March 28, 2016

¡HOLA! Happy Easter! Hope everyone had an amazing Easter, I sure did!
This week has been just JAM packed! But super great, there was sooo
many things that happened I'm just going to start from the beginning.
In the beginning of the week we had a Zone Conference in Barcelona and
it was really good! Then we got back and Elder Islas was still really
doing bad, actually he got worse throughout the conference so we had
to stay in the rest of Tuesday and for the beginning of Wednesday.
He's doing much better now!
So this week we have started teaching a Jehovah's Witness family and
it is soooo interesting! Here in Spain the Jehovahs Witnesses or
"Testigos" in Spanish, have a pretty bad rep....but we started
teaching this man and his wife, they are very polite and hear us out,
but are very focused on the differences we have. But they are very
nice and even offered to fed us after our lesson!
On Friday we had a picnic and played sports with some investigators
and members and I taught them how to play American football and they
all LOVED it! My companion and I played QB for our teams and it was
funny playing football again hahaha. A member took pictures but I'll
to have her send them to me, so I'll send them next week!
Later in the week we were walking down the street passing by some
investigators and contacting and we noticed some people moving stuff
out of a truck into an apartment. We offered to help and they shut us
down, but we persisted and told them we would love to help for free.
They gratefully accepted our offer and we rolled up our sleeves and
got to work! We moved a ton of stuff up into this apartment and did it
in about 30 minutes. Turns out it was two ladies from Nicaragua and
they were moving from another small city 30 minutes away over to
another little city in our area named, Rubí. They kept on calling us
"Angels sent from the heavens" as we helped and really were just soooo
grateful for helping them. We asked them if we could share a message
about Easter and we did so! They seemed very interested and we are
going to pass by next week to teach them some more! We'll see how it
goes!!
Our real miracle this week came from a new mission goal for this week.
My mission president sent out a video to the whole mission explaining
the meaning of the word gospel, which is "Good News" and so he invited
every companionship in the mission to find 8 new investigators this
week, in the Spirit of Easter. So we went out this week with a fire
burning to talk to everyone and teach with everything we got! So it
came to Sunday night and we had found 7 new investigators and we had
30 minutes before we had to report our numbers! I was stressing out
sooo bad and we literally just contacted EVERY person within sight of
us!! And we just got shut down super hard by everyone at the beginning
and talked to some people but weren't able to set up appointments so
they weren't new investigators. Elder Islas and I kept on going though
and found one man who gave us his information, completing our goal but
we really didn't feel like it was a real address, so we didn't want to
end on that note so we contact one last person and they turn out being
a family and were SUPER interested in the gospel, we taught them and
set up another time we could meet and we there were 3 of them! It was
literally 10 minutes before we had to report and the Lord blessed us,
helping us reach our goal because we were diligent in our efforts to
achieve it. It honestly was such a tender mercy from the Lord to find
a family of people who are prepared at the last moment that we needed
them. I know that those numbers are extremely important to missionary
work and that the reason they're important is because they represent
children of our Heavenly Father, our brother and Sisters. We met that
goal of 8 and actually found 11 new investigators this week! As a
mission we broke the mission record for most New Investigators found,
which used to be 685 in a week and this week we found 906
investigators as a mission!!!! We beat he past record by 221! It's
sooo amazing to see what we can do when we give the Lord our all,
because truly when we give him our all he gives us his.
I know that this is the Lords work and that he loves his children sooo
much. Hope you have a great week, love you!!
Elder Miller

March 21, 2016

Hola!! ¿Cómo les ha ido esta semana? Mine week has been great!! Elder
Islas and I are really just having the best time being together and
working as hard as we can!! This area is a little tougher work wise
but it's still great, this week we have had a stronger focus on
helping all the new investigators start to progress and keep their
commitments.
We started off the week doing companion exchanges for our district and
I actually ended up getting to be with "my brother", so in the mission
your trainer is considered your "father" and so after my trainer left,
he went and trained this Elder (Elder Woodmansee) and now Elder
Woodmansee is in my district! So in these terms we are"brothers"
because we were both trained by the same person. We had a good time
and did a good amount of teaching. We actually ran into a miracle in
the day we were together, he still is pretty new for the mission so he
doesn't understand Spanish at all, so it was pretty much me doing all
the teaching, BUT at the end of the day we met a girl from Florida and
were able to teach her about the Restoration! I felt like it was such
a tender mercy to be able to allow him to participate in the lesson
and understand what's going on.
Later in the week we had an appointment cancel on us and so we decided
to go visit a lady we had met last week. So we went and taught her a
little bit about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and committed to be
baptized on April 9th!!!! WOOOOOO! It was such a blessing to be able
to meet this woman, it was actually a miracle because she is on
crutches and we tried to contact her and because she was on crutches
she wasn't able to run away from us haha. But we started teaching her
and now she is very excited and has lots of time to meet with us
because she has to take time off from work(normally it's hard to meet
up with people because everyone works so much here).
Elder Islas was sick this week and eventually got pretty bad. We ended
up having to stay inside for Saturday and then after church on Sunday,
so yeah that was kind of boring but Elder Islas and I just talked for
the whole time. We also wrote a parody on my guitar and it's pretty
great! Elder Islas and I are really getting along super well, I feel
like I knew him before we meet somehow....maybe I knew him in the
pre-existence? Haha either way things are going pretty well!
I hope everyone has a great Easter week and can remember why we
celebrate Easter. That because our Savior was raised up on the 3rd day
that we can all be raised up again. Not only physically through the
resurrection, but also through the atonement of Jesus Christ we can be
strengthened through our trials and become better day by day as we
look to the Savior. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter! Love
you!!!!
Con amor,
-Elder Miller
Enviado desde mi iPad

March 14, 2016

HEY YA'LL WOW WOW WOW!!! This week has been crazy with everything from
getting my "energy" read by a lady on the street during a contact to
watching people get chased by Zombies at 12:30PM. Terrassa is soooooo
good!! And Elder Islas is the greatest!!!!!!! This week has been jam
packed, full of miracles and just absolutely amazing! Elder Islas and
I really get along well and are thoroughly enjoying working together.
Elder Islas and his old companion had a pretty tough time here and
worked hard but just really didn't see too much success and that has
changed big time lately. We started off the week working hard and
EVERYONE shut us down super hard, people yelling at us and such haha,
but we pushed forward! Then at about Thursday the Lord just started
giving us Miracle after miracle and somehow we tripled the numbers
they had been getting on average for the past several months. For
example, they had been averaging 8-10 other lessons taught to
investigators and 4-5 new investigators per week, and this week we
taught 29 other lessons and found 12 new investigators! It was soooo
amazing!!
Elder Islas and I have really clicked and we have a ton of fun and are
working harder than I've ever worked before in my mission, I'm
absolutely exhausted but it's good! Elder Islas is from Dallas, Texas
and reminds me of a combination of Uncle Ben and Ian! We loves Legos
and drawing but also is super funny and loves to longboard. He's one
of the most Christlike people I've met and very humble. He's a convert
of three years and is Nicaraguan/Mexican/Filipino and super nice.
So on Saturday night we say our prayers and law down in bed when
suddenly we heard a loud commotion outside, then someone running and a
bunch of people screaming. So we look out of the window of our
apartment and there's ALL these people dressed up in Zombie costumes
and chasing people around the whole city, IT WAS LEGIT. I guess the
city of Terrassa set up this game of Zombie Survival and it went all
night Saturday to Sunday morning, and EVERYONE was soooooo loud! There
was some type of base or something below our apartment so it was like
nearly impossible to sleep. Sunday was a very long day haha.......not
being able to sleep as a missionary is killer, because you have no way
of catching up or napping, it's just go go go go! Elder Islas and I
are still recuperating from not being able to sleep that night.
Really things are soo great here, the Ward is small but strong and I
actually know the Bishop from before! His name is Obipso Leo Ferro and
he is from Argentina, he is the fixer man for the church in this area
and for our mission so he was always working on the chapel in
Barcelona and so I had actually talked to him several times before. In
Sacrament he announced to the ward over the pulpit, "Ward we are sooo
blessed! This week we received Elder Miller and he is amazing!!" And
said some really sweet things, he reminds me of Dad in the way he runs
the ward and acts! He's the best, and also my Mission Leader in the
ward is super great and on top of things. This ward is super great and
I'm super excited!
This week I've been working on relying on the Savior to give me
strength in all I do and I've realized that he doesn't just make up
the difference in our faults, but he really gives us everything and we
wouldn't be able to do anything without him. His grace can help us in
everything we lack. I've felt a little frustrated a couple times when
I need to teach something and my mind just blanks or I somehow
suddenly forget how to speak Spanish(or it seems), but as I've relied
on the Savior, words have come and I've been able to testify of gospel
truths. This gospel can bless everyone, no matter their situation,
place or mindset.
I remember talking to my Dad before my mission about how I can really
make a difference for the world and others during my life and he told
me something that will forever stick with me, "Austin, the BEST way we
can ever help someone truly better their lives and make the world a
better place is to share the gospel with others". I testify that this
is true, I know that there are lots of things we can do to help others
but as we share the Gospel with others that is the best thing we can
EVER do to help our fellow men. I invite you all to think about ways
you can share the Gospel and be bold in doing it! You will better your
own life by doing so and undoubtedly bless the lives of those you
share the gospel with. I love you all so much and hope you can do
this! Have a great week and open your mouth and share the Gospel!
-Elder Miller



Enviado desde mi iPad

March 8, 2016

Hey ya'll so I have officially been transferred, and guess where I
am?! Terrassa!! It's a city about an hour in land from Barcelona and
it's really great, I'm staying in my same Zone! I just got here a
little bit ago and my new companion is Elder Islas from Texas! He has
been out for about 9-10 months now and is District Leader! He's super
great and we already knew each other from Zone Conferences and
whatnot. Funny story: when we had our last Zone Conference I talked to
him and gave him a hard time saying that he might train this time, but
turns out I'm his new companion! The Lord does have a sense of humor
hahaha. I'm very excited though :) it's going to be great! We're in a
little bit more of an isolated and smaller place, but I mean in
comparison to Barcelona anything is so no biggy!
This week was a great one! I was pretty sure I would be getting
transferred but we worked hard and I pushed forward to the end! We
were able to meet one of our investigators, Marcos who has a baptismal
date this week and we taught him about receiving answers from the
Spirit and Christ's visitation to the Americas. It was very good and
we were going to invite him to what we call "OLA" which in Spanish
stands for Orar(Pray), Leer(Read) and Asistir(Attend Church) and he
actually promised us he would do those things before we even had the
chance to invite him to do it! He really is so great and it makes me
sad that I won't be able to teach him anymore but it's okay! The Lord
wants me to be in Terrassa!
So yeah, that's pretty much it for this week! I don't know too much
about the new area because I've only been here for 2 hours but it's
all good, with time I will! This is the Lords work and I know it, my
job here isn't to convert others but to really help the Holy Ghost
testify to them of the truth and extend invitations that will help
them come closer to Christ and grow their faith. The truth has been
restored and it is in this Church! The power to act in the name of God
has been restored and we can receive all the blessings our loving
Heavenly Father wants for us through it. I love you all so much and
hope you all have a great week!
-Elder Miller
PS I'll send a picture of where Terrassa is on a map.