Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Almost December!


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

Hey everyone! I thought I would tell you what the Madrid mission does around Christmas. I would guess at this time they do Christmas lights on the Madrid Temple Square, and then the Madrid elders carol on Christmas Eve at Plaza Mayor. I haven’t seen the lights and didn’t do the caroling last year because I wasn’t in that area. Hopefully this year I will at least see the lights on Temple Square.
We had our Zone Mission Home night for the holidays on week 2 of this transfer, so like a week and a half ago. This week there were 3 more exchanges since last Wednesday. We have 3 more this transfer with Alcazar again on Friday, and then Puerto llano on week 5 and 6 of the transfer. It is wacky because we have so many exchanges, more than anyone else in the mission, even more than the Assistants and other District Leaders over large districts, but it’s all right because Elder Haynie is a top-notch amazing missionary, and takes over the area like a champ. Teo and Estefania had their baby, and all is well. Elder Decker and I went to visit them on exchanges. Elder Decker is way sweet. He is our Zone Leader and I get along with him really well. He is in my MTC group of missionaries, so we have been on our missions the same amount of time, but he waited 6 months in the Baltimore, Maryland English speaking mission for his visa.
The work is going amazing here, better than I ever imagined it could possibly go. It is Wednesday morning, and we still have 5 days in the week of teaching, and we already had the opportunity to teach 12 lessons on exchanges in the past two days. The exchanges were with Elder Dorner and Elder Korongo. I have served around Elder Korongo a lot. In each of my areas he has been in my Zone. So now I have finally been on exchanges with him. You might remember him. He is the very tall, dark guy in the picture with me a few months ago. He is an interesting person. I have always gotten along with him.
Mom, will you ask Tom about my gums around my molars? They are receding a little bit. I can’t figure out why. Am I brushing too much, or not getting enough vitamins, or what? The members feed us a ton here, so it isn’t by any means malnutrition, and I don’t think that’s a reason for it anyway. Thanks!
The good news is my suits are holding in there. My shirts are always ironed and clean and my shoes stay polished. Holidays pass like nothing happened. The days are going faster and faster. I sleep deeper and deeper. I am happier and busier than I have ever been, and I love my family more than I ever knew before.
Happy Thanksgiving! It won’t feel any different here, but we are going to buy a roasted chicken and have chips and dip. We are going to make the pumpkin muffins Grandma sent, salad with ranch dressing, and of course, mashed potatoes. I haven’t had mashed potatoes my whole time here, well a couple times the instant mashed potatoes, but we are doing the real thing.
Patrick is doing great. Elder Haynie and Elder Dorner gave him a blessing yesterday of council and comfort, and it went “out of this world” well. Also, Oswaldo is doing well, even though he went to Madrid last weekend and didn’t make it to church there. We just had a great lesson with Higinia from Bolivia. She is a menos activo lady who just came back to church. I think I mentioned her last week. It was an awesome lesson, and the members are taking her right back in and loving her to death. It’s great! This unit of the church is amazing here, and I am glad to be a part of it.
We were able to teach José Antonio’s sister and dad. His dad is 97, turning 98 in January. He lives with his brother Ramón and sister Ana. Missionaries have never visited them from what Ana told us, and Elder Dorner and I just figured we would ask if we could come over. It went great and we have another lesson on Saturday with them. José Antonio is the only member of the church in his family. He is amazing, and loves, loves, loves missionary work. He goes with us at least once a day to lessons. Also, we taught a Colombian woman named Mabel, who is golden. She came to church and accepted the baptismal date for the 27th of December.
We are way excited for her. She was telling us how the Lord sent us to Spain to help her see the light and find the truth. It was awesome. We got to serve some members and trim there patio trees, and sweep up their leaves. They didn’t have a rake because it is a weird thing to live on the bottom floor of a building, and even weirder to have a patio with trees. It is more normal here in Ciudad Real, but in Spain as a whole, it is different. It was way fun, and we had a great time helping out the members. It was surprising how much fun manual labor was. I absolutely loved it, weird.
Hermana Nieves, who lives a roller coaster life with depression, is doing great right now, and is consistently praying, reading the scriptures, and just doing great with all of her problems, so that is just awesome. She is helping others find the gospel as well. Her latest ones are her friends Lourdes and Amelia. So we are going to teach Amelia for the 3rd time on Saturday, and Lourdes for the first time.
Have a great day! The spiritual thought this week is in Doctrine and Covenants 109 verse 14.
Love, Elder Miller

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

11-19-08


Well, first of all thank the Petersons for the email and family updates.
I sent an email to Jessica to help her with her report on Spain. I thought you might like some España facts so here it goes:
The jobs for Spaniards are usually the nice business men office jobs, where they wear nice suits and fancy clothes. The teens don’t work and don’t get married until 30 or near there, and they live with their family until then. They have school just like us with Colegio, then Middle School, then Instituto or High School. Then they go to the University or Universidad. There are trees, but no grass in the cities except for 2 or 3 parks. They like plazas and parks, and open mall stores like at The Gateway. There are just a ton of apartment buildings except for in the little towns. But houses are hooked together, or small. They live mostly in the big cities and don’t spread out across the country. There are way to many cars and not enough room to park them. Public transportation is popular. There are a ton of immigrants. I have met people from all over the world including every nation in South America, Central America, USA, Canada, all over Africa, all over east and west Europe, and then Russia and China, and all over the place. The most common stores are lottery stores, pharmacies, snack stores and candy stores, clothes stores that aren’t in the United States, tobacco stores, banks, real estate agencies, restaurants and bars. Also, the famous people from Spain are Rafael Nadal from tennis, Torres from soccer who plays in England, and Pau Gasol from the Lakers. A former Utah Jazz player Raul Lopez is from here, Antonio Banderas, and I don’t know who else. But good luck with the report. I get home in a little under 8 months. Love you tons, Elder Miller

Well also, I would like to request the Angel’s Landing hike at Zion’s for whichever age group I fall in, but I always loved sitting at the kids table, so you can send me up there with Jake, Abbie, Tessa, Tyler and Cole if you want.
Have fun snowboarding this season Evan. Don’t break anything but have fun.
About the nativity sets: I haven’t seen anything too cool, or anything much at all, just cheap stuff from chino stores that looks way lame. I will search a bit. Most of that stuff is going to be in Madrid, but I have really only been in Madrid on my mission about 10 days of tourism and that includes the temple in the morning and back to missionary work at 6:30, which leaves about no time to run and see one thing. I will try to find one, with zero guarantees.
Well we had exchanges on Monday with the Alcazar elder’s trio here. I went with Elder Ogden, and then Tuesday with Elder Lundell. The baby of Teo and Estefani should be born any day or is already born. Patrick came to church for the fifth time and Takisne and Rei came for the 4th time. All is well with them. We are trying to figure out how to teach Tak and Rei still with their limited English and almost non-existent Spanish. Also, Oswaldo from Ecuador has a baptismal date for the 27th of December. He is awesome and prays always and reads the assignments, along with Tak, Rei, and Patrick. Another menos activo lady came back to church. Her name is Higinia. She is very nice and Elder and Ott and I contacted her about 3 months ago. I use the Ranger Cookie recipe from Grandma Judy, by the way.
To answer Grandma, I can’t remember if Hermana Farnsworth received the cookie book. I think I gave it to her. Tell Dusty and Katie “Hi” if they come to dinner on Sunday. Have them drop me a line if they have a minute. I would love to hear from them. I miss getting Dusty’s emails every week.
Elder Haynie and I are lost in the work and are just having a blast. I am having the time of my life helping the District and loving the members and missionaries. Our investigators are good ones, and the Lord is just blessing us a lot. Thanks for the prayers. We had District Preparation Day today. We played soccer this morning on a little turf field at a near by park here in Ciudad Real. Elder Karren from Skyline High School knows a bunch of people I do, and it was fun to be around the other elders. I gave Elder Reid a hair cut. That is about number 15 or more, and Elder Karren needed a trim. All is well, and the work is going as it should. Tell everyone “Hi and I love them”. The spiritual thought this week is a good “endure to the end” one in Alma 1:25. Keep on keepin on. I love you all.
Much love from España Elder Miller

Friday, November 14, 2008

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

16 months!

First off, thanks for everything you all do. Grandma Judy made it sound like you didn’t like the Christmas don’t send list, sorry. If I could think of other things I would let you know, but none come.
Mom, could you get in touch with Justin Dolan and ask what materials are in Tai for me. Don’t send them; just give me a list of the things that are available. As far as movies we have shown them “Finding Faith in Christ”, and “The Restoration” in Tai. If you could also ask Justin and Steve how in the world they transitioned from Buddhism to Christianity. They love church and have been 3 times and to 2 Noches de Hogar. Takisne is in Mosiah 26 in the Book of Mormon already in her reading and is praying nightly. So kind of crazy!
Patrick didn’t move out of his apartment with his girlfriend last week and he wasn’t kicked out to force him to. Things stalled with his progress towards baptism, but we set a new date for the 13th of December and made a 6 step plan including scripture reading, moving out, getting a job, prayers daily, lessons 2 times a week, and 4 more times at church. He didn’t come this week because he was embarrassed that he came up short on the goal. So we are going to turn him into a “rock solid” convert in this next 5 weeks and be sure he can’t go astray. I think it is better this way anyway.
The bucket of cake that I mentioned last week ranges from a 4 gallon bucket to about a 1 gallon bucket, full of cake scraps that they don’t throw away because the District President saves them for us. So we just eat it like a community bowl of cereal with spoons. It’s great!
I was so, so, so happy to hear that Coach Smith finally quit at Olympus. I am sure getting fired was inevitable and he probably wouldn’t want to keep teaching at a school he got fired from as coach.
I just wanted to make sure the food storage back home is doing well with the crazy times we are in. I am going to have to buy a new suitcase for about 23 euros at a chino, due to the big one loosing a wheel getting here to Ciudad Real.
Our trip to Madrid went well and the events were eventful. I am sure things like Zone Conference, District Meeting, Interviews and stuff like that are really boring to read in my emails. Sorry, that’s kind of my life here. We have 8 exchanges this transfer, so that is going to be nuts. Also, last week went really well as far as our success in teaching. We were able to teach a bunch of lessons and help a lot of people. I really love this city, and the Lord is helping these people come to Christ. One funny thing is that the toilet at the Leganes Capilla flooded again during interviews this transfer just like it did last transfer. So that was pleasant with the water coming out of a storm drain in a closet - way fun to clean up in suits and church shoes.
We are teaching some awesome people. Amelia is one of Hermana Nieves’ friends. She is great. She is from Spain and had a baptismal date back in July, but cancelled it. We picked her back up and are going to work with her. Also, Estefania and Teo came to the Rama Noche de Hogar on Saturday and were fellowshipped great as usual. We took our newest favorite, Ranger Cookies. Elder Haynie and I have made 4 batches in a couple of week’s time to take to people. We substituted crushed Werther’s for Skor bits though. So maybe Grandma could send some Skor bits. That would be great! Then we didn’t do the Werthers after that because it melted and then the cookies were like glass.
We also have a new investigator named Daniel from Brazil and Oswaldo and Luz from Ecuador. So things are going great and people are popping up all over the place.
This week’s scripture is missionary related: Doctrine and Covenants 24:12

Love,

Elder Milller

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Laundry day in Ciudad Real


November 5



Well it was a good week this week. As far as transfers, Elder Haynie and I stayed together for hopefully another six weeks, at least. So I will probably be here in Ciudad Real until the next transfer on the 15th of December. As far as the rest of the district: Elder Hinton went home, and he was replaced by Elder Gamarra, from Peru and in the Madrid CCM with me. Elder Lundell was in Valladolid while I was in Segovia and we were in the same district. Elder Korongo replaced Elder Porter in Valdapeñas, so Elder Korongo and I have been in the same zone 4 times now. Elder Read was made a senior companion for his 4th transfer, and is with Elder Karren from Skyline who is in his 3rd transfer. So there are 2 experienced companionships, one inexperienced, and then Elder Haynie and I are a mix of the two. District Meeting went great. We have a trip to Madrid on Monday morning to renew my residency, and then to go to the mission home that night for the holiday dinner as a zone, and then stay over, and go the next morning to Leganes for interviews. Then we will be back home Tuesday night to Ciudad Real. I got your package by the way, and I love the calendar. Also, I got a tape and pictures from Greg. We have been way blessed with investigators lately. Patrick is doing great. He quit smoking, drinking alcohol and coffee, and is moving out tomorrow or Friday. Pray for him that all goes well and he can be baptized the 15th. He came to church for the 4th time in a row. He has such a strong testimony that as we teach him commandments he just accepts them and says he wants to do anything to follow the Savior and be baptized into the church. It is awesome to see him grow, and learn and prepare. The members fellowship him amazingly, as well. Also, Takisne and Rei came to church again. We spell there names phonetically in Spanish so we can understand the names. We watched the Restoration DVD in Tai with them on Saturday, and they came to church on Sunday again and brought a friend, Suni. Then we at Tai food at their house after church that wasn’t hot, because they know we are Americans. But they did have us try a chili, and my mouth was on fire. Also, there is this man named Manuel. Elder Ott will remember him as the old man of 80 years we taught and he didn’t seem to listen or understand anything, and he had some interesting tangents. So it has been about 7 or 8 weeks since we last went by, but we decided to go by in planning last Thursday. When we went by, he was home and reading the Restoration pamphlet. He has accepted the Book of Mormon amazingly, and we went back the next day, and he had read the first 18 chapters of first Nephi. How amazing is that? I am so excited for this man, and we will see what we can do to help him know of the truthfulness of the gospel. Also Renilda and Bruna, we taught and challenged to baptism, and they said they would when they know it’s true. They are still reading. We just need to help them pray about it. There was a friend of theirs named Marilyn who was there that we taught last time. Estefania is due in about a week I believe, and is resting a lot. My hair cut is kind of interesting right now. It is just fine. I did the usual 19 cm. on top and 7 on the sides and then blended between. Elder Haynie helped me finish the blending to line up the back and around the ears. Well, with the one last stroke above my left ear he took out a chunk of hair. So I have one step in my haircut. I could add two more and be way retro if I wanted, but I guess we will just try to fix it after it as grown for about a week or so. Also this morning, we studied in the light of the patio door because a light bulb blew up when Elder Haynie flipped the light switch this morning. So we waited until our dueño, who’s on vacation in Barcelona, was for sure up, and called to find out that one of the paintings is hiding the breaker box. Good to know- and the lights are back on. We had a dinner appointment at the Pedraja’s again Monday night for family night, and then the Lopez’s for stew on Sunday night. On Monday for medio dia we had pasta with beef sauce at Nieves’ and then the Tai food Sunday for medio dia, and then Thursday we go to Luis´ for paella. The members are awesome, and I love this area, the investigators, and the people of La Mancha or Manchegos. We got a bucket of cake for the 3rd time since I have been here from Pres. Pedraja who is a pastelero, or a pastry baker. Things are going amazing in the district and area, and the Lord is blessing us a ton. I love what it says in Alma 5:49 I believe it is. We preach to everyone and help all to come unto Christ and especially here in a way diverse country. Love, Elder Miller