Fourth Area

I don't think I have sent a mass email since I've been transferred out of Central Ward (I probably have, just have bad memory). Anyways, I'm in Rancho Vistoso and La Canada wards in the community of Oro Valley - pretty much still Tucson. We live a twenty minutes drive out of our area, so we get a pretty nice monthly allotment. The area we cover is pretty much all housing additions - half of which are still being developed. The church building is super nice and was built less than ten years ago. The ward members are incredible as well and very eager to help us find more people to teach. They even hold a stake class once a week, focusing on helping members learn how to share the gospel to others.
The work here is pretty slow right now, as it is summer. Our recent converts and investigators are all out of town/country until next month (I haven't even met any of them yet). The one investigator that is still around has been coming to church for over a year now, but still doesn't feel ready to be baptized (incredible). We're going to begin going over the lessons with her again with one of the priests in the ward to give him some teaching practice. Hopefully, we can make something of that. We're planning on a fair amount of tracting this week, but I'm just fine with at. The people in this community are very kind (and normal). We haven't had any takers yet, but everyone will at least have a good conversation with you for a little while. Everyone you run into knows a member in one of the wards, too, because they are literally everywhere! The space we cover is not big at all, but still makes up two wards.
My new companion Elder Lamb is tons a fun; he has a great sense of humor (and is a They Might Be Giants fan - what are the odds?). Will go for now, but I hope you all stay safe and have a good week
Elder Miller

July 10, 2017 - Getting Transferred

Just got some surprising news on Saturday night: I'm leaving Central
Ward already! I'm going to Tucson North Stake - La Canada Ward
(pronounced keen-yadda).This was only my second transfer here, which
is a rather short time to be in an area. I wasn't expecting that kind
of news to be honest. It's too bad to; we have so many things that are
coming up for us with all the people we saw this last week. Just on
Saturday when my companion and I were on exchanges, Elder Lorenzen
invited a new couple to church they ran into, and they actually came!
Not a normal occurrence, by the way. The lady who we gave a Book of
Mormon to last week wasn't there, but we're keeping a close eye. We
also got a referral from other elders in Tucson. The people they
referred us to turn out to be ex-members. The wife had her name
removed and the husband got baptized into a different church that she
was going to - thus getting his name taken out, too. He was a
bishopric member in Michigan years ago, and he really wants to get
back into activity. His wife on the other hand, doesn't really believe
in our faith, but she is very nice and said she would go to church to
support him. So that's a start. We're finally getting referrals from
the Temple Open House as well. They've just started coming in. Elder
Lorenzen gets to contact them with his new companion while I have to
leave:/ My new area is more affluent like my last area, so the work
probably isn't going to be as good, but that's alright - just have to
look up.
I love you and miss you all. Will go for now,
Elder Miller

Central Ward South

No crazy adventures this week, but things have been moving along
pretty good. We had a good lesson with Russ and his daughter Audrey on Friday. They had bedbugs the past few weeks, so this was the first time they were able to meet with us in a while. We reviewed the baptismal questions with them and had a really good discussion about various points of the Restoration. Russ is definitely going to be ready for his baptism on July 29. Audrey is slowly opening up to us more (she's eight and very shy), and she even gave the closing prayer at the end of the lesson.

I went on companion exchanges with the North Central Ward elders twice this week in their area. On Tuesday we taught a very good lesson of the Restoration as well. On Saturday, I not only was on exchanges, but also on splits with the zone leaders. I went tracting with one of the zone leaders for an hour that day to help the North elders find a new investigator. We went to an apartment complex and were going nowhere for a few minutes, but suddenly we can across an apartment with a bunch of Catholic stickers on the windows. We knew it was going to be a good one; an old lady answered the door and invited us right in. She was alone, so we just talked on the door step for a good while and had a good conversation about our beliefs and set a return appointment.
She's probably just going to try to convert the North elders when they go back, but finding someone like that while tracting is a rare and exciting occasion.

I'll go for now, it have a good fantastic week guys

Elder Miller

Central Ward South

All is going well in Central Tucson. I've just finished my second week with my new companion Elder Lorenzen (from South Jordon, Utah), and we're working very well with each other; we've found two more investigators this week which is great. One we found from street contacting with a less active who really likes sharing the gospel, even though he doesn't come to church. The other was someone whom missionaries contacted in an other Ward, but they needed help moving into my area. Last night we went with our assistant Ward mission leader to an apartment complex to go see a family he knew to invite to the Temple. We ended up talking to a Nepali family that was eating dinner outside instead. They were super nice and invited the three of us inside of their home. They gave us some of the food they were eating and it was very HOT. It was the spiciest meal I have had on my mission by far. It turns out they are Christian refugees, trying to escape persecution. We taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel and how this church is the church Christ established. They said they'd be interested in both seeing the Temple and our church and asked us the time for it on Sunday.

Last week we got a call from a less active from Texas right when we were about to finish studies. He said he was at his father in law's
funeral service, but there was no one to officiate or give a spiritual
though, so we volunteered out services to help him. The rest of his
family was non members, but we had the opportunity to testify of the resurrection of Christ and they were all touched by the message. It was a very unusually experience, but a great one. I hope you're all having a good day and I wish you a good week as well.

Elder Miller

Central Ward South Week 5

Sorry there was no letter last week. As I've mentioned before, sometimes I'm a bum and I just don't get around to it. Had a great experience with the Tucson Temple two weeks ago. The First Presidency suddenly decided they wanted a whole different landscape for the outside after they had already finished the first one (they want to plant grass there instead of having the decorative rocks they already put in). So we elders were recruited to help get rid of all the rocks around the Temple. It was really a wonderful opportunity to get to participate to some degree in the construction of the House of the Lord in Tucson. After the Elders in my Zone were done with their shift, the adviser over the construction of the Temple (I wish I remembered his name) gave us all a tour of the inside, weeks before it was to be open to the public! The freakiest thing was we weren't even in church clothes - just jeans and a tshirt walking around the Temple. It is a beautiful building; it's a mid-sized temple - about 38,000 square feet I do believe.
We have so many people we are teaching now; I don't think I've mentioned half of them. Our assistant ward mission leader brother Williams was out with us seeing people a few weeks ago when he decided to introduce us to his friend Arshad. Arshad is from Iraq and has been paralyzed from the waist down since he was five. He is very intelligent; he's lived in the states for only a few years, but he has learned to speak English only from listening to others speak it. He is a Shiite Muslim and actually teaches theology to students in Iraq online. He has an interest in the Church as well; it's more of an intellectual interest more than anything, but at least he's someone who will listen to us, right?
Robert Alexander is an eternal investigator that showed up at our church out of the blue a few Sundays ago and has been coming to church ever since. My companion Elder Lee has been pretty bold with him lately when it comes to getting him to commit to baptism, and he finally got him to commit to a date this past Friday for Bastille Day (July 14 - yes, he told us he wanted to get baptized on Bastille Day).
As for Russ Collins and his daughter Audrey, we are still trying to get Audrey to want to come to church. If anyone has any ideas on how to make an eight year old want to come to church - I'm open ears.


Elder Miller

Tucson Central Ward South Week 2

This week we have found a pretty good amount of new people to teach, which I'm happy for - needless to say. One Saturday we found a new Family that was taught previously by missionaries in this area who are really golden. It is a father and daughter. They were going to church and everything, but the meeting time changed after the new year and they didn't know when our ward met. Apparently, some missionaries just stopped teaching them because they weren't home for a couple of appointments - isn't that just a little bit silly. They were going to go to church yesterday, but the girl is seven and she didn't want to go (and she seems to be afraid of us for some reason), but we'll just have to work on that. The father really wants to get baptized, but he wants to wait until his daughter turns eight in July, so they can be baptized at the same time. We went to 7/11 on Friday to get some food and the the cashier started talking to us and obviously recognized us as elders. She asked us where we were from and how long we've been out and whatnot. Turns out she was taught by sisters years ago and was getting ready for baptism, too, but she was having a problem in the last place she was living. Needless to say, we asked her if she'd like us to teach here again and she agreed.
Last Sunday, an older gentleman asked us for our phone number and wanted to meet with us. We figured he must have been a less active who wanted to come back, but turned out to an eternal investigator (someone who has been taught by missionaries on and off for years). He seems to be seriously thinking about baptism now. It's simply amazing the miracles I've seen this week.
Yesterday I look at the program for sacrament meeting as saw that I
was supposed to speak. The bishopric asked me to speak last week and I forgot all about until a half hour before sacrament! I jotted down a talk quickly and it turned out to be the longest talk I've ever given (wasn't half bad either). I'd take that as a fulfillment of a promise in my patriarchal blessing that said I'd be able to communicate well if I chose to serve a mission.
I'll go for now, but I hope you have an awesome Monday,

Elder Miller

Tucson Central Ward South Week 1

It's amazing how the time flys; I've been transferred again and am now serving in Tucson Central Ward South. I'm right in the middle of the city now (the North elders get downtown, though - darn). It's odd because I'm only over half of a Ward here, as opposed to being over two wards in my two previous areas.

The situation in this area is a little interesting; it was once the
highest baptizing Ward in the mission, and now we only have one
nonmember family that we're teaching. The area Book has no records on what has happened in the past few months. I'm follow up training, and I'm in the projects. We'll see what happens. Right now the main task is cleaning up the area Book and seeing who lives in our area and who doesn't. There are a ton of recent converts and less actives in our records that my companion doesn't know, so we try to go see them and the apartment or the house is completely empty. Apparently, people are constantly moving around here.

The members in the Ward are a pretty interesting mix of people. The University of Arizona campus is within the Ward boundaries, so you get professors from the college and graduate students along with the people from the rougher places in town. There is a nice older man named Roy Salcido in the Ward that is a convert of about twenty years who helps us missionaries a ton, too. He'll go to lessons with you whenever you need him; he'll make you dinner if you don't have one; and he lets us use his washer, dryer, and wifi (all three of which I'm currently using) on P day. Shout out to him!

Oh, I'm back in a car area, too, which is so awesome. I get to miss
out on biking in the Tucson summer now (of course I'll still have to be out in it a lot, though). Can't wait to see what this place has in
store in the next few months or so for me.

Love you guys!

Elder Miller