#36

Hey this week´s been good! We´ve had TONS of fun! Probably too much. Hahaha. And the weather´s cooling down, we´ve had some SUPER hot days this summer and it hasn´t been too bad this past week. Still take my cute little fan with me everywhere I go but the natural breeze from the ocean is helping out a lot! 

Last week one of the Hermana´s from Hermana Grant´s group went home and we were so sad! It mad me sad to think Hermana Grant is leaving soon, I´m probably gonna be a wreck, she is amazing!  

But yeah, we have had lots of opportunities to testify of the book of Mormon. It´s been great!  Just like, by going and visiting people and their friends or family members are there, so that´s been really fun!  

Also, a girl in our ward got her mission call this week! We went over and watched her open her call, and ah, it was amazing! She got called to Manchester, England! I was just in tears, and thinking back on July 12 of last year, when I got my call to another country, that speaks another language, and how scary and exciting that was and that feeling of knowing your life will never be the same again. I can´t believe that was over a year ago and here I am now! It´s really hard a lot of times, but I feel so grateful to my Heavenly Father for this sacred opportunity. That night that she opened her call she came with us to our citas and we had a good time!

Also this week we went out with one of the members to get churros, it was so fun! Haha, and we also went to this fireside like thing with the stake president, and we didnt really know the theme, then we got there and it was about strengthening our families and marriages! Hahaha it was so funny and I took tons of notes and learned a lot. I´m gonna be a rocking wife that´s all I´m saying. Haha just kidding. But it was fun!

It was also so cool, saturday night we had a cita with someone, but we didnt need to be there for like a half an hour, so we started walking around, looking for someone to talk to, and we saw this older man and started talking to him and he said he goes on a walk for a couple hours every night, so we started walking with him, and talked to him about his beliefs, and al final he asked us about our church´s beliefs. We stood with him, overlooking gorgeous Benidorm for a long time, and basically told him everything about the restoration and lots about the plan of salvation and it was just such a surreal moment. I really felt every word I was saying, and it just hit me as I looked out over the sunset and looked at Hna Grant as she was testifying of this true gospel, and the missionary tags we are wearing, I just was like, wow, there are lots of hard times but these moments make it worth it. It was really cool. 

And yesterday in church I got to translate for the first time! So that was cool! I was attempting to translate for a woman from England. It was fun and she was so nice!  We talked about Job yesterday, and about Abraham during relief society.  It was a lesson I really needed to review.  I felt the spirit so strongly as we were talking about how these two great men were tried and they reacted with such great faith. They passed through all these trials and learned and were blessed, of course we always need to trust in the Lord, that´s easier said than done. I was just thinking about how trials are so necessary to our growth, and how sometimes I question why this work is sometimes so rough, but I was to develop that faith that Abraham and Job had.  I want to learn to put God first, above everything and everyone. I am learning to do His will, regardless of the fear and the tiredness and distractions. I will be learning this all my life, but I truly am grateful for this experience to learn. Really I can see that the only way to achieve true happiness is to put ourselves in His hands.  I know the Lord knows I can do it, He knew that Job could do it and that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, but they actually needed to pass through those things for themselves, so that THEY could know that they could do it.  The Lord knows how capable we are, and now we have the chance to develop that, to continually learn in this life, and to trust in Him, so WE can learn how capable we are, and how strong we are if we put our strength in His. I have such a strong testimony of this gospel, I know with everything in me that it is true and I will never deny it.

I know that my Redeemer lives!

Love, Hermana Miller

1 Nephi 19:8-9

#35

HEY! This week has been crazy and so fun!

This week when our plans would fall through we really worked hard to try and keep a positive attitide, keep our heads up! It was fun, we did a lot of walking and talking and laughing and some crying in there at some really hard parts and we had a fantastic and stressful week overall!

Ah, we have so many good times throughout the week but I never know what to write about! We visited a lot of less active members, there are quite a few of those so we work with them a lot!  And yesterday we gave the lesson in Relief Society, take a guess what it was on? How to raise your children in the light and the truth! Hahaa we died of laughter when we got that assignment. Claro ask the missionaries to give the lesson on kids.  But hey, maybe we´re the least biased so we probably are the best ones to give it. Haha and it went well, our branch is like a little family, i just love all of them so much!  But yeah, it was a crazy and stressful week but way fun and we´re thinking these next couple weeks are gonna be crazy as well so all of your prayers are welcome haha!

So today as I was reading in the Book of Mormon, I was reading in Chapter 18 of 1 Nephi.  This is the part where Nephi and his family are headed towards the promised land on a ship, and the part that stood out to me was verse 16, right after Nephi´s brothers had tied him up, then once they saw that they were going to drown in the sea they decided to repent and untie Nephi. Verse 16 shows Nephi´s reaction, ah and I only have my Spanish scriptures and he says, ´´No obstante, acudía a mi Dios y lo alababa todo el día; y no murmuré contra el Señor a causa de mis affliciones.´´ He didn´t blame God for his afflictions, he praised God all the day long! What and example, then later on in verse 21 it talks about how he took the Liahona that was guiding them on their journey, that only works according to their faithfulness, and it started working for him.  It made me realize that the way we react to our trials and challenges is a huge deal. If he had complained and cursed God because of his trials, his heart wouldn´t have been open to recieving the Spirit, so the Liahona wouldn´t have worked for him either. But because he had his heart turned to God, he had the Spirit with him and could recieve that revelation. It´s a really good reminder to me!

I love the mission, the hard times where I´m just overwhelmed and hurt or sad are just so worth all of the good times, the opportunities to try and uplift, encourage and invite! It´s such a blessing, and I feel more and more everyday with every fiber of my being that this gospel is true. Everyday I realize more and more of the depth of my Heavenly Father and Savior´s love for me and for the people around me.  I LOVE THIS GOSPEL. It´s so true, every single part of it, and it´s worth every effort we have to live it and share it!

Thank you for your prayers!

Love, Hermana Miller

1 Nephi 15:24-- This scripture is the best thing of my life! Key to overcoming the temptations of the adversary, I love it!

Ward activity!

Hna Grant cooks like a beast and taught me how to make omlettes!

Us trying to be healthy while planning, peppers and cheese. Haha.

Guadalest! Little pueblo in the montañas.

Me and Hna. Grant!

Me and Erica (the member who took us) overlooking this gorgeous view!

They took us out for chinese food after! So fun!

The water is amazingly blue!

Guadalest

Castle in guadalest, those peeps must have been short.

Resovour (spelling?)

Hermana Grant and I with Guadalest in the background!

Above ground cemetary in Guadalest!

#34

Hey! This week has been great! Full of many miracles and tender mercies!  Last week we went to Alicante to eat delicious Colombian food and hang out with the missionaries there! It was a blast.  We also had a branch activity! It was super fun! We ate food and played games, there weren´t tons of people there, because all the members live so spread out, but it was fun and honestly it felt like a family get together. We were all just in a park, playing games, laughing, ah, it was amazing! I love this place and I am absolutely in love with the people here. They´re so fun!  We made brownies for the activity and they were pretty meteocre (spelling?) ones but everyone thinks brownies we make are amazing because they´re from the U.S..even though we just use ingredients they have here but whaterr..hahaha.

Also Hermana Grant and I got to talk in church on Sunday so that was fun! Haha, i should probably be a little more nervous about speaking in church but now i´m just like, ehh, I´ll just read a conference talk and share about that and it all usually works out.  This last week I said ´´We all need to put our rocks in Jesus Christ,´´ but i corrected myself after so progress! Hahaha. I used the conference talk, ´´Where Your treasure is...´´ by Elder Michael Teh as the basis for my talk. Ah, that talk is amazing go read it! I also used a cita from Sister Linda Reeves´ talk, where she said that the best filter we can have is an abiding testimony in Jesus Christ , ah, i love that talk, it´s one of the best I´ve ever heard. It´s so true, if we can increase our testimony in the Savior then we can have the strength and self control to overcome all of our temptations and weaknesses. That´s probably the greatest lesson I have learned out here. Really having the Atonement living in my life, everyday.  I have had to experience it like never before, and it´s changed the way I look at life.

We just really have had a good week overall. And yesterday we had a special training from President and Hermana Deere! (we switched our p-day that´s why i´m writing on Tuesday). It was incredible! He talked about finding, and looking for the people that are prepared to recieve the gospel.  One elder brought up how it seems like when people do come into the church, or we do start teaching people, it´s not because of something we´ve done, they´ve just kind of fallen into our hands. Which is so true! But it was cool, talking about how if we put forth our effort, then we´re showing the Lord our faith and allowing Him to work miracles in our lives and put people in our paths that we can help Him to uplift.

And we had interviews with Pres. Deere, which are the best! He is literally one of the most incredible people i´ve ever met.

Also Hermana Merrill came into the field last week! Sadly, she´s not in my district..but she´s in a biggerish zone of mine that i see once every three ish months so maybe i´ll get lucky and we´ll have a conference with them at some point! I would die! But since someone in my district was with her in Málaga at the mission home, cuz she was training, she let hna Merrill use her phone to call me and i about died! It was so amazing to get to talk to her for a little while! 

And today, we went to a little pueblo named Guadalest! It is gorgeous! A couple in our branch took us! They speak German and some spanish, and we speak english and some spanish, so all of us trying to communicate in Spanish was funny but we had such a fun time! I took like 100 and something pics so i´ll try to send them!

Well i´m doing really well and loving the mission, loving my incredible companion and loving España! Things are going well here. Suerte con todo en casa!

Love, Hermana Miller

1 Nephi 10:6

#33

This week has been so good and crazy! So many funny things have happened!

So, first of all, we didn´t get transfer calls!!! So that´s awesome. This will be my first transfer with no changes, every other transfer I´ve always had some sort of changes with companions, but Hermana Grant and I are staying together in Benidorm and we´re so excited! I´m glad to be with her for another 1 1/2 months ´til the end of her mission! I still have tons to learn from her, she´s literally incredible, so yeah, hopefully I can aprovechar of the little time I have left with her! 

And since there are no changes that probably means I´ll be here in Benidorm for 3 more months, so the next transfer I can introduce someone into the area. It seems like 3 more months here will be kinda a long time but I´m sure it´ll fly by, just gotta work hard! Also one of my best friends, Hermana Merrill is coming into the mission THIS WEEK and one of my good friends in my district is training so we´ll see!!!!!!!!

Also yesterday we sat by this guy on a bench waiting for a bus and we told him we were from the U.S.  He´s from England and was like, ´´I have family in the U.S.!´´ And we were like, ´´Really? What part?´´ and he´s all, ´´Australia.´´ And we were like, ´´Oh..´´ and he´s like, ´´Well it´s not the U.S., but close, right?´´ and we were just like, ´´Kind of...´´ and it was really funny.  Also last night it was so funny, we had like 15 minutes until we had to go in for the night, so we see this guy walking in the street and we stopped him and started talking to him. He´s a Muslim and he knew quite a bit about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was cool, he was telling us a little about their beliefs, and since I´ve studied a teeny tiny bit about Islam I would try to throw out a couple things I remembered so he didn´t think we were just these ignorant people who didn´t know about other religions. Oh man but it was so funny cuz at the end of our conversation he asked what we knew about Jerusalem, and honestly I don´t know about anything going on in Jerusalem. Hahaha and Hermana Grant is like, ´´It´s really sad what´s going on there..´´ and I was like, ´´Yeah it´s incredible how those three main religions are all found there and all know it´s sacred ground.  Lots of the people are just carrying on with their normal lives, right? Living in peace.´´ Hahah wrong answer! It was hilarious and he was like, so disappointed and I´m pretty sure disgusted that I had no idea that there is tons of bloodshed and war there and I was just like, ´´whoops.´´ haha and we were like, ´´Well yeah as missionaries we don´t watch the news.´´ and he´s like, ´´how long have you been missionaries?´´ and Hna. Grant is like, ´´16 months´´ and i´m like ´´8 months´´ and it was so funny cuz the stuff that´s been going on in Jerusalem has been going on for so many years so I´m pretty sure he was like thinking, that´s the worst excuse ever for not knowing about what´s going on there now. Hahah we got a good laugh about it and also felt kinda dumb for not being more politically aware haha.

Que mas?  Oh yeah! We went to a psych ward to visit one of the members there! Uh, hashtag sketchy-est thing ever! Oh man, we go onto the floor we think it is, start walking around and look in one of the rooms and realize we´re in the birthing section! And we had just walked in, without having to talk to anyone! That´s pretty sketchy security for the new mothers and babies if you ask me. So then we were like, okay, this is obviously not the level of the psych ward if the babies are here, so we go to another level to ask someone, without giving her any explaination of why we were there, and she takes us back to that same baby level and and it like, ´´it´s over there past the pediatric section.´´ Uhm, Spanish doctor say what?! So yeah, the psych ward is right past the place where they keep the toddlers and new born babies...there are just no words. So we go over there and just ring this little bell, tell them who we wanna see, and walk right on in with these huge bags filled with stuff (we only had scriptures in there but still- they didn´t even check our bags!) haha and no questions asked. It was a funny experience.  

Oh man sorry I´m just telling some of the awkward funny stories! We have tons and tons of spiritual experiences everyday too.  One thing that really means a lot to me is something we were talking to the Muslim guy about.  We were talking to him, and testifying to him that we have a prophet today, living, still recieving revelation to help guide us.  What a blessing! As we testified of this to him i felt the Spirit confirming that to me so strongly, and it is something that i cannot deny.   I love how beautiful and true this gospel is. I love that I can talk to educated people of other faiths, that know TONS about the world, and not have any fear. I´m never afraid that they´ll ask me a question I don´t know the answer to. That´s not to say that I know the answer to every question, but I do know that for the grand majority of the time there is an answer and I can find it, and anyone can find it through personal revelation.  Really what I´m trying to say is that I know this church is true, without any shadow of a doubt.  I´m never going to deny my testimony. The Lord has manifested Himself to me too many times, I can never deny the witnesses I´ve seen and felt. What a blessing that is, and with that testimony I know I don´t have to fear the knowledge of man!

Love, Hermana Miller

Mormon 3:20-22

Post script: last week at the end of p´day we passed this place where you pay to have fish eat your feet for 15 minutes and it´s supposed to be like a massage but hermana Grant and i were just freaked out and dying of laughter the whole time! Pictures to come of that random, spur of the moment experience. Hahaha