May 31, 2016

Well this week has been a slower week with a big SURPRISE! This week
we had a Mission Conference with half of the mission and the Europe
area president, Elder Dyches came and spake to us about planning!(Fun
stuff huh? Hahah) Then we had a normal week of visits and contacting
in the streets! And at the end of the week we received a call telling
us some crazy news....but I'll write about that at the end of the
letter!
So for the mission conference half of the mission went to Barcelona
and so we received some Elders in our Piso from Valencia and that was
pretty fun! President Dyches spoke to us about time management and
effective planning and it was very interesting! So that took a good
amount of time out of our schedule, but after we just continued in a
pretty slow week.
So Elder Tyson and I knew transfers were coming up and we receive
calls on Saturday evening telling us where we are going from our
district leader, or a call from President for a leadership
assignment(Zone Leader, District Leader, training, white washing,
etc.). So Saturday we are walking the streets and we were expecting
that we would stay together for at least a month, so we pick up the
phone to call an investigator and we see two missed calls from
President and we just think, "NOOO!!!". So we call him back and Elder
Tyson gets called to be a trainer and he starts crying because we
wanted to stay together and Jairo and Vanessa were going to be
baptized next week. So then to my surprise he passes the phone to me
and President asks me, "You ready for an adventure Elder Miller?" And
I say, "Of course President!" And then he tells me that he would like
to call me to open an area in Valencia, and I was just stunned! But
then I say yes and so after 3 short months in Terrassa, I'm leaving to
open up Valencia 1B with Elder Gonzalez from Peru!
I said my farewells this weekend and the barrio was really sad to see
me go and Jairo and Vanessa were just bawling their eyes out. It was
hard to leave so close to their baptism and so short notice but I know
the lord has a purpose for this change! Valencia is very warm but
called The Promised Land by all the mission, because everyone is super
nice and religious so I've always wanted to serve here! So I'm super
PUMPED! So I don't have much time to email but that's the low down, so
now I'm here in Valencia! Have a great week, love you!
-Elder Miller

May 23, 2016

Hey todos! Another busy week here in Terrassa! This week has just been
jam packed, from Stake Conference in Barcelona to blowing up things in
district meeting to climbing up a mountain to getting stuck in the
middle of a rain storm to find 20 new investigators!!! We worked our
butts off this week and I've just been so tired, but it's a good
exhausted.
We started off the week with District Meeting and every companionship
in our district reached three of the Standards of Excellence for our
mission(There's 5 Standards of Excellence or "Pautas" in Spanish and
they are: 1 Baptism, 3 Investigators with baptismal dates, 12 member
present lessons, 6 investigators in church and 8 new investigators)
and so because we reached those goals completely as a district we shot
off confetti cannons during our district meeting!(btw we were 1 of 2
districts in the entire mission who did that!) So that was pretty
great!
During this week we found 20 new investigators and normally throughout
my mission I've found generally around 7-8 new investigators a week on
average but this week was not a normal one I guess! We opened our
mouth and the Lord blessed us with 3-4 families to start teaching so
we're very excited about them!
Our investigators Jairo and Vanessa are AMAZING! They are super
excited for their baptism on the 4th of June and are progressing very
well, they are SUPER SUPER PREPARED. They came with us to stake
conference this week and were able to speak with President Dayton and
President Dayton told them that he was coming to their baptism, so
that's exciting too! We had a lesson with them on Sunday and as soon
as we left it started "POURING!" like Florida rain but more intense,
it looked like we had walked into a hurricane! Literally the second we
walked outside we were Drenched, head to toe hahahahah and we were
only wearing short sleeve shirts because it was hot earlier, and our
next visit canceled on us right then so we ran back to Piso, got
changed and threw on a couple jackets and headed back!
We ended the week with Stake Conference of the Lleida Stake, which
basically is the Zaragoza Stake but Lleida is more convenient so it's
the Lleida stake! So we had the meeting in Barcelona and we took Jairo
and Vanessa and went and it was really good! We also got to go to a
meeting for the recent converts, with my recent convert, Ximena and
she is doing so well and just loved everything. (Btw Ximena will be
going to the Madrid temple for baptisms next month! So that's exciting
too!)
It's been a busy week but a good one! Today for Preparation Day we
climbed up a mountain called La Mola with he member who baptized
Ximena, Jose Peroni and it was super fun, we walked a TON but it was
super cool! We could see the Pyrenees Mountains, which is on the
border of France and Spain, so I actually did see France today! Pretty
crazy stuff, but it's been another good week! Hope all is well, LOVE
YOU!
-Élder Miller

May 16, 2016

Hola! Well another crazy busy week here in Terrassa!! This week we
just destroyed it, we hit our missions "Standards of Excellence" which
is 12 (we actually got 15) member present lessons, 3 investigators
with a baptismal date and 8 (we found 14!) new investigators! This is
the first time Elder Tyson and I have been able to do that in our
entire missions so we were very happy about that achievement and all
the people we were able to help, but we really just pushed ourselves
stinking hard this week! Everyday we would just get back to our
apartment just dead, with aching feet and we ended the week with a
fast on Sunday so we could meet our goals and we did it! And our
investigators Jairo and Vanessa are married and are going to be
baptized on the 4th of June!!
On Monday we had a visit with Jairo and Vanessa and we were talking
and Elder Tyson and I have been trying to figure out if they're
married(because they can't be baptized if they aren't married and
living together), so Elder Tyson just says, "So are you married?" And
they tell us all the details of their marriage and Elder Tyson and I
are trying to not freak out out of excitement! So that night we teach
about the Doctrine of Christ and invite them to be baptized, and they
say YES!! WOOOOOOOHHOOOOO 🎉🎉🎉🎉We continued teaching them and as
they've read the Book of Mormon they told us that they really know
it's true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! Jairo came to church
and seemed to like it!
So this week on Thursday we finally did member splits so that we could
double book up our day with lessons, so Elder Tyson went with the
member who baptized Ximena, Jose Peroni in Rubí and I went with a
member from Honduras named Ernaldo in Terrassa. Luckily all of our
visits canceled, so we spent 6 hours walking the streets and
contacting people! We spent 3 hours getting denied and shut down
pretty hard but later in the day we talked to some funny people and
found some new investigators!!
Later in the week on Saturday we go to Rubí to visit some people and
it's been pretty warm lately so we've been rocking the short sleeves
and it's just been super nice. Mother Nature took advantage of our bad
foresight and planning and played a good one on us that day, because
as soon as we got on the train going down to Rubí, clouds appeared out
of nowhere and we got ABSOLUTELY drenched! The lesson we had planned
canceled and we enjoyed walking around drenched from head to toe
hahaha, isn't missionary life just the best?! :) (I'm not trying to
sound sarcastic with that haha!)
Gosh being a missionary is definitely very challenging physically,
mentally and spiritually, but ITS THE GREATEST!!! I love my mission
and the opportunities I have everyday to help my brothers and sisters
come closer to Christ! I know we ALL can change for the better as we
turn to Christ and apply his atonement in our lives daily, we can
change and become the person he wants us to be! I love you all, have a
great week!!!
Besitos😘,
Élder Miller

May 10,2016

Talking to Austin on Mother's Day, new companion Elder Tyson, zone goal of giving out 16 Book of Mormons this week

Hello everyone! So I'm two skypes into my mission now, AHHHH!!!! Haha
only two more to go, and a year and 4 months! It feels weird knowing
that I'm getting pretty close-ish to my year mark..but it's just a
reminder of how precious my time I get as a missionary is! Welp on
another note this week has been really good, Elder Tyson and I are
starting to start to get into the groove of things as a companionship
and things are going well!
This week we went to visit a less active woman named Mili and she made
us some BOMB Peruvian Food, (Lomo Saltado) and they didn't have a man
there so they invited another less active man over who we didn't know
named Mauricio! He said he had seen us by his house a couple of times
but never came up and talked to us, but he said that if we came up to
talk to him that he would meet with us, and at that moment in the
lesson said, "I think the Lord is trying to tell me something". So we
are going to meet with him this week and he's super nice! It's really
amazing seeing so many miracles like that here, I'm dumbfounded seeing
the amount of miracles we see on a daily basis, I have truly seen the
Lord works in this area of Terrassa and Rubí.
Contacting last week we found a man named Jairo and asked if we could
visit him and he told me he was NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS with a member
family (The Solorzanos), and that his wife(I hope she's his wife...)
had two children baptized into the church down in Ecuador!!!(MIRACLE!)
And so we went and taught them several times last week and they are
GREAT! Jairo seems a little bit more Cold to us, but really is a
softie inside hahaha. It was super funny when we taught the
Restoration, right before we start teaching he tells me, "I have to be
honest. I've meet with a lot of religions and I have some pretty hard
questions that no one seems to have the answers to...like Why are
there so many churches in the world?! And why do all of them say that
they are the true church?" Elder Tyson and I look at each other and
can't help but snicker a little as we tell him we have the very answer
to those exact questions in this lesson we were planning on teaching.
We taught the Restoration and they both accepted an invitation to be
baptized and now we just hope they're married so that they can do it
sooner than later!
I literally could write miracle stories in this letter for pages and
pages but I don't have much time, but I can share my testimony that I
know that the true church of Jesus Christ has been restored, and that
Jesus Christ is the head of this church and that he guides it to this
day. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that he loves each one
of us, I have seen him reach out to those who seem to be just on the
edge of giving up completely, to those who don't seem they can carry
on, to those who are hopeless and heavy leaden. "Come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and
ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light." (Matthew 11:28-30). I know that we can receive this rest
and peace that the gospel brings through turning our hearts unto him
and truly committing to follow him more fully, through repentance and
baptism(or worthy partaking of the Sacrament for members). I have seen
the peace it has brought unto me, and I know you can feel it too. I
hope we can all turn our hearts unto the Savior more fully, I love you
all very much. Have a great week!
-Elder Miller

Enviado desde mi iPad

May 2, 2016

BOOOM!!!! Ximena got baptized this week!!!!!! So yeah, I guess you
could say that this week has been pretty great haha. I also am having
a great time working with Elder Tyson! We also helped with two moves
this week which were pretty hard, but we've been running around
working hard here in Terrassa!
We started off the week visiting investigators and members to get
Elder Tyson introduced into the area and to start adjusting. And that
was really good, we've been able to see a lot of miracles and he
really works with the members very well!
Elder Tyson is also SUPER FUNNY! He's very outgoing and has about a
million and one funny stories so there's never really a dull moment
with him haha. I've really come to enjoy the work these past two
transfers and it's just so amazing this chance that I have to serve
the Lord in this capacity.
So this week we received a call on Thursday night asking if we would
help with a move from a member and of course we said yes, so we get
there Friday morning and we have a FULL apartment to move in one day,
and we have two other men to help us....plus there's no elevator(we
had to move all the heavy appliances too). So yeah that was a nice
fun, 4 hour move! Elder Tyson and I were just sooo tired after, but we
had to run home, shower and get ready really quick because we had
other things to do! Run, run, run! So we are just absolutely dead
after this whole move, and turns out they are going to move all that
stuff again because they moved everything in with their mom and when
they find the apartment, we got to move everything out and into this
apartment, so that's some pretty fun stuff!
Ximena's baptism was really good! She chose to be baptized by a member
who always came with us to her lessons named Jose Peroni, and they are
just like best buddies! The baptism was VERY stressful though because
we went to fill up the font and prepare everything for the baptism,
which started at 7 PM and by 6:50PM no one was there.....I was
flipping out! But miraculously Ximena and Jose show up at the same
time, and literally within 5 minutes 60 members were there, taking
pictures and congratulating her! It was such a miracle, the baptismal
program was SUPER short, maybe 30 minutes or less but it was still
really great program. She was baptized and confirmed the next day, and
literally all the members just swarmed her with love and friendship,
so I think that was the most amazing thing for me! After her baptism
literally everyone came up to her and hugged her and congratulated
her, and she just started bawling, it was a very tender mercy seeing
her switching from an investigator and relying on us, to being able to
turn to these members(now that she's a member), which makes me super
happy to see.
This week has been an amazing one to start the transfer with and Elder
Tyson and I are super pumped! I really know that people can change,
not only from bad to good, but from Good to better! As we repent daily
and continually choose to follow the Savior we will be guided back to
our Father in Heaven, it may be hard but as they saw in Spanish, "Vale
la pena" which means it's worth the pain. As we do this our losses
will be recompensed 10 fold, thanks to a love father in heaven and a
Savior who paid the price for our sins. I know that these things are
true and that baptism is a key step in our eternal progression. I love
you all and hope you have a great week!
-Elder Miller