Dear folks,
Hello! Hope you all are doing great and had a happy mother's day yesterday (especially all those Mothers of Missionaries). This week was kinda up and down a lot of cool stories and people and a lot of hard things as well. Such if life though! Elder Holm and I are doing good and pretty established now here in Weatherly.
First update I'll give is on Mike. He doesn't want really anything to do with us or the Mormon church anymore. We taught him on Tuesday about some commandments, mainly the Word of Wisdom, and he disagreed with it. Even though he loved the Book of Mormon and despite his conversion to Christ he didn't have a testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Therefore the Revelation given about what we should or shouldn't take into our bodies was tough to grasp. So he is no longer on date for the end of this month but I hope that that's not the end of his journey. In my mind it's just a hiccup!
Not much else to talk about there. But, I don't know if I talked about Cathy last week. She is a lady we met Tracting and her and her mom were super kind and open to us. We helped screw in her storm door because it broke as she opened it and then when we went back to follow up with then this past week they needed help carrying in a bird bath to go in their backyard. Service works miracles, haha! Anyway, she had read part of the Book of Mormon so we sat and talked about it and we are going back tonight to discuss the Plan of Salvation. There was something else though, another detail you'll be interested to know. She took the back of a Mormon.org card and pointed to the QR code and said, "This isn't a coincidence is it." We both kind looked at each other and were like, "... Yeah it takes you to the website...?" She shook her head and exclaimed, "This is a picture of Jesus!" She then went on to talk about how when her father was in the military he was given a picture that was taken on accident. The camera had dropped and the shutter closed and took a picture of just snow or whatever it was. However in the picture you can obviously see the likeness of Christ. Both pictures are in the attachments so you'll have to see for yourself! Cathy is awesome though and is keeping commitments and we have high hopes for her.
Torries is another guy we met the other week walking around an apartment complex. We met him right before a lady came up to us upset that we were soliciting religion. After she had left though he looked at us and said we were welcome anytime. So, we went back Saturday and had a really good talk with him about what we believe and the Book of Mormon and it all just went according to plan! It was a neat lesson and we think he has a lot of potential too. He'd make a great Young Men's advisor.
Will. Now Will was a miracle. We had decided to go make a few follow-ups with people we had met in the past and Tract around the area a little more. As we walked past Wills house we both slowed down. We had knocked on the door before but no one answered and it looked like someone was home this time so we knocked again. We did our approach and asked if we could come in and he said sure! We went in and started talking about his encounters with the church and stuff like that and then, naturally, we started teaching the Restoration. As we were teaching however we found out that he had some questions pertaining directly to the Plan of Salvation. So... We switched! Let me tell you I have never shared the three kingdoms of glory and the Spirit world with anyone at our first meeting but now I have and it was exactly what answered his question. After that we left him with a Book of Mormon, a chapter to read, a plan of salvation pamphlet and invited him to study for the next appointment. He told us that he loved it and that we answered a lot of his questions. It was a really neat experience just because of how it worked out, but also because everything we had been practicing in our companionship studies for the past few weeks came out with Will and it was a huge testimony to me of role plays! Practice is spiritually creating what you physically want to happen.
A couple other cool people that we meet who are now on our radar include Jeremy... OK, pause. Sorry, Jeremy was a guy who stays in California and we met him riding out of our complex one morning. He said that he sees the missionaries all the time but they never stop to talk to him and he had always wanted them to. So we gave him a card to get in contact with missionaries there. I hope that all works out but I guess I won't know until the next life. The people in our area are Evan and Cameron (both of which are kids to PM/LA families in the ward who we were referred to see), Jasmine, Peyton, Mike (a former investigator), Tasha, Ashley, and Kyle. We just met them and they were all semi-interested, enough to give us some of their information haha! Praying for then though. We also met a guy named James that I almost forgot. He was outside and we were following up with another guy so we walked away from him at first. Then we started walking back to Tract and our first stop was to James. He told us that when he saw us he wanted to talk to us and we walked away! So, good thing we followed the Spirit and went back to visit with him. He and his wife had been looking for a church and he was interested enough to give us some information and to take a pamphlet and a Book of Mormon app pass-along card. He is busy the next couple weeks but we'll be looking to follow up with him again.
Before I forget and go into funny stories, which this will probably be a good segue, is our lesson with AL. AL is an older guy who we met our first night here. He said that missionaries had been by but they never came back. So we left him with a Book of Mormon and set up a time to come back. Well since then it's been kinda a hit or miss with him as far as teaching but we had an appointment yesterday. It was in the middle of our companionship studies when we went to teach him so we paused and walked over to his home. He was standing outside and said something to the effect of, "Well I was thinking we could go on a bike ride. And ride and talk and I'll take you down and show you the Greenway (a trail that runs down by the Tennessee River). We had never done that before but we instinctively said, "Sure!" So, we rode and talked to AL about what makes us different and about a modern day Prophet. He just kept saying he needed to do more study. Oh yeah, he also gave us back our Book because he was studying online and found LDS.org and has been studying off of that. Cool, huh? Anyway that was a fun little 12-mile lesson!
Other Funny Stories:
- We met a guy in Walmart that stopped us and asked us about Joseph Smith and the constitution.
- There was this less active the Relief Society President said we should try to visit and when we walked up he wanted nothing to do with us. He wouldn't even shake our hand and he said, "You guys are going to meet some jerks out there, and I'm one of them."
- Last week we helped move an entertainment center from the Giles to the McGills. Then we helped moved an entertainment center from the McGills to the Quintanas. Lol.
- So guys yelled "F Jesus" at us driving down the road.
- A random guy flipped us off instead of politely waving back at us on our bikes.
- I got super sick and threw up on Wednesday. I couldn't remember the last time I vomited but now I do.
- A member from Madison was visiting a lady who lives in our ward during the week and yelled to get our attention, "I need a Book of Mormon!"
- Elder Holm found out.
- We tried to do an Facebook Live class, it may or may not have worked how we planned but I think it ended up okay!
- We helped move some more furniture on Friday afternoon.
- Friday night we had dinner with a member's non-member grandma and then helped moved more furniture around.
- Elder Holm dropped some groceries on our way home from Walmart one night. Haha.
- We talked to our neighbor about the motorcycle he wants to get because he blew the engine going 130mph or so, maxing out the engine. The new one he wants goes like 200mph. I cent figure out if that made me want to get a motorcycle or never touch one.
One of the biggest lessons I learned this week was the power of the Book of Mormon. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday and it was all about using the Book of Mormon and how important it is. A lot of times I'll teach people that the primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is to testify of Christ. Now, I don't necessarily believe that to be true. The primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is to testify that Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that this is the true church. Then because of that, it helps build our faith in Christ and so forth. I found out this week with Mike dropping us that if we simply read the Book of Mormon as a feel good story that helps us be a better person then we are missing the mark. If we do not have a testimony of the Restoration and of the Prophet Joseph Smith then we are like every other Christian church out there trying to do good and love others; which isn't bad at all, don't missunderstand that. All I'm saying is that there is so much more. There's the Celestial Kingdom, Eternal Life, Forever Families, Temple Covenants, etc. All of which hang on whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. And I know it is.
I hope y'all have a great and blessed week, go hug your Mothers!
Much Love,
Elder Milius
PS: Jabori and Javon got baptized in Hoover!! Sister Sainsbury sent me some pictures on Saturday afternoon. Those are a couple of awesome kids, and I’ll bet Theresa isn’t far behind.
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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