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
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