25 September 2017 - Elder Milius Week 65

People of the Lord,

Well, I’m no longer in Tupelo. Kind of sad I was only able to stay for six weeks, but Smithville isn’t too far! It is a lot different though, a lot smaller. This unit has some history let me tell you. I am also sad to have left Elder Stanford but Elder Nielsen is awesome and it will be a piece of cake training him. He’s going to kill it and we’re excited to get to work helping people come back to church! 

So, without further ado, Elder Nielsen. He is older than me, but we graduated the same year. He played baseball at BYU for a year and then decided to come serve a mission for similar reasons I did. He played shortstop, second base, and third. His team is the Washington Nationals because he is from Vienna, Virginia. If any of you visit D.C. just let me know and he’ll make sure that his family can take care of you. He is a stud muffin. 

Smithville, Mississippi, is a great place. Not longer than a year ago they used to be a part of the Tupelo Ward, but President Pettus decided he wanted to start a group here. So, the members here were looking for a place to meet. They finally found a funeral home to rent out on Sundays, but that fell through because there were people who threatened to take their business somewhere else if they rented to the Mormons. Then, one of the members found a plot of land (five acres) for cheap and he bought it with the intentions of putting a building on it. They then had another Priesthood stake meeting to show the plans for a building they were going to buiding which costed around 200,000. One man volunteered to invest in it, with the idea of getting it all back once the branch got big enough and the church bought the building. However, his lease agreement was something that the church wasn’t going to pay for so he bailed. Then, the man who initially bought the land called the stake President and said he would build the building. So….the Smithville branch building and the land it is on is owned by one of the members and the Church is leasing it from him. While they were waiting for the building to be built however they we able to meet on Sundays at the High School in Smithville; then, after that lease was up with the HS they had to go back to the Tupelo Ward for a little bit because the building still wasn’t complete. Now, we have a building and that’s the story of the Smithville Branch. Crazy stuff, and we learn more and more every time we go to a member’s home we learn something new. I love it here!

Some of the people that we are working with are Dorris, Angela, and Raven and Harley! Dorris is on date now for the 14th of October! She is super spiritual and has the biggest desire to be baptized. There are going to be some interesting logisticals with getting her baptized because of her health and physical condition but hopefully all goes well! Angela has been taught forever...and she is kinda close to getting baptized. Not really progressing but kinda, it’s a weird situation. Raven and Harley are the grandkids of a member and they come to church with her somewhat consistently. We haven’t met Raven but they were at the top of our list when we got into the area. We are also going to try and start working with a lot of the Less-Active members in getting back to church. So that’s our main focus, at least as far as we see right now! 

We do have some appointments with some other people, investigators and such. One experience was really awesome last Saturday night! We were going into McDonald’s to put the Gospel Library back on Dorris’ Kindle and when we were walking in there was a lady next to the entrance. I asked her how her days was going and she said, “Not too good, but I’ll live.” So, naturally I went over to try and talk with her. Eventually we started to share a little of a message with her and she began to cry and really opened up to us about all this junk that was happening to her in her life. We gave her a Book of Mormon and are looking forward to meeting with her again tonight! Also, somewhat of a small miracle, but since being here we haven’t really been rejected hard at all. I told Elder Nielsen that he’s gotten it easy the past week or so because every door we knock on the people are genuine and nice and it’s really cool. Blessings of white-washing! 

My last couple days in Tupelo were good though, being able to go around and see some members and talk to some of the investigators I learned to care about so much was nice! That is a great area and I’m looking forward to watching all the progress made there! I was able to go back to Tupelo on Saturday for AJ’s baptism! I’m so proud of that guy, more than anyone! He’s awesome and he’ll continue to progress in the church! 

Not too many funny stories this week….my companion and I are dying to play catch together. I’m back in 12 Week Training which is fun. Oh, and we live in a house so that’s pretty cool! If y’all need anything let me know! Thanks for your love and support!

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

 AJ's Baptism!!

 Elder Stanford and AJ 

Elder Nielsen and Elder Milius

18 September 2017 - Elder Milius Week 64

Boy and Girls,

    It was another great week in Tupelo, sorta...mostly, we’ll go with mostly! First thing’s first though..I do not have my transfer news yet. We are supposed to get it today so if I find out and I still have access to a computer I will forward it later. But I’m almost positive I will be staying here in Tupelo, just hoping I’m staying here with Elder Stanford. With that being said I’ll go into talking about all the amazing people here in Mississippi (a.k.a. “God’s Country,” Sister Mary Jo A.).

    So, the Mangrum family can start us off! They were the family that we fasted to find who would get baptized this coming transfer! They moved in maybe a month ago now, but are a family of four and are looking for a church home (nailed it). We saw Ms. Mangrum last week and showed her a short video message about the Book of Mormon and introduced that to her to start reading. She was super excited and then told us that she met someone at work who knew us or knew who we were-not a member of the church though-and were totally talking us up! It was cool. They will get baptized and we are hopefully going over to visit them today to share with them the Restoration.

    AJ is doing great and is on track for his baptism this Saturday! Him and Danny (his friend who is a Returning Member) literally make me so happy. I couldn’t be more proud of the progress they’ve both made in the church-now they just need a job. But, I believe it will come and i’m excited for both of them! They need to go serve missions and make me cry!! But we are excited for this Saturday at 4pm!

    There is also a young lady who is our age who lives in our apartment complex that we finally got to share a message with. We are hoping to follow-up with her soon but she seemed interested in reading the Book of Mormon! And there is another guy in our complex who we went and shared a message with yesterday and have another appointment with next week. The people in our complex are homies and they are all our age and somewhat interested in what we do! It’s pretty cool, I think!

    Keshaun is my sad story for the week. So, he has been on date for a while and he was scheduled to be baptized same as AJ this Saturday. We had it all planned, the program basically made, the interviews done for the most part and they both were set. But, on Saturday evening around 7:30 or so we got a text from Keshaun and he bailed. We didn’t really get a reasoning from him, just that he needed more time and that it “wasn’t really him.” I can promise you that I’ve never really felt heartbreak in my entire life until that point. We were devastated and what was worse was we had to put on our happy face and finish our night. But, for the rest of that night we were worried sick about what had happened and about how we could fix it. We’ve still talked about it since and are praying constantly that it all works out and he can be baptized and receive those blessings. There are a couple members that are going to talk with him and see what we can do but it was probably the saddest I’ve been on my mission. I have learned more about our Heavenly Father’s love than any other experience because I, like Him, felt my heart drop for Keshaun. I love that kid too much, and I hope and pray he rediscovers his testimony of the Restoration and of the Church. Pray for him.

    That’s pretty much everyone that needed to be updated. We are also working with a young man named Ryan who needs to be baptized. His family situation is just weird but he knows so much and he believes it all so hopefully we’ll be able to work through the details in order to get him to church and stuff. Everybody else is doing pretty great and we’re still finding and teaching and baptizing! The reason why though is the members, they are super awesome and it’s just been a domino effect of Recent Converts bringing their friends into the church. If you have any specific questions about people you remember and were interested in just let me know!

• Brother Hooper-the same guy who challenged us to the steak-told us about all sorts of pranks they did on his mission. One of them was they made people pee blue using an aquarium algae cleaner. Don’t know if it works, yet.
• The Thordersons in the ward are related to Christopher Layton through the wife right after my family...can’t remember those numbers exactly but that was a cool connection to make! He had a big book and it had my family’s name in it!
• We had interviews with President and that was great! Some of the best interviews I’ve had and Elder Stanford and I came prepared with questions...a lot of them. But I learned a lot!
• Elder Stanford clogged the toilet at a memebrs home this week, lol. 
• One of the Sister’s investigators was baptized this past weekend and it was amazing! The spirit was so strong and I don’t understand why not a lot of people go to those baptisms! So spiritually uplifting we thought Saturday was Sunday.
• We contacted, or tried to contact, a deaf guy and a blind guy in the same afternoon. 
• Elder Stanford bought a clown costume for too much money intending to return it after he scared Sister Tunuufi with it, but that didn’t work. First of all they found the costume so the prank didn’t work and secondly after being opened the costume couldn’t be returned (which is not what they told him when he bought it). But we got lots of pictures and then Sister Tunuufi wanted to face her fear so he dressed up and took pictures with her anyway! Happy Halloween.

    I was a mostly great week! Keshaun was a bummer, a heartbreak like I said, but AJ is doing good and the area is still flourishing! Couldn’t find another story that beat $10,000 or a steak marinated in Hell Sauce. But God is good, and He always is teaching us something, if only we would listen and hear Him. Make it a great week y’all, love ya!

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

11 September 2017 - Elder Milius Week 63

A’ICNwio;foWIEBFICwefivb,

    Hey y’all! Hope you all had a good, short week with Labor Day being on Monday! Our week was super busy and went by really fast. We had a lot of great things happen though and to top it off Jerome got baptized and confirmed on Saturday!

    Jerome’s baptism was a miraculous experience, as baptisms already are! There’s just something about finally helping one of our Heavenly Father’s children reach the goal of baptism. As I said all of it worked out well, there was a lot of support there and the Jones’ family, who were a little apprehensive in the beginning all got emotional and couldn't be happier. It was cool to see their heart’s soften, as well as Jerome’s through his progression. We were coming back from our exchange in Birmingham and so it was a long day but it was a tender mercy that all of it work out how it was intended. Even if he had to get dunked three times...   

    AJ and Keshaun (and Danny-Less Active) also are making great progress! We gave a lesson on the Word of Wisdom review and Chastity and it was hilarious. Yes, I know the Law of Chastity is a serious lesson and we had glimpses of seriousness-enough to cause them to ask about the repentance process they needed to make. But, it was just like a couple 19-year-olds teaching it to a 16-year-old and two 20-year-olds! I was really cool though because all of them committed to live those laws and Danny gave us his cigarettes and he went to talk to Bishop and the other two boys were ready to change! It’s been awesome to see all them progress and I’m really looking forward to seeing all of them in white on the 23rd!!

    We saw Freddy again this week and he’s doing great! Working to the 28th of October for baptism! He has desire and he has the opportunity in front of him now! He wasn’t able to make it to church this week because he got called in to do work but hopefully he still keeps going! We want to try and talk to his family too and he said his wife was trying to get a new job so she didn’t have to work on Sundays. Crazy to think this all started with talking to a guy at a stoplight. Talk to everyone because you never know who is ready!!

    Some other things we’ve been able to do this week was, as I said earlier, go on an exchange in Hoover. I went with Elder Olson and learned a lot! We met guy who had a crazy story and told us all about it for 30 minutes, then ended in a prayer and prayed for us for another 10 minutes. He was cool and is talking to him softened his heart enough to take a Book of Mormon. By the way, his name was “Steven Michael.” We also went to a couple District Meetings, one here and the other in Columbus, MS. Lots of good things trained on and taught there! President Ford came to Tupelo yesterday to speak and I got the opportunity to speak with him again!! It was kind of cool to have spoken with him in Wetumpka about 6 months ago and then to be able to do it again in another area! I was asked to speak at 8:30 Saturday night too because speakers canceled but it was an easy topic, “How has your decision to serve a mission changed/shaped your life?”

• Some kids saw us late one night and asked if they could write their names in our planners. They were 11-13 and we were talking with them and one said that his name was “chicken wing.” The next day we looked in Elder Stanford’s planner and found “Chicken Wing” written on one of his pages. 
• We went to the Jones house and experienced how hard it was to teach someone (their nephew) by yelling and arguing. We tried to bring the Spirit and it was there for at least a little bit.
• Brother Hooper nearly killed us. It was our choice...but still. So, he has a “Hot Sauce” challenge. We took pictures of the bottle but the challenge was to eat a steak-it was about 8 oz.-marinated in this insane hot sauce for 24 hours. We both volunteered. We only got a potato with it and we couldn’t use any dairy products except butter on the potato. We got water, but no milk. We started and it was hot but we were going good. Then it hit our stomach and our bodies started to reject this demonic sort-a liquid that this steak was lathered in. Elder Stanford cried. We both started to shake and sweat. It was not an enjoyable experience. Luckily we finished it and got our reward, a glass of milk. He also gave us Tums and we were on fire for the next couple days. Thinking back on the experience I can’t really pin down how I felt or what I tasted...I don’t think I blacked out but it was something similar. What’s worse is what happened when it came out. 
• We got back in contact with a PM Family after a month and a half. When we went to see them they both wanted to quit smoking and so they gave us their cigarettes. Then, later, they had some  serious withdrawals and we were really confused but hope that all turned out well. :\

    It was another good one here in Tupelo and we’re looking forward to transfer calls this coming Saturday. Pretty sure we are both staying here but it will be fun to see what happens this transfer! I love y’all and hope things are going well! If you need me for anything just email me!

Much Love,

Elder Milius

PS: On the bright side, I can handle anything spicy from now on.

-- 

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

By the way, we found this talk this week! Pretty good stuff from a very young Spencer W. Kimball!

 https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/spencer-w-kimball_style/

5 September 2017 - Elder Milius Week 62

HELLO!!

    Happy Tuesday P-Day! Labor wasn’t too bad, usually Monday holidays are slow but we didn’t have to long of a day! We were able to play softball that morning with the ward and that was awesome! We were regretting it later though because we didn’t have time to study and we were feeling it. So, study your scriptures!!! It makes a huge difference in your day!

    We’re going to shake things up a bit and I’m going to start with the crazy/funny stories:

• On Tuesday we were on an exchange and so Elder Stanford took Elder Morely to go see Apostle Sparrow. Remember that guy? He invited them to his church to meet with him-great. But when they went to see him it was all good. Then he asked them how much it was to come on a mission in which they answered $10,000. Sparrow then took out his checkbook and proceeded to write both Elder Stanford and Elder Morely a check for $10,000! 10K. They told him no and then he went off and told them that by not taking his money they were denying God’s blessings. What a few of thinking, huh? He told them a story of how he was praying to be able to afford a new Infinity when a lady who hadn’t been to church in three years came to give her $73,000 tithing offering. God answered his prayers and he got a new car. Crazy stuff. He still hasn’t offered it to me but I hope he doesn’t because the natural man in me wants it. I know I shouldn't take it though. Oh, but on top of that he did a background check on Elder Stanford and I and he said that he knew where we lived and he was going to send it in the mail. So, Mom and Dad, if there is a check for 10K in the mail it’s from Apostle Keric Sparrow to Elder Milius.
• Our neighbor, Ms. Melody is awesome. She comes over and gives us food that she made and then we make her desert. She came over one night to give us something she made and then when we were talking to her she stepped into our apartment. Awkward. Nothing happened but it was funny.
• The tornado warnings were going off all day on Thursday and they were disrupting our weekly planning.
• We were driving past a group of kids playing basketball in the street and we slowed down and out of the window asked for the ball to shoot. This one kid said, “You guys are kinda weird. You look like nerds!” Love it.
• In teaching Chris a lesson on the Plan of Salvation, Elder Stanford asked “So Chris, what does this mean to you to know all this.” He responded as serious as ever, “It means everything I’ve been taught is a lie.”
• We make some good cheesecake.
• The Sisters found a way to lock their sim card and were out of a phone for two days. 
• Danny told me on Sunday, “Real men wear pink, but a great man pulls it off.” Nailed it.

    Now, we get into the good stuff! So, to start off Jerome is progressing really well! He is due to be baptized on Saturday evening and we are hoping all goes well with that! There is some logistical things we’ve had to take care of this week but we should be all good to go!

    We had the BEST lesson with AJ and Danny and Keshaun this past week. So AJ and Keshaun are both working towards getting baptized on the 23 of this month and we are trying to see if it’s possible to get Danny worthy to baptized them-that’s still undetermined. But this Wednesday we decided that we just needed to help them all receive a better testimony. So, we read JSH 1:10-20 about the First Vision and asked for their thoughts. We were in the chapel and the spirit was very strong, but then someone started playing basketball in the gym so we had to move. We were so worried that the spirit was going to leave but when we got back into the RS room it came back! We then invited everyone to pray individually, to know whatever they feel they needed to know. So, we dimmed the lights and sat a prayered for 10-15 minutes. The Spirit was thick enough to cut! It was so awesome! After we all prayed we came back together and we all bore our testimony about our experiences, talked about the things we felt and closed. Best lesson I think I’ve ever had but Elder Stanford and I couldn’t celebrate right after because then we started Bible study. After we got in the car that night though we were freaking out about how cool it was.

    Freddy, the guy we contacted at a red light is doing good and he’s going to end up being super solid we can tell. Also, after fasting and praying to find a family this coming transfer to baptized this past Sunday we found the Mangrum family who lives in our complex who are looking for a church and they are so ready! It’s a couple with two kids who are younger but may be over 8. We’re excited to work with them! Quantario is still progressing as fast as grandma will let him. We are trying to increase his understanding in order to increase his testimony.

    Things are going good here in Tupelo and they are getting better! We still have to drive a lot but it’s totally worth the ride! I love the ward here, I love the people, I love my companion and I love the Lord! Hope all things are going good and home or wherever y’all are at! Keep up the good work and never forget how much Satan hates you, and how much God loves you! Make it a great week!

Much Love,

Elder Milius

PS: Those pants are black, I swear. Do you see black? Or gray?

-- 

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