Highs and Lows,
Welp, missions are full of highs like when an Apostle of the Lord comes and teaches your mission, as well as lows when people decided to step back and you didn’t really find anyone and anti-mormon literature gets the best of a couple investigators. This week was one of those but it was still full of it’s own little miracles and tender mercies as the Lord’s work always is.
Crystal and Oscar are putting themselves on the back burner for now. We saw them on Friday night and then Crystal was going to come with us to a baptism on Saturday. When we pulled in the parking lot to the church that afternoon she texted us and told us she wouldn’t be able to make it and that her and Oscar needed to take a step back to make some decisions. Our hearts sank and we immediately started a fast. We are going to try to keep as good of contact as we can and are hoping that everything still works out for their baptismal date. I think they need to make decisions about some issues other than the church and all they’ve been learning but we will see. Keep them in your prayers!
There isn’t any other major progress with anyone else. We met a guy named Jackson who we went back to see and he seemed promising. But when we called to confirm our appointment he said “Thanks, but I will contact you when I finish reading the Book.” Another guy we met last week texted us the same thing on Saturday. On a brighter side the Sisters had a few people come to church which was awesome! We’ve had people at church-whether they be our investigators or the sisters’- for the past month and a half or so, which is cool!
We had one neat experience concerning Gwenn, one of the Sister’s investigators. We were going to go and visit Beonca but when we knocked on her door she was in the bathtub-she called and told us, why she had her phone in the tub I don’t know-but she told us to come back in 15 minutes. So, we came back and no answer to the door or phone. With 10 minutes left in the night we went to see Gwenn because the Sisters were trying to get a hold of her and she lived in our complex. Gwenn turned out to be home and invited us in and talked with us for like 20 minutes. She met with the Sisters the next day, went to the baptism on Saturday, and came to church on Sunday. It was a testimony to me that the Lord cares about the one because had we gone and seen Beona that would’ve been our night, or had we seen Beonca without having to come back our plans would have stayed on track and we wouldn’t have seen Gwenn. It was just a coincidence though ;)
The new missionaries arrived here on Tuesday and they are a great group! A couple personal connections with some of them which was fun. Sister Shumway is Drew Shumway’s granddaughter who is the brother of my great-grandfather. And Sister Anderson went to Higley High in Gilbert and knew Corbyn Milius! So, Grandpa Shumway and Corbyn if you recognize those names let me know and we’ll connect some dots. Transfers went relatively smooth and then all of the departing missionaries caught their flight and made it home safe! No roadblocks!
Like I said we had a lot of things fall through this week but we had a few good appointments! One was with the Sparkman family. Brother Sparkman is a returning member and his wife isn’t a member. She’s not interested but all of his/hers kids are awesome. We went over and taught them the Plan of Salvation and it was literally the highlight of the day. As we walked out I made a comment to Elder Egbert about seeing Christ just surrounded by a bunch of kids teaching them in a very simple way the Plan of Salvation. It was a cool moment.
On Sunday we went on splits with the Bishopric which was great. That is going to help us get to know the members really well which is something Elder Andersen counselled us to do! On Saturday we also had a meeting with all the missionaries in our zone and the stake leaders. They want to really unify the members and the missionaries so they showed us all the slides and the training that they are giving to the members. It talked a lot about where to focus our work, that is on Prospective Elders, Part-Member Families, and Unbaptized children. We are going to start doing more of the work and hopefully going to see a few more fruits of those efforts! We also went to see Ty again and it was an interesting meeting. He was skeptical at first fo Joseph Smith and all and it’s because he looked up a bunch of stuff on the internet. He told us that he just didn’t feel comfortable about it all and about the Book of Mormon. We told him that in the end, our purpose is to help others develop faith in Christ and because he has that faith I’m sure it will all be worked out in the end. I believe that; it kinda ties with Elder Andersen’s comment about never leaving Christ. So that was a little learning experience for me. Something else that I learned from that experience is how strong and how evil “anti” is. I am certain that Ty didn’t feel uncomfortable or dark in his reading of the Book of Mormon. But, I wouldn’t doubt that those feelings were flooding out the Spirit because everytime he picked up the Book of Mormon I’m sure his thoughts didn’t go to Christ but went to all the things he read online. Satan is tricky, and he knows what he’s doing. We can’t ever let our doubts overcome our faith. To quote Elder Holland and the scriptures, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”
Funny snippets:
- We knocked on a door and a muslim guy came out and started talking to us. He was nice, but before we left asked a question trying to get us to admit that we believe in the Trinity or something. But during that conversation his wife who was a Baptist-turned-Muslim (at least that’s our guess because any typical muslim lady would not have been so bold and she did say she was a Christian for over 25 years) started yelling from behind the door all sorts of stuff about how we shouldn’t worship Christ and Joseph Smith was a false prophet and we pray to Jesus instead of God and how the Bible and the Book of Mormon are full of mistakes. It was comical, especially because we never saw her face only her waving hand and fingers. Pretty sure she was eating cheetos too, her fingers were orange.
- When we were walking through an apartment complex we said “Hi” to a guy on his porch and told him the food smelled good (he was grilling). He said, “Thanks! Do you want a piece of chicken?” Man I’m going to miss the South!
- Elder Lewis is still chillin’ here...going on month 27!
- “The Holy Ghost will always warn you before you do something stupid.” ~ Pres.
Thanks y’all for the things you do! Keep being steadfast disciples of Jesus Christ and I can promise everything will work out according to His plan! Love you guys and hope you have a blessed week! Let me know if I can do anything for ya!
Much Love,
Elder Milius
PS: All the schools in the state closed down last week because of this much snow...
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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
All the schools closed this week for THIS MUCH snow
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