#53

Feliz Navidad a todos!!!

Ah, Merry Christmas! And what a merry christmas it is! I just love life. Can I just say I am the luckiest person in the world? It didn´t hit me until a few days ago, but I realized I only have 1 Christmas in the mission field (I was in the MTC last Christmas) and I was like oh my I´m so lucky! I get the opportunity several times a day to testify of Jesus Christ and His mission, and I get the privelege to wear His name over my heart, and I just can´t thank Him enough, and my family for all their sacrifices for me to be here. He truly is the Gift for me this Christmas season, and I hope to make that more of a habit for every Christmas I have for the rest of my life. 

Last week was great! For pday we went ice skating and anyone who knows me knows I can´t do stuff like that! Ha, so at first I was just on the side watching and I love doing that! I love watching talented people do cool things! But everyone kept coming up to me and being like, ´´Come on´´ and even though i was thouroughly enjoying myself I didn´t want to be that person who everyone feels bad for, ha, so I grabbed some skates and hit the ice! And I wish I could share some awesome story about picking it up quickly but I didn´t haha. The cute other Hermana´s were so good to me and took turns holding my hand and helping me around, I felt bad but I was like, ´´you all are the reason i´m doing this´´ haha so yeah i had a great time! Still don´t know how to do it but hey, progress!   Then on Tuesday it was the bishops wife´s birthday and she invited us over for lunch! That was fun! Also pobre Hermana Bangerter (who´s from Portland Oregon, haha that has nothing to do with what I´m about to say though) has been sick lately, so that´s been a bummer. She´s awesome though and just keeps being dilligent, she has officially less than a month left now so she´s taking advantage of it! I just love her!

But yeah, so I don´t think I mentioned this but a couple weeks ago we were knocking doors trying to find a person the hermana´s had ocntacted in the street, and we found this one girl from Ukraine, and she was super nice and cute and spoke english, so we talked to her for a second but she told us she was going back to Ukraine in a couple days. So we called the office elders immediately and asked them to get us a Book of Mormon in Ukrainian. And they´re so good to us, and we´re lucky we live fairly close so they come here every once in a while, so yeah we got one and we wrapped it and a restoration dvd and went back over and were just like, hey we only met you for a second but we can tell you´re just so nice and awesome so we brought you this present! It was funny because she was really surprised, and understandably so! Ha, people dont´realize our small encounters with them stand out to us and we don´t forget it! Haha. But yeah, so we talked to her for a while and she was excited to read the book! We had her add us on facebook so we´ll see what happens when I get home if I can talk to her!

Also, Miracle! So I don´t think I mentioned this either, but a few weeks ago at the end of Pday Hermana Cameron and I were walking home with our groceries, and this Nigerian man was looking at us, and honestly, this sounds bad but for the sake of the story, okay so sometimes I have a hard time recognizing/telling the difference between Nigerian men, and so I thought, oh, maybe we know him, so I stopped and started talking to him and quickly realized we didn´t know him, but we talked to him for a second and got his number. We taught him a few lessons in a park and then found out he lives in the elders area, so we passed him to them. He´s really catholic, so I don´t know how close he is to being baptized, but the elders told us that he told them that the night before he met us he had a dream that 2 white girls gave him a book. And when we started talking to him he thought it was interesting, and then later that week we gave him the book of Mormon! We just were all in awe of that story, it´s so cool! Ha, talk about the Lord making our weaknesses of bad vision and not recognizing people strengths!  I also find it cool because tons of the africans and south americans I´ve met here have dreams that foretell things or that guide them and I don´t really hear about that in the U.S. so it´s cool, I don´t know, Hna Bangerter and I were just talking about how God knows all His children and He´ll speak to them in the way He knows they´ll get the message, and those people pay attention to those messages, it´s awesome!

Also, the woman who just showed up to church and wants to be baptized is doing well and well on her way! She´s getting baptized on Keaton´s birthday, so that´ll be cool!

We also had our Christmas dinner which was so fun! Our ward is seriously the best, I am so lucky to be here at Christmas, and with this group of missionaries! And tonight we´re going as a zone to sing in the center and contact people, so I´m way excited! 

I also went and did intercambios this last week and left hna bangerter in our area! She had only been here for one week, but I really wanted to go be with the two south american missionaries haha so she was a trooper and let me! I love that girl. And i went with Hermana Rocha and Hna Becerra and we had such a good time! And my spanish improved a tiny tiny bit haha so that´s good. And oh man, we just had funny experiences that I probably shouldnt/dont have time to share, but yeah, they both like running, so we woke up a half hour early and jogged for an hour straight, they´re beasts, it was fun! I was going slow but hey...still counts haha. We also found out that the man who called out ´´elderes!´´ and we started teaching doesn´t live in our area either, he lives in the office elders area! I might´ve already mentioned that but yeah, we´re passing him too but he´s still way chill and i´m just grateful for the chance to meet these awesome people! 

But yeah, yesterday was zone conference, that´s why we´re having pday today, but it was AMAZING! Seriously, everytime it´s just what i need to hear. Yesterday President Deere talked about prayer, and one thing that really touched me was that he asked, ´´what if i asked you guys to not pray this week, just for one week don´t open up your heart to our Heavenly Father..could you do it?´´ and i started tearing up, and it made me so happy to know that for one of the first times in my life (as in before the mission i dont think i understood this) I would be heartbroken to not talk to my Father in Heaven everyday, several times a day. I need that time, before it was more of just what i knew I was supposed to do every morning and night, but now it´s become a way of life for me and a lifeline of communication that I depend on to find strength and carry on, ah, I just love that I´ve been able to and will continue to be able to develop that! I love this work and I love this gospel and really fast, so we´ve been sharing a message with a couple people this week, just talking about how our knowledge of Christ affects our everyday lives, and what we´re going to give to Him this Christmas season, and making goals to make sure we really do give that gift. So mine is to make sure my mind is in the church every Sunday. I think 2014 is the first year in my life that i´ve been at the church every single sunday, and so now that i´ve learned better to be there physically i want to make sure that when i´m there my time isn´t wasted, that I´m focused on what the speakers are saying and more importantly what the Spirit is telling me I can do to come closer to Christ. That will be my gift. And I invite all of you to give Christ a gift, and make small goals to reach it. I know that as we do this, Christ´s name will become burned onto our hearts, and then when it´s sadly my turn to take this nametag off, it won´t matter as much because His name will permanently be engraved there.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Love, Hermana Miller

Alma 33: 22-23

#52

THIS WEEK WAS SERIOUSLY INCREDIBLE. 

Oh the miracles. 

So first of all, sadly this week the amazing Hermana Cameron went home, and I was so sad! She´s awesome, and I feel very priveleged to have had the opportunity to work with her. She taught me a lot, and she truly loves this work, I really enjoyed my time with her!

But Hermana Bangerter came! And man, she is INCREDIBLE. Seriously I don´t know how this keeps happening to me but I literally get the best companions. I´m not even just saying that or trying to have a good attitude, the Lord just keeps putting me with the best missionaries and I keep learning a ton from them, so yeah, that cycle has kept going with Hermana Bangerter! I feel like she´s one of my best friends already, and she came here ready to work and hit the ground running! She started calling all the girls and asking them how they are and what miracles they´ve seen and ah, she´s a great example to me of just loving people. And she is genuinely interested in the lives of the people we work with and we´ve spent the last few days getting to know people better! It´s been fun and we´ve seen tons of tender mercies! 

So where to start? Um first of all, we´ve been going to lots of former investigators houses, and since I still don´t know this area super well the map has been our good friend this past week.  So yeah, friday night we were going to visit a potential investigators house, she had told us we could come back friday night at six, so we went and....she wasn´t there. But, President Deere taught us that miracles happen when people fail on us, and angels have prepared others in our path, so to keep our heads up.

Well, we start going down the elevator, planning on going to one of our backups, when, as we walked out of the elevator, an older man was there holding his grandson.  Hermana Bangerter asks him how he´s doing, and he´s like, ´´I´m good, you guys can come over whenever you want, you can come to my apartment now, I live on floor 7!´´ and we were like, wait what? All she asked him was how is he doing! Haha, so we pretty much just stare at him and nod okay, and the elevator is small so he goes up first and we are standing there waiting for it to come back down. Haha and we were laughing and I was like, ´´Hermana do things like this normally happen to you?!´´ and she said no. And as we were waiting, suddenly a man from behind comes walking down the stairs, and we turn around, and he see´s our nametags and yells ´´Elderes!´´ and I was like, okay obviously he´s had contact with the missionaries or else he wouldn´t know the boys are called ´´Elders.´´ So we started talking to him, his name is Kilian, he´s super cool, and he has a cousin in Park City who´s a Mormon, and he had been to the english classes years ago in Venezuela with one of his childhood friends who is a member also! So we set an appointment with him for the next day.  Then we were like, okay, that was so weird that that older man asked us to go up but let´s try it! So we go up, and we knock on the door and he´s just this little old man, and he´s like, ´´come in!´´ and we´re like, ´´is there a woman here..?´´ and he said his daughter was there, but we couldn´t see her so we cautiously walk in, then we saw his 28 year old daughter and we were put at ease and they were so so nice! They said they had a Book of Mormon and had been taught by the missionaries! The daughter was like, ´´yeah, it was about 20 years ago and they used to show us videos that they would project onto our wall.´´ Haha, so yeah, we´re super excited about that! And they kept telling us that their family is huge and that we should come over one day when they´re all there and teach them! Yeah, MIRACLES. 

Then it gets better, the next day we go to a relief society activity and try to help out there, but then we had to leave to go meet with Kilian, but the relief society president told us to come back because in an hour they´d be eating lots of typical spanish food. So yeah, we went and met with Kilian and he´s just awesome! He has such high values and he´s so prepared.  And we talked with him for a while, and then we were like, hey, do you want to come to an activity in our church right now? Haha so he came and we crashed the all women relief society party, but they didn´t mind and they were so good to him! They kept giving him food and then the bishop showed up and was talking to him and it was just an awesome enviornment!  Then after we went and explained the Book of Mormon to him, because it´s been a long time since he´s read parts of it, and we watched ´´He is the Gift.´´ It was just such a cool experience.  Then yesterday he came to church and met more members and he loves it! 

Also another woman showed up to church yesterday, and she was like, ´´I lived here for years but 8 months ago i had to go back to Cuba for medical things but the missionaries used to teach me, I already know the Book of Mormon is true and so what more do I have to do to be baptized?´´ Um yeah. That was an incredible miracle!

And then, another funny experience, so we have this friend here. He´s from Nigeria, and he´s just this super super tall black man. Well we´ve taught him a few times but a lot of the time he just seems to overlook the big picture and focus on little things.  He, like a lot of people here, don´t realize why we as missionaries have to have another girl with us in order to teach a single man in his home. Well most of the time we just explain the rule and move on but he is just like, ´´You dont trust me and so how can I trust you?´´ and I was just so frustrated, standing there in his doorway, and I am just super blunt with him and just told him I love God more than anything and I´m not purposefully going to disobey him and I was just so sad and mad honestly. I just feel so much of God´s love for this man and I just want him to be happy and I was just like, I am not letting you go that easily. So I just kept fighting to explain to him, saying things I probably shouldn´t have said, like when he said, ´´I think you´re scared to be around me I can see it in your eyes´´ and I firmly told him, ´´You´re wrong, I wear Christ´s name and I´m not afraid of anything´´ and haha it was a really funny situation that i wish someone had been recording. Well, al final, he said he wouldn´t come to church, and I just got tears in my eyes, which normally doesn´t happen, but I just could feel him missing out on so many blessings and that made me sad. Then after talking some more, long story shortish he said he would come!  Haha...I know people shouldn´t come out of obligation to you but I just needed to get him into that church so he could feel of the power of God that resides there.  And he came! And he got to know the elders and the members and I think he enjoyed it! So yeah, that was exciting!

And then Jen, who is one of my awesome friends here! She´s 12, and she´s been studying with the missionaries for 1 1/2 years, but her mom wont let her be baptized. I think I might´ve already mentioned her, but yeah, her aunt´s in our ward and Jen is adorable! She loves Christ and she´s even doing her personal progress now! And anyway, her aunt was telling me last week that Jen´s mom likes our brownies and that she thinks us making them with the mom would help our relationship with her. And so we got all the ingredients and things ready and took them over to our lesson with Jen. We talked to the mom, which was pretty much my first time saying more than just ´´hola´´ to her, and she said we could make then with her in her kitchen! It was so fun and we just talked and got to know her and it went well, and I know it made Jen happy too! Then the mom made us this Paraguayan (spelling?) dish and it was so yummy! It was a good night. Her mom didn´t want to watch ´´He is the Gift´´ with us, but we watched it with Jen, and at the end of the night she was like, ´´hey this was like a family home evening!´´ and she just seemed to content! It made me so happy.

So yeah. The miracles. We´re blessed. Our bishop is the best, and I just absolutely have fallen in love with this ward. I can already feel it´ll be hard to leave.  I sat by this one woman in sacrament meeting, and she put her arm around me and asked how my family was doing, and I told her good, and she asked me if I was sad to not be with them during Christmas, and I told her that I miss them, but if I had to be anywhere besides home this Christmas I would pick to be here, in this ward, because so many of them feel like family to me! I have been very very blessed to be put here right now. I am grateful that the Lord has allowed me to come here, and learn so much! I was reading in Alma 23 and 24, and I was thinking about how this people had given up all their weapons of war, that they used to shed the blood of their fellow men and to fight against God, once they had come to a knowledge of their wickedness. I was thinking about the things I need to be willing to give up to show the Lord I´m truly converted, especially when I get back home and am put more so back into the world again. And it was interesting because that day Hermana Bangerter had been reading in Alma 44 about when Zerahemnah (bad guy) was surrendering to Moroni, and Moroni asked him to promise to never come to war again against his people, and Zerahemnah was willing to give up his weapons at the time, but he wasn´t willing to promise to never come to war again. And we talked about how of course he was willing to give up his weapons at the time, that would save his life and was the most convenient for him at the time, but he knew in his heart he was still holding onto those ´´weapons.´´ I just thought about the liberation that comes from burying our weapons that we use to fight against that which we know is right.  In Alma 24 the king is telling the people not to unbury their weapons to fight, and in verse 11 he reminds them of the process it was to repent, and how God had forgiven them and how their ´´swords have become bright´´ and that they should hold on to that purity.  I just loved learning more about this and it makes me want to just let go of the sins that hold me back and just give myself over to the Lord, because really, that´s where we´ll find the happiness we´re looking for. But we´re humans and sometimes we forget, but I know the Lord strengthens us when we decide to follow Him! So I invite you, and myself, to think of the ´´weapons´´ we can give up, this upcoming year, so we can freed from the things that might hold us back, and we can more fully give ourselves to the Lord. 

I love you and I love being here! Thanks for the support, and especially for the prayers!

Love, 

Hermana Miller

Alma 23:5-8

Huge paella in the campo!

​Joy´s baptism!

Huge Christmas trees in the mall!

Castles and gorgeous views!

Ah I love this family!

​The Castle!

​I love Spanish Panaderias. Really bad how cheap some of them are though #PracticingSelfControl

#51

Ah this week has been awesome!!!!!

So first off. Ha, where do I even start? So we switched Sam, our fecha (one with baptismal date) to get baptized this upcomingSunday! We´re excited. Should work out, he is awesome and keeps coming to church every week, so we´re really hoping he´s prepared by next Sunday!

Also, so saddest thing, this was Hermana Cameron´s last week in the mission! So we some fun things! Last week for P´day we walked around the gorgeous center of Málaga, and went to a castle lookout point that overlooks the city and the ocean and that was way cool! We also ate at burger king. That wasn´t super cool or anything it was just funny because I hadn´t eaten there in like 8 months! But anyway...

On Tuesday we had a fun morning! So, Hermana Cameron´s brother asked her about her end of mission bucketlist, and she didn´t have one! So she started one, and one of the things was, contact 100 people in one day. So that meant that we wanted to approach 100 people on the street in one day, and try to talk to them about the gospel. And it counted as long as we tried and told them we were missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ, even if they walked away and wouldn´t even take a pass along card. Ha, so Tuesday we were going to do intercambios, and so we had only the morning to work together, and I was like, Hermana, you´re leaving next week let´s just do it this morning! We had no set citas (appointments) so we decided to do it! We put our info on like, 120 mormon.org cards, and we hit the streets! It was awesome, in a couple hours we contacted 100 people on the streets of Málaga. Many rejected us, some nicely, others not so nicely, but 17 of them gave us their information and told us we could contact them in the future to share our message! That´s not bad, almost 1/5. Ha, I was pretty stoked about it. It gives me and my next companion a lot to follow up on next transfer!

Also, yes, new comp! So, her name is Hermana Bangeter! She´s super cute, I´ve only talked to her a couple times, but I meant her when we both were going to trainer´s training 3 months ago. So she just got done doing the second half of training and now she´s coming her to be with me and she ends her mission this transfer! So she´ll only be here for a month and a half then she´s going back to the states! So I´ll at least be here in Málaga for 3 more months, which makes me so happy because I love it here! And I love the ward here! So yeah, I´m excited. Saturday was super fun! We went to the campo with our ward and they made paella and played a little soccer and it was a fun time! It was pretty cold, it´s been pretty chilly lately (but claro, not anything like Utah, I don´t miss that winter at all sadly enough! I don´t miss the snow like a lot of other missionaries haha) but not too bad for saying it´s December!  It was fun, I really do just love this ward! It´s huge, and my goal to learn all their names in 3 weeks was a fail, I still don´t know all of them, but I´m working on it!

And yeah, exciting news!!! So I think I mentioned 2 weeks ago, Joy from Nigeria, the lady in our area book that we called and finally had an appointment with her after weeks of trying who ended up being golden and we set her baptismal date for the 7th of December? Well, yeah, we taught her a couple times and she ended up living the the AP´s area, so we passed her over, and they taught her and she got baptized yesterday!!!!!! It was amazing, and she just is bringing tons of friends to meet the missionaries and she wants her 11 yr old daughter to be baptized and she just LOVES this gospel! She´s seriously amazing. I just loved hearing her testimony and her baptism was beautiful, Michael, the recent convert who baptized Rosi, baptized Joy, too! It is great to see how it get´s him more excited about missionary work! It was just a tender mercy, I was so grateful the Lord lead Joy to us, because honestly we were about to give up on calling her and trying to set up appointments because over the phone things were just weird and never worked out, but the Lord somehow just kept pushing us to give her one more call, one more chance, until finally things worked out in His time and now she´s baptized and so so happy, and sharing her knowledge with everyone!

Also, last week I saw several of my friends! We live close to the bus station, and we were there after intercambios (Hna Cameron went to Granada) and we saw all the missionaries that are training next transfer! And, I saw Hermana Merrill and Hermana Garcia!!! I was like, ´´what are you two doing here!´´ Hermana Merrill has 3 transfers in the mission field and Hermana Garcia just finished her training! My hija (daughter) is training already!!! I was so proud. Those two are way too cool. I was just like, literally I´m so glad I came into the mission when I did. The Hermana´s who are coming in now are training younger because so many of our huge ´´age change wave´´ hermana´s are finishing.  It´s a fun thing to see though, all these amazing missionaries training so soon! 

I love this work! Also, I can´t not mention ´´He is the Gift´´ o sea, en español, ´´Él es la Dádiva.´´ The new church initiative to remind everyone of why we celebrate Christmas is so beautiful! I love it. It has been such a help to us, sharing that video with everyone, getting them in the Christmas spirit, helping them be reminded to focus on our Savior, and help everyone else focus on Him also. I didn´t get to see youtube yesterday, but I know the church was going to flood it with ´´He is the Gift´´ and I´m so grateful for the miracles we´re going to see from this! Last night was so fun! Another thing on Hna Cameron´s list was, ´´sing hymns on the bus´´ so last night we got our hymn books and haha, it was really funny mentally trying to prepare to just sing to random Spanish people on a bus, but we got on and Hna Cameron just announced to everyone that we didn´t want money and we weren´t selling anything, and that we just wanted to spread the Christmas spirit! Haha, then we sang, ´´Venid Adoremos´´ I think that´s O come all ye Faithful, and we also sang ´´Noche de Luz´´ Silent Night, and many sang along with us, which was cool! Then at the end we gave out ´´He is the Gift´´ pass along cards and it was way fun! We ended up talking to this one guy, who spoke english and was way cool, he gave us his number and told us he was interested so we´re excited to see where that goes! And then one older lady waved me over and was like, ´´Are you girls Mormons?´´ and I told her yes, and then she told me that about 5 years ago she would always have the missionaries over, and that she had a Book of Mormon, I talked to her for a while, she was so cute! But in the end when I tried to non pushily ask if we could come by and visit her she just brushed it off. But hey, she has our number, and hopefully seeing us reminded her of the great relationship she had with them.  It was just a fun experience overall! I love being out here during Christmas, preaching of our Savior, who truly is the greatest gift the world has ever recieved! So all of us have the responsibility to invite others to let the light into their lives!  But I can´t lie, I feel super lucky to be a missionary during this Christmas.

Descubre la Dádiva. 

Acepta la Dádiva. 

Comparte la Dádiva.

Love, Hermana Miller

Mosiah 18:29

Nigerian friends- I´ve made a lot of them here in Málaga!

Thanksgiving!

Rosi´s baptism!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire in the streets of Málaga!

Also Hermana Cameron is the best and made me an amazing omlette and smoothie to celebrate my 1 year mark!

I love my district!

Bike ride in Málaga!

#50

Ah this week´s been awesome!

So Monday, we went bike riding! It was my first time riding a bike in a year! It was so fun, and to make it even better, they were electric bikes! A.k.a. you pedal a little bit and they just fly forward! It was so chill. It was great because we rode a long way next to the beach coast, in a way less amount of time than it would´ve taken on normal bikes. It was gorgeous and so fun! 

Then the next day we had district meeting, which was a party! Ha, well it was pretty fun. My district leader, Elder Larios, asked me to give a taller (or talk) and I was like, haha I haven´t given a taller in district meeting in a long time! Thankfully the topic was ´´why is it important to bring friends (or investigators) to the church?´´ with special emphasis on the Sacrament. Which is one of my favorite topics so I loved it!  One thing I really thought about was how we are promised in 3 Nephi 20:8 that ´´He that eateth this bread...and drinketh this [water]...his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.´´ And I thought about how all of us go into the church ´´filled´´ with doubts, questions, family problems (a.k.a. hurt, disappointment), work problems (a.k.a. discouragement, overwhelmed), and all sorts of things. But Christ promises us that if we go and partake of His sacrament, we will be filled, and I have such a strong testimony that He will fill us. He can fill us with the things that make our lives more enjoyable. Maybe the family problems won´t go away, or maybe we won´t immediately find a job or maybe none of these situations will disappear, but the feelings behind those circumstances, the hurt and pain and disappointment and feelings of uselessness...Christ can erase those.  He can erase those and it their place fill our lives with immense joy and comfort and peace, and we can leave the church building with a renewed strength through the Atonement of Christ. I need to draw upon the sacrament more. We all need to draw upon the sacrament more. I just love it and my Savior! It literally saved me yesterday because several things happened and I was just so stressed out and...it was interesting and a little rough. But after lots of prayers and calls things worked out and Rosi was baptized!

Rosi is the sister-in-law of one of the recent converts that was baptized in July here in Málaga, he´s from Nigeria! He is first of all one of the most incredible people. I have never seen someone so willing to give up anything for God. First of all, he came to church with a friend, the hermana´s talked to him and 10 days later he was baptized. He even had a girlfriend he was living with at the time but once he heard about the commandments and the law of chastity he was willing to drop everything and live it all! And he has been praying for months that his brother and sister in law would accept the missionaries and the gospel.  His sister in law, who got baptized last night, is a spanish woman, and his brother of course is from nigeria but speaks spanish. The recent convert doesn´t speak a ton of spanish, but he was always trying to bear his testimony to Rosi in spanish, ah, he´s just so good! So anyway, the Hermana´s started teaching her the transfer before I got here, and she always said she wasn´t ready to be baptized, but a couple weeks ago (i think i may have mentioned this last week) she told us she knows it´s true and was finally ready to be baptized! We were so excited, and last week we saw her everyday before her baptism and she´s just amazing. She was smiling all week and couldn´t wait to be baptized! 

It´s quite a funny situation though, because since she is spanish and her husband is from Nigeria when we´re at her house there´s always a couple Nigerian´s and we´re teaching them! But they don´t understand when we teach her in spanish, so one of us is teaching her in spanish and the other is translating/teaching the Nigerian´s in english! It´s quite funny. They all wanna be baptized but we´re still working with them to make sure they understand everything and really know what they´re doing!

So yeah. Her baptism went well! It was beautiful because the recent convert, her brother-in-law, was able to baptize her! It was so cool. I kind of forgot a couple of details for the baptism...like asking people to be witnesses and planning out our musical number a little better and getting the video´s ready to play while she changed (haha after she was baptized we got the tv out and i was in charge of putting the videos on, and then i accidentally dropped the remote and the batteries went everywhere and it was embarrassing haha but al final it worked out...haha and then she was done changing right after about 1 minute had passed of a 7 minute long mormon message and so then i just cut it off right then and it was a little awkward haha) but then i just had the quote of the breakfast club come to my mind (i think about this all the time actually out here!) that ´´Screw´s fall out al the time, the world´s an imperfect place.´´ and I realized that the most important thing was that Rosi was baptized and felt the spirit. And she did, it was awesome! And we´re hoping her husband will get baptized soon! He was supposed to get baptized yesterday but has been busy with work and hasn´t really been reading in the Book of Mormon, so Rosi very maturely told us she doesn´t think he´s ready yet, so we decided to wait.

Last week also we had a fun thanksgiving dinner in Málaga! It was awesome! Thank heavens my comp is from Idaho, because we were in charge of mashed potatoes, which ive never made before in my life! So that was fun and they turned out good. And the whole thing was just fun, fun to be all together as missionaries and with the Deere´s. Right after I went on an intercambio with Hermana Plummer, who´s in my MTC group! It was fun! It was funny cuz that night we were visiting someone and she accidently pushed the tv remote and it turned on and was the Macy´s Thanksgiving day parade and i was like, ´´turn it off or you´ll make me trunky!´´ it was a funny little reminder that life´s still going on in America and that my family was just waking up and going to celebrate together, I miss them but I´m grateful to be here! These experiences...I wouldn´t trade them for anything! But yeah, the next morning it POURED. But like, POURED. Ha and i had forgotten to bring my coat. And had worn sandals. And a short sleeved shirt. It was hilarious. Thankfully i borrowed one of their umbrellas, but we had no set appointments in the morning, so it was a lot of walking around and contacting and oh man, people just kept staring at me like, ´´what is wrong with that crazy american in the sandals?´´ as there were like floods coming down the streets. But, hey, I loved it and, no wet socks so, I was loving it hahaha. 

Also this week in our mission we worked to get 250 investigators to church mission wide. We ended up getting 210, which is still great! And in our ward we had 20 total come, so we were super pleased! We saw lots of miracles from the Lord. Including one man who came, who we taught for the first time on Saturday. It was funny, we contacted him last week on P´day, he´s nigerian, and i´m sorry but it´s a little hard for me to tell the differences between them sometimes, so he was like looking at me, and i was like, okay i´m sure we know him i just dont recognize him! So i said hi and then pretty quickly realized neither of us knew him. Haha, well anyway we got his number and a few days later, on Saturday introduced the Book of Mormon to him. It went well, and he´s already going to the Catholic church, but he said he´s willing to come to our church too, just to see. And he ended up coming and said he really liked it! So i´m excited to see where things go with him!

It was just a crazy but awesome week. I´m so grateful for the sacrifices of my family so I can be here, I just love the Lord, and I´m grateful He´s so merciful to let the mission be part of my path. I seriously don´t know where I´d be without the knowledge I´ve recieved of my dependence on God and the importance and simplicity of this gospel. It has changed everything for me! Yesterday we had our primary program and it was a good reminder to me of remembering the simple things. God loves us. He is our Father. Christ is our brother and His truth has been restored! 

Love, Hermana Miller

Matthew 18:1-5

#49

THIS WEEK WAS FULL OF MIRACLES.

Seriously, one of the best weeks. Ever. This week we went over to our investigator, Aremi´s house.  She is the 15 year old from Paraguay, her and her twin sister are our investigators! We went over and watched the restoration video with her, and set a fecha (baptismal date) with her!  It´s for the 7th of December! Her sister was asleep so she didn´t watch it with us and we didn´t set a fecha with her that night. 

I seriously just love the members here. There´s a mother and her daughter (21) and her son (10) that live close to us, and apparently a few months ago they were less actives, but they are fully active and incredible now! They have us over every week to do a noche de hogar and are sharing the gospel with their friends nad feed us and they´re amazing! They´re from Paraguay, and they make this amazing red sauce thing, and it´s so great cuz they put it on everything! They made us chicken and other night hot dogs and another day pasta and every one of those had this salsa stuff on it that is delicious! I just love their family. There´s also another family that´s from Argentina, and i´m obsessed with them.  They have a daughter in the Barcelona mission, and they have us over once every couple weeks and also they have a 20 year old daughter and we talk about school and music and she´s just awesome! And when we share spiritual thoughts she just looks so interested and she just is wonderful and she loves us.  I don´t know, I wish I could give you a better picture of just how awesome they all are here, and the fun we have together and the spirit we feel but it´s hard to describe.  

OKAY so i´m an epic fail! This week Elder Kearon, the general authority came, and i forgot to bring my notes, i just seriously want to tell you everything that happened and everything he said because it was just amazing! We had two separate conferences for all the missionaries in our mission, which means in each gathering there were about 110 missionaries! We had the luck of being here in Málaga, ward 1, because they picked to do it in our chapel! So we had like an 8 minute walk to the church, and some people had to come on buses for like 9 hours!  It was a nice change for me to be right here where the conference was taking place.

He talked to us about dilligence and ´´attacking our morning´´ meaning that when we wake up and do our morning exercises they shouldn´t just be done going through the half hearted motions but we should put all we have into it! Even with our showers, he said, ´´give it a cold blast at the end, get yourself pumped up for the day!´´ and said even showering and getting ready ´´dilligently´´ can be a symbol for our dilligence for the day, showing the Lord that from the moment that clock rings 7am we´re going at our day hard! I just loved that. It was especially funny, because Hermana Cameron loves to run, so we go on runs in the morning. And i really like to run to, but man, this girl is a trained athlete. She is going super fast, and even though I go without stopping, she´s literally running circles around me, but she is so awesome, because she knows i´m giving it my all so she doesn´t mind.  But yeah, the morning of this talk with Elder Kearon we went running, and I tried to go harder than usual, so we felt really good about our morning workout.  Then that day, as he was talking about dilligence in our workouts, suddenly he turns to President and Hermana Deere and then turns to us 110 missionaries and is like, ´´Can we have Hermana Cameron and Hermana Miller come up here please?´´ and I was like, oh my is he going to have us bear our testimonies on morning workouts!? (because the week before we told our district leader that was one of the things we did well haha kinda as a joke!) . But then he just had us do a practice with him, where we had to contact him in the street, and say the things we´d normally say, just with no excitement in our voices. It was funny and weird first of all, contacting in english (cuz he´s from england, oh yeah so i forgot to mention our whole reunion was in english! it was such a cool thing since normally they´re all in spanish!), and second of all doing it without smiling! Haha. But it was cool because after, President Deere said in our leadership meeting that we had the day after with Elder Kearon, that Elder Kearon had asked him for a companionship that is just really happy and smiley (to make the practice funnier since we had to have no enthusiasm), and him and Hermana Deere said Hna Cameron and I. He said in the leadership meeting that those two are just full of light, and it meant so much to me.  I don´t know, of course i´m not boasting in myself, but it just meant a lot to me that in a meeting with 110 missionaries, when someone asked my mission president and his wife for someone happy and loving, they would think of me.  I just want to live worthy of that, I love this work and I love this gospel and the hope it brings to us. One of our investigators asked us the other day, ´´how are you two so happy?´´ and it´s funny because literally we just looked at each other and were like, ´´well, It´s really just because of the message we have, because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.´´ A true joy comes from knowing you´re a child of God. I´m literally obsessed with the new children´s song, ´´La familia es de Dios.´´ or in english ´´The family is of God.´´ I carry it around with me in my bag, i love when it says, ´´Our Father has a family, it´s me, it´s you all other too we are His children.´´  How simple is that truth? But it´s funny because I´ve met people out here who question that, or are even offended by that, saying it´s offensive to the Almighty Creator that we claim to be His children.  But I know of the strength and conviction and peace and joy that come from knowing that simple truth. Elder Kearon also had all the Hermanas stand up and recite the young women theme, it was powerful.  But also, I dont want to give people the wrong idea that i´m just out here smiling 24/7 and always thinking, ´´life´s good because I know who I am´´ no haha. Especially this week had rough times, Monday I got sick and I´ve been sick ever since, i have a terrible cold and my nose is constantly running and at night it´s hard to breathe and teaching lessons in spanish when these people can barely understand me with my accent as it is, and now it´s this american ginger speaking spanish with a rough accent and rough voice because I´m sick haha it´s frustrated me. I´ve been like, ´´God I wanna give you more but I don´t have much to give right now!´´ and also my feet have been killing because all my good shoes got trashed from walking so much, so I´ve purchased some other shoes that i thought would be good, they seemed good in the stores, but they just KILL my feet. And once we were out in the street, we didn´t have time to go back and change them, so I walked around in them all night and just tried not to cry, but man I´m sure my smile walking around that night looked pretty fake, haha but I was trying. Literally putting one step in front of the other because each step hurt. Hopefully I was just breaking them in because I dont spend more money on shoes haha. But anyway, I´m just saying that this week I was not feeling to great, but of course we just went and worked like normal and even though it wasn´t much, i just tried to give the Lord what I could by being mostly obedient, and really pushing to get our investigators to read the Book of Mormon and pray and especially come to church.

Well, Friday night we did intercambios and a brand new missionary came into my area with me, and I was in charge of the area alone for the first time! It was intense and went so so well! Even though i felt gross, we went to our citas, and hardly anyone failed us! We taught the plan of salvation to the twins, and set a fecha (baptismal date) with the other twin! So they´ll hopefully be getting baptized in two weeks! Then we went to one of the recent converts´ families home.  His sister in law had a fecha for Nov. 30, and when we got there she said, ´´When did I say I would get baptized again?´´and we told her and she said, ´´great, will you put my husband down too? We´re getting baptized together!´´ She is fully commited, and I dont know if I even told the story of her, she´s been recieving the missionaries for a while, but she always said she wasnt ready for baptism, and one day we taught her the plan of salvation and asked her to pray with us to know if it was true, then she prayed about it, and when she asked about the plan the spirit came so strong. Then she went on to ask about the Book of Mormon, and the Spirit was even stronger, and when she finished she was just crying. That was a few weeks ago, but yeah, now she´s getting baptized this sunday and we´re excited! So that was a miracle!

Another miracle! So i was going through the area book my 2nd day in this area, and I was calling a lot of the old potential investigators (or street contacts) and i called this lady named Joy from Nigeria. Well long story short, for my whole time here we´ve been trying to meet with her but for one reason or another (her fault sometimes, our fault other times) it just hasn´t worked out. Well one day we were walking in the street and I hadnt tried for a while, and suddenly i just thought to call her, so I did, we set up an appointment and finally it worked out! We went and showed her the Book of Mormon and set a baptismal date with her in the 1st lesson! Which I don´t know if i´ve ever done before, but she´s just so prepared! Then we invited her to church, and she came! It was awesome, everyone kept coming up to her with the biggest smiles on their faces and asking her name and introducing themselves and i was just like, ´´wow, members are SO CRUCIAL to the work!´´ and she just kept saying, ´´í like being here, people are happy here´´ and it was awesome. So she came for all 3 hours, but really we had worked so hard to get our other investigators to church, especially sacrament meeting.  So i was like calling the recent convert and asking if his family was coming and calling the twins and they said they were coming, haha it was just funny, i just really wanted them there so they could feel the spirit that we find in the church! Well, finally, 5 MORE INVESTIGATORS walk through the door at the beginning of sacrament meeting (we have sacrament meeting last in our ward) it was such a blessing! I have never had that many in church! I just wanted to cry and kept thanking God with the prayer in my heart for letting us see this miracle! It really proved a lot to me. It helped me see that God works the miracles, and I am nothing, but also that it is through our dilligence that the Lord can work His miracles, I felt like that dilligence was lacking in me the week before, but this week, even though I didnt have much to give, I gave what I had and the Lord worked with it.  Elder Kearon talked about the miracle of Christ feeding the 5000 with the little bit of bread and fish, and how the disciples gave that to Christ, and that was all they had, but look what Christ did with the little they had? He fed a multitude. I know it´s the same with us. Even when we feel like we don´t have much to give to the Lord, because of sicknesses or weaknesses or fears or whatever it may be, as we give Him the little we´ve got, and we are dilligent and just sacrifice a little bit of our effort and time for the Kingdom of God, He can take those little offerings and work miracles with them. And as a reward we can feel the peace and pure happiness that come from knowing the Lord does His work, all He requires is that we try. So then i realized even in my snotty and pained foot state, trying to hold back the tears and keep walking...the Lord can work with that. We just have to let Him work with that, so when we´re in those hard situations, we cant let them turn our hearts hard, but instead we just have to turn our hearts to the Lord, and let Him work miracles with the little we have to offer Him. What a cool thing to be an instrument in His hands!

I love this work. I´m not perfect. I have hard moments, but I´m grateful that the Lord will work with me and that He´s allowing me to change, even if it´s really slowly...He´s patient haha. 

Thank you all! And have a great Thanksgiving!!!

Love, Hermana Miller

Psalms 100:1-5

#48

This past week was crazy and super stressful and emotional and so great!

We had two intercambios, one here and one in Almería! They went super well, but since I don´t know our area too well yet I left for both of them so I felt weird being out of my area so much!  The first one we did here, super close to our area, in Málaga. These Hermana´s are super awesome! We knew they had been struggling though with several things, so we just kept praying that it´d be a good, insightful intercambio, and it was!  When i was in their area, we just kept praying to find miracles, and we knocked on someones door that they had taught a while ago, and it was the wife of the man they had taught. She said he wasn´t there, and just as she was about to shut the door I remembered something Hermana Heaton had taught me on one of our intercambios, to just ask people if they have 5 or 10 minutes right then that we could come in and share a quick message. Most people make up excuses and say no, but when we asked her, this woman said yes! It was awesome, we entered and started talking to her and her brother and I don´t know why but I randomly asked the guy if he was married and he told us his wife died a couple years ago, then he went on to say that he´s felt her several times since she´s passed away, and he asked us why. It was incredible, it gave us such a good chance to teach the plan of salvation, and testify to him that his wife knows about this plan, and she wants him to learn about it.  Then the hermana I was on the intercambio with told them we´d been praying for a miracle before we´d got to their house, and the Spirit was super strong.

And i got to go to Almería this week! While we were walking in the streets I saw several people I knew and that was super fun! We also ate with Manolo and Manuela and their family, and they asked me to say the prayer (like they always did while I was serving there so I´d learn Spanish) and after the prayer they all freaked out and were like, ´´You´ve finally learned it, you´ve gotten so much better!´´ haha and I laughed cuz my spanish is still pretty bad and I was just thinking about how much worse it must´ve been when I was there haha.  It was so great to walk those streets again, and it really freaked me out how it felt like I had just been there days before, like no time had passed since I left but everything had changed. I feel like I´ve changed a little, and the area has changed a little, but it was interesting because as I asked her about some of their new investigators I realized lots of them are my old investigators. I really am hoping that some of their times have come, and that while they weren´t being taught for several months that they had been being prepared to be taught again and embrace it this time! But we´ll see!:)

When I got back Friday night we went and had a Noche de Hogar with a family, and with one of their nieces, who isn´t a member. She´s 12 and has been recieving the missionary lessons for 1 1/2 ish years and wants to be baptized so badly but her mom wont let her! It´s so sad, but she´s awesome and is doing personal progress right now, so she taught the lesson on repentance. Ah, I just love the youth! Seriously I can just tell they´re so much stronger than I ever was, or even am and I just am lucky to know them. I seriously just look at some of them and am like, ´´I´m looking at future stake presidents and apostles´´ they just love the gospel, and they get it like I never did.

Saturday night we had a talent show, and it was so so fun! Haha and like 3 hours long so that was a little awkward cuz we had 2 investigators there, two 15 yr old girl twins from Paraguay, and they were like, ´´when´s this gonna end´´ haha but it was good. Us missionaries attempted to prepare something, one of the elders had changed the words to a really popular song here by Enrique Iglesias and he changed it to be about baptism instead of partying and it´s the most clever thing ever! Haha our execution of it was kind of embarassing due to our lack of time to prepare..but it was still so fun! 

Also another cool thing happened, so mom, that cake mix you sent me for my birthday, well saturday it was a young adult girls birthday in our ward and so we were like, okay she´s coming to clean the church the morning of her birthday so we´ll bake it for her and give it to her there! Then she ended up not coming, but another young adult girl was there and i was thinking, ´´i think she told me my first sunday here that it would be her birthday today too..´´ but i couldnt remember, but then one of the members confirmed to us that it was! So we ended up singing for her, and when we walked in the room and started singing to her she started crying! It was so cute and cool and awesome to see that the Lord remembers all His children, even if we´re forgetful humans, He works through us to touch other people.  I just love the Lord and I love that He knows me, and I love that He knows all of us. He is the God of Abraham and Moses and Isaiah, He parted the red sea, and He created the earth and He guided the children of Israel out of Egypt, but He is my Father.  The One who sends me tender mercies, the One who comforts me when I say embarrassing things, the One pushes me when we´re running in the morning, the One who sends revelation to my mind as I kneel to say my prayers before bed. What a miracle!

Also my address!

Hermana Miller

c/ Alfredo Nobel N·8, 2·F

29010 Málaga

España

Love, Hermana Miller

Alma 38:9

#47

Can I just say I just absolutely love this?  I love it so so so so so much. La Obra Misional. I am just so grateful for life.

This week was INCREDIBLE.  So first of all, last week I had my first concilio, which is leadership council. It was super fun! I was stressed out because on Friday I knew we would have to tell our zone what our leaders were telling us in the concilio, so I was taking notes like crazy!  But yeah, first of all, Hermana Cameron and I went and walked around this gorgeous centro in Málaga, and took pictures next to cathedrals and pretty buildings and had so much fun! Then we met up with some of the zone leaders from the mission and walked around and shopped a little, then headed over to Fuengirola- where the mission home is!  

I got to see tons of awesome people I know that I haven´t seen in a while, and I also got the chance to meet tons of new missionaries! It was fun. Hermana Deere cooked us café rio, which is the best! It was fun and yummy. Then we listened to the AP´s talk, and Hna Deere and President Deere also talked. They talked a lot about obedience and getting people to church. I really wanna focus on these two things, which is what our mission if focusing on especially this month! It´s awesome because getting people to church has always been so hard for me, this last week Hna Cameron and I hit our mission´s standards- minus having people in the church (given it was stake conference and we went all the way to Granada, so I think that didn´t help our situation, but still!). So yeah, this month our mission has a goal of getting 250 investigators in church on November 30th! Y vamos a lograrla/alcanzarla!

Also Tuesday I got the best birthday package ever- thank you SO MUCH family!

Speaking of Spanish, so Friday we had zone meeting and we had to give a talk on what the AP´s talked aobut, and since the AP´s are in our district, they of course were there to hear it, ah talk about pressure, I´m just like, they´re right here and they did it perfectly and now I have to try to copy that in front of them! Needless to say I prepared a lot, and in the end we did alright! Hna Cameron is just great at public speaking so she did an incredible job, I just tried not to hold her back too much haha. It was awesome because right before, we were doing interviews with President Deere, and man he is just amazing! He really made me feel calm and realize that I just do my best, the Lord called me here and He´s who I work for, He´s who I´m trying to represent.

We met tons of new people this week and found several new investigators! Mostly we found them by contacting potential investigators (people we contacted in the street) and teaching them and they happen to bring their friends or we meet their friends/family members at their house! We´ve seen many miracles.  One of our goals was to set more baptismal dates, and we were able to set a couple this week with some very prepared people!  

Also I got the chance to go on an interchange this week, my first one! Her name is Hna Arce and she´s from South Carolina and I learned so much from her! We taught this one young girl who is so prepared! She brings up things she´s heard in church and is like, ´´so can you explain more to me of what this is?  should i be living ___ law?´´ she just wants to make sure she´s doing everything the Lord asks of her, and she hasnt been baptized yet and already has her mind set to the temple! What an example for all of us.

And, TENDER MERCIES. This weekend we had stake conference in Granada! And I saw tons of people from my Almería ward!!!!!!!!!!!! Ah it was incredible! I saw Manolo and Manuela and their kids (the family that was baptized in February!) and tons of other friends and it was amazing! I also saw the amazing Hna Andrew again, it had been like 6 months and I freaked out to say the least! I also learned a lot from the speakers in the conference haha. They really focused on small and simple things and having consistency in them. The stake president gave 3 suggestions, 1)When was the last time you told your wife, husband, kids, and other family members ´´I love you, and I need you.´´ 2) When was the last time you bore your testimony of this gospel in front of your family, in day to day living? 3) Be firm and constant in small and simple things (family prayer, family home evening, family scripture study) and he said we shouldnt let our kids leave the house without having our family kneel in prayer to send them out into the world. 

I love all these small and simple reminders that are the keys to living a happy, Christ centered life. I want them to be engrained into my soul. God is good. Jesus Christ lives. Joseph Smith was His vessel to restore His church once again, and we have all the tools we need to return to live with Him after this life!

I love you all and want to say thanks for your prayers in behalf of the missionaries, they are felt and I am so thankful for faithful prayers!

Love, Hermana Miller

3 Nephi 27:19-21-- we´ve shared this with a lot of people this week, and really focused on talking about the doctrine of Christ with everyone! One thing I´ve really realized these past couple weeks is that Christs atonement can cleanse us every day through the Holy Ghost. It doesnt only happen one time with baptism, or even only every week with the sacrament, everyday we can feel that blank page, renewing power that comes from The Atonement of Jesus Christ, what a blessing! Also Hna Cameron said something that really impacted me, she told some members that when she prays at night, she thinks back on her day, and goes through the gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, recieving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) and makes sure she´s lived all 5 of those steps everyday. I started doing this and I love it! Really helps me give an account to the Lord and myself of what I´m doing each day.