Merry Christmas!!
I can’t believe that it’s already the Christmas season! I hope everyone is making good progress in the LighttheWorld initiative! We are definitely loving it out here in the mission field! We’ve had a crazy busy week let me tell ya. Elder Egbert is my new companion and he is awesome! We served around each other when I was in Prattville and he was in Millbrook and so we’ll have a good time together I’m sure!
Transfers were crazy so I figure I’ll start there. We picked up the new missioanries and they are all on fire! It was cool remembering back to the first day I arrived in Alabama. What made that crazy though was the MTC wasn’t waking up the missionaries early anymore so they arrived around 5:20 and we didn’t get back to the mission home until 6:30. Which was fine, we just had to do all the training and interviews Wednesday morning. But that wasn’t the craziest part of the week. Thursday morning we went to drop off the departing missionaries so that they could get home. Half of our missionaries got their bags checked and then half of them we not able to check their bags. So the heart started to race as the lady at the counter gave me a number to call to try and rebook flights. What?? We all sat in the airport, Elder Egbert and I and 8 other missionaries who are ready to go home, while I called a guy who told me that there were no flights out of Birmingham for the rest of the day. Or for the next day. As he started to give me options I sent Elder Egbert to get another phone and call President because he left his phone at the apartment. It took us a few tries but we finally got a hold of President and I told him that we had 8 missionaries that weren’t going to make it home and then we talked through some options. The next hour I went back and forth talking to President and then the airlines guy and then finally booked 7 flights from Atlanta the next morning. We dropped off all the missionaries with surrounding areas and then re-grouped at 5:30 to leave for Atlanta. Unfortunately we did not go to Atlanta but a senior couple drove them and they all made their flights the next morning for home. It was a very eventful moment and we were all on edge to say the least. But, to add to it a missionary going home tried to take home a gun that had been give to him by a member in his carry-on bag! So he almost go thrown in jail but the senior couple took it and we avoided that problem. The side issue was that Elder Lewis’ passport was expired so he couldn’t go home and he is currently staying with us. I can’t tell you how stressed out I was that day but apparently I didn’t look it as I calmly talked to two people at once and too charge of a situation I had no idea about. Gotta love it. Especially that it’s now all figured out! I’m trying to locate pictures that I can send home soon.
Anyway, other than that our week has been going good! We had a follow-up training meeting with the missionaries who have been out for six weeks now which is my favorite meeting! That was great. We have also gotten a new whiteboard so that we can keep better track of all the potentials that we are meeting and that is going well!
A couple people that we’ve met worth talking about is Claude. Claude is a brother of a member who we’ve been trying to work with for a long while. However, he is more interested than his brother for sure. Their parents were members and they were raised as far as childhood in the church but Claude was never baptized. We’ve had a couple great lessons with him and he is doing good as far as his reading and such. He is on date for baptism for the 20th of January and we are hoping to keep in touch well with him. Another lady that we met last night was Tori. She seems somewhat interested but the cool part about her story is as I was quoting the First Vision the Spirit couldn’t have been stronger. Elder Egbert made the comment after that it looked like she was about to cry. So, we are hoping for that to go somewhere!
We’ve also met Kevin a guy whose family is all members but who isn’t, “Yet.” That’s what he said. We are going over there this evening and so we’ll see what happens there! Things are going well though and hopefully I’ll have more to report on next week! Transfers was the bulk of this one.
- Elder Egbert ran out of the car and knocked on a lady’s window at a red light because he lost the game “What are the odds.”
- Transfers was insane.
- We were late for a dinner appointment that we were planning on with our neighbors who are ukrainian. When we called back Alex answered and then his wife Maria took the phone and in her russian accent said, “Where are you? We have not eaten yet!” (It was 8:10pm and we missed their call about dinner at 7:20pm).
- Teaching in a trio is very interesting. We have to split 33/33/33 instead of 50/50.
- I gave a talk in church off of just an index card :)
- Transfers was crazy.
- Transfers.
This week was a good one. We got a lot done and solved a lot of problems and met some cool people in the middle of it all! The testimony meeting of the departing missionaries was very spiritual and it was a privilege being a part of that. We were also able to go assist the Sisters in giving their investigator who was supposed to be baptized like three weeks ago a blessing and it was the first contact they had with her in weeks. That was a pretty amazing thing as well.
I hope y’all are doing good and that Christmas is going to treat you well! I love y’all, thanks for all your support and examples! Keep letting “your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt 5:16)
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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