21 April 2014

Hello Family and Friends,

 

This past week was Easter, yeah! Here in Brazil it was a big party. If the people were not in the bars they were roasting meat on the spit with their families. The missionary work was rather slow because everyone was occupied. We managed to teach some lessons but nothing exciting happened this week. A fun fact about Easter here in Brazil is that everyone buys fish and wine to commemorate the life of our Savior. Kind of funny isn't it? I think it because Christ ate fish with his apostles after ressurrecting but no one came seem to give me a straight anwser. I bought some chocolate eggs for my companion and the other missionaries living with us. In return I got some chocolates also, what a surprise ha ha.

The good news from the week is that our zone is looking strong. We have a new duo of sisters which makes 3 companionships of sisters in our zone. They are super good at teaching and working diligently, they put the Elders to shame. The new Elders in our zone are hard workers. All in all our zone is going to have a lot of success in the coming months.Our ward is progressing with respect to attendance. This week we had a whooping 46! When I arrived here there were about 30 active members. There are less people in this ward than in the branch I was serving in. We are working a great deal with inactives and some of them went to church this past week. About a 1/3 of the people going to this ward are our recent converts. Honestly I need something new now at this point in my mission. This is the fourth transfer in this area. I hope that in the next transfer I will be sent to an area where I can focus just on baptizing. It is a good thing that this transfer is only four weeks. There are 3 more weeks left and I will give it my all and wait anxiously for my next assignment.

 

It was good to hear that the family had a swell Easter. I liked the picture of the family in the backyard. Everyone is all-grown-up I won't even recognize anyone when I come home. I saw the picture of Elder Horst with his family. It is weird to think that he is home with his family. It seems as if it were yesterday that we were looking at photos of our families talking about the day that we would see them again. It seems like an unacheivable dream, something that it will never happen, but that day will arrive as it has with Elder Horst. It is hard not to get trunky every now and then at this stage on the mission. I guess I need to forget myself and get to work like  Gordon B. Hinckley's father instructed him while on the mission.

 

Lots of Love,

Elder Miller

14 April 2014

This was the last week of the transfer and neither Elder Dos Santos nor I were transferred. This new transfer will be a shorty, only 4 weeks. In our zone 6 were transferred and will be replaced by 6 exceptional missionaries so we are all fired up. One companionship of Elders will be swapped out for Sisters. This is good because generally Sisters work 2x as hard. 

Our zone went to the mission president's home for lunch this week because of the zone's accomplishments from March. I think President Castro bought about 8 extra large pizzas for all of us. I made sure that we did not leave any pizza left over. I had put a lot of effort into the dessert pizzas that he bought because no one was eating them. Oh, in Brazil they make dessert pizza. Basically they cover the pizza crust with chocolate, M&M's, sprinkles, fruit etc.. President left us with a message from the book of Mormon and then it was back to work. The president's apartment was pretty fancy to say the least.

 

Moreover our zone was invited to participate in some of the meetings of stake conference this past weekend. All the talks were great. The stake is pumped up to work in the missionary work together with us missionaries. This is the attitude all over the world now, "accelerate the work." And the only way this will happen is through the members of the church.

This morning we went on a hike with a member of our ward. We invited the missionaries that live us as well. Our purpose other than hike through bush was to find monkeys. Yes, there are monkeys out here on the mountain side. We hiked for awhile through the forest when all of a sudden the trees started shaking and we saw a family of monkeys! They were small orange monkeys. I had a really good time despite not getting a good picture of the monkeys. I need to take more advantage of the mission in this way. The nature was amazing as well as the view when we reached the top. We read some scriptures up on the top and said a prayer.

 

I will send a lot of photos this week of everything. Before ending this email I would just like to thank everyone for the letters that you send me, you have no idea how much I like getting them. Forgive me for not responding; these past few months have been hectic. Thanks Grandpa for the Seahawks Super Bowl magazine, I read it cover to cover in about an hour, good stuff. Lastly, Elder Horst will be sleeping at our place before going home Wednesday. Another 4 months and it will be me. That is crazy to think about. 

Lots of Love,

Elder Miller

7 April 2014

Hello Family and Friends,

This week my companion and I studied about charity, the pure love of Christ. This is an attribute of Christ that I want to work on for the rest of my mission and so on. Well, we were studying Moroni 7 and in verses 46-48 it says the following,

 "46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail— 47 But ^acharity is the pure ^blove of Christ, and it endureth ^cforever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. 48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, ^apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true ^bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall ^cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be ^dpurified even as he is pure. Amen."

 These verses are very deep. What we discovered was that we must pray for the gift of charity, and with the energy of our heart. We put a sign on our door to remind us every day before leaving the house that we must pray for this gift. After praying for this gift Elder Dos Santos looked at me and said, get ready because God is going to give us many opportunities to be charitable. Well, that opportunity came.

Friday morning we were walking to a member's house for lunch when a Father, Mother, and teenage boy approached us. They told us that they were recent converts and had moved to our area a month ago. They mentioned that they had 8 children! We got their address and marked an appointment for 3:00pm the next day during the general conference break. After the first session of general conference we got together the High Priest responsible for our Ward and we went looking for this families house. We walked for about 20 minutes and we did not find their residence. We called them and found out that their house was located about a hour away on the outskirts of our area. In Brazil bikes or cars are out of the question so we had to make the hike on foot. At the end of the walk we had to climb a hill that just about killed me and then we arrived at their humble abode all sweaty and out of air.

This family of ten is living in a house about the size of our apartment. We got to know all of them and their story. We expressed our excitement for having a Family of ten with seven priesthood holders in our small ward. The high priest that was with us asked after the prayer, "Is there any thing we can do to help you all." We already knew but we had to ask, do you need food? They told us that they had been living on chocolate milk powder for the last few days. The Father was having trouble finding steady work. I saw the desperation in their eyes and it cut me to the core. I knew a little bit of how they were feeling as we were fasting and after that long walk in the sun I felt as if I were starving too. Without delay we went back to our apartment and gathered shoes, white shirts, ties, pants to give them. After that we went to the market and bought food to last them about 2 weeks. We called other Brothers from the ward to help transport everything to their house but no one could seem to help us at that moment. So we found a guy that was willing to help for 15 reals which was a great blessing. We transported everything to their house. They were absolutely speechless when we arrived with all the food and clothing. Grateful is not a strong enough word to describe what they were feeling.

It was about 9:20pm when all was accomplished and we were beat. I took a shower and collapsed on my bed. We offered a prayer of thankfulness for being able to help out this family and then my body shutdown for the night. The next day we arrived at the chapel for the Sunday morning session of conference and the whole Family was there! They were all dressed in church clothes and looking good. Even the Mother got a nice skirt from one of the other sisters. I sat down on the bench with that closed throat feeling I get when on the verge of crying. About a million thoughts passed through my head. The only thing I can say is that I love this gospel, I love Christ. I want to have the pure love of Christ in life. It is not easy but it is totally worth it. I learned a great lesson this week about love. While conference was going on we were out in the street putting into practice this eternal principle. I have so much to improve on in my life. I fail a lot. Sometimes I look at people with my natural eyes and not with my spiritual ones. I hope that in these last few months of my mission I can learn to love like our Savior. He is love and it is our duty to learn from him.

Lots of Love,

Elder Miller

Hello Family and Friends, 

I am really happy right now. This is because our zone reached 14 baptisms this month! That means that all our zone will have lunch with President Castro. One of the awards that our mission president offers is this lunch at his house if there were 2 baptisms for every companionship. Seeing that our zone has 7 companionships that means we needed 14 baptisms and we got just that. Our zone is very united and determined. We expect to maintain this rhythm throughout the coming month.

We had a spiritual experience this week that I would like to share. So as I have mentioned above our zone was fighting to reach our goals that we had set at the beginning of the month. Our zone had already reached 8 baptisms from the prior weeks and 6 were lacking. We knew that 4 were already set in stone for this past Saturday, but there were still 2 missing. 1 of these 2 had been baptized by Elder Machado but wasn't confirmed the following day because the young man was influenced by his family and decided that the church was not for him. Elder Dos Santos and I knew to get these last two baptisms that this young man would have to be confirmed somehow and that we would need to find someone else to be baptized this Saturday! This person had to have received all the missionary lessons, gone to church at least 2 times, and is living all the commandments in order to be baptized this Saturday. 

It was Wednesday afternoon I said a prayer to start our day. I remember saying in the prayer that we needed to find this special person who was already prepared to be baptized. When we left the house we had no doubts that we would find this person. Long story short we went visit a family of members that lives on the hillside. We discovered that they have a daughter that is 9 years old and that had never been baptized that had gone to church multiple times in the past, had received all the lessons, and was living the commandments. Prayer answered! The girl told us that she did not want to be baptized so we taught her a lesson about how Jesus was baptized and we challenged her again and to the surprise of the family this time she accepted. I had the privilege of baptizing Tainara Saturday night. 

 

 

Later in the week we fasted as a zone to reach our zone goals and that young man that had been baptized but not confirmed was confirmed Sunday so we got 14. I am not happy for the fact that we will be recognized by the president as a zone, but for the fact that our zone united with one purpose in mind and we accomplished what we had set out to do. It was really gratifying to me.

I am looking forward to general conference this weekend. It is such a privilege to have a living prophet and the chance to hear from him and the other leaders of church. For sure we will all receive personal revelation from their inspired words. One thing Elder Bednar told us when visiting the mission is that when taking notes don't write what the speaker says but what the Holy Ghost whispers to you through that speaker. Thus you will be writing your own set of small plates or in other words the spiritual aspects that will help you throughout your life.

 Lots of Love,

Elder Miller

24 March 2014

Hello Family and Friends, 

Gerson was baptized this past Saturday! At the baptism there was a lot of support from the ward, especially the youth. Gerson is 18 and is a very talented individual. He plays the cello in a youth orchestra here in Porto Alegre. I told him about Jessie and how well she plays the cello. I think in a year he will serve a mission, he is really sensitive to the prompting of the spirit. We will start to teach his brother this week which will hopefully turn into another baptism.

 

 

This week we had a zone conference. There were 3 zones in total at the meeting. All the Zone Leaders had to dress up as bakers as we taught the other missionaries teaching techniques. The theme of the exercise was the parable "the bread of life" and the techniques were the various ingredients to make bread. I realized that I have come along way on the mission in terms of shyness. 1 year and 6 months ago I think would have just about fainted from timidity if I had to give a training exercise in the front of the mission President and about 50 missionaries. Now I don't even break a sweat. Don't get me wrong, I am still a quiet guy that is just who I am, but like I said above I have come a long way. 

 

Our mission is improving a lot in respect to number of baptisms. I think our mission will baptize over 100 this month which will be a new record for our mission in this last decade. President Castro really is an inspired man. Our zone is very strong now. Elder Machado my ex-companion from Dom Pedrito is one of the District Leaders and is baptizing a lot. The sisters are always pulling big numbers and I think the other companionships will baptize this week. All in all every companionship will baptize this transfer which will be great.

Elder Dos Santos and I just got done painting a house for a less active member. We spent our whole P-day painting but I feel good for doing it. Our reward will be tonight, a churrasco for Elder Saboia's birthday. He lives in our apartment and just turned 19.

 Lots of Love,

Elder Miller