September 26, 2016 - Silver City Week 13

I'm so glad I'm going to be in New Mexico for six months; I absolutely love the people of this area. Elder Andersen is my new companion and he is a lot of fun. He always has a joke to tell, and members and investigators a like seem to enjoy him as well. It's very different for me to have constant charge over the area and being the one who knows the area in the companionship. This week was especially hard since everyone seemed to either not be home or falling through. This meant lots of finding activities - which I detest. But I find it has payed off as we have a lot of possible new investigator lessons lined up for next week (FYI, you have to teach someone before you can call them a new investigator).

In relation to the upcoming general conference, I encourage you to
study the story of Naaman the Syrian in 2 Kings 5. Elijah commanded Naaman to simply bathe in the river Jordan seven times to be healed. Naaman was upset because he was not commanded to do something great, nor did he have something great shown to him. But his servant reminded him that if he would have done some great thing, then why not do this small thing as well. Often times we may hear a talked in conference and be like Naaman: "This is all things I've heard before; it's the simple things I've always known. Although we might not be getting a new mind-blowing revelation or a new section to D&C anytime soon, we need to keep in mind the prophets are given us instruction specific to our time,a no heeding to it will bring us safety from the adversary and great blessings.

Elder Miller

September 19, 2016 - Silver City Week 12

Hello everyone,

Apologize for not sending anything last week - time got away from me. This weeks marks the beginning of my three transfer and I'm no longer a trainee. I'm getting a new companion tomorrow who's name is Elder Anderson. Because this will be the last transfer of his mission, I'm probably going to be in Silver until the middle of December. Which is fine by me, the ward and the people in this area are great; the weather's not too bad either. It's going to be interesting taking over an area for the first time; I'll be depending a lot on the Lord to let me know who and where I should be going to day by day.

On Saturday, Hendrix was baptized. I got to speak on baptism for the service, and Elder Coyne performed the ordinance. It was so great to witness the baptism of someone I helped teach myself. I do - of course - have pictures of us with Hendrix and his whole family before the baptism, and I'll definitely be sure to get them out to all of you before the end of the day. I absolutely love that family; before we took the picture, I was practicing the songs I need to play for the service when Hendrix's little half-sister came up to me and said "we're taking family pictures and you're part of the family, so come on!" I never thought I'd be able to connect with people very well when I first came out, but I'm so glad now to see how well I'm being accepted by the people that I teach.

Love all of you and hope you all have a good week,

Elder Miller

September 5, 2016 - Silver City Week 10

Hello everybody,

Had to travel to Pima, Arizona on Tuesday for my first zone
conference. We got to hear from President and Sister Passey about
working with members and acting on faith and such. We have a temple trip this coming Wednesday, so everyone in the mission was challenged to find a family name to do endowments for. Everyone in my district and I found a name, but they all need to have other ordinances done first before we could do the endowment. So after zone conference we all went to the Gila Valley Temple to get those done. This is was the first time I'd done work for a name I found myself. I also got to baptize someone in the temple for the first time. I baptized Elder Bangerter for his name and he baptized me do mine. I'm surprised I was able to baptize him since he has about five inches on me. It was probably the best experience in the temple I've had so far. I think I appreciate the temple a lot more now than I did as a youth.

We haven't found anyone now to teach this week, but we could be
getting one this week. The family that's feeding us on Friday invited a non member they know who said they would come. I hope something comes of it. We are also getting our investigator Hendricks ready for his baptism in two weeks. I can't wait to be a baptism for someone I taught. His grandparents have also decided to get married, so we'll be able to help his grandma progress to baptism as well soon.

Love all of you and hope you have a good week,

Elder Miller

Silver City - Week 9

Hello everyone,

I only really have a few things to share and they happened yesterday. Unfortunately, this has been an other slow week with a lot of lessons falling through, so we've mostly been visiting less actives and recent converts.

In sacrament meeting yesterday, I got to speak for the first time on
my mission. Elder Coyne and I were asked to speak on how the gospel blesses families. I spoke somewhere around eight minutes, and I had to write out every last thing I a had to say since I couldn't practice it that much. But everyone complemented me nonetheless on how well prepared I was, even though I was just reading off of a paper the whole time.

We had a former investigator return to church yesterday as well but
let me explain. The second day I was here in Silver, we went with our ward mission leader to visit an investigator named Pauline, who the Elders before us tracted into a few months ago. The night I saw her she was about to go into rehab (voluntarily) in Las Cruses. She looked like a mess and she was a mess. When I saw her yesterday, she looked like a whole new person, and now Elder Coyne and I are going to begin preparing her and her kids for baptism! The change the gospel has brought to her life is quite evident and incredible.

Wish I had more to share, but that's about it for this week. Love you all,

Elder Miller

Silver City - Week 8

Hello everyone. 

Elder Coyne and I have been doing real good these past
few weeks. Marie and Carrye are still having Word of Wisdom problems, and we've moved their baptismal date to Oct. 1. We also set a date with an investigator a member found for us, Joseph. He told us the other day at a church activity that he has really enjoyed the lessons and what he's been hearing, which was really encouraging to me. We're hoping that everything will go fine so we can baptize on Oct. 15. We taught Hendricks - who is also getting ready for baptism - and his grandma, Betsy, in Friday. Our ward mission leader knows Betsy pretty well, and in the lesson he asked her for her candid opinion of the church. She said she was disappointed by how some people act so irreverent while the speakers give heartfelt talks during sacrament meeting, which was a bit upsetting to hear. I would just recommend that we as members watch ourselves and put in good preparation for the sabbath. People are watching us, and we need to make sure we're representing Christ's church the way He'd want us to. A member in Silver City ward - who is a temple sealer - said the other day that there is no reason why sacrament meeting can't be every bit as spiritually edifying as a trip to the temple. I believe that; do we not realize we are participating in an essential, holy ordinance every Sunday within the wall of our meetinghouse? Let our actions and thoughts reflect that every Sabbath and it will be so much more refreshing and uplifting for all of us.

Love you all.

Elder Miller

Silver City Week 7

This has been an excellent week for Elder Coyne and I. It's been a few weeks since we've been able to focus all of our time on our area. We hit all the standards of excellence, which are goals set by our mission president for each week. I've been talking about having
appointments with new investigators falling through these past few
weeks; this week we were able to finally meet with some of them and we now have two new people we're meeting with regularly now.

The first person is Hendricks Jackson who was actually taking the
lessons before he went to live with his dad for the summer. He lives
with his grandparents in Silver during the school year, so we were
able to start giving the discussions again this week. In our lesson I
asked him if he'd like to be baptized; it was the first time I had
done so. It was very abrupt and weird when I did it and it made
Hendricks very hesitant. Luckily Elder Coyne and his grandparents were able to coax him into it afterward and he agreed to set a date for September 17. Hopefully I'll figure out a smooth transition to use before asking people to be baptized.

Brother Jones, one of our ward missionaries, has been letting someone live in their camper on his property, and has asked to take the missionary discussions as well. His name is Joseph; he's been having a difficult time both emotionally and financially as his wife died from cancer a few months ago and he spent a lot of money trying to keep her alive. We had a great discussion on the restoration and families. We invited him to read the introduction of the BOM and he seemed very interested in doing so. He seems like a solid investigator.

Lately we've doing service for a member in our ward who needs his
house cleaned up before his wife comes home from the hospital. His name is Brother Roger Flythe; he hasn't actually occupied his house in years since he's had to care for a lot of sick relatives in his
family, so his dogs have pretty much had free reign in it for a while.
He's a very smart guy and used to be a very successful artist, making over a hundred grand a year doing it. I'll have to figure out a way to send pictures of some his paints to all of you; he is very good and prolific.

Be safe and have a good week,
Elder Miller

Silver City Week 6

Hello everybody,

I survived my first six weeks, and am now halfway trained. My trio has
ended and Elder Kapele is in his way to Tucson to pick up his new
companion. He will be training, so that means I won't be the new guy
in Silver City anymore.

This week was pretty slow, sadly. No new investigators. We tried to
reschedule with the news we had lined up last week, but those meetings fell through again. Hopefully we'll have better luck this week. On Friday went looking for a referral who lived in the middle of nowhere and two miles away from the mission boundaries. We took a wrong turn and had to ask a farmer for directions. We finally got there and...he wasn't home, so we had to turn around and go home and our day was pretty much over by then. Thus is the life of a missionary I guess.

On Thursday we had our regular meeting with Marie and Carrye. We had finally made it to the dreaded Word of Wisdom lesson as they are both smokers. They actually took the lesson surprisingly well and understood the doctrine of it clearly. They understood perfectly why they needed to kick their habit before baptism and expressed a willingness to try. It will be interesting to see how this goes for them. One thing I'll say for sure is that their baptismal dates will need to be pushed back as it was originally set for the 13th of this month.

Sundays have been a bit lengthy since we have to go to both first and second ward's sacrament meetings; which comes out to about six hours of church. I've become the de facto priesthood pianist for second Ward which is all right with me; it gives a good excuse to hit the keys on my P days.

Have a good week. Love you all; miss you all,
Elder Miller