Silver City Week 22

This has been a good holiday for me and Elder Stephenson. We had
Thanksgiving dinner at the Treagers and the Waters - I'm surprised I didn't throw up. The Treagers also invited the new senior missionaries to dinner as well - Elder and Sister Thomas. They're the new directors of the institute and will be in Silver for two years; they're from California and they decided to sell their house and give away all their stuff to go on missions for the rest of their lives - way to apply Elder Yamashita's talk and be ambitious for Christ. Elder Thomas is a really funny guy; he cracks us up to no end . Hopefully his energy will bring new life to the institute at WMNU and bring more people to the branch.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Turkey Day and had much to be thankful for. If you haven't checked it out yet, the church has come out with their new campaign for this Christmas season - #LighttheWorld. In the past, Christmas videos from the church often focus on introducing non members to the Church and remembering Christ, but this year, the brethren have decided to take an other approach. It would make a great family home evening to go on christmas.mormon.org and watch the new #LighttheWorld video; it depicts Christ rendering acts of service to other people (helping the sick, blind, eta.) and then shows how we can do those same exact things ourselves today. On his Sermon on the Mount, Christ told his followers that "ye are the light of the world. A city set on an hill cannot be hid." (Matthew 5:14) And this new initiative from the Church invites to be just that - the light of the world. In addition to the #LighttheWorld video, there will be short, 30-second videos released everyday from December 1-24 showing various
acts of service performed by Christ and how we can do it today; sort of like Christ-centered advent calendar. I would invite all of you to make this campaign a part of your holiday season, as Christ seems to be pushed into the background at this time of year. Be sure to ask the missionaries for the pass-along cards to give to your friends as well. By the way - it snowed this morning! There's actually snow in the Arizona Tucson Mission!

Elder Miller

Silver City Week 21

Hello everyone,
It's hard to believe that I only have a few more weeks left in Silver.
It's seems like it's been forever and no time at all at the same time.
I love it here, yet I'm ready to experience something new; I'm quite
conflicted in thought.
There was tons of service and not a whole lot of lessons this week
(just enough to hit standards of excellence - which are goals set by
the mission president for each week). Brother Flythe's house is still
a work in progress, but we've accomplished a lot from when I was first there five months ago. The other Silver City elders invited us to help them volunteer at a horse rescue every Tuesday and Thursday morning; lots of dirt digging and manure shoveling, but it beats knocking doors at nine in the morning. We started teaching a part member family named the Peters on Wednesday. Ralph, the husband, is a non member, but he has a firm belief in the Bible and is fine with where he is. Rather than asking him to take the missionary discussions we just gave his family a reading assignment out of the Bible, so we can discuss it when come back next week. So he doesn't know it, but he's a new investigator -Ha!
I hope you all enjoy your holiday and give thanks to Lord for all themarvelous blessings He has so generously bestowed on us.
Elder Miller

Silver City - 19th Birthday!!

Hello everyone,

I'm having a good day because it's not only P day, but I'm turning 19 today! Thank you everyone for your birthday notes; it's very much appreciated.
This week was pretty good. We had zone conference on Wednesday in Thatcher, Arizona and we got to listen to the one and only President Passey and his wife. Also got to have trainings from other missionaries on a whole bunch of different tools we can use to help those we are teaching. A good edifying experience all together. After the conference I got to exchange out of Silver City for the first time ever. I was in a town called Deming in New Mexico with Elder Swain, who is one of my zone leaders. It was nice to experience something new and work with different people for a day.
I don't know if I've mentioned him before, but we have someone new who's on date for baptism. His name is Bob Sroka; he was a referral we got from some Elders in the Albuquerque mission - one of their investigators knew him. He is definitely ready. He came to church for all three hours yesterday. Elder Stephenson and I were teaching Gospel Principles, and he participated and fit right in the class. We were talking about the signs of the Second Coming, which is a pretty difficult subject for someone new to the church. The lesson manual mentioned the new Jerusalem that was to be built in Jackson County, Missouri; I was just praying he wasn't going to think we were nutjobs and stop meeting with us, but he had no issue with it. He lightheartedly commented "It's quite ironic, from Missouri [misery] comes Jesus." He's going to be a great member, and it's an other baptism I'll have to miss. Oh well.
I get to speak in Gila Ward next week during sacrament meeting. The bishop asked me to use one of the talks from last Conference to work off of. Tell me what your favorite talk from the October conference was and I'll consider using it for my talk next week.
I hope you enjoy your week,
Elder Miller

Silver City Week 19

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone is enjoying their Monday as much as I am. Sometimes I feel I enjoy non proselyting days too much; but I can't help but to feel satisfied when resting after a very good week. Our teaching pool
grew by three this week and they practically fell onto our laps; whenever we went into one of our normal lessons, someone new would be there, wanting to learn more about our beliefs. We went to go follow up on a referral we helped move last week and a friend of hers, Buck,
accepted a Book of Mormon from us. Buck is a Seventh Day Advent (they
worship on Saturday like the Hebrews and make a big deal of it), and he had a lot to talk about of his beliefs when we met him. Nevertheless, he was open to reading the Book of Mormon, but he also
wanted us to take some religious literature of his (which I accepted -
it's only fair if I read it - he expects me to read it just as I expect him to read the BOM). He wants us to find prophecies of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in the Bible the next time we see him as
well (I like a good challenge).
Brother Jones grandson, Coltan, moved into town from Utah and sat in our lesson with Joseph on Thursday as well. He recently began to study the Bible and wants to learn more about our church and the Book of Mormon. Of course we'd be happy to assist him in that. In our lesson with Marie and Carrye (the first one we had in a while), Marie had a friend of hers over named Anthony. Anthony was in and out of our lesson but up an immediate interest in the blue book we were
reading out of - the Book of Mormon. As we were teaching, he took out a Bible and started to look for the verses and books from the BOM in the Bible. With a confused look on his face, he asked us why he couldn't find them. We explained that the BOM is an entirely different
volume of scripture and so forth, which made him want to learn more, too.
There's great power in the Book of Mormon, and people seem to be more
interested in learning about it when they have an idea of what it is. My only admonition is to share it and testify of it whenever the opportunity comes. All you have to do is explain and invite to learn
more. I doubt any friendships have ever ended from a simple invitation to learn more of something that's important to you, and if one ever did, that friend was probably no good in the first place.

Have a good week and know that you're loved and missed
Elder Miller