Elder Michael Milius: 21 February 2017

My People,

How is everyone doing wherever y’all might be? Hope you’re being blessed, rather hope you’re recognizing the blessings your Heavenly Father is giving you!

First things first: I’M STAYING IN WEEEETUMPKA!!! I will be here with Elder Harris, my son, and I’ll be able to finish training him here in good ‘ole Wetumpka! So, very excited about that and I’m praying that I don’t get another “just kidding” call from President.

On to the very interesting not-so-good week that we had but with every bad week there are always lessons to be learned and highlights to be shared.

I’ll start again with our investigator Lisa. She will not be getting baptized on the 25th unfortunately. We’ve really been working hard with her to try and explain that she needs to be coming to church every week and that because she wants to still go to “her church” every other week she isn’t fully converted to the gospel. It’s hard because from what she tells us she understands everything and she believes everything we’ve taught (including the Restoration of the church through Joseph Smith, the Priesthood, and Baptism by that proper authority). So….we don’t quite know where to go next and I haven’t been as prayerful for a single individual as I have been while teaching Lisa. I’ll keep you updated on what goes on with the progression of us teaching her and trying our best to help her become converted. But anyways, while teaching Lisa it’s really helped me focus my efforts on helping someone become truly converted, because that’s what we do as Missionaries, we “Teach Repentance, Baptized CONVERTS.” So I don’t know what comes next but Heavenly Father is in control and it’s all up to Him and our agency.

Aaron!!! This young man was my biggest highlight for the week! He is the boy that got up and bore his testimony a couple weeks ago as a non-member. We finally got to teach him the Restoration lesson with Issac, his friend who is a member, and it couldn’t have gone better. He understood it all and the saturday before he had gone to a multi-stake Youth Conference in which the rolled out and explained the Youth Theme for this year which, coincidentally enough is James 1:5-6, “ASK.” (For the record I still don’t believe in coincidences). He accepted a soft baptismal invite and it was awesome. But, we were a little disappointed when he didn’t show up to church on Sunday. So like good missionaries, that night we texted him and just followed up on his Book of Mormon reading. He’s been plowing through and that night he told us that he was starting 1 Nephi 4. After we asked if he had been praying as well as reading he was very happy to report that he had been and he feels that he’s gotten an answer….WHAT?! We were pumped but didn’t want him to try and explain that experience over a cell phone text conversation so we set up an appointment instead and we will be teaching him again on Thursday this week and he’ll be able to share with us his awesome experience!! :)) Let’s go!!

Also this week we were able to contact again a few investigators that we haven’t been able to get a hold of so that was a good thing. A couple came up to us this week too as we were walking out of a store and asked us for one of our “pamphlet things” so we talked to them for a few minutes. They were mostly curious but they now have a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, a mormon.org card with our number on it, and an Article of Faith card. That was pretty cool. There were a couple more small experiences like that too this week...but we still managed to get to Sunday night with Zero New Investigators!

Zero. To say that I was under-enthusiastic would be an understatement. We came in that night early for Studies and I took the phone and just started going through all sorts of phone numbers and our Area Book and everything. So, I likened this to when you get upset about something and so you go out and do yard work or something, maybe clean or organize; I don’t know what you do but I assume most people understand the feeling I had. Well, as a missionary there isn’t much you can do so I just did all I can to work, or at least feel like I was working. However, it was to no avail. I then had a long...long conversation with my Heavenly Father. It calmed me down a little bit but I was still a little disheartened. That’s when Aaron texted us back and that whole event occurred! Which lifted me a little bit from where I was. But then God wasn’t done. We had contacted Robert Saturday afternoon and invited him and his family of four to church after we found them in our area book. They did not show up to church but that morning we had texted Robert a reminder around 8:00 or so. THAT NIGHT at 8:00 we got a text back from him that said “Hey sorry I missed church this week, I’ll definitely be there this coming week though.” Then we invited him to basketball this week and he said he’d be there. Crazy.

So, this week was a rough week. But, as you can see, there’s always blessings to be found and our Father knows each of us individually and knows what we need. All we have to do is ASK. If you don’t think that He answers prayers directly or feel like you’ve never had a real “conversation” with Him let me give you a challenge. Kneel down, start by addressing you Heavenly Father, then just start talking. Tell Him how you day was, how work is going, what you wish would happen, anything! Then ask, “Do you love me.” That question is one we all know the answer to, and it’s a question He must answer. He will answer. Then close in the name of Jesus Christ.

We played three games of street basketball with various people (in proselyting clothes) and won.
We saw a sign that looked like it had just been written as we were walking down a street tracting that said: “No Solicitors, LDS, or Jehovah Witness.” Someone was covering all their bases.
In my weekly notes I drew a straight line on Sunday and said “That’s me flat-lining.” (Then Aaron and Robert happened).
We had the best Creative Contacting idea ever...thanks to my good friend Elder Morley for the idea.
There’s a dead deer basically in our backyard.
We made the best dinner I’ve ever eaten in the apartment on my mission.
I knocked every door!

I love y’all! Hope you can make it a good week! Take care!

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