Happy Easter

Thanks to both of my Grandmas, the Stevens, and Elder Brown for their emails this week.

Well today we went to a museum for the blind. It sounds weird but it was neat. They had all miniature models of famous buildings and monuments, 3-D art, brail books, and then history of the blind culture as far as like the inventions leading up to Braille and stuff. It was sweet, and you could touch all of the models because that’s obviously how the blind people figure out what’s going on with each piece. There was a Segovia overview, the Statue of Liberty, the Roman Coliseum, tons of famous cathedrals and building around Spain, the Eiffel tower, and much more. All of the things were all pretty big and impressive.
Thomas is doing great, and the other elders are teaching him as a recent convert because he moved into their area. He is just on fire, and came to all of the possible 4 sessions of conference we could attend and loved it. It was so fun to have him there in English with all of the missionaries. Also we watched one session in Spanish with Angel, who stayed for 2 sessions on Sunday, one with Andres and the other with us. We saw tons of members, and it was just awesome. Also, one of the coolest things was seeing Hermana Ana Camarero, who I knew as Anita back in Ciudad Real. She is in the Madrid CCM right now since last week. She is going to Barcelona on a mission, and it was great to talk with her about Tak and Rei who were put in the Primary presidency after I left. Conference was just amazing, amazing, amazing. I loved the sense of hope it gave to the world that has most obviously been turned on its head more and more since I have been in this bubble-world, free of doubts and fear of the real world.
I had a good exchange with Elder Ellsworth. He is from a small town in Arizona, Shiloh or something like that. He is was cool, and is in his first transfer. We had a great opportunity to teach some lessons, but one in particular was just awesome. We were put in the hard situation of teaching some member referrals for their first lesson. It was to a mother about 50 and her son Erik 25, and then Erik’s girlfriend, a member of Barrio 1. The tough part about the situation is that Jenny, the daughter, committed suicide last Saturday, due to a problematic life of suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. We taught them on Monday while they were still very sad and in shock as you can imagine. We taught them the plan of salvation, but mainly it was a short lesson focused on the atonement and it’s all encompassingness of all of our problems Alma 7:11-13. He is with us and helping us. We also taught about faith in preparation to give Erik a blessing he had asked for, prompting the visit. So it was super intense. The tension could have been cut with a knife. Elder Ellsworth is new, and doesn’t speak fluently yet, and so I had most of the lesson. It was a great opportunity to just be completely guided by the spirit the whole lesson and then during the blessing was just amazingly spiritual. I felt just an overwhelming calming feeling. Then the mother asked for a blessing, and when she said either of the two of us could do it, I got Elder Ellsworth to agree to do it. It was his first blessing; Spanish or English. It went great. He spoke Spanish better than he usually speaks. The gift of tongues helped him, and the Lord was helping this hard-hearted mother follow her son’s example to come more unto Christ. It was just a priceless 30 minutes and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Angel was doing just amazing and had jumped all hurdles we could toss in front of him; chastity, which has been a problem throughout his life, and the word of wisdom, which helped him quit drinking coffee and tea, and having the resolve to not even drink occasionally as he did before. Then we came to the Sabbath day and we just can’t get him to close his store. It was hard the first time to get him to church and close the tienda, but then it happened now 3 weeks in a row and so we need to get him ready to close on Sunday which looks super grim right now. But, I guess we will have faith instead of fear and we will do what we can and leave the rest up to the Lord.

Thanks for everything! I love you all so much.

Love, Elder Miller