23 October 2017 - Elder Milius Week 69

Dear Friends and Family,

Of all the weeks I’ve had on my mission, this last week has definitely been one of them. It was a good week though and we had a lot of good experiences. Not too many new investigators, and the people who we were trying to get baptized by the end of the month are kinda floating away fro different reasons, but we have a lot of prospects. Not necessarily “hot” prospects but prospects nonetheless.

Dorris still has the desire and she will get there, hopefully, one day. We had a couple good lessons with her this week and we also went over to eat dinner with them, which they appreciated more than we thought. We talked about our purpose as missionaries and how it isn’t to “save” people, it’s to help them receive fulness of joy in the Celestial Kingdom. We were bold and straight up and Johnny was engaged so we have high hopes for the future. We haven’t talked to Chong since she texted us to cancel our appointment this past week so that’s that. And as far as any other updates there aren’t a ton. Lane is still cool, we taught the Plan of Salvation at the Morris’ on Tuesday but we can’t really keep going until we meet his parents. Everyone else is just chillin’.

We did get one new investigator this week and he seems pretty genuine in his desires to learn. His name is Brandon and he came up to us in Wal-Mart a week and a half ago or something and asked if we were Mormons. He then just wanted to know what we were all about so we answered some of his questions and exchanged phone numbers. Then a few days later we texted him to set a time up to meet with him and he was all for it. This past Thursday we taught him the Restoration Lesson (completely out of order) completely by the Spirit. We answered his questions and taught to his needs, it was cool. Good experience for me and I know for Elder Nielsen as well! We’re going back to see him again this coming Thursday to teach him more and we’ll see how all that goes! He grew up in church, got away fro a while and wants to get back in with God.

A few other potentials/prospects that we have going are Michelle, Hope, and Greg. Starting with Michelle, she’s a great lady and is a friend to everyone. She has three kids and in divorced, but we met her because she does service at the Food Pantry in Amory. Last week she called and needed some help in her yard (see the Tractor picture from last week). Then, this week we texted her jokingly on Saturday night because she told us she was going to this party at her brothers that apparently gets a little crazy and told her “Remember who are,” and stuff like that. She texted back and mentioned something about how she didn’t want to go to church the next day because her kids were at their Dad’s and she wouldn’t have anyone to sit next to. So, liek the good missionaries we are, we told her we’d sit with her at church. Then, Michelle shows up for church and knows several people in our congregation, loved it, and is coming back next week with her kids to watch the Primary Program! Hope is Dorris’ caretaker and she has a few kids as well, divorced as well. But, we went over once and played catch with her son who is 9 years old and he wanted us to come watch him play football, so we did! This past Saturday we went to watch Tylen play football and that was cool. It really made his day and we are thinking it opened some doors for us to teach Hope and her family. Then Greg. He is doing contracting work for an older lady in the ward who feeds us all the time and her husband recently passed away in July sometime. Greg has been impressed with the way the Church came out to help Sister Dupree and that interested him. So much so that his wife Kelly (I think) asked him to bring a Book of Mormon home from Sister Dupree’s and they’ve been reading it. We haven't taught them yet but it’s only a matter of time! Also, almost forgot about the Lyda family! They are a hoot but we’re trying to start to teach them too! :)

Some other cool things that have happened this past week is that we talked to Brother Van again, he’s the “Sweatin’ for Jesus” guy. He was pulling out of his driveway with his son but he said “I gotta talk to you guys. You guys are sneaky!” We don’t have any idea of what he means by sneaky, but we’re hoping he received a witness that the Book of Mormon is true or something so we’re excited to go by tonight! We also tracted into this awesome lady named Courtland who talked to us for like 40 minutes on her porch about what we believed and stuff. We were really looking forward to her, but then she texted us and told us she wasn’t interested. Lame, but still a good experience at the time! Kardarius is a Less-Active sorta Recent Convert who we’ve been trying to get to church. We set up to play tennis with him but he bailed. But, every time we go over to visit him he lets us in and we talk and have a good visit. He says he’ll come to church but then doesn’t so we’re trying with him. Met Ms. Joyce this week, a lady who can’t come to church for a load of health reasons but is super awesome to us and all the missionaries! She’s blind, hard of hearing, has diabetes, some other big worded issues but has the sweetest testimony of the gospel and the Church. Bob Turner is just a lonely guy. We’re trying to get him to recognize the Spirit because he told us he never had so we’ll see where that goes. The problem with him is that all the missionaries who have been through here know Bob and have worked with Bob so pretty much everything has been used or tried to help him understand. 

Other stories of the week:

• Brother Kennedy hit us fly balls last P-Day. 80-year-old lefty!
• We met a guy named Darrell last week and when we went back to see him he came running out before we could get out of our car yelling and waving his arms: “No Sir! No Sir! I don’t want you here! No Sir! Leave! No Sir!” He had some stuff going on mentally but it was funny. We think he brought the Book of Mormon to church with him and the pastor or preacher grilled us.
• We went up to try and see if this investigator was home so I just grabbed a Book of Mormon (usually I tract or proselyte with a Bible as well). Then, we saw a lady, Teresa, getting her mail. I told Elder Nielsen to go talk to her and so he did and in the conversation she mentioned like four times or more about how she doesn’t understand why we go witness to people with the Book of Mormon and not the Bible. So, my low-key smart alec companion goes to the car and get four Bibles. When he comes back she asked, “What do you have there?” “Oh, I just have some Bibles!” says Elder Nielsen.
• Elder Nielsen and I were talking about church attendance one day and I told him that President had told us the statistic about getting people to church to baptisms. It’s about 1:3. So, for every three people who come to church one gets baptized. So, when Michelle was walking up to church Elder Nielsen said, “33% chance of being baptized!” Amen.

It was a good week in Smithville, MS! We get transfer news this coming Saturday so hopefully, if things don’t get thrown way out of whack like last time, I’ll be able to tell you the news next week. Guessing we both stay but you never really know! Take care and I hope you have a blessed 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

16 October 2017 - Elder Milius Week 68

Same work, different people!

I love missionary work, but it’s been pretty much a typical week! I got the pictures of the bike ride we took with the New Albany Elders last week and some pictures from bowling last p-day as well! Things are going good though in the small town of Smithville, MS!

Dorris is doing alright. Her health is hard to work with and work around. They are also struggling a bit financially (unfortunately like almost everyone else down here) and that is an obstacle as well. Her and Johnny were going to come to church yesterday but couldn’t because they didn't have any gas to get all the way to Smithville. This baptism is proving to be more difficult than it seemed at first. The place we were planning to do her baptism isn’t going to work either...so pray that we can figure all that stuff out. Dorris is a great lady and likes to please everyone but she, like I’ve said in the past, has the biggest desire. I just hope we can help her that best we can and don’t have to just say, “Sorry!” 

Last Tuesday we went to the Morris’ to do family home evening with them-awesome family! When we went over Alina, the 13-year-old who was baptized recently, had her boyfriend over to meet us. WE were both thinking “Great lets see how this goes…” To our surprise Lane was actually a pretty solid guy! The Morris’ told us when we came in that they had talked a little bit about the church and filled him in on this that and the other thing and so we just answered some questions for him. We talked a little about the Restoration and a little about the Plan of Salvation. He was on top of it and ended up being really interested. THe next Wednesday he came to mutual and we talked to the YM about missions so he was in there and we low key taught him the Restoration lesson. It was sweet. His parents are split denominationally between Church of Christ-Dad-and Baptist-Mom. Hope all goes well with him and we’ll see what that turns into.

Chong is being flakey. She is making it difficult to meet with and such but we’re still pushing her for the 28th. It’s weird because every time we do meet with her she’s awesome and she is ready to change and to do whatever it takes but then something happens and she has to cancel or something happens and she can’t come to church. Frustrating. 

On Monday night last week though we got to meet the Cope (“e” is with an accent) family and they are hilarious. We had tracted into Bonita, the Mom, before but they invited us in and we asked a plethora of questions about our church and our beliefs. It was really funny! They also told me that I looked like Ryan Reynolds and that Elder Nielsen looked like Edward from Twilight. So this week I’ve been asking people if they think I look like Ryan, lol. Elder Nielsen gets annoyed at my giant ego due to the fact that I look like I could be Deadpool’s little brother. (Funny addition, earlier in my mission when I was in Florence, AL, there was a recent convert named Erica who called me “Deadpool” because she thought I looked like Ryan Reynolds). The Cope’s also had an argument about who makes the better fried chicken the Mom or the Grandma and invited us back to judge their competition! They ended up cancelling but one day I will have fried chicken made by a black woman which according to them is way better than any other fried chicken.

The Food Pantry in Amory is doing good. We met a couple of potential investigators there last Tuesday and we were able to go help a lady who volunteers there as well. District Meeting was great this week, our District is a mess...at least us Elders are. Liz-the Eminem lady-is doing alright. We’re as interested as you are to figure out where that’s going to go. Sister Dupree, as recently widowed lady in the Branch who makes amazing food and deserts (and is trying to make us fat) invited us over a couple times this week. She’s getting some work done on her house and shares the gospel with all three of her contractors. Angela is still chilling waiting for God to tell her to go down to the river. We also met a couple new people this week: Terrell, Brandon, Brittney, Lizzie, and Kathy-a crazy bird lady who used to live across from the Elders when they were in Fulton.

Some random stories and one-liners for this week:

• We met a lady named April who had talked to missionaries in the past about where babies come from…
• There is this store in Downtown Fulton called “Square Gifts Co.” and it’s literally where all the college girls from ICC go to hangout and work. We met a lot of them on Thursday and it was weird to make the connection that most of them graduated in 2016. Ahhh..
• I made Elder Nielsen pet this dog that smelled like poop.
• We tried to see a less-active but they didn’t answer the door. Then when we were at Dollar General we saw some of his family and he was in the parking lot driving the truck we saw not even 30 minutes ago in his driveway.
• The Lyda family is hilarious. The Father and Husband didn’t know that he was a member of our church, but Mother and Wife seems interested more than him. He was talking to us about Bigfoot the other week and this week we talked about how racist the South and specifically Amory, MS, is. 
• We bought a MS State Flag from this racist dude with a stand full of confederate banners and other stuff.
• We basically ran church on Sunday. We gave the opening and closing prayers in Sacrament, we blessed the sacrament as well, and we both spoke in church. The High Councilman used us each in his talk as well. Oh, and we surprise taught Gospel Principles! :)
• We called to see if we could stop by a member’s home and we were told that it was too late and they were getting ready for bed. It was 7:15pm. Granted, it felt like 1:00am because of how dark it was but still! 
• When doing service on Saturday for Michelle (the lady who volunteers at the food pantry) Elder Nielsen got afraid because of a spider. So, our nicknames are now “Ryan” (that’s me :) ) and “Spiderman.” Spiderman and Ryan are way cooler than Batman and Robin though, just sayin! 

It was a good week down South! Things keep moving forward with or without us so we just have to do enough work to keep up! I appreciate all your prayers and they are definitely effective! Love y’all, and have a blessed 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

9 October 2017 - Elder Milius Week 67

To All Whom May Be Interested:

This week was pretty normal, it flew by as always! Smithville is doing good and we weren’t affected too much by the weather over on this side of the MS-AL line. But it started to pour on us today so we’re kinda getting the aftermath. Other than that it’s been a pretty bomb week!

On Monday last week we went over to Johnny and Dorris’ house and we made jewelry boxes with him. It was nice to spend some time with Johnny and he definitely enjoyed our company. Before we left that night he got emotional and told us how much he appreciated us spending the time with him in his shop. Touching stuff. Also, as far as Dorris goes we found a place for her to get baptized!! It won’t happen this weekend but we are hoping by the end of the month we can get her there! 

The next day we Zone Conference and that pretty much took us the entire day. Wa had to get an oil change too and let me tell you, TV is a waste of time. Grey’s Anatomy was playing on the TV and neither Elder Nielsen or I could focus because of this awful show playing behind us. That night we also went store contacting-which could’ve been better. But, as I was beating myself up about how bad I did trying to contact people Chong, a potential investigator, walked out of the Laundromat and waved us down! Couldn’t have been more excited! We scheduled a time to meet with her the next day and that was a huge blessing because the next day we found out that she was super prepared. She had been taught about a year ago up in Tennessee and then moved back home to Amory and the Sisters taught her a little bit but then she fell off for some reason. When we met with her though we were going to teach the Restoration again but we ended up going over the Baptismal Interview Questions and showing her that she was ready. We then put her on date for the 28th of October!! Chong almost didn’t come met with us but we are so glad she did and are hoping to keep tabs on her for the 28th! 

Thursday we went on an exchange in New Albany with Elders Braithwaite and Johnson. That was a party. I went with Elder Johnson and we had a blast. Most of the night though we spent together and the afternoon we spent riding down a bike trail stopping and talking to some people! I hadn’t been on my bike in forever so that was fun! When we were walking down that street that night after an appointment we met a lady named Kaitlyn who I waved at to stop as she was pulling out of her driveway. She seemed pretty interested and we sent her information to the Tupelo Elders because that’s where she lives. Then we met a lady Wanda walking down the street. It was a successful night relatively and it was nice spending time with Elder Johnson.

We finally found Kardarius this week! He is a less-active who we’ve been searching for since we got here. When we saw him he was also with a friend, Donna, who is hilarious. We went inside and eventually got to teach Donna the Restoration and KArdarius was helping us, it was sweet. Then that night we re-contacted a lady named Jerri whom the Fulton Elders had found not too long ago. She doesn’t really attend a church and she has a cool personality but we are hoping to meet up with he again soon too! Then, on Friday night Dorris had a breakdown. She just was really sad because of her family and health and stuff that seemed to all be hitting her at once so we got to take some time with her. Elder Nielsen was talking to her and he was really bold-it was awesome. It was the first night that Priesthood seemed to click with her and we assured her that church and baptism would help her get to where she needs to be! 

Saturday was full of walking around and meeting the locals. Apparently every year there is a yard sale the first weekend in October that goes down Highway 25 right through Smithville! Lots of interesting things trying to be sold and it was nice to get our faces out a little bit! We also went out to see a guy named Brother Van who loves Jesus but doesn’t like churches much. I don’t know if I mentioned him before or not but he is the guy that stopped us on the road one of the first weeks we were here and said “Y’all must be sweatin’ for Jesus!” From then on he’s prayed for us as “The Brothers who be sweatin’ for Jesus!” Love that title-best one yet. Anyway we met with him and if he is as tune with the Spirit as he’s been he will be a Mormon. He told us he wouldn’t be converted but we will see what the Spirit does to him. We went out to dinner at the Friendship House. This restaurant is THE Mississippi experience. There is one sign kinda down the road a little ways and if you don’t know where it is you won’t find it. The building doesn’t even have the restaurant name on it. 

Sunday wasn’t too bad. We went around trying to find people and seeing why people didn’t come to church that morning. Lots of excuses but that’s okay, we’ll get there! We got to participate in an “Hour of Mighty Prayer” throughout the mission which was really cool. Every fast Sunday from now on we are going to be praying for an hour before breaking our fast. Talk about calling down the powers of Heaven. Today has been great too. We went bowling as a Zone in Tupelo and it was bringing me way back to High School because they were playing music from a while ago….and by they I mean us as the missionaries, lol! Big John-the guy at the Laundry place let us put “i’m a mormon” cards on the table at the Laundromat though so that’s cool.

• Brother Lyda, a LA loves talking about conspiracy. He’s kinda a weird dude. We talked about Politics a little-or should I say he did, we just smiled.
• We went to Waffle House on our exchange, enough said.
• Elder Nielsen and I are really good at store contacting in Hibbitt Sports.
• Elder Braithwaite left a surprise for us before they left our house on Friday after dropping us back off from the exchange. Luckily he kept the lid to the toilet closed.

It was another good week in Smithville. Hope y’all had a great one wherever you are and I hope you make it a good one this week! Take care, and if your Southern Elder can do anything for you let me know! 

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

2 October 2017 - Elder Milius Week 66

Friends and Family!

Well we’re getting to know more about the wonderful area of Smithville, MS...just give us another week and we’ll know pretty much everyone in the entire town! Things are going good though and Elder Nielsen and I are doing great. He’s a stud of a missionary and we’re teaching and finding and doing this missionary work thing like he’s already used to it! 

Dorris, our most progressing investigator is on date for the 14th of October! She may not make it there because we have to figure out some logistical things as far as how we are going to get her baptized. She isn’t in super great health and can’t walk, but she has the biggest desire to be baptized so I know it will happen! She called us on Saturday and told us she wasn’t feeling good and needed a blessing so we went over there and I got to offer the blessing. I’m still in awe at the power of the priesthood and the privilege it is to speak in behalf of our Father to His children. We are also trying to see how interested her husband, Johnny, is in the gospel as well. He’s taken a liking to us so we’re well on our way with those two! 

There isn’t really anyone else we have made huge progress with. We picked up a former investigator, Liz, who semi wants the gospel...we’re not really sure but still trying to help her gain a testimony and feel the need to be baptized. Angela still thinks that she is going to get woken up by God at 12:00 at night and be ready to be baptized, so that’s an interesting thing we’ve got going on as well. 

We have found a few other people and their stories are kinda cool! (Still haven’t been door-slammed, not interested rejected yet). On Tuesday we met a lady named Bonita. We tracted into her kids last week and they told us to come by on Tuesday so we did and met Mom. It was really cool because she was skeptical about why two young men had knocked on the door and talked to two of her kids but her heart softened a bit when we talked about the Book of Mormon and we had a time scheduled to come teach her again. Unfortunately she wasn’t there for the appointment but we are hoping to get in with her and her family! We also found a couple of girls who attend college up in Fulton. Madison we talked to because we were trying to get directions to another place and she was interested in what we were doing. Then, Chelsea was working at sonic on 50 cent corndog day. Elder Nielsen jokingly asked if he should invite the person who came out to baptism and I said, ‘Yeah, do it you won’t!” So she came out and gave us our food and took our card. Then when she came out again before she left Elder Nielsen-my boy-contacted her like a champ and we taught her! I had a Book of Mormon and pamphlet ready to go and we gave it to her in the drive in at Sonic. Cool story, huh? Except when we went to the address we felt really weird about the house and it turns out it was burned out and they had moved….nonetheless it was a cool contacting experience! Steven Stone is another guy we met at the baseball fields in Tremont. He was throwing a ball against the dugout and both of us loving baseball wanted to go talk to him. So, we did and then before we got in our car to leave we gave him a Book of Mormon. Saturday, so around three days or so later, we get a text from him “So what are the Mormons about?” We have an appointment to meet with him on Thursday! 

• We got into the car to pull out and I told Elder Nielsen that the shifter was stuck, that is wasn’t working and wouldn’t let me go into reverse! “Try moving the wheel,” he said as he tried to figure out the problem. I said, partially laughing, “It won’t work unless there’s someone behind backing me!” “OH!” he responded as he jumped out of the car to back me out. Then, to make it all the more a better story he gets in and says, “Wow, that’s cool that they can rig it up like that so someone has to be behind.” Haha. :)
• We went to the Food Pantry on Tuesday and those people are awesome!! I love food pantries, you get to talk to a lot of people and the spirit there is great!
• We gave an awesome FHE lesson with the Morris’ who are hilarious. It was about how to eat chocolate correctly in relationship to how to study the scriptures correctly. Courtesy of President Prewitt in Tupelo.
• Forgot to mention, Liz has a weird obsession with Eminem the rapper and she’s convinced that their lives are almost directly parallel and she wants to move to Detroit to be with him.
• This guy stopped us on the road when we were up in Amory one day and said, “Are y’all out sweating for Jesus??” Naturally we said “Yeah,” gave him a pamphlet and said we ‘d come back by. So we did and he’s an interesting guy-hope to make him an investigator!
• On Thursday we went out to lunch with the District and let’s just say it hit Elder Nielsen really hard in the stomach. So we stopped at a gas station and as I walked by the bathroom waiting for him I heard the most gut-wrenching sound that was echoing through the porselene John. 
• We went to contact a former investigator and when we knocked on his door he answered and as soon as he opened the door a wave of weed just hit us. He said, with big eye I might add, that it wasn’t a good time. Then his 3 year old runs around the corner with bigger eyes than the guy! I was praying it wasn’t actually what I thought it was but after we were walking away I conquered with Elder Nielsen. Weed it was. 
• Last night we talked to a member (LA) about his beliefs which were interesting to say the least. We talked about a lot of conspiracy and pyramids and bigfoot, or “Skunk Apes” as they are known down in this region. 
• Our neighbors, the Averys, are awesome people! I’m pretty sure they are trying to set me up with their granddaughter too. Jamie (the granddaughter) is going to school at UNA in Florence.

We didn’t have too bad a week here and it was all topped off with Conference! I love being able to hear from the Prophets and Apostles! I don’t know if I can nail a single favorite talk but Quentin L. Cook and Henry B. Eyring who both touched on and spoke about leadership in the church was really great! I also loved Henry B. Eyring and Russell M. Nelson who spoke about their response to the Prophet's counsel six months ago! And Neil L. Anderson couldn’t have summed it up more perfectly! I know without a doubt that this is the Lord’s true church and that he is leading and guiding it through His chosen servants! I sustain and pray for each of them, especially our Prophet Thomas S. Monson. I’m grateful for him and his divine leadership and counsel. 

Hope y’all had a good week and I hope you can make it a better one this week! 

Much Love,

Elder Milius

PS: The sunrise from our house is legit. 

-- 

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