Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween!

Hey everyone how is it going? I hope you are all going to have a great Halloween tonight! They do celebrate it over here in Spain too. I know that they trick or treat in a pueblo that we visited, but I don't know about the apartment buildings. That would be a quick way to score tons of candy though... Anyway I hope all is well.

This week was great. Last Wednesday we had an appointment in a pueblo that didn't happen, because they had to re schedule for Monday. It was awesome. They are members who attend our rama, but live in a pueblo about 30 minutes bus ride outside of Mostoles. The whole town is chalets and houses, and is way, way nice. My companion and I felt like we were in the states. We didn't have their address or a map of there pueblo, Arrollomolinos (but I am not sure if I spelled it right). So once we got there we called them, and they came to pick us up in there brand new Audi A6. It was awesome. They are Spaniards, and have an 11 year old son, a daughter around 5, and a 1 year old baby girl. They are Quini and Javier, and are awesome members. It was our first time, other than at Miriam's, eating in a Spaniard's home. We taught them using Nephi's story, and used 1 Nephi 3:7 & 15. We also tried to use the primary song about Nephi going and doing the things the Lord commands, but we couldn't get the cd to play. Oh well. It was awesome none the less.

We taught a nice Muslim man named Khalid in the streets during a huge rain storm last Wednesday, and then we went to Loranca to teach Avelino. Miriam's grandpa went home yesterday, so we can't teach in her house anymore unless we get a member to come with us. We teach in the locutorio, but only when a man is there, but it isn't as good of a spirit as in the comfort of her piso. No one came to English class last Thursday, except for the 20 or so kids who come to play basketball. Afterwards, we went to the member English student's house, Mimi's kids, and helped them with English homework and then taught them a lesson.

Friday was a blank schedule, and we did lots of contacting. We went to the largest park in our area I think, which is Parque Oliva. It is basically an olive vineyard that is about the size of 4 football fields. It was a cool park, but not many people to contact.

It is starting to get cold, and the leaves are turning to yellow and falling to the ground. Autumn better hurry up and finish because winter is just around the corner. We found out our holiday meal at the mission home is on the 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving. They have each of the 8 zones over one by one in the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a holiday meal, and it should be way delicious and fun.

Saturday, 4 of our 5 teaching appointments canceled for one reason or another, so we did lots of contacting. Our appointment that went through was with Mimi's family, and we ate lunch and taught them about 'For the Strength of Youth' pamphlets. We committed them all to read it, well the 4 kids.

The rama was back to normal on Sunday with 29 at sacrament meeting. We had lunch at the Muro's on Sunday afternoon. They are a husband and wife who recently moved here from Puerto llano. They fed us delicious food, but the absolute best part was the stuffed red bell peppers. They had hamburger, cheese, and sauce that was delicious.
We are going back on the 6th of Nov. for some more delicious food, and to teach a lesson.

Sunday, Avelino couldn't come to church so we went to Loranca to teach him. It went really well. Tuesday we went to Talavera for district meeting, just like last week. It is an awesome train ride, and fun to meet with Elder Peaden and Elder Cochrane. Elder Baxter and Elder Bringham, who live with us, are moving out of the piso as I type this email. We are going to go help them load up the mission van, and then the office elders are going to drive their stuff to their new piso in their area. It will be easier to finish the piso renovations with only 2 in our piso, but it is really big for just 2 people. Thank you all for everything, and I hope you all know the church is true, and God loves you.

Much love from Spain,
Elder Miller

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Hi from Fuenlabrada

Hey how's it going?

I hope you're all doing great. This was an awesome week for me here in Fuenlabrada. Thursday we had a normal but way helpful weekly planning session just like every Thursday morning. We painted again on Friday but with Elders Manning and Ladner, because Clark went on splits with Ladner's companion. Ladner is awesome, he is from Mississippi and plays defensive end for BYU. He did one year before his mission and just red shirted. He has lost like 20 pounds, just like me and everyone else in this mission, and will have to bulk up afterwards. He is a way fun guy.

Saturday we taught Larry, a Nigerian man who is way cool, and has lived here for 15 years. He has great Spanish and English, which isn't always the case with Nigerians. We taught in English the second lesson. It was awesome and the spirit was amazing. We committed him to baptism and are going to set a date on Saturday. Miriam's baptism isn't going to happen as planned because she is still hooked on smoking, but her testimony is amazing and we are going to keep on working with her to help her quit.

We went to the capilla on Saturday for about an hour, and cleaned with some members to get the capilla looking spiffy for the rama conference. The conference went awesome. We had 15 in priesthood meeting on time, which is usually 4 or 5. During Sunday school, Elder Van Dyke and I taught Avelino in our investigator's class, one of the things we are doing to try to get more charlas weekly. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, and the atonement. It went very well. In sacrament meeting, the stake president was there and one of his counselors. There were some people from the stake, no more than 20, and at church there were 71!!! Wow how crazy is that? It was awesome to sustain the leaders of the church in Spanish.

The big thing Sunday night at the end of transfers is the transfer call. I can't believe it has been one transfer or 6 weeks in the mission field. Elder Van Dyke and I are here in Fuenlabrada another transfer, and I am thrilled to continue to work hard here. Oh yeah, I just finished Alma 36 in the Book of Mormon- probably the best chapter about repentance in the scriptures. Take a look. It is awesome. Anyway I will probably be here for another transfer after this one also, because Elder Van Dyke has 4 transfers left and will probably go somewhere for 3 transfers to finish his mission. Elder Cutler got transferred to Puerto llano to be the Elder who is the Branch President's companion.

The new missionary in the piso is Elder Bringham- a way cool guy from Reno, Nevada. Also Elder Ladner is now a zone leader in Alcalá, and Elder Clark went to Cuenca to be Branch President. To replace Elder Clark as one of my zone leaders, will be my second cousin, Elder Bradshaw- kind of crazy huh? Elder Sanuy got to stay at our piso Sunday night, and it was awesome to see him one last time.
Till next week, much love from Spain.

Love
Elder Miller

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

email from Mo

hey there guys whats it like in salt lake city, im a thousand miles away but man today fuenlabrada looks so pretty. anyway this week has been awesome. we have been throwing away so much stuff, and it feels great to de-clutter the piso. also we finished painting our large common room, and the kitchen. we should be done with the bathrooms, but the ceilings are having some trouble because it is such a crappy surface. today we moved our bedroom into the common room, so that we can paint it on friday along with the hallways. we got locked out again, while taking trash out. we had to wait until the other elders returned from zone conference. it was crappy. we taught english lessons again, and this time we taught the third charla to the 2 members who came, and there friend. we made brownies, and compared the recipe to brownies to the things we need to do to return to our heavenly father. also we taught them the different english words necessary to cook the brownies. we also taught the lesson to miriam later in the week even though she has already heard the 3rd lesson before, the brownies were an added twist. we just had fast sunday this week in our rama, and next week is like ward conference and the stake leaders are coming. saturday everyone cancelled on us, and we were left to imprivise the entire day. i made a delicous hawaiian pineapple pizza with a generic pizza base, tomato sauce, swiss cheese, sliced ham, and fresh cut pineapple pieces. it was delicous.

we find out whats going on with transfers this coming sunday, and then the transfers occur on the following monday. i hope to stay here with elder van dyke, but anything could pretty much happen except one of us will almost for sure stay here. but other than that we dont know what will happen. we had an awesome noce de hogar, family home evening, with an inactive member and her husband and 2 daughters. we sang choose the right with them, and gave the girls HLJ rings which are the spanish version of the CTR rings. also we showed a picture show of temples, which included there temple at home in ecuador. it was awesome, and spiritual. hopefully it will motivate her to come back to church with her family. one of the daughters is 6 and the other just turned 8, so we are going to start and teach them the charlas and get the 8 year old baptised. here there was some crazy doce de octubre festivals with people showing pride for their home countries all over the place. mostly in madrid there were huge parties, but that left fuenlabrada a ghost town. also there is some crazy flooding going on in valencia, which is not in my mission but in the barcelona mission. oh yeah, when i mentioned about the mozzarella sticks and fries and frie sauce, we also translated a government document that i dont know if i mentioned. but anyway about the document. it was a summary of the guys research, and he gave it as a speach during a world conference in italy. The conference was all in english, and included NASA and many other scientists from around the world.... its pretty crazy that a 20 year old and a 19 year old missionary translated his speech. but he said it went well. also we read it for him into a tape recorder so he could listen to our pronuciation and immitate our voices. monday we went to loranca, and taught avelino, and there were some kids wrestling on the grass near by. we teach him outside cause his house is pretty busy most of the time. anyway the kids came over, and i talked to them as my companion taught the lesson. they were asking all about america, especially WWF and Prison Cage. i guess the kids here are way into our american profesional wrestling, and know like all of the different wrestlers. it was so fun to talk with them. after the lesson we played some futbol and were on our way.

yesterday was absolutely awesome. monday night we did companionship exchanges cause the zone leaders have to work with the district leaders for a day. so i went with elder manning to there area in mostoles, and my companion stayed with elder clark in our area. its pretty close to fuen, and was only about a 20 minute metro ride. i had already been there for interviews and the zone pday last week, but i got to see more of the city yesterday. so then elder manning and i were companions all yesterday until last night we switched back. it was the best day of my whole mission, and elder manning who has been here for over a year said the same. we planned very well, and also trusted in the promise of proverbs 3:5, which says trust in the lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. he directed our paths yesterday. we taught 7 lessons, and had 37 contacts. we were finding people to teach everywhere we went, and also people for them to teach in the future. the whole day we kept to our plan, and back up plan, and had continual success in preaching the gospel the entire day. we wore ourselves out serving the lord, and he blessed us immensly. last night i had never been so tired, and i had never been so happy. i truly love this missionary work, and loving bearing testimony that my redeemer lives.

i love wearing the name of christ on my jacket daily, and doing his work here in spain. i hope you all are doing great back home. dont forget to read up on conference.

much love from spain, and thanks for everything. the church is true, and god loves you.

love
elder miller

p.s. i hope someone caught that the opening sentence was from the plain white t's on "hey there delialah"

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

its 3 months now

Hey everybody, how’s it going?

I love to write you guys, and hear what’s going on back home. First off, if anyone is going to see or has seen the “Bourne Ultimatum”, look for the renfe. I hear part of the movie is set in Madrid, Spain and he uses our public trains or renfe. Anyway, last p day after email I got a hair cut to look good for general conference, cause we were going to be seeing and meeting lots of missionaries. Also we went shopping as usual. But this time we took our grandma cart, but the bus driver wouldn’t let us on the bus with it. It is just a simple rolling bag to put groceries in for the walk home from the store. But the driver wouldn’t let us on, so we hid the bag in the bushes near by and ran back to catch the bus without the bag. A couple of the ladies were yelling at the driver for discriminating against us. It was awesome to see them defending us, and to see someone on our side. It is weird because everyone takes those bags on, but oh well. The bad part is that we had to carry our groceries back, and then someone had rummaged through the bushes and stolen our grandma bag. Oh well. We contacted a Russian lady in Humanes last week named Olga. She was looking into a
corner, and crying. We walked past and then went back to contact her. She had been praying and then we showed up she was so happy to see us, and to know that we are representatives of Jesu Cristo. She just needed someone to listen to her, and no one would. We are going to teach her and see where it goes. We went to Talavera last week for district meeting on Tuesday. It was awesome. It was a 1 hour train ride through rolling hills, and vineyards. It was incredible scenery. It was a lot like the view you see when driving in Utah from Nephi to Beaver. Along with the many amazing talks this weekend I would also suggest looking at a particular one from may
2007 by Neil L. Andersen. It is only 2 pages, but amazing. It is called "It’s True isn’t it? Then what else matters?" It is awesome and about how important this gospel is.

My mom wanted a little explanation of Fuenlabrada so here goes. We have a McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and the most delicious is Telepizza. Also we have this gorgeous white library that I am currently emailing from. There are tons of farmacias, pastelerias for pastries, and lucotorios for email and usually like a gas station like store in it. There are lots of pisos as you can imagine. And there are many parks. I love the parks, because they are good for contacting families. Also they have a funny aspect also; almost each one has the kid section and the grandpa and grandma section. The grandparent section has like funny things for them to
work out on like during a walk or something, they are pretty hilarious. Also there are some biking trails. We have a good bus system here that gets us around our area, and we have about 4 metro stops in our area including one in Loranca. Also we have a newly remodeled Dia grocery store in the building next to our piso. It is awesome and they let us take the cart back to the piso with our stuff and then we return it, so that kind of makes the loss of the grandma cart less painful. Miriam’s grandpa is visiting for a month so now we can teach her at her house when she has to watch him. It is awesome to have the spirit so much stronger then it was at their locutorio
she and her husband own. We set her baptismal date for the 27th, I’m not sure if I said that last week. Mimi had us over again, and we are meeting with the branch president again tomorrow, so that also means dinner. We had 2 people at English class last Thursday and 4 this Tuesday. So maybe I just need to say how they aren’t working, and they will continue to be a better finding method every time... We start painting on Friday and Saturday with the zone leaders. One of which is elder Chase Clark from my high school. It should be fun to do some work. The Talavera elders stayed on our couch for the last 4 days since Saturday. They were here for conference, and then for zone conference yesterday, and then we also had a zone p day with soccer and bring your own sandwiches that we just got back from. I am sad to see the Talavera Elders Cochrane and Sanuy go back home. Elder Sanuy is going home
for real in 2 weeks, and we said our goodbyes. I got to know him pretty well through splits with him on Monday, and then district meetings throughout this transfer. It is my first transfer and his last, crazy. We saw an American who has lived here for 15 years from Pittsburgh. It is the only non missionary American I have seen here in Fuenlabrada. He was a little weird, but all and all a nice guy and a die hard Pittsburgh Pirates and Penguins fan. He was telling us about the Penguins first game, so I guess back in the real world the hockey season has started. General
conference was amazing. It is a one hour travel to the temple square where we watched conference, and with a 30 minute train ride and 2 different 10 minute metro rides, and then the walking in between. We took an investigator named Alexander to the first session and it was awesome. He will now begin to progress now that he has seen the churches organization and leadership, and gained a testimony of it. He has been hard to teach with his many questions, and hard questions at that, but I see good things in his future. So I watched the first session in Spanish with Alexander,
which was very hard and frustrating. I understood some but not all. I got to talk to all of the Elders I knew and meet more. Also we took a member, Mimi’s son Adolpho to the Priesthood session and the Saturday afternoon session, which was on Sunday
morning along with the priesthood session. He loved it, and being around the missionaries was cool for him to. He is an awesome 13 year old. Then we took him back and went back to conference with Mimi to watch the Sunday morning session. I only watched the first one in Spanish, and then for the others President Farnsworth okayed a switch so I could watch in English. So we had 6 hours of travel and 8 hours of spiritual nourishment. It was an awesome conference weekend, I absolutely loved it. Also I forgot to say that Elder Sanuy is from Barcelona, and will probably come back and visit another time or two while I am in my mission. Anyways things are great, and now you are caught up with what’s been going on here in Fuenlabrada. Hope all is well. The church is true, and God loves you.

Much love from lovely Fuenlabrada,
Elder Miller

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

hey yal

hey how is everyone doing out there. i am going to try this whole email thingy again, and see how i do. this will be about the last three weeks, or the first 3 weeks in the mission field.

Here in Fuenlabrada we have an awesome capilla. (church) it is a little out dated, but very nice and has a baptismal font. also it has some carpet which is awesome. we have had a total of 7 eating appointments with one on friday and monday in the near future to make it 9. it is awesome! we don't eat very well in the piso (apartment) , but i try to eat cheap and healthy. i usually have eggs hard boiled or cooked, toast is a favorite with jam or cheap fake nutella, hotdogs on pieces of bread, random condiments that garnish the foods are a must to add a flavor, cheap soups that run at about 10 euro cents and you just have to add water, cereal and milk and juice usually for breakfast is always sweet now that i am used to the boxed milk, my dads favorite breakfast for lunch is a must also with some delicous fryed ham and some canned halfed peaches. anyway its missionary life, and i hate doing dishes so i avoid them like the plague but always do my own and then some of the others piled in the sink. our branch attendance has been 32, 26 and then 31. this is tiny if you couldnt figure that out. especially since it once was a ward of over a hundred. the inactive list is 5 and a half pages and the active members fill almost one half page. we have lllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooottttttttttttttttsssssssssss of work to do here. we are trying are hardest to get miriam our beloved ,prepared, and diligent investigator to quit smoking. she has tryed with our help to quit many times. i think she will do it in the near future. we have given or let her borrow these things to aid her in quitting: himnos on cd, loads of pictures of christ, true to the faith which we assign assignments like addiction to read, and of course love kindness and support, and the book of mormon which is all of the above and much much more. the capilla also has a basketball court and we are trying to plan some sweet branch activities, and put the fun back into attending church.

our daily schedule is different from other missions. we rise at 7, which just sounds a million times better than 6 30. we excercise for 30 minutes which is almost always running. next we have 1 hour for showers, breakfast, ironing, getting dressed, and whatever else needs to be done before we leave the piso. next is personal study for an hour from 8 30 to 9 30. 9 30 to 10 30 is companionship study, which is followed by a 30 minute language study until 11 when we are out the door. we leave right after language study, so this is why you have to get everything ready to go before study. when we leave we say a companionship prayer every time we leave. but when we leave the house in the mornings for the first time we recite our missionary purpose, found in preach my gospel, in both spanish and english. we are now out the door and have proselyting time until 2 30 which marks the start of medio dia (siesta). this is our combined lunch and dinner hours into the least productive time in spain from 2 30 to 4 30. we have lunch during this 2 hour break and also a 30 minute language study, and whatever else needs to be done. we leave again and have proselyting time until 9 30 when we are supposed to be home, but if we are in a charla or discussion/lesson we can be home at 10 but not a minute later. we get home and plan for the next days events in there entirity. every minute give or take one or two is planned with a back up plan if the primary plan goes sour. what happens if both primary and back up plan go sour? missionary work and thinking on your feet and making the best out of every situation you are put in. we have to other little areas that arent very little, attached to the fuenlabrada area. one is a metro stop away, loranca, and the other a train stop away, humanes. we have found success in all three places and are spread very thin. we taught a new investigator in english, named rosi. she is from columbia and lived in new york for 20 years. we taught her the first lesson, and i will report on the second.

we have had p days that are not relaxing at all, so the goal today is to get relaxed and rested for the next week. we are fixing up the piso, and doing an almost complete remodel. you can imagine how many missionaries have lived there in the last 7 years. there are about a million holes in the walls, and a crappy floor, and everyting is broken. we are doing our best to make it a home for us missionaries. it will turn out nicely. i took before picures and am going to take after pictures and you can decide for yourselves how we did. laundry is interesting, but not to bad. we have a clothes line, and 2 drying racks, and then we just make sure different missionaries clothes expire on different days and we are set. it was fiestas over one of the last weekends and they were started and ended with midnight fireworks. it was hard to sleep those nights when it felt like a war was being fought in the next room over. also we saw the running of the bulls course, and an awesome fair that was almost as cool as lagoon, and then a bull fighting arena that we walked past during a fight but couldnt see anything. oh well. we had a way sweet experience with food at a member's house. they fed us like appetizers while we translated some madrid government documents for this awesome guy named hamilton. they gave us bottled coca cola and orange fanta, which chased down the 2 heaping plates of fries and mozzarella sticks dipped in fry sauce. i am so glad they know about that wonderful invention here, or at least this member did. we ate and ate and ate, and we were full fulll fulllll. they just kept bringing out more and having us eat it....

on our remodel the new lights have been put in and the painting is next, followed by the floors and then new closet doors. we ran to the paint store one morning to buy it and to get exercise. it is about a kilometer away. we then lugged the 3 15 gallon buckets of paint back to the piso. it was an adventure i will never forget.
we had interviews with the president and they went very well. they were in mostoles, and hermana farnsworth made us delicous texas sheet cake. it was just our zone, and was fun to get to know people. a very neat city that is a little closer to madrid than us. we also started english classes and have had 3 sessions so far, with a total of 2 people attending. it is a failure and will probably be discontinued by me and my companion. it gave me time to practice the piano i am trying to learn. oh yeah first week we passed the sacrament and the next to we blessed the sacrament. also the first week i was asked to bear my testimony, and last week my companion spoke in church. we are an active part of this branch. i am so excited for general conference. we watch it on a weird time schedule due to time zones, and dont even get to watch the sunday afternoon one. so hopefully you guys will watch it for me. i finished talking about the first two weeks and will talk about two more next week. till then much love from here in fuenlabrada. the church is true and god loves you, and watch conference.

love,
elder miller