I'm 21!

Hey everyone-

I love you all so, so much and appreciated so very much the birthday package that was oh “so beautifully simple, and simply beautiful, like the gospel”. I am going to make the caramel brownies soon. I just got the package yesterday, and haven't had time yet.

We just had an awesome day in Segovia. It was just splendid to go back and remember times with Elder Peterson and Elder Jensen, and the members contacts, people and places. I wish I could take it all home with me in my bags. It was awesome because we were able to go out on the balcony off the front of the castle - the far point of the cliff where it has never been open before when I was there. It must be a summer thing. We were going to go with our district, the six of us, plus Elder Karren and his companion. It almost worked out, but Elders Read and Gerrbo didn't come, and the Barrio 9 hermanas, who live with the hermanas in our district decided to come with us.

So that rotten old Elder Ott can stop giving me beef about preparation days with hermanas. The elders are just flaky on our plans sometimes, and wouldn't it be funny if I had to flake on the Toledo plans with him for next week.

I got 23 wonderful birthday emails! I think that's a new record for me. Jackson wrote me an email. Can you thank him? The letter he sent me a month and a half a go got lost, or is hopefully on the way. I hope it comes before I leave. Also, I want to do a general thank-you to Rusty, Ike, Sophie, Tess, Susie, Mike Manning, Yasmin and her family, Elder Ott (even though it was a half shout out, half stab in the back), Eliza, Dad, Mom, Merky and Gary, Grandma and Grandpa, Nancy, Ashley and Evan. Thanks so much for taking the time to shoot me a line. It was all well received and super appreciated.

I just wanted to check that my new home email address is morganmiller88@gmail.com. If that isn't it, can you please get in touch with Hermana Farnsworth through Facebook or email to tell her what it is. We have Zone Conference next Wednesday, and I haven't used that email ever, so I'm not sure if I remember it. I have to tell the mission office my home email, so they can put it in the newsletter they are going to give out on Tuesday at the first-last Zone Conference. I want to make sure I give them the right email, so everyone can stay in contact with me if they want to.

So, this week I will start off with talking up the members of Barrio 3 again, because they are the best I have seen on my mission. We taught 11 less active member or recent convert lessons last week to great people who are coming back to church. Every week this transfer, at least once, we have had an encounter with a new less active member that just found us on the street and contacted us and didn't know where the church was, or we contacted them thinking they weren't members. There are 4 that I can recall right now, and one that came to church last week is doing great. We found another one yesterday, and I hope he and his family get reactivated soon. A lot of the work Elder Jeppson and I have been offered by the Lord this transfer, has been teaching members and asking for referrals, working with less active members, and helping them back to church, and then working with amazing recent converts like Alex and helping other recent converts be more like Alex.

We do have a sweet investigator now, though. He is Bolivian and about 25 years old. He is oh so nice, and oh such an amazing person. He was a referral from Elder Read and is just awesome. In this district, more than any other, we have a great unity and just an awesome passing of investigators, referrals and we work together as a team. The hermanas have a baptismal date with Narcissa, who had stopped progressing and her husband wouldn't listen or participate. They both are just doing awesome now and have baptismal dates for the 4th of July to be baptized. The other elders have a date with Israel, who moved from our area to their area. The referrals just flow through from one to another. Its great, and we are all just working “one for all and all for one”.

We had an awesome lesson with Johnny on Saturday, and it was just amazing. Afterwords, he read 3rd Nephi 11 and prayed, and felt the confirmation that it is a true book and that Joseph Smith is a prophet. So we have a great stepping stone with him, and will work towards baptism with him.

We have weekly Family Night at the chapel for the ward members, and the missionaries can come if we take investigators. This week, the missionaries put it on, and I gave the lesson on the Book of Mormon. It went really well, and then we had brownies from the hermanas and cowboy cookies from me. (Elder Read's mom's recipe with chocolate chips or in Spain, chocolate chunks, coconut, oatmeal, and corn flakes.) They're great, and the noche de hogar went awesome. Both of the members we asked for referrals on Thursday brought them to the noche de hogar on Friday. The hermanas are going to teach them, seeing as they are all women, but it was awesome to see the members just being great missionaries.

I love this gospel and I love this missionary work, and I hope to be a missionary my whole life as a member, if I can't stay on a full time mission for the rest of my life.

I love you so much.

Love, Elder Miller