Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Almost April


Hey guys, how is it going down there, or up there or over there, wherever you are compared to me? Today has been just splendid, as we went to the temple this morning. It was just fantabulous. I saw Elder Jensen and Elder Van Dyke there, so I had 3 of my 4 mission field companions there. It was a jolly good time and a great little reunion. Also, we are staying tonight in Barrio 5 or Sol the center of Madrid. This is where our zone leaders serve, and it would be an awesome area to have for tourism. I wonder how the mission work goes though.

We taught this blind man named Frutuoso last week. He was just so, so nice, and glad to have someone to talk to and talk at, and listen to. We taught him, but I don’t know how often it will happen. He is going on vacation, and I don’t know how interested he was in the gospel. He has a woman who takes care of him, and is his eyes, and then he hasn’t been married and is age 70. He has been blind for 55 years, and is just an awesome man. The charla was nice because I could look around the house and sit super relaxed and comfortable, and adjust my socks and bite my nails and then just talk. It was a weird experience indeed. We just sat on this couch while we were there, but when we left I did a little dance in the mirror and almost made my companion laugh but he didn’t laugh at all. It was funny, but probably a little immature, you live and you learn.

Hermana Loli, our branch president’s wife is doing great, but still recuperating at home. The details of her surgery are that they took out her heart and operated on it, and hooked her up to a machine, then put the heart back in all ready to go with reinforced arteries I believe. Anyway, she has made almost a full recovery but is still in the house healing. We have taken her the sacrament in her home. That’s a great opportunity to relive the priest age years that weren’t very long ago at all.

Tons of the kids all over the streets are addicted to these things called Pokemon Roks. I don’t know if that’s the case in the states, or what, but here they are all the rage for the elementary age kids. You’ve got to love the elementary fads which include, but are not limited to Pogs, yo yo´s, Tamagochis, Converse Allstars, Pokemon cards or anything Pokemon, whatever kind of pen some kid gets I think William Penn Elementary’s was the Gelly roller, and as I said, the list extends forever. Oh yeah, Beanie Babies too, or the mini ones from McDonalds... ok I will leave you to reminisce about your favorite elementary school fads, but the best is the jr. high school 7th grader bangs. That’s how I define when the 7th grade boys discover gel, and they spike there bangs straight out or slightly up. All good memories... Mom you can include a picture of my 7th grader bangs if you want.

We are teaching Andres and Humberto still, and they are still amazing. Now, though, also we are teaching the mother, Humberto’s wife Rubiela, and Juan, who is Andres’ 12 year old brother who is a soccer goalie. Andres is 15 and a forward in soccer. They are awesome, and now we just need them to stop being so good at soccer and not have games on Sundays so they can come to church.

The newest mostest favoritest recipe, I think so there are just to many to count, is breakfast business. Made originally by one Elder Clark who went to my high school and is a branch president right now in Cuenca in our mission. It is a hashbrown, peppers, onions, cheesiness, delicious salsa brava sauce, Greek yogurt, and on a tortilla if you prefer, oh yeah bacon, and basically delicious for all meals of the day every day.

We had district conference in Valladolid 2 weeks ago, and it was just awesome. Our Mission President spoke, and his wife as well. It was awesome, and we got mail, so it was a double whammy.

Last Sunday was Easter and we had crazy snow both Saturday and Sunday. We had temperatures of negative 5 Celsius at night. So it was freezing, and would just snow off and on the whole weekend. So happy Christmas, I mean Easter.

We saw 5 or 6 crazy processions, and you would have to see one to know what I mean. They criss-crossed from every barrio or area or neighborhood down to the Plaza Mayor I believe. So you couldn’t go anywhere in the afternoon from Thursday to Sunday without stumbling into a procession. Culture change is definitely a weird thing for sure.

We had interviews last week that went just splendid and have zone conference tomorrow; hence we are in Barrio 5.
So, I love you all and will have to talk more about Alvaro next week. I believe, maybe I can get it in. We knocked in to him 3 weeks ago on exchanges, Elder Abbot and I. I used my dad’s Colombian money to get to know him, since he is Colombian. We taught him last Saturday, and he came to church on Sunday. I see bright things in his future, and I am super excited for him.

Love you guys a ton.

Much love from Spain,
Elder Miller

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Happy Easter

Hey guys, how is it going over there?

Sorry no email last week. Something went wrong, but last week still happened and life goes on. The computers were super slow, and so I had trouble typing much of an email anyway, so it would have been a disappointing one. So now you just get double the fun. I would have sent one again last week, but it told me that it sent just fine. This crappy program we use!

Fathers’ Day is today, on the 19th of March in Spain. I went back to the piso and looked at the calendar, and it is in June at home. Mom, will you get to the bottom on this weirdness? Dad, I guess you get two Fathers’ Days this year. Evan, Happy 16th Birthday tomorrow!

Oh, I dry cleaned my dark green suit last week, and now I am wearing it again, and my black one will get picked up after this, so I won’t stink, not even a little bit in these nice clean pressed suits. I got the last package Mom sent & an Easter package from Grandma. They were awesome! I loved the treats and pictures, just loved them. So, my room did get taken by Evan, funny how that works out. I saw the red couch in the picture and I am pretty sure that Evan’s old room is a video game-chill room, so Evan must be sleeping in mine.

I have a huge list of things to say, and I will get through them in the next couple of weeks. I might not be sure on dates, but here goes. We have been really pushing English classes, and it is still not working very well. We don’t have any students, but have put up a bunch of flyers, and then it is on our business cards we give out with our numbers and capilla times. Tons of people call, like between 20 and 30, but none come to church, even though they say they will.

We are super busy on our habitacion search, and then also missionary work is about as busy a life as you can live. So we have our hands full up here - the real estate agent missionaries of Segovia. The habitacion search is kind of rough, but we will just keep pushing through. We have insanely high standards to keep on the pisos for the mission, so it is super, super, super hard to fulfill our standards. We have had some close calls with ones that almost worked but still nothing to work yet.

Well, it has been a crazy week here, and we’ve got our big 5 this week, that is our 5 investigators. I don’t know why I called them the big 5, but they consist of Juan, Kelly, Alfredo, and Andres and his father Humberto. They are all awesome, and to go along with them we have Kenneth, the best little 8 year old in the world. He gave a talk this week.

We saw some Americans one day near the aqueduct from Boston. No the aqueduct isn’t from Boston, the Americans were, and not Boston, but a small town in Massachusetts somewhere. They gave us their address and we sent them some letters and a few pictures. They gave us a bag of Starbursts, how nice and delicious. He is a Branch President in their area at home, and they were awesome.

I have become a cheese cake chef extraordinaire. I have done plain, obviously. But, I have also used Crystal Light Western Family version drink flavoring to make a peaches and cream cheese cake and a raspberry and cream cheese cake. Both must be tried and are superisimo deliciouso.

Victor got kicked out of his piso along with his family, including his parents. The 9 of them hadn’t paid rent in 3 months, and moved to live with family in what is probably an even more insanely squished piso. I feel really bad for him, and hope the best for him. Hopefully he will come in contact with the church in Bulgaria some day or obviously on the other side. I wish the best of luck to Victor and his family.

There is this one plaza on Jose Zorilla that attracts, and has attracted a ton more people recently with the Spring here. There are play grounds and a little futbol court for the kids, and stuff. The kids love us, and we gave them our Starbursts above mentioned from the Massachusetts members. So thanks to them, the Spanish kids love us more than ever.

I do this little magic trick snapping a coin up my sleeve off my fingers. It gets them every time, and they love it. It’s a little something that is just the key to some people’s hearts. I learned that from Elder Gunn, my second companion. I also like to charm every old lady in all of Segovia at every bus stop, and all the sidewalks, carrying there bags or walking with a cane. They all say hi to us and it is way funny. Most are under 5 feet tall, and wave like President Hinckley with his cane. I always say to Elder Peterson that they are my girlfriends. So after each new old woman friend I’m like “yeah man, another girlfriend in Segovia”. It always makes for a good time. They turn me down every time I ask if I can carry their bags, no matter how slow they walk or how hard they are struggling. I wish they were less stubborn and would let me help. That’s one lesson I have learned really well. Elder Peterson and I really had a kind of service war going, where we were both practically fighting over every dish and everything we could possibly do for the other. So let yourself be served, and then take the opportunities to serve when they come.

Also, the March Ensign is amazing and I just love it. It focuses so much on Christ and the Easter season. So read it and appreciate what Christ did for you. Also, here in Spain, it is Semana Santa, which consists of many processions and all kinds of celebrations, and acting out what happened with Christ so long ago. They do everything from acting out the Last Supper with an audience of tons of people, to reenactments of the Crucifixion. It’s crazy!

Just a little thought that is spiritual. We really have been blessed here, but we have had many trials of our faith like in Ether 12:6.

Have a good Easter. I love you guys.

Sorry for the drought of email last week.

Love, Elder Miller

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

It's March!


Hey, just in case you are wondering, it was snowing when we started email, but sadly it stopped. This is the first snow of the year and probably the last here in the city of Segovia. It was awesome while it lasted, and none stuck, which is a real bummer.

Our focus in study that we get from President Farnsworth once a transfer is usually in Preach my Gospel. This transfer is The Family, the Proclamation to the World. He decided to do this because of the focus on this in the World Wide Leadership Training last month. It has caused me to think about families and their importance to me. Take the opportunity to read this pamphlet because it is truly amazing. Also, along with last week, I meant to say a few more things, and was rudely cut off by the email service, so at least I sent all but about a 3 minute email.

Last week Elder Peterson and I both had talks in church, then had the Sunday school lesson, Elder Peterson that is, and then I had the Priesthood lesson. We were a 2 man show, and it was crazy, but turned out just dandy.

We saw a motorcycle crash, which are called motos here. It was super scary, and insane. There was a car like a small suv approaching a round about down a hill on a two lane road. We were sitting right on a bus stop bench 25 feet from the wreck. They were going down the hill on the other side of the street from our bus stop. The moto was on the side near us, and the car on the other away from us, both going the same direction. The car needed to be in the lane of the moto and didn’t check its blind spot. Oops- that was a mistake that could have been fatal. The moto crashed full on into the side of the car with plastic from the driver’s side mirror flying everywhere, and leaving a huge dent in the side of the car, it came to a stop diagonally between lanes. The moto was a 125 and the guy was about 18 years old. We have seen him since, walking on the streets. He is probably super embarrassed when he sees us. But we saw a miracle that day.

He hit the car and flew and landed on the road about 10 feet away. He landed half on his helmet and on his shoulder. Amazingly, no one was coming the other way, which would have ended his life, and also no other cars were affected by it causing more accidents. The biker just skidded to a stop in his puffy black coat with a fur hood, and his white warm up pants. Oh, by the way, this is a common look and especially with some pumas that this guy was wearing too. So anyway he just lay there for 1 or 2 seconds and my heart sunk to my toes. I thought we had just seen someone die, but he sat up and ripped of his helmet all in one motion, then stood up a little shaken and picked up his bike. It wouldn’t start, and he rolled it off to the side, and even tried to start it and ride it up over the curb. We and others around went to help him. He didn’t realize how lucky he was, and everyone was trying to help him, and he was just mad about his moto. Amazing! It was crazy and I won’t ride a motorcycle on the streets and definitely not a bullet bike. He was riding like a street dirt bike type thing that the teens love here. Crazy experience!

We are on a habitation search as of yesterday, which means we are going to move out of our piso and find a room to live in and rent in someone else’s piso. Our piso is like a palace, and very unnecessary, so it should be good. Also, the finding of a habitation is hard and requires prayer and faith to find one with our standards of habitation living. So, the search is on, and I know we will find people to contact and teach along the way. Our normal work still goes on the same, just with searching for a finding activity every once in a while. We had another awesome lesson with Juan last night, and he is amazing. Also, Andres and his dad have now read 3 Nephi 10 and 11 and Alma 32. They are awesome. Also, Kenneth and Kelly are doing great as well.

Much love from Spain and a happy week to you.

Love, Elder Miller