Hello from Wetumpka, AL!
So, for those of you who don’t know...Elder Milius was Emergency Transferred out of Fort Payne on Friday and is now serving in Wetumpka, AL, which is down by Montgomery. And yes I do enjoy talking about myself in third person. Just a short story concerning this ET:
On Thursday night around 5:00, the day after transfers (after we had arranged our entire apartment to accommodate three Elders) I received a call from President. He first had called using the Anniston cell phone-I think he was worried that we wouldn’t answer if we knew it was him. But he opened the conversation by telling me “Elder Milius, you know how you are always saying that if I need anything to call you?” Mind you, I hadn’t put that in my email since the first ET and then a couple weeks ago started doing it again. I responded, “”Now President, last time you said that you ET me out of Florence.” “Well,” he said, “I’m going to do it again…” And that was that. SO now, I am serving in Wetumpka, training a brand new awesome Missionary named Elder Harris, and I am also serving as the District Leader for the Wetumpka District. I don’t know how President is going to one-up this one.
All joking aside however, I am excited to be here and to basically start the work here from scratch. Fortunately there is a trio of Sister also in Wetumpka so we aren’t necessarily alone. But we are in a car share-meaning the Sisters have the car.
As you can imagine this week has been crazy, like about every other week in the Mission thus far. It started off on a bad note as our good ole Roll Tide Defense gave up in the fourth quarter and not very many people are happy about the turnout on Monday.
Surprisingly though, Tuesday-which is usually our slow day-went very well. WE went in to see Paul, the owner of an interesting shop in Downtown Fort Payne and we met Heather. Heather was very interested it seemed in the things we were telling her as missionaries and invited us over to her home that next Friday. I’ve enjoyed Paul’s store because he is a very adamant follower of Christ and loves to talk religion and God with people all the time. He also sold me a guitar so now I have a new instrument to learn how to play. After Paul’s we went to Aaron’s home and met with him. He took two hours to tell us his entire life story and really opened up. As far as I know he is now working to turn his life around and has a baptismal date for March 3rd.
Now, this experience demands for its own paragraph. While we were in Aaron’s we missed three phone calls from Michael. Michael is the investigator who Elder Morley and I got very frustrated with the first time we met with him and then he called and asked us to come back. But we returned these three calls and he asked if we could stop by not later that week, but that night and he sounded...I guess excited to meet with us. When we got there, he introduced us to his friend Dawn and told us that he had started reading the Book of Mormon, that he loved it and was trying to get her to begin it as well so he wanted us to come teach her about it. We were taken back. And as we began the lesson, Michael varied his comments from testifying that what we were saying was true and that he believed everything we had to say to totally disagreeing with us. Wierd. He called me aside during the middle of the lesson and explained that the reason he was going off on tangents and such was apparently in order to get Dawn to ask questions...I didn’t understand but we went on and had a good lesson...I think. Michael though, to me has made a complete turn around, and I hope that he can continue reading and progressing.
The rest of this week was taken up by Transfers, getting Elder Porter the third guy in Fort Payne, getting a phone call and making Elder Porter only the second guy, moving down to Wetumpka, and walking around trying to figure out the area. We weren’t left with a whole lot of solid people to work with on the Elders side of things, but the Ward is awesome and we hope to soon find consistent people to work with. This area reminds me a lot like Florence in the way that we do Missionary Work, but it is a little further South than Florence...and a little closer to Montgomery if you catch my drift.
A dog peed all over my leg and shoe.
We saw two Elder stopped, picking up a bike on the Interstate on our way to Transfers.
The tires of our car squealed as we came around a corner a little too fast.
We meet and talked to two different gay dudes in a period of two hours.
The Elders in Wetumpka sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked….
I do want to close with a scripture from Alma 22: 3-4;
“....And the king said unto them: Arise, for I will grant unto you your lives, and I will not suffer that ye shall be my servants; but I will insist that ye shall administer unto me; for I have been somewhat troubled in mind because of the generosity and the greatness of the words of thy brother Ammon; and I desire to know the cause why he has not come up out of Middoni with thee.
4 And Aaron said unto the king: Behold, the Spirit of the Lord has called him another way; he has gone to the land of Ishmael, to teach the people of Lamoni.”
I know that Missionary Work is not easy, and transfers, especially like I’ve experienced, don’t make it any easier. But I do know that I am where the Lord needs me to be. I know that I was called by Him to serve in the Alabama Birmingham Mission and I know that at this point in time He has called me to labor in the Wetumpka area. I know that because He has issued that call and because I’ve been called another way by the Spirit, that that same Spirit is guiding and directing our work here. We will begin to have great success here as we press forward and continue to show our diligence to the Lord and to His Work. And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, our Leader, Amen.
I love y’all and I hope each of you has a great week this week! And if you need anything let me know...unless it’s getting Emergency Transferred! Take care.
Much Love,
Elder Milius
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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
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