#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