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