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
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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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