Elder Michael Milius: 19 December 2016

Family and Friends,

First I would like to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS! I can’t believe that Christmas is in a week, and I’m so glad for the time we are given to celebrate our Savior’s birth! The ABM is having much success in our efforts of having a White Christmas and the Lord is definitely blessing His work and His Missionaries, of which I am blessed to be!

The Work in the Fort Payne Branch is moving forward. Yesterday I was so glad to see several families and individuals who are less-actives come to the block of church meetings. Several things tend to make a missionary happy: baptisms, investigators that "get it," food, and for me less-actives at church. I can't tell you how excited I was and how excited I am for the future of the Fort Payne Branch.

This week was full as always. We are currently trying to work our hardest to get Virginia-our deaf investigator-prepared for baptism on the 31st. She is ready, the trick will be making sure she understands and everything she needs to. We are also working with several others who could be prepared for baptism in the coming month and it’s awesome to see this area grow! I can’t wait to see the Fort Payne Ward!

Also this week, we met a man named Paul who owns a shop in Fort Payne. I share this with you because it was a testimony to me of how much of an impact we have as missionaries, whether it be for the positive or the negative. This story fortunately was positive and allowed us to have a meaningful conversation with Paul in which he related to us this experience (paraphrasing from my memory):

"I (Paul) play music at different churches around the County and help many different religious groups in their worship services. A couple of years ago my brother was diagnosed with cancer and was very weak and ill. One day my brother turned to me and asked, "Paul, where are all the church people? You play at several places around this area, so why hasn't anyone come to pray with me?" This bothered me and when I got home that night I knelt down and told God that whomever He sent to me and to my brother, whatever religion they were I would accept them."

The story then goes where you would expect it; two Elders went and found Paul and his brother. They prayed with them, taught them, and eventually offered Paul's brother a blessing of healing. Paul's brother was healed of cancer. And from that experience on, Paul has loved the Missionaries and loved the LDS church. He doesn't agree with everything he says, but his image and view on the Church is with respect and honor because of two missionaries, two boys.

We represent and stand for more than we think we do. And the way that people see us is going to be the way they see the Church.

I will also share an experience that for me wasn't the greatest...and then the Lord humbled me. Long story short, Elder Morley and I went to contact a referral one night. Michael had requested a Bible and when we got there and started talking to him he told us that he didn't believe in the Bible because it was "written by man" and he believed in God. So, as we couldn't use scriptures from the Bible now let alone the Book of Mormon, we resorted to testimony. Elder Morley shared his testimony of the church, I shared (or attempted to share) the Restoration story and bore my testimony of the First Vision. Without hesitation both our testimonies and Joseph's experience of seeing God the Father and Jesus Christ was shot down. Finding ourselves caught in a hole and being buried with every word we share, we decided to leave with a prayer-which we asked Michael to give because if I had done it the things I would have asked for might not have been the best things for Michael to hear. And out the door we went, frustrated, defeated, and confused. Murmuring like Laman and Lemuel we were saying things like "We just got Bible bashed without the Bible," and "You can't beat an idiot," etc. Recognizing this was wrong for us to think, and that our feelings were only coming from the sorrow we felt for Michael not accepting the things we were teaching and the things that God wanted him to hear we quickly said a prayer for forgiveness. However, we didn't stop our complaining all together. About twenty minutes later we got a phone call from Michael in which he told me that he was sorry we left the way we did, he enjoyed talking to us, and he would like us to come over again to talk with him. I know that Michael felt the Spirit that was there when we were bearing testimony, he just didn't know what it was. I feel terrible for acting the way I did afterwards and I am thankful to our Father for humbling me because you can't be a prideful messenger.

This past week we were able to attend the Christmas Party/Zone Conference for the North half of the mission which was awesome. We were gifted with the opportunity to watch Zootopia and I’ll never be able to watch that movie again the same way...there’s just nothing like watching a movie with a ton of missionaries! Our Branch also had a Christmas party, I saw Santa, and there was a great turn-out of members, non-members, less-actives, etc. I’m more happy that they all made it back for church the next day but exciting stuff nonetheless.

I love Christmas and I can’t believe it’s here! This will definitely be a Christmas for the books and I hope y’all have a wonderful time celebrating! Take care.

“God bless us, everyone!”

Much Love,

Elder Milius

Godspeed,

ELDER MICHAEL S. MILIUS

ALABAMA BIRMINGHAM MISSION

"Behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of Him to declare His word among His people, that they might have everlasting life." ~3 Nephi 5:13