September 17

From: Elder Morgan Miller (elder.miller@myldsmail.net)

Well, hi to you all at home. I hope all is well.
So things still haven’t gotten back on track with José Luis, or Sergio, but we talked to Ana Maria in the park this week and hopefully we can meet with her soon. I don’t know if you remember René from the beginning of this transfer who had a baptismal date and moved to Valencia. He moved back to Bolaños and is working there. The transportation is crazy and so he can’t make it to church here unless he comes on Saturday afternoon, and then travels back home on Monday morning, or if he rode a bike like 5 km to a nearby town with an early morning train and then rode a train back that night. So it hasn’t worked out for him to get to church here yet, but the happy news is that he might move to Manzanares. It is a town here in La Mancha near Valdapeñas. Nearly all of their members live there and would be amazing at fellowshipping him, and he would get baptized there. So pray for René, that he will get the job in Manzanares, or whatever has to happen so he can move there and receive more light and knowledge and progress in the church towards baptism.
We are still teaching Dora. It has been one lesson a week on Mondays for the last 3 weeks. We have had to take it very slowly, because she almost absolutely does not read, which is really sad. She is a nice Bolivian woman about 30 years old. She can’t ever find the page we are reading in the Book of Mormon. This last week, we had a lesson with het and Luis Gallego and Irma came along. We read through the Introduction to the Book of Mormon but Dora wouldn’t read, we think because she can’t. She prayed after the first lesson, but a Padre Nuestro, or “The Lord’s Prayer”, as I said. Monday she told us in her personal prayers she starts with Padre Celestial, and ends en el Nombre de JesuCristo, Amen. So that is a victory and a little bit of progress. But it took these last 3 appointments to teach the first lesson to her, so it is going to be a slow process, especially because Dora is a workaholic, not by choice but out of necessity. She hopefully can come to church at 11 until 12 for Relief Society. It was awesome because Irma is the Relief Society President, and when she invited Dora to Relief Society, she accepted to come. Also a crazy thing is that Irma knew Dora already, and when we showed up for the lesson, Irma and Dora both remembered when Irma contacted Dora in the street and invited her to hear from the missionaries and to come to church. So Irma is just about the best member missionary. She is a true full-time finder, as Elder Bednar taught us. Luis is an A++++ Branch Mission Leader and Elder’s Quorum President. I love this work. It is so important for us all to be “full-time finders”, and to pray for missionary opportunities. We have used that message with all of the members here. It is just amazing.
Well, I don’t know what will happen with transfers on Monday. If Elder Ott gets transferred it would be way sad to see him go. We are the least likely companionship to get split up in our Zone. If we get split up that will mean all of the other areas get changed as well. So it would be a whole new La Mancha Zone. Who knows? Not me, but the Lord does.
The news of the week, I would have to say actually should have been in last week’s email, but I forgot to write about it. Two amazing people that I taught with Elder Van Dyke in Fuenlabrada were baptized on September 6th. Amas and Miriam were both baptized, and are now members of the Fuenlabrada Branch. They were found about April or May of 2007 by Elder Swartwood and his companion. I taught them for 4 months or so with both of my companions while I was there. We made 3 baptismal calendars to go along with 3 failed baptismal dates. It just wasn’t their time I guess, but now was their time. I am so overjoyed for Amas and Miriam. Also Fuenlabrada with Elder McBride and his second trainee in a row, have 6 other baptismal dates, a few of which might have already been baptized. So since I left Fuenlabrada, there have been 4 baptisms; Amas, Miriam, Raquel (an old woman who is a friend of a member and died about a month after her baptism due to her cancer), and then Alejandra (who I got to interview while with Elder Brown), and maybe 6 more. I am so happy for that area of Fuenlabrada which didn’t yield any success as far as baptisms, but helped me grow immensely while I served with Elder Van Dyke and Elder Gunn. So I thought you would like that little update.
Back here in Ciudad Real, we got in yesterday after knocking on doors at a building. It was actually José Antonio’s building. He is a really funny old man. He was baptized a little more than 15 years ago. He has had a hearing aid that didn’t work well at all, but he just got a new one that he doesn’t use very often because I guess he is saving it for special occasions. So it makes it so he can’t hear us very well still. Thank heavens he has an eye appointment on the 15th of October, that he so frequently reminds us of. He is a hoot. He is always saying the funniest craziest stuff. We sing with him and Nieves to practice for Nieves´ directing the hymns. He also accompanies us to a ton of lessons. Basically, we have a ton of member present lessons due to José Antonio and Luis. Anyway, we were knocking on doors at Jose Antonio’s building. After we had tried to visit some members that were lost and he helped us find them. So we dropped him off at his piso and went up to the 7th floor to knock on doors. On the 4th door we got in to teach Impidio and Maria, a way old couple of Spaniards who are way nice, and love to talk. They talked our heads off as we tried to teach them about the restoration of the gospel. We only got through half the lesson. Then we knocked our way down to José Antonio’s floor and were contacting a man at his door when who walks out and stands behind us, non other than the one and only hilarious José Antonio. He always talks to himself I guess, is what we learned from Impidio and Maria. Everyone in his building thinks he is crazy. José Antonio really does have one of the most pure hearts of anyone I have ever met. He is just amazing. He is little weird but has amazing desires.The spiritual thought for the week is a scripture I found this morning in studies:
D & C 104:42, I believe. It is about the blessings that come from obedience to the commandments, and my grandma also sent this great quote from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a former airline pilot: "The Lord's commandments are not restrictions or obstacles, but a flight plan for life that offers a safe and direct path to Heavenly Father." So I love you all very much, and hope you have a marvelous week. Keep up the good work.
Much love from Spain.
Love, Elder Miller