Thursday, August 30, 2007

week 8

wow it is crazy to think how long it has been since i have been gone. i am in week 8, and only have another week and a half until i am in the mission field. this week we got some new elders and sisters. there is a new district of natives, and new district of elders from provo that are headed to the malaga mission. we have had some awesome soccer with the natives. they don't like the contact, but they have amazing foot work. the park this week was with a native companion. his name is elder gamarra and he is going to the madrid mission with me. they only stay here three weeks because they obviously already know the language. we were able to find 3 english speaking families. none of them wanted any materials, but i was able to talk with them and teach them about our beliefs and what i am doing here on a mission. two of the families were from london, and the other was from maine. it was awesome, and elder gamarra could easily talk to anyone.

i gave a talk in church this week in spanish, it was only like 5 minutes though. it is really lame cause one of my teachers is leaving on vacation to visit her mission in new jersey, cherry hill, and then she is headed to salt lake, and then on to St. George.

one amazing thing that happened is that we found out one of elder ott´s (my provo companion and good friend)contacts in the park has a baptism date for the 9th of september. the missionaries followed up on the referral, and taught the lessons, and now the man is getting baptized. we get to attend most likely, and it will be on our last sunday here in the mtc. it is awesome here, and i hope you all are doing well.

I would like to know some stories of my ancestors, maybe to use in teaching or something. also i would just like to read about them, and how they found the church, and who were the pioneering members of the miller, bradshaw, juhlin and brown families. i think i recall a story about grandpa miller in the Korean war, it was like a whole band of Beaver resident soldiers, and they were surrounded. i don't know, i just remember hearing some cool story, but maybe i am up in the night.
today in the temple we did baptisms for the dead after our temple session. it was awesome. we were able to do everything: baptize, be baptized, be witnesses, confirm, do the paper writing thing in the confirmation room, and i didn't have time to get confirmed, but it was awesome. once again, i am writing letters as fast as i can when i get the time on p-day. sorry for all those that i haven't responded to. the church is true and god loves you.

much love,
elder miller

Thursday, August 23, 2007

hey everybody hows things around home?

this week has been awesome. i hope it is the same for you at home. i wanted to give a little more about the ccm here in madrid. probably the best feature is that there is a hostel on the 3rd floor (which is really the 4th floor but they do there floor numbering different here). anyways,members from all over spain travel to the temple to come and attend sessions or do baptisms. they need a place to stay and so they stay in the hostel. at nights from around 8-9:30 we practice in the sala grande (just the meeting room for the mtc, the name is a lot cooler than the place).these members who have traveled from across spain come to let us teach them during this time. it is an awesome experience teaching members rather than the same missionaries day in and day out. visas here in spain only last for 90 days, so as missionaries we have to apply for residency. this is along an complicated process that takes immigrants 7 months to complete. we do everything in 4 hours or less as missionaries. its not what you know,its definitly who you know. our mtc president has connections that hook us up big time. but we still had quite the adventure applying. we drove in a van, a very european van, to the police station. we drove through some awesome freeway tunnels for about 15 miles. when we came out of the tunnel right on the side of the road was the Real Madrid stadium. it is massive!anyways, that was cool to see, once we got to the place the secretary had to parallel park a van.... not an easy task, but he did and we were on our way we thought. we walked in the police station with a police escort, past the line. we got up stairs and they weren't ready for us because they just got back from vacation. so we went back to the ccm, but not before checking out the egyptian temple that was across the street. it was carried stone by stone up to madrid for some reason or another. it was a neat little field trip. the next day we had to repeat the same steps, only instead of being turned away at destination 1 we were successful and signed some papers, and dotted some i´s after crossing some t´s. it was another drive to another police station. this was more of a headquarters place.this time we parked around the back of the building after sweet talking the police, actually they just know they are supposed to let us in. so at this place we cut in front of at least 500 people in line waiting just to get into another line inside the complex. once they waited in the line inside the complex it was another line of around 100 people. we walked past all of these people (i felt really bad for cutting in line), and then we went into a building to a line of about 10 people. this was the final line, and the only one we had to wait in. it took about 30 minutes, and then we were back to the ccm after a 45 minute drive. it was an interesting experience. i just wanted everyone to know that i have begun my ironing career, and for the 2 times that i have had to iron it has gone pretty well. also i learned the Windsor tie knot, and i highly suggest it to anyone who struggles with small knots as i have been.

the park on saturday was a struggle. i was with elder brinkerhoff from spanish fork ( he was the 5A mvp a year ago as he lead his team to the championship as star pitcher). just a little back ground info. we had a rough time as almost everyone denied us the privelege of teaching. we werent able to place but one folleto, and teach 3 lessons. you cant enjoy the good without the bad though.

on sundays here we have district meeting and then priesthood and then sacrament and then lunch. all in a row, and then we are done by 1. it is an awesome schedule as apposed to provo mtc church. they would scatter the three meetings however they wanted throughout the day, and then you just studied in the gaps. here we just have a nice planned day, and a 4 hour block of study. i much prefer it here. that is crazy about grandmas nose! tell her sorry from me. choir is ok, but the best part is that they make us learn to lead the music. i didnt like it at first but it will be a good talent to have. i am already disapointed that i didnt ever stick to piano lessons, but i cant do anything about it now. sunday after the singing i was talking with some of the elders and an elder bradshaw came up and was talking with me. he is one of my second cousins from beaver, utah. this is a crazy small world. the french elders left, and the bilbao elders left, and it was very quite. we recieved more elders the next day from spain and from the provo mtc. i am having a great time as you can see. and i enjoy hearing from lots of you. i am doing my best to answer emails and letters. till next week the church is true and god loves you.

love,
elder miller

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

after 5 weeks

hey everybody it is wednesday here in spain at 1 50 pm. we are emailing today, because it is a holiday here on the 15th of july, so our CCM changed the p day to wednesday while the teachers take a day off. it has been amazing here in spain. i have been having an absolute blast. today we had a general authority (area authority over europe i think). he spoke to us about conversion and baptism, and just missionary work in general. actually he spoke to us for over 2 hours, and the meeting was 3 hours total. it was crazy hard to pay attention after the intermission, because the heat had been turned up and we were all in our suitcoats.

saturday was an amazing day in the parque. my companion for the day was french and going to france on his mission. he knows spanish very little, and his english is also limited. it was amazing to work with him, and have amazing spiritual experiences. we found an older woman while she was picking up little pebbles and gathering them in a bag, very weird. but she was amazing. first she spoke english which was an absolute blessing for me.It was absolutely amazing to be able to teach in english. i can teach in spanish, but it is so hard to understand and comprehend the native spanish speakers. We taught her the entire first lesson, and she was very open to our lesson. we gave her a book of mormon.

Elder del bel was able to share his own experience of reading in the book of mormon for the first time. also he was able to share his conversion from being agnostic at around age 21. he is now age 25, and an amazing district leader here at the mtc in spain. it was awesome to hear his testimony and learn from him as we taught this wonderful lady. he truly was blessed. several times the woman complemented him on his english, and how impressed she was that he had no french accent. Every time i have talked with him it has been in very broken english with a french accent. also we were able to talk to another man about the statues in the parque. elder del bel was able to speak amazing spanish, and also understand what the man was telling us about. they conversed about the history of france and the history of spain, and about their lives. they talked about catholicism, and about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. it was way beyond my vocabulary that is limited to the lessons and disscussion of the gospel. i know that it was beyond elder del bel's vocab also. we also gave this man a book of mormon. he was amazed that is was free. these two conversations took up an hour and 15 minutes, which was the entirety of our parque experience. my companion elder finlay had a funny experience, looking back on it though it was really a pain in the neck. he was getting up out of bed and did something funky to his neck. he wasnt able to get up because it caused him so much pain. we did exchanges and searched for the doctor, and then the presidente because we couldnt find the doctor. we couldnt find the presidente either. all we could do was wait until someone found the doctor. i just sat around in my missionary attire, and read "our search for happiness" (a very quick read, and a book that i have really enjoyed). it took 2 hours for the president to come, and he sent me down to study with my district. the doctor showed up eventually to help elder finlay, and it turned out that he pulled a muscle in his neck. the doctor compared it to pulling a hamstring, but just not quite as painful. it was all and all an interesting experience. because he hurt his neck we couldnt go to gym the next day and decided to go to the mall. it was a short walk away, maybe 15 minutes. it was neat to see the selection of shops in the mall, but none of them were useful. we wanted to get ourselves each a pair of indoor soccer shoes to use outdoor on the soccer court... anyways the two shoe stores, and one on the way were all closed, for no good reason except that August is the vacation month in spain. we heard an amazing song at a devotional, it was "come thou fount of every blessing". it is amazing, and i suggest you look it up. thanks for all the support, and the letters or emails. the church is true and god loves you.

love,
elder miller

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Madrid MTC

Hi Everybody!

I found this slide show on youtube and it was so fun to watch,that I thought I would share it. It was filmed 6 months ago at the MTC and Temple square in Madrid. The link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fByMBB7uCes

Laura

hey guys

The Madrid mtc is amazing!!!!! i am having a blast. we went on an excursion around down town Madrid today. we saw the plaza del sol, and the plaza mayor. it was absolutely awesome. Also on Saturday we went to Retiro park to contact people. it was so hard to talk to people, let alone in a different language that i don't know very well. anyway the food in the cafeteria is prepared by Spanish cooks, and is awesome. We eat like kings. it is awesome living right next to the temple. there are only 31 missionaries here. 6 are sisters, on going to Madrid 2 going to Bilbao and 3 going to France. of the elders there are 2 going to Belgium, 4 going to France, 4 going to Barcelona, 6 going to Bilbao, and 9 going to Madrid.... that should add up to 31, and if it doesn't, oh well. we have gym every day except for Wednesdays (service) and Sundays. it is awesome. we played basketball one day, and the rims are a couple of inches lower, so tons of kids can slam dunk the ball. and the court is a European court with different lines. Also we can go to the store if we need anything during gym. i had to go once when we didn't have companions yet so elder Ott and I went there. they didn't have any face wash for come reason, the eggs were all brown eggs that were not kept refrigerated, their 2 litre bottles are tall and skinny, and they had an open air meat market that took up half of the small stores floor space. it was an eye opening experience! Every other day during gym we have gone to THE PIT. I guess its just a cool name for not such a cool place, but i love it. it is like a tennis court hard surface for playing fútbol on. it is like an amphitheater that is sunken into the ground, hence the name the pit. there is graffiti everywhere on all the walls. also there are three outdoor Ping-Pong tables to play on the perimeter of the pit. you can play that if you don't feel like soccer. soccer is awesome though. we have been having a world cup lately playing with the people who are going to our same mission. it is such a cool place to go! We haven't gone to the cage yet, because I've heard it isn't as nice, if you can imagine that. Anyway, i love it here. my companion is elder finlay, and he is an awesome guy. he went to Alta, and lives in sandy. we are in a class of 7 elders, 5 going to Madrid and 2 going to Barcelona. This is also our district, and our leader is elder brand, an awesome kid from bountiful. our teachers are awesome, hermana benito teaches in the mornings and hermana suárez teaches in the after noon. they both are natives, and served missions in the new jersey cherry hill mission (benito), and the London England mission (suárez). they are awesome teachers, and we learn so much from them, also it is awesome to listen to their true Spanish. the mtc president is awesome, and he is from the Olympus area. his kids all went to oly high. it is weird cause mail can only be sent on Friday and Monday mornings, and we receive it at 5 o'clock on weekdays. we have an hour for every meal, and so there is always a little bit of free time.


The other day the president took the new elders to a photo shop further in town, in a huge van. we had to go there to get pictures taken for when we apply for our residency in a couple of weeks. it was neat to drive around for a little while and look at the city around us. one other thing was that we have singing practice, and then perform in front of the temple on Sundays. it is neat to sing to the people of Madrid, both members and non members. Also the missionaries from all of the surrounding areas come. on Sunday there were like 14 or 16 missionaries from the Madrid mission. we had the opportunity to talk to the people after we sang. i talked to some of the missionaries to find out more about life in the mission, and other things. well i hope all is well, and i hope to hear from you guys from letters, and through emails at elder.miller(at)myldsmail.net. feel free to email or write me, and i will do my best to write you back as soon as possible. i hope all is well. the church is true, and god loves you.


love,
elder miller

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

mtc madrid after a crazy long flight

hey i am going to try this whole email thing over again. the address here is different than the madrid mission one, so i don´t know what to do about all the people i told the address to. the address is:

Centro de Capacitación Misional
Calle del Templo, 2
28030 Madrid (España)

the mtc is amazing here. we are very structured as aposed to the loose and ever changing schedule of mtc provo. the flight was crazy. we transfered just fine in atlanta. we were sitting around when they called our names (mr. ott, mr. miller, and mr. silvers). we went up to the info desk at our gate, and they told the 3 of us that we were bumped up to business class, or first class. we were in denial, and just thought we would have some barely better seats. we were wrong. they greeted the three of us with drinks (orange juice and champagne) of course we chose the orange juice. our seats were the most luxourious plane seats ever. we could get them completely flat, or any other position imaginable. it was awesome. and there was 5 feet atleast between each row to allow for everyone to recline without interfering with the others. we thought that was amazing. and our seats were together. elder was next to elder silvers, david roots friend. i was next to an old grandma who spoke portuguese, spanish, and some english. it was interesting getting to know her, she was as nice as can be, and we had a great time. i took a picture of her, but she looks very angry. i will send it home eventually. she was awesome, and i told her what i was doing and what we teach for the two years living away from home. anyway, the seating got even better when they passed out menus, and we picked our 6 course meal. we even got to eat like high rollers! it was sooooooooooooooooooo awesome. we ate for the first 2 and a half hours of the flight at least. it was all so good, like for example my entre was cheese tortoleni with delicious sauce and chicken. all of the other courses were great to (starter, appetizer, salad, entre, cheese crackers and fruit, and then dessert a delicious sundae with all the fixins. it was soooooo tight. anyways for breakfast an hour before we got off our 8 hour flight we had cheese and egg quesidillas, which were also delicious. mom i suggest you try to make them. if i didn´t tell you my p day here will be thursday, and that is also the day we go to the temple. we are going tomorrow so i will tell you next week how amazing it is. around here there is only 6 sister missionaries, and about 30 elders i would guess. it is awesome. for exercise we are way free and we can even go to the shopping center. for p day we can go anywhere in sight of the angel moroni. on sundays we go on excursions, which just means we tour a few places in madrid. also the rooms are so nice and brand new, and the bathrooms are like perfect hotel bathrooms. it is amazing amazing amazing. the president and his wife a very nice. we are going to do service at 5, and that is every wednesday instead of gym. saturday we ride the metro to the park and go contact people for a few hours and then come back. anyway if you couldn´t tell i am excited, and very tired. i only slept a total of 2 hours maximum. and it is 5 45 here right now. they are letting us go to sleep at 7 though but we had to stay up this whole day which has been oh so hard. life is good, and i hope it is the same at home i will love to hear from you via letter. thank you very much for everything.

love you guys,

elder miller

p.s. i didn´t get elaborate with the punctuation like using ! marks cause the key boards are arranged the same, but have different ways to access more buttons... if that makes any sense


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