Dear Loved Ones,
This week has been amazing to say the least and it all lead up to GENERAL CONFERENCE which was the perfect ending. I’ll talk a little bit about Conference later but for now I’ll get into reporting a little of what happened this week in Florence, AL.
Tuesday was the first taste of magic, or as we like to call it the Spirit. There is an investigator that the sisters in our area are mainly working with and his name is Noah. Noah is prepared. He has meet with and talked with missionaries in the past, his best friend lived in the ward (who just moved away to BYU-I for school) and most of his other friends or the people he hangs out with are from the youth of the ward. Noah grew up heavily involved in a Baptist church and that is where his parents are strong today. Although he is 20, he is living at home which limits his involvement in the church slightly. So, now that you have a background: On Tuesday, Noah went on a team-up with us to see a couple appointments that we had. (For those of you who don’t know, a team-up is where we typically take a member out with us to appointments). We went to see a less-active family which started of kind of weird and awkward but it ended up being a deep discussion on the doctrine of The Plan of Salvation. Ok...then, we went to see Agnes the 95-year-old Book of Mormon studier. Noah himself is studying the Book of Mormon as well-just for a little more exposition. We went into the appointment thinking we were going to discuss The Plan, however the lesson quickly turned to be about the importance of reading, studying, and PRAYING about the Book of Mormon and the importance of praying. One thing Agnes pointed out was how similar the Book of Mormon and the Bible were in their teachings. We explain that they were both records of Christ’s teachings and then turned to ask Noah why he thought they were so similar. Then the magic. Noah bore a simple, plain testimony in the words that went something like this: “Well, I guess they are so similar because the Book is true.” Woah. We soon discovered that our appointment with Agnes was not for Agnes, but for Noah. That was a huge testimony builder to me about the power of the Spirit and how important it is for us to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon (which evidently was one of the principles mentioned a couple times in conference this past weekend). Anyways that was amazing and he will be going out with us again on Tuesday!
Nothing really beats that experience but on Wednesday we found a couple awesome people who we are excited to go teach. Jake was the first and we meet him while walking down the street on Wednesday. He just was interested in the church and how missions worked and all sorts of other basic things about how the church is. We left him with a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and hopefully will be able to meet with him again this week. Then, we went tracting for a little bit later that day and meet Tara. Tara is an artist and was interested in the fact that before we threw a ton of gospel stuff at her we took some time to get to know her. At one point in the conversation she made the comment that she wasn’t supposed to be talking so much we were. She was also interested in the beliefs of the church and the Book of Mormon. So, when I gave her one I used a technique I learned in the MTC: When handing out a Book of Mormon you make the person want it more than anything. As you start to hand it to them you pull it away just out of their reach and continue to give the invitation to read. Then as you hand it back you pull it away again to talk about the importance of praying to find out if it is true. Then you give it to them and by the time they finally have it all they want to do is break it open. We will be going back later this week to see if my technique worked!
Later this week the weather dropped a ton and it is finally cool! I love it. It's kind of like the middle of Arizona winters, so I’m thinking it’s going to be a little colder but for now it’s nice. I can’t wait to see the trees actually change color! We talked to a few other people this week and one of them taught me. His name is Gordon and he owns a shop in Downtown that we like to visit. After going in one day he asked us “What have you learned today?” After thinking about it for a while we didn’t have a truly good enough answer and he told us that he thinks people don’t usually take the time to think about what they are learning from a given situation in the middle of the day. So typically missionary I wrote that question on a sticky note and put it on my wall so that I can ask myself that every day. I would challenge y’all to do the same and it might surprise you what the Lord teaches us, because He is constantly teaching, and we should constantly be learning.
Speaking of learning I spent the past two days basically living at the church building for General Conference! I don’t even know why we went home to sleep but it was so worth it! I loved how it began Saturday morning with President Uchtdorf because we often do take a lot of things for granted...like hearing from the Lord’s chosen servants twice a year! How cool is it that we have that opportunity!? I enjoyed ALL of conference and all the messages were great! I think the theme was truly inspired and it definitely applies to missionary work! General Conference, in the words of Elder Wheatley, is the Super Bowl for Missionaries! I love President Monson and I know he is the Lord’s Prophet. My testimony is strengthened every time he speaks, even if it is just for a few minutes each. One of my favorite talks was Elder Christensen of the Seventy. He spoke about the importance of having a testimony of the Restoration and of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. A lot of other messages were focused on the basic, plain, pure truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ-the truths that I have an opportunity to share with the people of Alabama every day! I know that the church is being run today by Jesus Christ, as Elder Ballard would say He is at the helm of the Ship of Zion. Christ lives, and our Heavenly Father lives as well. I know that all He wants for us is to return Home.
One thing that I have noticed since being on a mission and particularly since getting more familiar with the work, investigators, and members, is that I have trouble just thinking about myself. It is to my understanding that the mantle of missionary work allows you to receive specific, true revelation to help administer and perform the Lord's work in a certain proselyting area. When I sit in Sacrament meeting, I try to focus on what I can do to be a better disciple of Christ and how I can improve in the coming week; however, my thoughts are often turned to how to help investigators, how to strengthen recent converts, how to encourage less-actives to come back to church, and how to get part-member families closer to being sealed in the temple. With General Conference, and my own thoughts, I have determined that these thoughts are for others, but they also answer my question of "How can I improve?" This has been a blessing in my life and will continue to be a blessing I'm sure. I love the people, and I love how in conference this past weekend the leaders of the church stressed the importance of building the kingdom in building others.
I love y’all, and thank y’all for the thoughts and prayers! Build your testimony in the Savior and in our Father, because I promise He is there in the name of our Brother, Jesus Christ, Amen!
Godspeed,
Elder Milius
PS: Sorry for the long email this week, hope you got something out of it for reading down this far!
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PPS: We all carved pumpkins for a District Activity this morning!
Guess which one is mine! AZ=>AL
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