night playing pool at somebody's  home and we
watched the movie 17 miracles. 


but anyways nothing really cool happened this week, other than that we
started teaching this dude in this nursing home named sam, he is
really cool. he actually has quite a story of his life where he was
working at 7-11 and that some dude stabbed him with an ice pick in his
ear and then the guy just decided to stab him in his other ear... but
that happened like back in the 70's and kind of messed his head up,
but anyways he is so prepared to be baptized, he has actually been
going to the branch in the nursing home for a while and actually just
needs to hear the lessons to be baptized! so anyways we set a
baptismal date for him on the 19th and we actually met with him
yesterday and he already has someone planned for him to baptize him!
so we are super excited for that, but anyways when we were in the
nursing home we talked to this dude because he wanted to start talking
to us, and so there was this wall of all the people in the home, and
he was pointing us his picture and  there was a picture of this lady
who had a dog, and so i asked him if they were allowed to have their
dogs live with them and then he went on about how he had been married
for like 60 years and then i asked him again if they were allowed to
have dogs, and then he was like we have 19 great grand children and so
i was like ohh! that is cool, so are you guys allowed to have dogs?
and then he like didn't even answer my question and was like ahhh (old
man sigh)... but anyways when i walk in that place it just reminds me
of the happy gilmore nursing home.

Oct. 25, 2011

But the transfer call came in this morning that i was getting a new companion. But Elder Behrmann is going to be my new companion. He is from South Africa but has lived in Salt Lake for 16 years before he moved back to South Africa (because Oringally he is from south Africa) but anyways we actually lived in the same apartment for about 3 months when i was in willard and him and i have actually become pretty good friends on the mission. we are actually serving together! but he has been out for about 21 months so he is just about to go home, which means he might be a little trunky, but hey i will work him hard just like i did Elder Sullivan. 

But anyways this week has been pretty good. We actually have 7 people that are being prepared to be baptized. We have been teaching this girl named Clara for the past couple of weeks and she is going to be baptized on the 5th of November. But this week we helped her and her husband do some repairs on the outside of their house, so i did some sanding on some trim on the outside. But anyways they said that they would make it to church the next day, so on sunday we went to church and they weren't there and i was kind of puzzled. So after sacrament meeting we went over to their house and what had happened was that her husband couldn't find any clean pants, and also a couple of his button's on his shirts came off so he was sewing them, but anyways she was totally ready but they didn't plan on coming because they were so late, but anyways we then told her that she needed to attend church at least 3 times before she had to be baptized and that if she missed it would post-pone her baptism a week. and since she really wants to be baptized she decided to go to sacrament meeting, to another ward, which was awesome. but they are way awesome!

also this week we have been teaching these 2 kids who are brother and sister and they are ages 11 and 9 and we have been teaching them for a while and they want to be baptized except their dad has been in jail for the past few months because he forged a judge's signature. but anyways he has kind of been on like minimum security, because on sunday's he was allowed to get out of jail to visit with his family and his kids so that made it so they weren't coming to church. but anyways we were teaching them yesterday and their grandma mentioned about how their dad was going to get out of jail on thursday night so that would make it possible for them to be baptized! so we are really excited about that. 

Love

Elder Miller

Oct. 11, 2011

this week has been pretty good we have pretty much picked up 2 new investigators, we are going to start teaching this guy named stryder, he just barely moved out here from nevada and he is wanting to learn more about the church and he has a lot of faith in god and also jesus christ and he has been actually chatting with someone from mormon.org and through that he was referred to us so we are going to start teaching him today and hopefully the lesson goes really well. but this area is becoming pretty tough, we aren't really teaching that many people and we are trying to teach more people and we talk to a lot of people and when we set up an appointment they don't answer their phone and then they aren't home during the appointment. but oh well i guess that is just a part of missionary life. but i am going to keep doing what i am doing and hopefully we will find some other choice investigators, because it always seems that when you work hard the lord prepares people other than that you are concentrating on so that you can start teaching them, but anyways you have a good week.

Love

Elder Miller

Oct. 4, 2011

but this week we have been teaching this family of kids who are unbaptized. their ages are 21, 19, 15 and 11. So actually the 21 year old has the same first name as me and he actually has the same birthday as me August 23rd, 1990... i think i might have already told you about this but oh well. so anyways we were teaching and i was like oh you have the same first name as me! and then i found out that we were the same age, and then i asked what month he was born in and then he said august and, i was like....uh what day?? and he said the 23rd... and i was like WOW!! but he was actually born in salt lake and at about 9 in the morning, so he is a little older than i am. but anyways, their situation is that their dad was a convert the the church and then he fell away before they were born and so he didn't want their kids to have anything to do with the church, so they are unbaptized, but anyways we have been teaching them for a while and so i shared with them my experience about how when dad died about how it helped me rely on christ and about how christ always can help us out in times of need. but anyways we had a super spiritual restoration lesson with them and we helped them recognize the feeling of the spirit and so  with that we committed them for baptism, which was pretty awesome!

but another highlight of the week was that we were able to go down to conference for one session. we went to the saturday afternoon session and it was really good.  what i got out of conference is that i need to read the book of mormon more... my studying schedule goes as follow, i have read the book of mormon twice on my mission and i have also read the doctrine and covenats and the pearl of great price and also the new testament twice but anyways when i finish one of thosei just go on to the next one. but anyways i am on the new testament and so i havn't really read the book of mormon in a while and so when a couple of apostles said that we should read the book or mormon more, i was like slapped in the face by the spirit. so i have started again with the book of mormon and also kept on reading the new testament. 

but this week has been an ok week. we are going to be able to work a little better with a car so i am excited about that. but anyways i will drive safe!! and hopefully you drive safe!!

Love

Elder Miller

Sept. 27, 2011

i don't know if you know this, my companion was hit by a car yesterday when we were biking to our appointment and so we had to go to the emergency room yesterday and i got to ride in the front seat of an ambulance. what happened was that we were coming down on the opposite side of the street and i was actually in front but i saw this person turning right and turning left so i started to slow down because i knew that they didn't see me but then elder sullivan just sped past me and kept on going, (he doesn't really have alot of experience on the bike) so the guy that was turning right didn't see him at all and he started to pull out and elder sullivan ran right into his right side and flew over the hood and he landed on the ground... so we went tot he hospital, but anyways we stayed there forever just to find out that he was ok, he just sprained his body really bad and he actually chipped his tooth, but he is not really that pain tolerant, he was practically crying when the doctor was feeling him so we thought that it might be serious but it wasn't. he was practically crying when the nurse was taking off the tape off his arm on the iv. but i am going to have to babysit him for awhile and to have alot of christlike features on this one. it is kind of weird how the lord tests you in situations like this. but last night when he got hit it was scary but i had this feeling that he was going to be ok.

anyways we had a baptism this week. it was really good. we also have general conference coming up this week and i am really excited for that because we have tickets, so i will be down there once again. anyways i have to keep this short, we are going to go play basketball.

Love

Elder Miller

Sept. 20, 2011

so far the new area is going pretty good. I actually quite enjoy it. the area is pretty much right next to the layton area i was just barely in and actually have to travel through the old area in layton to get some parts of the new area. but also about the new companion...his name is Elder Sullivan, he is from texas and has been out for now 7 weeks. so he is pretty much a brand new missionary. but he also has asperbergers and it makes it really hard. he is socially awkward. the first day his bike was broken so we walked and he just talked about anime for the whole day and i was like, well we need to get that bike fixed! but the only reason why i wanted to ride bikes is so i didn't have to listen to him talk the whole time... but we eventually got his bike fixed and the first day i guess i rode him to the ground because he is also over weight and not really athletic so whenever we got up to a little hill he would always just get off his bike and push it, but now we have been riding our bikes for this week and he has been doing alot better, he still is really slow but doesn't get off the bike which is good. but enough ranting on my companion.

we actually have a baptism happening today at 7:30, the person who is getting baptized name is cody and actually his mom called up last night and was like, hey can we do the baptism tomorrow, and so we were like why not? so that baptism is going to happen today so we are pretty excited about that. but things have been going pretty good in this area. it is kind of hard becuase elder sullivan doesn't really pay attention with alot of things like when i first came to this area he didn't really know where anything is, or what our investigators names were or what we were teaching them or how far the investigator has progressed. so it really felt like i was white washing the area....but this experience isn't really that bad because has really forced me to work a little harder to get to know the investigator and also the area a little harder. which i like and it is forcing me to find more investigators to teach. Usually when i see somebody walking on the street i usually just wave say hello and pass them. but now i am trying to get more people to teach so i am just going up to everybody and talking to them, which mind sound weird but i have met some really good people and also some really weird people.

but there was also this weird experience that happened this week. but anyways we were trained by our zone leaders to vision everybody we see as children of god and that our mission is to treat everybody like we would treat our brother's and sister or as Jesus would treat us. so i took that pretty seriously and i was just on fire talking to people and treating them as jesus would treat us. but anyways we went to this one apartment coplex and knocked on this door and nobody was home and across the parking lot there was this Christian church and there was also this band tour bus there. and it was called adams road band and it was actually a pretty nice tour bus and i was going to check it out to see if they were a good band or not and actually when we were right about to check it out one of the band members came out and just started talking to us and he was super nice and he was wearing a cross and stuff and also the other band members came out and then the original guy that was talking to us was like yeah i remember when i served my mission and then the other band members came out and they said yeah we all served missions. they were all really nice also. but in my head i was like, you guys all served missions yet you wear crosses and stuff? so i asked them if they were members and they said that they all grew up members, served full time missions and now they left the church because they studied the new testament, and they said that the new testament says that all they need to do is have faith in Jesus and that the grace of god will save them because of that...which is ridiculous and there are so many ways that we could bash that but we didn't because we remembered that we should treat them as our brothers and we just talked to them. but they gave us one of their cd's and actually took a picture with us, but hopefully they come to the truth and come back one of these days.

Love

Elder Miller

Sept. 13, 2011

Dear Mom,

so guess what...i am getting transferred out of layton and i am moving again...!  i am going to clearfield and i am not really too happy about it. that is going to be 2 areas that i have been in only 1 transfer. I am a little disappointed because good things are happening. i am also going to be in the smallest apartment in the mission. i will have to take a picture for you to show you how small it really is. my new companion's name is elder Sullivan and i have no idea who he is or where he is from. but i guess the lord really needs me in clearfield, so that is where i will be going. but things have been really good here. since i have been here we have had 5 baptisms this transfer and we have 3 more lined up for this next upcoming transfer. but i guess i am really close because my new area pretty much is bordering my area right now so i guess will be able to come back to the baptisms. but i am really bummed that i am getting transferred again. but i guess i know clearfield a little bit because sunset is right next to it and i went to clearfield a couple of times during my time in sunset.

but this week was pretty good. we saw 1 baptism 2 confirmations happen this sunday and it was really good. but our one investigator steve got confirmed this sunday and also one of our other investigators aaron was baptzed this saturyd and then he was confirmed on sunday, but it was really funny with both of the confirmations becuase both of them came in a little late to both the sacrament meetings, so when steve came in they were announcing that he just got baptized and then he walked in and was confirmed and then later that day the same thing happened to aaron. but it is really good to see some baptisms.

 

but i really don't have much to report on this week. i am not too excited to go clearfield. i really enjoyed serving with elder ortiz becuase we were practically friends before we served with each other. but i guess my attitude will have the most to do with it so i am just going to continue to have a good attitude and seek those who are willing to listen to us and to be baptized!

 

Love

 

Elder Miller

Sept. 6, 2011

but this week i hit my year mark so i was able to burn a shirt! (don't worry, it wasn't my shirt) i will send you some pictures when i get a chance to do that. but this week we had 2 baptisms so it was pretty awesome! the one girl Michelle got baptized so that was pretty awesome! but it was a really aweosme experience, her parents are non-members and they came to the baptism and the baptism went really really well, but her parents definetly felt the spirit, her dad is in the Army and he was shedding some tears and was like really excited after the baptism telling people that he felt the holy spirit and he was like checking out the font and was like saying that he was ready to be baptized right now! but during sacrament meeting michelle got confirmed and it was really awesome and it was testimony meeting, and remember what i told you about what Elder Bednar told us about pure testimonies telling us that we shouldn't give a thankimony, instead just bear testimony about how you know that christ lives, but anyways a bunch of little kids bore pure testimony and the spirit was really really strong and i was about to get up and then Michelle's dad got up and bore his testimony saying that he felt the spirit and was so proud of Michelle's decision to be baptized and also about how he would want to follow her in her footsteps soon!!!! (and this was the same dad that wouldn't let her get baptized until she was 18) but anyways after the meeting her mom had to go back to work and i thought that her parents were only going to stay for sacrament, but instead Michelle's dad stayed for gospel principles so that was awesome!!!

 

but also this other guy named steve got baptized this weekend also, he was at michelle's baptism because he wanted to see an LDS baptism before he got baptized and he was like a little kid at the baptism telling everybody that he was going to be baptized but he got baptized on sunday so he won't be confirmed until next sunday, but anywyas his girlfriend or supposedly girlfriend, lives in brigham city and she got pulled over and she had some warrants so she got arrested on saturday night but got out on sunday morning and she said that she was going to come down for the baptism but at the last second she became gay and backed out saying that she was too scared to drive and that made steve really mad and he almost didn't get baptized because he wanted to be there but he got baptized and after he was baptized he said he was really glad he did it now. so that was awesome!

 

Love

 

Elder Miller

Aug. 30, 2011

so we were supposed to have 2 baptisms happen this week, and they didn't happen.....but they will be baptize soon, but anyways the one girl, who was supposed to be baptized this saturday didn't tell her parents that she was planning on being baptized and she is knid of afraid to tell her dad these things and Elder Ortiz and i waited for her to tell her parents, and she hadn't yet so we just went over there thinking that we were going to have a negative outcome with the parents, but when we went over there the visit went well and the parents who are non-members were qutie supportive of her decision to be baptized, except they were like the 27th is too soon and also the Dad had to work this past friday and saturday, and sunday so he said that he wouldn't be able to make it so we are planning on having her baptism this upcoming saturday or sunday, which will hopefully happen then. and then the other guy that was supposed to be baptized said that he couldn't do it becuase none of his family was going to show up, so he wanted to do it next week, except next week is labor day weekend and his girlfriend who is his fellowship said that she was going to be gone taht weekend camping so he decided to be baptized on the 10th...which kind of sucks. agency sucks sometimes. but if we take away agency, that sucks even more, becuase that is what satan wanted to do!

 

but this week we have another baptism going to come up also, the missionaries before me in this are have been teaching this guy named steve and he knows the church is true except he has a problem with smoking and so finally he came up with a baptismal date himself! and he wants to be baptized this next sunday at 7, so that will be awesome. also we have found another 9 year old kid who hasn't been baptized and when we first went over we just talked to his Dad and the Dad agreed with us to teach his son, but the kid wouldn't even come out of the house to say hi to us, so we set up an appointment and yesterday we taught him and he was like a totally changed kid, he was way excited to meet with us and the whole time he was like when can i get baptized?! so that was cool and also Elder Ortiz and I were concerned that this famliy wouldn't even come to church becuase the work on sundays and when both parents work on sunday the kids usually don't come to church, but the parents during the lesson were said that they sent off their kids to church this past sunday and that kids will just come to church on their own which is awesome! and also we have another little girl who is the same age who is also the same way!

 

so also we have started teaching another guy who is from the east coast, but has moved out here becuase of the air force. he has a girlfriend who is LDS and he is living with her, which was kind of a concern. but anyways we taught him a first discussion and it was going really well. usually when we teach a first discussion which is the restoration, this mission uses something called the spirit sandwich, and what the spirit sandwich is, is that we first talk about what the feelings of the holy ghost are and pretty much tell them if they feel the spirit in the lesson that means that it comes from god and throught the feelings of the spirit it is true. and then we ask the question, if you feel the spirit tonight will you devote yourself to god, and most all people say yes, so then we go into the lesson and before we discuss the first vision we talk over the spirit again and then tell them to look for the feelings of the holy ghost when we tell them about the first vision, and then after we tell the first vision we discuss the feelings of the spirit and then we commit for baptism.

 

Love

 

Elder Miller

Aug. 23, 2011

things have been going pretty good this week! we will be having 2 baptisms this saturday so that will be awesome, it is always nice to see people get baptized and follow christ. so that will be awesome. but another really cool thing that happened this week was that Elder Bednar came and spoke to our misison, it was a really awesome experiece, it was up in logan so it was quite a drive, and the drive up was really funny too. this old guy named Brother Foote took us up in his little truck, and it is one of those trucks that only has 3 seats, so we crammed ourselves in there and then we didnt' take the normal way up to logan, we took this way called Avon pass, and how you get up there is that you go through weber canyon and then you go through huntsville and then you get on avon pass, and avon pass is pretty much a dirt road covered in rocks, so it was really interesting and we were pretty much off-roading for about 40 minutes and then you end up in cache valley and then we were in logan, and it was a really fun bumpy ride, we actually caught air a couple of times!! but anyways about Elder Bednar.

So Elder Bednar, and his wife came and spoke to us and also the Presiding Bishop, Bishop Burton and his wife was there and 3 70's. it was Elder Yamashita, Elder Callister and this other person and their wives who i couldn't remember. at the beginning Elder Bednar told us to put our notebooks away, because he said that we shouldn't take notes on what people say but what the feelings of the holy ghost you have. he said that people often time take notes on what general authorities say and that we write them down and then time passes on and then they become useless to us. (which has happened to me a lot...) but they didn't give us written talks, they pretty much taught us on how to bear pure testimony, and what was interesting was that pure testimony is pretty simple, all you have to say is that you Believe in Jesus Christ. that is pure testimony and how when we tell random stories and prolong our pure testimony with random doctrine, it detracts from others and also the person bearing testimony, from feeling the Holy Ghost.  He also explained to us about how we should be agents, not objects. and what he meant by that was for example when we pray we often pray for blessings upon our selves, which pretty much means we pray for blessings for us doing nothing. For example: Please bless me that my health will be good. that is an object person's prayer. but an agents person's prayer is, For example: Please bless me that as i eat healthy and exercise that my health will be good. and then you go and exercise and eat heatlhy and the lord will bless you. He told us that too many people in this world act as objects, they don't want to do anything and just receive blessings in their life for it. and he told us that god doesn't work like that, and how we are to be agents and go out and do something. he also explained to us how we are to use the holy ghost in our work and to carefully look for it in our daily lives. but also the other general authorities gave in their inputs in certain doctrine and it was an awesome mission conference.

Sadly enough that was the most interesting thing that happened this week, we did pick up 2 new investigators this week, and so we have started to teach them and the work is going really well here in layton. thank you for the birthday wishes, we are going to take a quick run to the liquor store to get some booz!!! whoo hoo 21!!!!!! ahah just kidding.

Love

Elder Miller

Aug. 16, 2011

As far as the work goes things are going pretty good. We have a baptism happening tomorrow of this girl named Michelle who has been taught by missionaries for a while, at least 6 years on and off and she is pretty much just a dry mormon. The reason why she hasn't been baptized is because her parents wouldn't let her get baptized until she is 18. so she is going to be baptized tomorrow. but the sucky thing about it is that usually when we do convert baptisms we have them confirmed in sacrament meeting that sunday. but since this upcoming sunday is stake conference she won't be confirmed until the 27th....which kind of sucks and the solution to that is to just have her confirmed right after she is baptized, but in the handbook it says for convert baptisms that you must have them confirmed in sacrament meeting but the bishop can approve a change that to have them confirmed right after they are baptized, but the bishop of the ward, bishop brown(hole) won't let that happen because he says that we have to do it by the "book". when he can easily just let her be confirmed right after she is baptized, instead he insists that she has to wait a week and half to receive the holy ghost....which is really lame. my companion right now has had some problems with that bishop in the past, he was teaching this kid who had only been to church 3 times and the requirement to be baptized is to go to 3 weeks of church and to pass a baptismal interview, but the bishop wanted that kid to go to church for 2 months straight to be baptized, but since the kid had done the 2 previous things my companion just baptized him. but that has probably been the most frustrating thing this week. but oh well.

but other than that things are going pretty good, i will actually be going to a baptism later tonight of a lady who i taught back in farr west. her husband was baptized when i was there and now she is finally making the commitment to be baptized, so that is awesome! we have also picked up 2 new investigators this week and also we have been teaching this kid named aaron, who is pretty awesome and he is planning on being baptized on the 27th! but if things go as planned we might even have 5 baptisms this transfer, which is pretty awesome. i love serving with Elder Ortiz, we have been out pretty much the same time and we get along, we communicate well with each other and also we both like to get work done. so i feel that we have been really inspired to be put together.

Aug. 9, 2011

so anyways i am liking this new area in layton, it makes me feel more at home, to compare it back to home, our area pretty much covers an area like state street in orem and we have alot of apartments and a fairly decent neighborhood. we are on bikes so that is kind of annyoning but it is still pretty nice. but my legs are becoming HUGE!! like big hunks of meat....hahah! but i almost got hit by a car a couple of times this week so that was pretty fun. but one things that i was really disappointed with is that when i first came to the apartment, our apartment was filthy, i would use swear words to describe it but that wouldn't be good... so pretty much when i first walked into the apartment it smelt like garbage...like when the garbage truck drives by and you get that garbage smell...yeah it smelt like that, i was disgusted, but anyways pretty much this week i spent cleaning the apartment, i used up a whole bottle of 409...yes one whole bottle and also half a bottle of febreeze. and now the apartment is clean enough to where i can handle it. i have become really OCD about cleaning on my mission but some missionaries do not know how to clean. but i live in another 4 man apartment, so the aparment gets dirty quick, which i hate. but hopefully i will survive.

As to the work, this saturday we had 2 baptisms, 2 boys and they were ages 10 and 13 and it was really good to seem them get baptized. both of the baptisms were a little hectic becuase the ward mission leader is a sack, a.k.a. lazy so he wasn't able to put together anything for the baptism, which usually is the job of the ward mission leader. so we had to make the programs, fill the font and also call everybody to make sure that they could come to the baptism and so that was annoying, but the baptisms did happen so that was good. also this week we have picked up 3 new investigators which is really cool, and they all pretty much want to be baptized! also there is this girl that missionaries have taught int he past and her parents wouldn't let her get baptized until she was 18 and now that she is 18 she was sort of shying away from the whole baptism thing but we taught her a couple of lessons, and now she wants to be baptized and she is going to be baptized onthe 17th!! but anyways that was pretty much my week today. hope you have a good week and don't break too many sprinkler heads and make sure jack gets some long walks!

Love

Elder Miller

Aug. 2, 2011

i have already been out for 11 months now. sot that is pretty amazing in itself, i never thought that i would be able to be out for this long, but anyways yes i am finally feeling better, it wasn't until like friday when i actually started feeling just about 100 percent well where i was actually able to eat a full meal but anyways that is really cool that Matt got his mission call to Nashville, Tennessee. I am so proud of him!! haha! but he is going to the bible belt and it is going to be nice and humid out there, i hope he enjoys it! ;) and that is funny that him and Tom are going into the MTC at the same time so that is awesome.

I am getting transferred now out of here, at first i didn't want to be in this are because is really country like and now i have grown to love it for just that and the people, but anyways i am getting transferred to Layton now, but that is good because i am going with this guy name Elder Ortiz and we knew each other when I was in Sunset, and we are pretty good buddies, but i am excited now that i have an opportunity to be able to serve with him! But i am also sad to leave this area because there are going to be some baptisms happening in this area, but i am close enough that i will be able to come back to see them get baptized!!

but this week i had the opportunity of being able to baptize this 9 year old girl named Kaylie and it was really cool, she got baptized on wednesday and she was confirmed on sunday! and also we gave talks in her ward and for the first time in my life i gave a 30 minute talk....yeah i was just rambling on about stuff that i had just prepared and when i looked at the clock it had been 30 minutes and so actually i didn't give my full talk which was kind of weird because through my life i have only been put in situations where i have given talks and left a bunch of time left on the clock, but anyways that was cool. and also we set up a baptismal date with a woman who has been taught by missionaries for about a year now and she has finally decided to be baptized on her birthday which is the 14th. but anyways that is what has happened this week, i will let you know how the new area is, i heard that it is a lot like sunset. Anyways love ya hope you aren't too lonely!

Love

Elder Miller

July 26, 2011

This week has been kind of interesting there has been some good and some bad, but anyways the good thing is that one of our investigators got baptized this saturday and was confirmed sunday and i had the opportunity of being able to baptize her and it has been an amazing experience being able to teach her and to see her enter the waters of baptism but also we have another baptism coming up tomorrow and i am going to be baptize this little girl also. but things as to the work are going pretty good, we are set to see some more baptisms happen in august then we did in July, this area is starting to pick up and it is good.

But for the bad news this week, my companion, Elder Lanier got sick the other day and he was just throwing up and not having a good time, and he has diabetes and i was thinking that it might have been his diabetes that was getting him sick so then we stayed in the apartment and then 2 days later...i got sick and i started puking up everything.

Transfers are next week so i guess i will find out if i am still staying in this area or if i am leaving. But i will let you know next week. anyways that was my week. Hope that you have a good week!

Love
Edler Miller

July 19, 2011

things have been going pretty good out here. We have gotten a pretty good teaching pool put together. We had one of our investigators interviewed by our Mission President and she passed and she is planning on being baptized either the first week or second week of august. But also we are planning on having another baptism this saturday and also we are planning on one next wednesday. So that will be pretty good. But we are doing really good out here, thanks for sending all that stuff for me this week, i really appreciate it. sorry that this letter is really short, they want to go play basketball, so next week will be longer. 

Love

Elder Miller

July 12, 2011

We just saw the angel Moroni put onto the Brigham City temple. It was a really cool thing to see, that was my first time to see an Angel Moroni being put onto a temple, but anyways we got there at 10 and we didn't leave until about 2 PM but at the start it was just overcast and then it started to rain like crazy for about an hour and then the rain calmed down and then they were planning on putting the angel moroni on and then it started to get really windy and they couldn't put it up because of the wind, so then they postponed it a little bit and then they started to put it up and then the sun came out and it was really hot and we were hungry so we left, but i guess our ride that we were with got a call when we were driving back saying that they finally got it up, but i pretty much saw the whole thing because the had the angle moroni sitting on the steeple for about an hour, and they were doing some kind of wiring, but it was still was pretty cool.
but as far as the work goes, things have been going pretty good, we have been having alot of lessons, but our one investigator who was supposed to be baptized on saturday wasn't answer her phone and we havn't seen her in about a week and a half, which is kind of retarted... but she was our most solid investigator and now she has just turned into our most sketchy investigator, which kind of sucks. but her excuse was that her dad couldn't come down from idaho and baptize her but she didn't let us know about this until the last second, but we told her to call us back with a time that we could set a baptism and yesterday she was supposed to be interviewed, but i guess she just bailed on us again...which has been super frustrating, but hopefully she will come around.

but this week we were able to pick up 2 new investigators, which has been really cool, one of them is a 10 year old boy who is pretty much active except his parents aren't really that active and so we are doing the lessons at his aunt's house and he is planning on being baptized on the 30th and then the other investigator is this 30 year old lady. we are finally a little busy and picking up more people to teach, but this one kid that we have been working with is hopefully going to be baptized if his dad can quit smoking, which we gave him a priesthood blessing for so hopefully he can become worthy enough to be able to quit smoking so that he can baptize his kid that we have been working with.

But other than that things are going well, Elder Lanier almost got hit by a car on his bike the other day, but anyways have a good week.

Love

Elder Miller

July 5, 2011

So this week has been a pretty good week even with July 4th and everything, normally Saturdays are our worst days because we don't have any lesson's set up and people are never home on saturdays even though it seems like they would be home, but anyways we actually had a lesson yesterday even though it was july 4th, but yesterday i had elk steak for the first time in my life and it was pretty good, to describe it, it is pretty much just like beef but leaner. so yeah that was my experience yesterday.
Our one investigator Diane is doing really good. We have committed her to baptism for July 23rd and she has come to church the past 2 weeks which is really good, but she is a really funny lady, she was telling us about how 15 years ago when she lived in utah before that she wouldn't have accepted the missionaries, but now that she has been pondering about her life and stuff that she has thought about taking this step towards following christ towards baptism, but anyways we told her that 15 years ago we wouldn't have even taught her! but also she has a mouth like a sailor and she was telling us about how her sister-in-law stole some jewelry from wal mart when she was in texas and i am pretty sure that she said the word sh*t about 20 times and it was really funny.

We have also started to teach this guy named Andres. who is a really cool kid. he is 18 and he is living with this one really sweet family in Willard, anyways he comes from west valley city, and yes he is pretty much a mexican gangsta. he has like a bunch of tattoo's but he is a really nice kid, when he was living in west valley he pretty much was doing stuff in a grand theft auto game. but he went to juvy and when he was in juvy he turned his life towards god and started coming to church and when he got out he needed a family to live with as a part of his juvy program and he was playing soccer at box elder high at the time and one of the moms who would give him a ride to and from practice from the juvenile detention facility let him live at their home and he is living at their home but anyways he has accepted a date for july 30th to be baptized and he is a really awesome kid.

Also we have another baptism hopefully happening this saturday hopefully. her name is Alisha, but she might be a welfare case and so hopefully she passes her interview because the interview has to do alot with if you have a testimony or not, but we really tried to see if she was just going to join the church for welfare but she pretty much has a testimony of the church, but the bishop thinks otherwise, but anyways that was my week, hope you guys have a fun one.

Love

Elder Miller

June 28, 2011

this week we met with a a really anti-mormon dude who was all about physical evidence and stuff like that and we sat down and talked with him for about 2 hours and it was really annoying and we weren't able to explain everything to him but we just told him that by faith we are able to experience more blessings.

But anyways this week has been an OK week. We are teaching alot of people but we don't really have any baptismal dates at this moment. I think i told you that i have a new companion now. His name is Elder Lanier and he is from Florida. He is a really cool guy and I really enjoy serving with him. He was actually in this area 6 months ago and now he is back and it is a relief to actually have a companion that actually knows the area quite well. But anyways one girl that we are teaching right now seemed to be pretty golden, but then we found out that she was just really wanting to become a member because she wanted some welfare, and she hasn't met with us in a week. Which kind of sucks but we will still meet with her.

We also happened to pick up another investigator this week. She is a lady and she is in her 60's probably and we were just going out on visits with one of our Ward Mission Leaders and we he wanted to see who lived in one of the trailers so that he could be able to add them to the ward Map and so we did that and she happened to be a non-member and she was willing to meet with us and she has a friend down in Salt Lake who is a member who supports us alot, and yesterday we were able to have a lesson with her and it went really well and we weer able to pick up a baptismal date with her and it was really really awesome! So that was a highlight of the week.

But anyways things are going pretty good out here, we are continuing to see the work progress out here.
Love

June 21, 2011

 this week we had a baptism of this guy named Mike who has investigated the chruch for about a year and finally he has become a follower of Jesus Christ, but it was really good for him to get baptized! But this week we ended up running over a Moose the other day, atleast it was a chihuahua named Moose. yeah we ran over a dog yesterday and it died on impact, it was really sad and it make me think what would happen if jack got ran over, but he would never get run over... because our street isn't really busy. but anyways transfer calls are today and i am staying another transfer out here, but Elder Law is getting transferred because he is one my favorite companion's but i am getting another guy named Elder Lanier so hopefully he is cool, he has served in this area about 4 months ago so hopefully he still knows the area because i don't really like introducing another area to another missionary, but anyways are are going to go play some basketball, hopefully i can beat them in that, but i highly doubt it. but thank you for everything. hope your week goes well.

Love

Elder Miller

June 14, 2011

 this week was a really good week for the missionary work in our area, especially for the Willard Stake. We ended up teaching a lot of people in the Willard stake this week and we were able to find a new investigator and we have another baptismal date for July 9th. which is really cool, but it is kind of funny how somethings take time to fall into place. For me i am fast pace kind of guy, i like to see results fast when you work hard, and when we were working hard the results weren't coming as fast as i would have liked them to come and that was why i was so ticked a couple of weeks ago, but anyways now we are seeing a lot more stuff happening, and we are really pleased with the progress, and we are actually waiting for some more things to start happening. but this week is going to be a good week. we are going to have a baptism of this guy named Mike Mann, i think i mentioned his situation before, he has been investigating the church for the past i think 11 months now, but anyways he is going to be baptized this weekend. He was supposed to be baptized this last Saturday but he wasn't because he hadn't quit smoking for a week, so that kind of sucked and then last p-day we were going to have him interviewed by our mission president, President Olson, and then we waited for him for about 30 minutes and then i called him and then he said that he forgot about the interview and that was the first interview he has forgotten about so then we changed the interview for friday, and i called President Olson up earlier in the day, jokingly reminding him about the interview, but anyways things are going really good and thank you for the e-mail. Hope you guys kill all the mice in the house.

Love

Elder Miller

June 6, 2011

 this week has been pretty good, last weeks e-mail i kind of sounded whiny because I was a little frustrated with the missionary work out here because it really wasn't going anywhere, and it really sucks when you are always teaching the same people that aren't really progressing towards baptism but this week has actually been pretty good, we started teaching this 14 year old girl named Presley, who has a friend living in our area so we started teaching her in her friend's home and the first lesson went really well and she really wants to be baptized but her Mom won't let her but her Mom was fine with letting her have the missionary lessons so it was really cool to teach her because for a 14 year old girl she was really interested in the gospel and it was a really cool lesson.


but this week we kind of had a miracle in the Willard Stake, the reason being is because the Willard stake has kind of been a really boring stake because we haven't really had any work going on in the Willard Stake. But our mission President has been really pushing splits every night in our areas and the Farr West stake has kind of been sucking on splits and Willard was really good on splits this week and we have seen a lot more set up lessons in their stake and we have picked up 2 new people to teach in Willard which is really exciting because like i was saying before, the Willard stake has really been sucking. but this next week is going to be exciting, becuase we are going to start teaching those new people, but anyways i am doing fine.


Love


Elder Miller

May 31, 2011

the weather has been crazy. i was talking to one of our ward mission leaders out here and he was saying that the average rain fall in the months of march, april, and may are 6 inches. and supposedly we are already up to 12 inches of rain fall march, april, and may. but it has been pretty crazy. we live kind of down in the flats and alot of places are flooding, in fact, there is this one road down in plain city where the water was gushing out of this river and there was about 3 feet of standing water in the road...and that was all from rain and people are saying that it just floods from the snow coming off the mountain and most of the snow hasn't even come off the mountain so that is going to be some bad news bears.anyways for as the work is going, it is going pretty slow. Elder Law and I are actually working and we are kind of getting mad at the people in this area. the reason being is because they aren't really helping us out a ton. for example we are trying to get a couple of kids to church whose parents are inactive. and the parents don't want to go to church and they don't care if their kids don't go to church and we have talked to their neighbors and we have asked them several weeks in a row if they could invite them. and every week when we check up on them they have told us that they didn't invite them....which is super lame. i dont get it. but that has kind of been one frustrating this week that we have had to deal with and also we set up 22 lessons this week and 9 of them cancelled, which has been super gay. but i hate to be a whiner, but this area is slow and the less active people are really mean, they don't want anything to do with the church, and i feel that some of the people that we are meeting with are just meeting with us like it is a chore and i feel that they don't have a desire to meet with us... but for the good news, our one ivestigator named Mike who has been taught by missionaries for about 10 months, has finally accepted a baptismal date for june 11th! which is awesome and his newly married wife is going to be baptized next month, so that will be exciting! but i love my companion, Elder Law, he is one awesome dude. he is way into asian food and he also likes to have the apartment clean, and he is smart but anyways hope everything goes well with you this week and that it doesn't rain too much!


Love


Elder Miller

May 24, 2011

this week we had one of our investigators married. they have been living together for about 7 years and now they are finally married. Their names are Mike and Julie and they have also been meeting with missionaries for about 9 months so this week we are going to try to get them baptized because the only thing really holding them back from being baptized was the marriage issue so now that they are married they have no excuse!!

but nothing much really happened this week. but we have been trying really hard to find more people to teach and so far we are successful, we have been teaching a lot more lessons and we are getting some more leads on some kids who are unbaptzied, but i really like my new companion, Elder Law, partially because he actually works, but he is an awesome dude. but we are really working hard to get some more progressing investigators and I feel that we are doing pretty good on it.

but sorry this e-mail is pretty short, i really don't have alot to report on other than those things, but i really hope that everything goes well for you and that the weather starts to improve, but anyways love you

Love

Elder Miller

May 17, 2011

things are same old same old. this area is kind of slow but things are starting to pick up, we had a baptism this week of this kid named daniel. and it was a good baptism service. but we are kind of in the stage where we are just trying to find people to teach and it is a slow process, but we are starting to pick up on some more people and we are trying to get into their homes, but we have been teaching some lessons but it has been kind of slow. but hopefully things start picking up soon. we mowed a single lady's lawn this saturday. we mowed her front yard about a week ago and so we just went back and mowed her lawn again and in the back yard she had grass and weeds about 2 feet tall and so i spent a quite a bit of time mowing that lawn down, and but the end of it i was super tired and also she actually had a back yard!

 

but this week our eternagators mike & julie are getting married, mike and julie had been taught by missionaries for almost a year and they have also been living together for about 7 eyars and so now they are finally tying the knot and getting married but i am pretty sure that mike is going to be baptized right after he gets married, i don't know about julie but i know that they know that the church is true and mike is an awesome guy if you can just imagine a really hard skin head guy who has arms full of tattoo's.. that is him, but he is an awesome guy and goes to church every sunday for all 3 hours, and when we were talking to him during the last lesson he said, well we need to get married to get baptized! so that is awesome! but that is all i really have this week, i hope that you guys are doing well.

 

May 10, 2011

but this week we had 2 baptisms. i was able to see this guy named Ed Province get baptized on friday and then the next day i went back to centerville to baptize this kid named Taran and it was really awesome to see Taran get baptized. i don't know if i told you about Taran but Taran is a 12 year old kid who i taught back in Centerville and he has Cerebal palsy, so he is mentally and physically handicapped and when i left he was planning on getting baptized but he needed to be taught some more lessons, but when i left he was really sad because i was the first missionary that taught him and he really liked me so when the missionaries in centerville asked who wanted to baptized him he said me! which was pretty cool, so i went back down to centerville on saturday and baptized him and it was really good to see him get baptized. and this next saturday we have another baptism happening, so that will be really cool. so the work so far is going really well and we are really excited to see some more things happen. But this week we have another guy who has been getting taught for awhile by missionaries and the guy who is going to baptize him is back in town so we are going to set something up for him to be baptized, which is awesome.

May 3, 2011

This week has so far been good and kind of crappy. the good news is that we actually picked up 4 new investigators this week and that we actually taught them really good first lessons and they were super receptive to the spirit. We picked up a 9 and a 12 year old boy. and a 27 and a 30 year old womn. but the first discussions went really well with them and we all hope to see them get baptized. but now for the bad news. We had a baptism all set up this week for this guy named Ed. and Ed had been a member of the church when he was younger except his Dad somehow got offended and took everybody in his family's records out. so he his dad self-excommunicated his whole family. and he hasn't been a member for about 20 years and he has been taught by missionaries for about 3 years I think and now we are finally sealing the deal. but he flaked out the night before. the reason why was because his step-son's baby died that night. so it was going to be pretty hard to do a baptism when a death just happened. but he said that he would be baptized this week so we have a lesson with him on wednesday, so hopefully we can clear somethings up so that he can be baptized.

 

April 26, 2011

But things have been pretty good this week. we have a baptism this saturday of this guy named Ed. Ed was a member of the church when he was younger and his dad got offended by somebody/something at the church so his dad pulled all of their church records a.k.a. self excommunicated his whole family. which was kind of lame and selfish. but anyways ed lived the rest of his life not a member and he married an lds girl and then started to take the lessons and now he is being re-baptized this saturday!

 

But this week we were visting people in this one ward and there was this one culdesac out in plain city that happend to have all less actives and nonmembers living in it. so we decided to go see this less active family and some non members and both of them didn't happen to be home and there was this house that had the lights on and i just felt that i should go knock on the door, to find out about their neighbors. so anyways i went over there and some girl named sophie answered the door and she happend to not be a member and she works out at the airforce base in clearfield and she is from san deigo and she is a catholic and we were just talking to her about the church and she said that she didn't know alot about mormons but likes to have an open mind so she said that she would like to meet with us again. but anwyays it just shows that the lord has things planned for us as long as we are willing to listen to the spirit.

 

but another story this week was that we were tracting in this trailer park in our area and we found this one trailer and i ran into this lady named april and she is a pentecostal and she is from texas. but we started talking to her about the bible and we started to bible bash with her a little bit and we were like this is kind of pointless so we just kind of beared out testimony about the book of mormon and we were going to leave but then she suddenly was like, "i'll make you a deal." and we said,  "what is that?" and she said, "if you come to church with us this sunday, we'll read and learn more about your church." and we were like, OK! that is an easy trade. so this sunday we went to a pentecostal chuch out in clearfield and lets just say. have you watched the movie borat where he goes to church. im sure james has. but that is what it was like. just alot of music and priaising jesus at random times and saying halelujia and amen alot. but afterward when we were getting a ride back the husband was like, since you guys came to our church, we'll come to yours next week. so we said that would be awesome! so today we are probably going to go visit them and talk to them about the restoration of the gospel, a.k.a. the truth!! haha.

 

but other than that my week has been pretty good other than the rain. but things are going really well here and we hope to see alot more baptisms to come up.

 

Love

 

Elder Miller

April 19, 2011

yes, 2 sets of missionaries live in our house. we actually live out in farr west but Willard is just north of it but we cover willard, and yes we have a car but we are trying to save miles so we have been walking and hitching rides from people. but the work is kind of going slow here, i am kind of bugged at my companion because he is kind of lazy, he has been out 19 months and he is kind of ready to go hom, but when i first came to this area we were just going to lessons and just talking to them for an hour and not teaching anything, but that quickly changed because it is ok to sit and chat with people but you can only do it for so long and you have to teach something while you are there, but i am getting him to work now becuase we don't really have that big of a teaching pool that is slowly changing. and i am really excited to see some more work done here because this area has alot of potential. but i really don't have time to e-mail alot this week becuase we are helping somebody move today and i am using their computer as quick as i can. but anyways i promise that i will write you more next week.

Love

Elder Miller

April 12, 2011

Things are going pretty well out here in Willard but they could be better. I like my companion and it so far has been really fun serving with him. I think the funnest part of this area is that we live with another companionship in our apartment so that has been pretty fun. But we have been teaching quite a bit of people in Willard when the Willard area has been pretty slow. But this week I went over to teach this 8 year old kid who for some reason didn't want to get baptized and i was told he didn't want to get baptized because he was scared of water. so we go over there and it turns out the only reason he didn't want to get baptized was because he didn't want to wear the baptismal clothes and he also didn't want to have a million people at his baptism. and i was thinking the whole time, at that age i didn't even care what happened to me all i knew was that i was getting baptized. but i taught him a lesson about baptism and it was kind of frustrating because he was one of those kids who told me that i was wrong... so he was telling me that i didn't know what i was talking about and he was telling me that i was wrong, which was frustrating, but finally his mom backed up me and told him the things i said and he believed her. but finally at the end i said you will be a happier person if you get baptized and you'll be sad if you don't and you will only have to wear the baptismal clothes for about 10 minutes and you can invite however many people you want to the baptism and he finally said yes, so that was good.
but this week we have more lessons than we had set up last week and they are actually with investigators, which is awesome so i am really excited to get around and teach. But i am so far liking willard/farr west, even though willard has nothing and i think that willard has more cows than people... but i am still loving it out here, i love you all and wish you well.
Love
Elder Miller

April 5, 2011

so now i am in willard, utah, and so far i am getting to know the area. i kind of know how to get to some peoples houses and be able to go the gym in the mornings. but my new comp's name is Elder Bennett, and he is from Mississippi/Idaho. But we cover all of Willard City, and a Stake in Farr West. and a ward in Perry and Plain city. so it is alot of farm land out here, but they do have a golf course near to where we live, and there is a guy in our area that will take us so i am really excited about that, and we even might go to the driving range today, so i am super excited!

but it was really cool to see general conference this weekend. I was able to go to 3 of the sesssions at general conference. I was able to go to the Saturday Morning and afternoon sessions and I was also able to go to the sunday afternoon session. also like you already know i was able to go with Elder Wayments parents to conference because i had some extra tickets, and when i first got to farr west i looked them up and visited them. but it was really good to be able to go into the HUGE conference center to watch conference, and it was also weird to see some people that i knew. but anyways i really liked the talks given by the 70's about he atonement. about how we shold be patient with our sufferings and that the savior knows about what we are going through. But i also really liked President Eyring's talk during priesthood session, where he talked about excercing your preiesthood authoirty to the best of your ability. but the best thing about conference this weekend is that i didn't fall asleep during any of the sessions!  but anyways i really don't have much to report about this week becuase i really don't know what is going on here, haha all i know is that i am in willard/farr west and i am preaching the gospel to people out here, and i am loving it. anyways hope you all well and i pray for you everyday

Love

Elder Miller

March 29, 2011

I was kind of surprised that James got his mission call to Korea, but that is still really good. He willl have a good experience there and I also feel that it might be more successful than Japan for a mission. He will probably be able to use Korean very well since he knows a little Japanese and by using Korean he could probably strenthen his Japanese. But it will be exciting to see how the work goes over there and I am sure that he will do great in Korea.  He will probably eat alot of kimchi and probably some dog.....haha but i guess now he gets to tell us how dog tastes.
But I am also really excited for General conference, if I had stayed in this area i would have been able to go all 5 sessions...yes it kind of sucks, but i am getting transferred. I am pretty sure that i am going to Farr West. But I am kind of disappointed that i am getting transferred, but i guess that i am going there for a good reason, but anyways Farr West is where Elder Wayment (my first companion) is from. So i might be able to go see his family, which will be pretty cool. But I am kind of bummed that i have to leave Centerville because i got along really well with Elder Kay but i guess everything happens for a reason. but this week was a pretty good week. We had  3 baptisms this week. There has been a family who the mother, Rebecca, was taught and baptized a year ago by Elder Kay and now the Dad, Sam and the 2 kids, Alissa, and Taylor got baptized on Saturday and it has been a long journey for the family, becuase Sam and Rebecca both grew up in polygamy and they ran away from it becuase they didn't like what it was doing to their live and also becuase their parents wouldn't let them be together so they ran off together, and it was a really spiritual experience to see them get baptized, but i know that the gospel has been a big part of their lives and now that they are baptized they ahve a goal set in 1 year that they are going to be sealed in the temple as a family for all time and eternity!

But other than that things are going really good with me. I am really looking forward to General Conference and i hope I get to go in my next area, but if i don't, that will be cool becuase I will be able to watch it also. But things have been really good for me this transfer, we saw alot of success together and I hope that i do well in my next area and continue to have success on my mission. But anyways I remembered to refill my prescription without you reminding me!! haha! but hope everything goes well with you. James still has a bunch of time before he goes in the MTC so i guess he will be able to do most of your spring and Summer gardening for you..haha


Christopher Winston Miller to me
acactually i am going to willard. so scratch that about going to farr west.

March 22, 2011

But this week was pretty good. We baptized this guy named Sean. Sean is a way awesome dude and it was really good for us to see him get baptized. But Seans baptism day was kind of filled with drama. So we just wanted to say Hi to him that day and to talk to him about his baptism because we werent able to meet with him the night before. But he was like really mad at us and sent us this kind of mean text. So we were kind of confused. So we went and talked to the fellowship and he said that he went and talked to Seans parents to invite them to the baptism because Sean said that they didn't feel welcome at the baptism because they were non members, and it turned out that Sean didn't even tell his parents that he was getting baptized and his parents were in full support of him being baptized except Sean didn't want them to know about it for some reason. So Sean was kind of mad about that for some reason and told our fellowship that he didn't even know if he wanted to get baptized. But our fellowship went and talked to him and calmed him down and we got him baptized later that evening. So that was a miracle. But it does show that Satan doesn't really want people to follow Jesus Christ and will do anything to stop them.

But this week we didn't teach as much as we did last week. But we did teach a fair amount of lessons. We would have taught more lessons than last week but we didn't becuase most of our lesosns ended up cancelling on us this week. But we have set some pretty good goals for this week.

But our one really solid investigator Lance has kind of hit a dip in the road of his life and to his baptism. But anyways he was doing really well and since we have been meeting with him he has been super happy and has been really solid and has been seeing alot of blessings in his life. But just one lessson later his whole attitude towards everything changed and he just seemed really depressed...and we didn't really know why. and the family he was living with didn't really know why his attitude changed really suddenly. But Lance really wants to be a fire fighter and he was going to school to be a fire fighter but he didn't have enough money left so he had to drop out and his friend who he is living with said that the class Lance was in just barely graduated, so that might have been one thing that made him depressed, but we set up a lesson with him tonight and we are planning on taking him to General conference, so that should hopefully give him some guidance.

But this has been kind of our week so far. Last night we met with this lady who has an anti husband and everytime we go over ther he always tries to change the subject and ask about anti mormon stuff and everytime we are over there he is like I don't want to change your views on anything but did you hear about ... So anyways Elder Kay kind of had enough of it and was like, are you trying to change our opinion about the church, and he was like well, yes. But anyways it is kind of dumb.
P.S.

our mission office address changed. so make sure to put this address out to anyone who wants to write to me

4380 S Orchard Ave.
South Ogden, UT 84403

March 15, 2011

This week was a pretty good week. We actually had a really busy week. My companion and I ended up teaching a total of 33 lessons this week. So that included us going on splits just about everynight of this week. but other than that things have been going really well. We have been teaching this guy named Sean who is going to be baptized this Saturday and I will let you know how that goes in my next e-mail.

But this week we have been teaching this guy named Lance and Lance is one awesome dude. We actually started teaching him because he has been living with a member of our area and he has grown up in Utah his whole life and has never really looked into the lds church. but anyways he started meeting with us and he told us right off the bat that he had been through alot of things in his life and we told him to pray about anything he wanted to. And all i got to say is that Lance has alot of faith, and becuase of that faith alot of his prayers had been answered. So for one he has had a really hard time finding work and he has been working for this one guy who wasn't going to pay him but his friend that he is living with now ran into that boss at a gas station and the boss gave his friend the check to give to Lance. so that is one miracle. Also his friend has a son and his son wans't feeling well and he had a really high fever and was just really sick.so we were asked to give a blessing and supposedly when we left the kid was just running around like he had never been sick, so that is another miracle he saw. also he has suffered with depression throughout his whole life and since he has been meeting with us and been praying and reading he said this has been the happiest time of his life. and he told us that he never imaged that he could be happy through religion and god. but he also came to church this week and when we were at church he had read from 1st nephi to jacob, which was a 3 day span. but he is really solid right now and he has a super amount of faith and i can defintly see it since we started meeting with him.

Things have been going really good here. I really like it here in Centerville. I know that the work will continue to go on. 
Love

Elder Miller

March 8, 2011

But this week we have been teaching like crazy. We taught 29 lessons this week, and we pretty much went on splits everynight of this week. We also had a baptism this week. But anyways the baptism this week was a miracle. So Elder Kay had been teaching this guy named Cletus, who is from Benin, West Africa. So when I came to this area here in Centerville, Cletus had a baptismal date for March 5th. But Cletus is also undocumented so it is really hard for him to find a job. But the crazy thing is he has an MBA but he really can't do anything with it becuase he is undocumented. So one of his friends that he knew from school said that there was a work oppourtunity down in Texas at like a rodeo where he would drive a golf cart and shuttle people around. So he decided since he wasn't doing anything here he would just go down there and have to push the baptism 3 weeks because that was how long he was going to be in Texas. So he was down in Texas and suddenly at like 1 am on Saturday he texted us and told us that he wanted to be baptized on Sunday. We were really surprised and we were like, OK. So we got him interviewed on Sunday and he was baptized that night. So that night his friend, Simplice (who is also from West Africa) was asked to say a couple of words at the baptism, and he was saying that Cletus called him at like 12 that night and was like, Simplice, I can't sleep. and then Simplice was like, then why are you calilng me, im sleeping! and Cletus then told him about how he knew that church was true and that he needed to be baptized immediately. So Simplice told him to let us know and to come back and get baptized. And the crazy thing is that Simplice isn't a member of the church but he would be if it wasn't for his wife. But anyways, Cletus then said that he had a dream that night that he shouldn't put God before Money. So he interpreted it as that he needed to go back to Utah and to get Baptized and that was exactly what he did. So that was the miracle of the week.

March 1, 2011

But things have beeng going really well in the Centerville Area. We taught 22 lessons this week, which was awesome (and that also includes less-actives, and recent converts). But the sad thing was that alot of the lessons that we had scheduled cancelled on us. But kind of the Sad thing this week was that we are teaching this guy named Cletus, who is frome Benin, Africa and he wants to get baptized, but his student visa expired and he is now undocumented, and he does have an MBA, but he can't work anywhere becuase of his immigration status, but he was going to be baptized this saturday, but he found a job in Texas for a couple of weeks so he has already gone down there to earn some money but he will be back in 3 weeks and so we should get him baptized by then.

 

Also we have been teaching this guy named Sean and we have taught him 2 lessons so far and he is pretty excited to get baptized and we were talking to him and he has worked on several temples around the United States including the Nauvoo temple, and he did the electrical work on them, but he has a baptismal date of March 19th and we tried to set some more lessons up with him but he hasn't answered the door for us and it has been kind of frustating with him becuase he was so solid and was super excited to get baptized but then he won't answer the doors for lessons and we could hear him inside like playing video games and stuff. but anwyays we talked to the fellowship member, who happnes to be a doctor and he was telling us how Sean is kind of bi-polar and goes into werid mood swings and he kind of isolates himself from the world, but yesterday the member told us that he saw him yesterday at his clinic and he talked to him and supposedly Sean is taking it seriously. So hopefully we can start teaching him again.

 

Also we have been teaching these 2 unbaptized girls that we tratcted into the other day their names are Sierra and Serenity and they are 13 and 10..I think. but anyways we taught them a couple of lessons and they do not have a baptismal date yet but that is only becuase when they were living in Salt Lake they were being taught by missionaries there and the missionaries wanted t hem to get baptized in 2 weeks and that kind of turned them off so we are just taking things slow with them right now. But the sucky part was that all those people I just talked about didn't show up to church, which was a total bummer...but hopefully we can get them to chruch this next week. But anyways hope things are going well with you and hope you guys have wonderful week.

 

Love

 

Elder Miller