27 March 2017 - Elder Milius Week 39

Hello World!

Well, Transfers came quicker than expected this go around and just about like every other go around but we get calls this Saturday so I’ll keep you posted on my next six-week adventure! I hope all is well at home because things here are doing amazing!!

I’ll start with a couple awesome experiences this past week! First, Jasmine and Terrell! Last Friday (so not like two days ago Friday but a week before that) before we went out Elder Harris prayed that we would find a family to baptize! I was super excited as our plans for the day started to work out but then after the afternoon when everything fell through I was disappointed that we didn’t find a family! I mainly wanted to find it so that Elder Harris could have that experience. Fast-forward to Monday night last week. We had meet a guy named Terrell while serving at the Food Pantry on Friday-the same Friday that Elder Harris said his prayer-and we decided to contact him. At 8:00 Monday night we knocked on his door to find his wife and young daughter! They scheduled another appointment for us to go see them and I know that they are going to get baptized soon because the Lord answers prayers. We found Terrell for a reason and I am excited to see the progression, probably the rapid progression of Terrell and his wife Jasmine!

Trish and Sunny are also doing great! Their daughter, Heather, is a less-active that has been coming back to church and she is more than excited about her parents taking the lessons. To make the situation even cooler, she told us that when she got baptized her mother was crying and saying things like “You’re not going to be in Heaven” and now she’s letting us come and teach her and she’s reading the Book of Mormon, etc. It’s amazing to see someone’s heart change especially so drastically in a matter of years. This past week we put both of them on a soft baptismal date for April 29th and we are really praying that they will be pointed in this direction! Our “Ohana” focus for the Zone has brought so many families to us but we didn’t see this one. It’s been a miracle to see the timing of us meeting Trish and Sunny and Heather needing to come back to church and all the other things that have lined up so perfectly. What a “marvelous work and a wonder!”

Joe and Shannon are two others that we are working hard with. Joe is a less-active and Shannon isn’t a member but we are hoping to set a date that Shannon can work towards for baptism and that Joe can work towards to be prepared and worthy to baptize her-he is ordained a Priest. As we’ve begun to teach her we were told that we can’t push either or them or they will go the opposite direction. However, as we’ve became friends with them by playing Uno and Yahtzee and all other things they’ve completely opened up. So that’s been cool!

Sunday was awesome too! We spent the entire afternoon driving around with a Youth of our ward which was great. Until we ran out of people to see, or so we thought. We decided to go visit Ken who we’ve seen in the past but he hasn’t shown us enough potential to actually be considered an investigator (this is the same guy we felt inspired to give a Priesthood blessing to a month or so ago). When we got into his house we started talking and as the conversation went on he brought up the three kingdoms of glory as if he believed it, which is a very specific doctrine to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. After further conversation we determined that he believe everything missionaries had been over to teach him in the past so we invited him to be baptized!! He was held up on priesthood and the authority so we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon for himself and marked 3 Nephi 11 to read. That was a great experience for us to have especially being with John Ellis. He has his mission papers in and is a great teacher. When we were teaching Ken it was as if we were teaching like you would pray for a trio to teach. 

So, from just those you can see that it was a pretty fantastic week! And it’s looking to keep getting better and better! God is good. And he also has a sense of humor-speaking of which…

• Trish gave us this super rich and thick cake Monday night that ruined my appetite for dinner.
• We went on an Exchange to Prattville and I took a picture next to Goliath. Also, we participated in Prattville Basketball which is a little more competitive than Wetumpka Ball. Marcus, a youth from our Ward, came and all me and him wanted to do was beat the team that kept beating everyone else! Needless to say it was the most intense game of basketball we’ve ever played and probably the best game we’ve ever played. We were going to 7, win by 2 and the final score was 17-15. We won. And Marcus cut his foot somehow-I’ll send a picture. Gotta love all the basketball experiences you have as a missionary! :)
• I wipped out on my bike on Friday because I was hauling home. After my back tire slide out Elder Harris, who was 20 yards in front of me, turned around to see me rolling on the ground. All was good though no injuries to me bike or me.
• Alabama is allowed to burn anything and everything basically anywhere. So, on Saturday we helped Heather clean up her yard and burned a ton of trash plus one or two couches! Coming from AZ where we aren’t allowed to play with fire I had fun.
• Jay, the guy we do service for each week got a taxidermied raccoon. 

Y’all I love my mission! Times couldn’t be better! I hope you are looking forward to this weekend and General Conference! It’s not just an address to the Church but to the whole world! I love y’all and I thank you for the many prayers and thoughts! Know I’m praying for all of y’all as well, make it a good week!!

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

 We went on an Exchange to Prattville and I took a picture next to Goliath.

 Elder Harris cooking us some dinner!

 Jay, the guy we do service for each week got a taxidermied raccoon. 

We participated in Prattville Basketball which is a little more competitive than Wetumpka Ball. Marcus, a youth from our Ward, came and all me and him wanted to do was beat the team that kept beating everyone else! Needless to say it was the most intense game of basketball we’ve ever played and probably the best game we’ve ever played. We were going to 7, win by 2 and the final score was 17-15. We won. And Marcus cut his foot somehow-I’ll send a picture. Gotta love all the basketball experiences you have as a missionary! :)

20 March 2017 - Elder Milius Week 38

Family and Friends,

How is everybody doing?! We are getting close to one of my favorite times of the year--General Conference! I’m mainly pumped because our Ward Mission Leader is having us all over to his house for Conference, Brother Hamon is the best! But this past week went pretty well, can’t really complain too much when you’re on the Lord’s Errand! 

Tuesday we met Joe and Shannon. Joe is a Less-Active member and he is the son of a very popular family in the Wetumpka Ward. But he is married to Shannon who is not a member of the church. We had first heard their names after a couple days of being here in Wetumpka (so about 10 weeks ago) but didn’t have an address or phone number so they kinda just fell to the wayside. But, we got a request from a member-Joe’s father-to go and visit with them! They were happy to let us in and talk to us but they aren’t too interested in being told they need to come to church. We taught Shannon the Restoration the first time we saw them on Tuesday and she accepted the Book of Mormon and all but the interesting thing was that everything we were teaching her was new information. Missionaries have been over in the past but apparently they didn’t teach or she didn’t retain very well...but all is good and we are hopefully going to start working with them more! 

Trish and Sunny are doing great still! There is a miracle I wanted to share specifically though. So, thinking back to how we first met Trish-because of the 1969 Mustang okay. We went to visit them but they weren’t home so we started back towards our apartment. There is a Highway that runs in-between our complex and Trish’s neighborhood which usually isn’t too busy so it’s easy to cross. Well this day we caught it at the wrong time because we were standing there waiting for cars and cars and more cars for probably 10 minutes solid, and that’s not an exaggeration. But, as we walked past the Dollar General there was a truck in the parking lot with it’s window rolled down and an older lady was calling us over. Trish was calling us over! She introduced us to her Daughter-in-Law and we answer a few basic questions about the Book of Mormon and the reading she was doing and set up a solid return appointment! EVERYTHING has just lined up so perfectly with us teaching Trish and Sunny it’s unbelievable to me when I actually look at it all. The Lord prepares whom he will prepare and if He has someone ready to receive His message then they are going to receive that message.

Everything all in all this week went well and “as planned” (most of the time). Saturday was a day full of service, which I love to do especially as a missionary! You meet so many good people doing service and make so many good impressions for the Church and for missionaries in the future. 

There isn’t too big of updates on anyone else specifically. Aaron is still doing okay, we haven’t been able to see him for a week or so and this week is Spring Break so that’s putting a damper on things but we hope and pray he still has the desire to be baptized! There are a couple New Investigators and Potential investigators we are going to work with more this coming week. Oh, we went and saw Lisa again after a couple weeks and she's doing good-still reading the Book of Mormon! Haha! But we found out that there are 12 people who attend her church, so Elder Harris and I are trying to plan our attack on how to teach all 12 of them and have a big baptismal service for the members of the “Holy Assemblies of Jesus” church! We're also trying to do that with an even bigger church in town because we are getting a Deacon of “Tabernacle” to read the Book of Mormon! We have big plans. 

One last significant thing that happened this week, I spoke on Sunday! Sister Haderlie and I were able to introduce the 2017 Wetumpka Ward Mission Plan: Act in “FAITH”! We spoke with President Ford of the Mission Presidency and at least to us it was a great Sacrament Meeting. This is where I have to add again that Brother Hamon is awesome. The Ward Mission Plan was so well put together and organized all (he would disagree) by the hand of Brother Hamon! But, I spoke about the importance and the necessity of Faith using the analogy of a 3-leg stool and Moroni 7--about faith, hope and charity. (That training about Faith, Hope and Charity was given to me as a missionary by President Ford...who I spoke with so hopefully I did okay!) I also talked a lot about the Mighty Plow Horse and how we as members are yoked with our Savior (Matt 11:28-30) which means that we still have to pull our part of the load and do our work. And not only do it, but do it willingly with all our effort. It is “Hard Labour,” but it is His Work! Anyways I’ve grown fond of speaking on my mission so that was a good experience for me and hopefully for the rest of the Ward! We think they are as excited as we were for the Plan! 

• The Sisters tricked us into thinking that Sister Haderlie was going home this week.
• We’ve been offered to learn how to carve by a guy in downtown Wetumpka. He said it’ll take him 10 minutes to teach us everything he knows and we told him that it would take us a little longer to teach him all we know but we can trade! 
• We did our Chalkboard Finding again...and it was freezing outside.
• A dog was following us around a neighborhood and it face planted after trying to jump up onto the curb.
• I saw a mouse run across the floor, two times, of a home while we were teaching.
• James and Anette, “Investigators” that live in our apartment complex gave me a picture of David A. Bednar that I was raving about the night before.
• We went to an appointment for one lady Sunday afternoon and ended up talking to half the neighborhood because people walked by and wanted to know what we were up to...it was an interesting lesson.
• MY BROTHER TURNED 17 YESTERDAY!
• Elder Harris and I have been laughing pretty much about everything for the past few days. I couldn’t tell you why.

I hope y’all have another great week! If I can help you with anything let me know! I love and appreciate each of you!

Much Love,

Elder Milius

PS: Also a very Happy Birthday to my Grandma Milius and my Grandpa Woods (a.k.a. Papa!) Hope y'all don't feel too old! Thanks for everything you've done for me! 

-- 

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

Excited for BASEBALL SEASON!!!

13 March 2017 - Elder Milius Week #37

Hey y’all!

Quote of the week: “When God throws you a curveball, sit back on it and drive it to the opposite field!” I’m excited for baseball season to start again, can you tell? But this week was a good week and I’m even more excited to tell you about the work here in Wetumpka, AL!

We were not able to see Aaron this week-he’s our investigator on date for the 8th of April-but we are still looking forward to talking with his family! And, with our Ohana goal as a Zone we are hoping that Aaron and his family can be our Ohana. However, if they aren’t that’s all good because we are still trying to work closer to the Hartley Family. The 13-year-old son came to basketball last Tuesday and so we now have an “in” there. He lets us know when the whole family is home, but prayers would be great for that family! We were also able to meet with Trish AND her husband Sunny. Both of them are awesome and totally open to the messages we share. They are both adamantly reading and praying about the Book of Mormon together and we are going to invite them to be baptized on the 15th of April this week! Which they’ve already committed to baptism, they just have to receive an answer. And God always answers prayers.

That’s really all the work we’ve been able to do this week with our main investigators but we also had a lot of good conversations with some others this week. We went out with a Young Man who is hopefully getting his mission call within the next couple days now and talked to Danny. Danny is a Catholic (and we are running into more and more of people who are Catholic here in Wetumpka) and he was very honest about how he did not want to read the Book of Mormon. But, as I’m sure I’ve said before my favorite part of being a missionary is talking to people simply about their personal beliefs of Jesus Christ and how that’s made them the man/woman they are today. Anyways, it was a great experience for us and I hope for Daniel too! We met Rebecca this week too, who has talked to missionaries in the past and she described them and very kind and friendly (that gets us in a lot of doors because the other group of people who knock door-to-door aren’t as kind). 

This week was also significant because I was able to do my first interview for Baptism! Shanay in the Alex City branch was baptized on Saturday and it was a great service! Our Mission President in Zone Conference this week talked about how he loves to visit baptisms and look at the font after the one who got baptized leaves. He shared about how baptism is all a symbol and once the font is empty it symbolizes how the tomb was empty. Just as we are washed clean in the waters of baptism, we are raised in Christ’s resurrection! I love that thought because it emphasizes the next step in the Doctrine of Christ--Enduring to the End. 

Also I feel like I need to give a shout-out to our Ward Mission Leader for putting together an awesome Ward Mission Plan with us. He’s amazing. Anyways if y’all need anything let me know! I hope the Lord is treating you well and that you’re constantly making everyday a good day! I love all y’all! 

• We walked in the rain...then a couple days later biked in the rain.
• Elder Harris and I had a chewing gum contest.
• At Zone Conference, Elder Morrison (one of the senior missionaries) asked the lady who made lunch for us what the chocolate syrup was for on the table. She responded that it was for the ice cream. Elder Morrison: “Oh, that’s ice cream? I thought it was butter I put it on my roll!” i proceed to tell a select few about this story and when he got up to do his training he told the story because he said I had already told everyone. And he added at the end “So I made an authentic ice cream sandwich.” I love Zone Conferences. 
• We played a second capture the flag game as a Zone.

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

 Elder Harris and Elder Milius getting it done in the rain!

Capture the Flag with my Zone

Abandoned movie set for Big Fish in Millbrook, AL

 Elder Milius with his Mission District

 Check it out! I made the Ward Bulletin Board!

6 March 2017 - Elder Milius Week 36

Hello Loved Ones!

This week has started off kind of like last week ended but it eventually made it’s way to great things and the Lord is definitely blessing us here in the mission field! 

Aaron is doing great things! He was the young man who came to church last month and bore his testimony. We started teaching him and he’s loving it and the Spirit is just amazing. He is so ready for baptism and we are looking forward to April 8th!! If all goes well he will be baptized by his friend Cayden on that Saturday! The biggest hold up and concern he has is bringing it up to his family. They come from a Catholic household and he’s a bit nervous to bring it up. BUT this Sunday he also got up again to bear his testimony on obstacles and how Heavenly Father can help us accomplish things that we don’t think we can do ourselves-basically the enabling power of the Atonement (and he told an awesome story of his past track meet and how God helped him finish his race as well as run a successful race on short notice for one of his friends who hurt his hamstring earlier in the meet). He’s ready, that’s all I really have to say and this week we are hoping to help him bring up the gospel to his parents which we are praying turns out well! 

Another individual we met this past week we actually met last night. We decided to knock on Trish’s door because Elder Harris and I were having an argument about what year this mustang sitting in her front yard was. He said “Well if you really want to know why don’t you go ask?” So I did! And because I was persistent in finding out the answer we knocked three times instead of two and she finally came and answered the door. We then sat down outside on the porch for TWO HOURS as she told us basically her entire life story! Her daughter is a member of the church, Heather, and she was baptized a couple years ago. Heather has been going through some rough times and she has been discussed in Ward Council the past couple weeks and so we just kicked if off and Trish told us about how she was curious about the Book of Mormon, how her and her husband are searching for a new church because the new preacher at their church said things they don’t agree with (and she told us some of those things coupled with her beliefs and was literally explaining to us what our Doctrines are). Also she called us like five minutes ago and had some questions about the Book of Mormon...she’s loving it and eating it all up and we can’t wait to just share with her everything else because she is going to agree to all of it!! By the way this all happened because we decided to walk a totally random way home through the neighborhood because we wanted to avoid this big huge block party where we felt we didn’t need to be--little did we know it wasn’t that we didn’t need to be there but we needed to be somewhere else, like Trish’s home. Crazy story! That’s Trish and that’s why I opened up the email this week made its way to great things and the Lord is blessing us! 

Some other little things you’ll be interested (maybe) to know. We play basketball on Tuesday nights with some of the Youth, some of the YSA, and their friends. It’s becoming a real big success and we are getting more and more people to show up each week and different people coming as well. We were able to teach the Priest about “A Day in the Life of a Missionary” on Wednesday at mutual and that was fun for me to see the differences and really examine how my life improved because of the things I’m doing now like studying for an hour personally a day, not having TV or Internet as a distraction from the work-it’s pretty cool I think. We met a girl named Crissy this week as well tracting out a trailer park that a Prospective Elder address brought us to. She seemed interested in the Book of Mormon and we are hoping to get back to visit with her and her family. We went to a giant Flea Market that happens every first Saturday each month in just North of Wetumpka and we talked to a lot of awesome people there. I think I’ve mentioned before that we do service at the Food Pantry here in Wetumpka and the people there are just amazing! I love working over there because the volunteers are great, and the people whom we are helping are even better to interact with! And with our OHANA theme, our focus on families, we’ve been very blessed to find families. Even though our two focus families feel through on appointments Friday evening, we are still looking forward to trying to work with them and bring them all closer to having an Eternal Family. 

I’m so blessed to have My Eternal Family. They have helped me get to the point where I am today and I will continue to grow and become better because of their influence and examples! This week I hope you all take the opportunity to thank each member of your family for your Ohana. They are going to be with you forever, throughout the ups and downs of this life and beyond. Keep looking for the ways God blesses you and make it a good week!

• We got a pet fish for our Zone. His name is Stitch to represent our theme.
• We were given a note that told us not to come back with our Book of Mormon back...naturally we wrote another note and left the Book. 

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

 "We were given a note that told us not to come back with our 

Book of Mormon...naturally we wrote another note and left the book.

Happy Birthday Elder Milius

Elder Milius with his Zone

27 February 2017 - Elder Milius Week 35

Aloha!!

How is everyone doing back at home and wherever else y’all might be around the world? Hope life is treating you well and the Good God is blessing you! I don’t have a ton of time today so I’ll get right into our week here in Wetumpka!

Lisa is gone. She has decided to continue going to her church every week now and so unfortunately we won’t be working with her anymore. But, seeds were planted and at some point I know she’ll accept it all and it will all click! However, when we went back to see her for the last time, we felt like we should knock on her neighbors door. So, now Willy and Eddy are both investigators that we are teaching and the lesson that we had with Eddy yesterday was as great as you would hope for a first lesson on the Restoration! That day we also found another guy named Travis. We talked with him a lot about the Plan of Salvation and I didn’t know why I felt like mentioning that until he told us that he hadn’t been in church since his grandfather passed. I explained to him that he would be able to see his grandfather again and he could know by reading the Book of Mormon-it has all the answers. He was very hesitant in taking the book, but in a good way. The spirit was very strong and we are hoping that we’ll be able to get in touch with him this coming week in order to follow-up and teach him more. 

Friday Elder Harris and I were able to go down to Gardendale for the Follow-up Trainers meeting. It was fun to be able to go and be on the “other side” of things. As always, we learned a lot and it got me motivated to get the work going this transfer. Along with that motivation, our Zone came out with a theme for the transfer: “Ohana!” Our goal for each companionship is to have one family on date for baptism by the end of this six weeks. I am excited, and know that as we make goals and take them to the Lord, if our desires be for a good reason, that He will be involved in helping us make those goals and hopes and desires come to pass. So I’m excited about that! 

Saturday we meet with a guy named David. I’ve talked about James and Anette before I think, they are “Investigators” who live in the next building over in our apartment complex and we go over there once a week or so. But when we were over there on Friday night the conversation lead from one thing to another and then James wanted to bring over his friend David-a strong Atheist-to talk with us. It was a very interesting conversation and the entire time David, who for obvious reasons, relied on physical evidence and proof in order to come to the knowledge of truth. He was using a lot of big words and scientific proofs to back up his claims and in essence to negate ours. But he was very nice about it and we sat and listened. Going into the discussion I knew that the things we were going to share with him were not going to change his mind or his beliefs and the things that he shared with us weren’t going to do a lot of changing our beliefs either, but it was interesting for me to get a lot of his perspective so in the future when I meet someone with similar beliefs, I can see more of where they’re coming from. By the end though, he shared that his goal was to try and basically make us doubt our faith, which he actually accomplished the opposite. My testimony is stronger in how good God is and how smart God is based on things that I learned while talking with David. Isn’t it wonderful that God knew we wouldn’t have “proof” of him so he gave us the ability to use our-as David called it-”Intuitive Mind” (rather than our “Realistic Mind”) in order for us to gain testimony of Him and in order to using our feelings and prayers to receive answers from the Great Creator?! It’s beyond me all of the little details that God thought of and I can’t wait to gain an eternal perspective to see them all! 

This week wasn’t too exciting...but I did turn 19 so thank you all for your thoughts and wishes! I appreciate all of you! 19 doesn’t feel too different from 18 but hey, now according ot the state of Alabama I am a legal adult….still can’t drink though. The Sisters made me cupcake and decorated our apartment and such to make it a good day for me, which was very kind of them! But, it was ultimately just another day in the mission field, another day I got to put on my tag and that’s the greatest gift I could’ve asked for! I love it out here! Roll tide! 

• President called me to wish me a Happy Birthday on Thursday and I answered the call, “Alright President where am I going?”
• A 35 year old flirted with me and told me that I have a beautiful smile.
• Anette made me a throw blanket for my birthday.
• It was a boring week….

Hopefully I’ll have more things to talk about next week but until then y’all stay safe and make it a good week! Love y’all!

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

HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY ELDER MILIUS!!!!