God Bless Us! God Bless Us Everyone!

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas!!

Mine was awesome. :) First, we went to church and sang in the choir and heard the cute little primary sing as well. :)

Then we visited some people and then skyped our families! It was great seeing my family. :)

Then two less actives invited us over to their homes for Christmas dinner, which was great, and it really helped them too. Hopefully we'll be able to see some good progress with them.

We also received a lot of media referrals this week, which I love, and we started teaching one of them! Her name is Evalyn and she is a sweet heart. :)

The weather this week was in the 60s to 70s. :) Smiley face.

I can't think of a better time to spend my last week as a full-time missionary than during the holiday that celebrates the birth of our Savior. I know He lives and guides this work. I know He loves His children and has the perfect plan for them. He continually calls us to come unto Him and as soon as we take that step of faith, He will lead us. I know that as we continuously read His word, pray for help and guidance, repent, and renew and keep our covenants, we will have His spirit with us, which guides and changes us. I am so grateful for it.

I am so grateful for this gospel and for the opportunity I've had over the last 18 months to share it with others. It is priceless, and the things I've witnessed and learned are priceless. I know this church is true and is led by God through a prophet today.

Sister Miller

Jaelyn's Baptism!!

Hey! Guys! It's almost Christmas! What?!

And guess what. :) There's still no snow here.

This week was pretty eventful! We found two new investigators (one was a former who went to church quite a bit when she was investigating a year or so ago); we went on exchanges and I went with Sister Robinson, one of my MTC companions!; we traveled down to Logan County (the epitome of coal-minin' West Virginia) for a district meeting; and hmmmm, let's see, what else.... oh yeah! Jaelyn Chatterton got baptized! :D She was an unbaptized child or reccord. She is 11, and her mother wanted her to be baptized so we taught her. :)

So, as every missionary knows, things always go wrong when there's a baptism. Our headaches started promptly at 12:10 pm that afternoon. :) Jaelyn's Grandpa was going to baptize her, but was going to be late because of other things that went wrong, so we had to call everyone who was a part of the program and make sure that they were all ok with pushing it back. They all were, thank goodness. Then everything was going wrong with the Chatterton family so they were 20 minutes late, the person who filled the font turned on the cold water instead of the hot water (poor poor Jaelyn), there was miscommunications about who was going to print the programs so there wasn't any, and then there was no paper for the printer when we finally got some made up. :) There was a good turn out from the ward though, but unfortunately Jaelyn has social anxiety and almost didn't go into the font when it was time to be baptized!! Sister Donahoo and her mom and I were in the bathroom with her trying to calm her down, and we said a prayer with her. Then her Grandpa came up her stairs and led her down and gave her a little pep talk in the font to help her. She had to be baptized twice too, poor thing! When it was all done, her mom was crying she was so happy. :)

I know that God was so proud of her for making that covenant to follow Him, and I know that the Gift of the Holy Ghost will help her so much in her life. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He will lead and guide us along our way. There's some stumbling blocks, and a lot of things will go wrong, but everything will work out. :)

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!

Sister Miller

I Know That My Redeemer Lives!!

This week was Zone Conference with our Mission President! Every year for Christmas for Zone Conference his little treat is we get to watch a full length film as part of it (last year was "Meet the Mormons") and this year we watched a movie about President Monson's life. I love how seriously he takes spiritual promptings. He is an excellent example of what can be done if we just do what the Lord wants us to do. So many lives can be blessed and so much joy can come from it.

The week before, our Zone Leaders called us and started out by saying, "Ok, we have a proposition for you.... just... hear us out..." :P President wanted there to be a musical number at all of the Zone Conferences so the Elders were asking us to sing at it. We sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives."

Jaelyn is doing really well and is on track to be baptized this week! We're super excited for her. She is such a sweet heart and I hope she and her mom will work to go to the temple together after she turns 12. :)

It snowed for the first time on friday!!!! Ah!!!! I need it to hold off for another two weeks! :)

We have been working a lot more with the auxiliaries in the ward and they are becoming much more involved, which is awesome. :) Using the Christmas initiative like crazy and Sister Donahoo and I both bought ear-warming headbands. :) Brrrrr

Only two more weeks until Christmas! If you all haven't seen the Christmas initiative yet, check it out RIGHT NOW! It has a fun count down of service that you all should do!

Have an awesome week!

Sister Miller 

White Christmas!!

This week we finished the White Christmas Book of Mormon reading for our mission! It was one of the greatest experiences I've had reading the Book of Mormon. I decided to mark two things: whenever it talks about covenants/baptism/temples, and anything that could relate to missionary work. I marked way more than I thought I would!

From marking covenants/baptism/temples I found:

-the temple is mentioned way more than I thought it would be! Something I thought interesting too was that several times, when people would gather, they would gather at the temple. It was the heart of the city.

-The Book of Mormon is proof that God keeps his promises.

-God made a promise to everyone who will ever live in the promised land (the american continents) that if they would keep his commandments, He would prosper them. That promise is fulfilled over and over in the Book of Mormon, and still applies to us.

-Baptism is so important!!!!!

From marking anything that could relate to missionary work I found:

-Nephi was a master goal-setter, and he taught me a lot on how to be one myself.

-Captain Moroni taught me how to be a leader, and would have made an excellent Mission President.

-Alma the Younger was a Preach My Gospel Missionary. (I'm pretty sure that when the apostles wrote Preach My Gospel, they just read what Alma the Younger did and put it in a book.)

-Charity is crucial to this work.

-Never give up hope. If you give up hope, you're giving up on Christ. Even Moroni didn't give up hope.

-Faith is a prerequisite to miracles.No miracles could happen without faith.

-If you follow the Spirit, you will always succeed.

-The scriptures teach so much better than we do.

-And so much more!!!!

The Pulley family also invited us over to watch the Christmas Devotional. I thought it was fantastic! If you haven't seen it, go watch it right now! If you have watched it, let me know what your favorite things were!

This week was also the ward Christmas dinner. My first one on my mission! :P Last year I was transferred a couple days before the branch's dinner, and the ward I transferred into had already had theirs. :) It was fantastic. :) The ward gave us lots of leftover cake. My goodness. #cakefordays

This has just been a very Christmas-y week! I hope you all have a great one and good luck with whoever has finals!!

-Sister Miller

Thanksgiving With A General Authority!

Ok, so I didn't eat Thanksgiving with a General Authority. I'm not that cool. But I did spend almost a whole day with Elder Meurs a couple days before Thanksgiving! :D

Every year in this mission a General Authority comes and does a mission tour where he does kind of a devotional of sorts with half the mission, then the other half the next day. So I got to see a bunch of the Sisters that I've served with that are currently on this side of the mission. :) Elder Meurs is awesome and I am so glad that I got to learn from him before I went home. :) We talked a lot about finding people to teach, about rising in our might, and he really emphasized the power of prayer. He also talked a lot about how members can be involved in missionary work (which I will be applying very soon as a member :)) which I loved. He had great insights and the spirit was so strong there. He is so sweet too. He has such a soft heart and a very calm disposition about him. Plus it was fun listening to his Australian accent all day. :)

I think the main thing I got from our day with Elder Meurs was that the Lord will do His part, if we do ours. Just do your part. It really is small in comparison to what He does. But do your part with all your might. I know that that is how we show God that we want His help, and the more we work, the more He will bless us. And I know that prayer is so essential in everything we do. It says time and time again in the scriptures to pray always. Do it! All the time! Involve the Lord in everything! That is how we will be successful.

Thanksgiving was awesome too. :) We were invited over by our Bishop's family and the Wolfe family. We were sooooooo fuuuuullllll. :) Oh my goodness, the Bishop's wife makes this dessert she calls Pumpkin Love and it is the greatest thing I have ever tasted oh my goodness yummm. I am going to get the recipe from her. It is so good. :) I'm very grateful for the members' generosity to invite us over to join their families for the holidays. It was so sweet of them.

We put two more people on date for baptism this week!! We're very excited. And it hasn't snowed yet. Fingers crossed it stays in the sky until December 29th. :P

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving and are having fun getting ready for Christmas!!

Sister Miller

Elder Meurs!

The Trio Reunites!!

THANKSGIVING!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!🦃🍽

It's crazy that this is my second one on my mission. :O It doesn't feel like it's been that long.

This week a lot of great stuff happened. :) We got a finalized date for Jaelyn's baptism so we can really make sure she's prepared for it. And she and her mother came to church! Her mother even had a migraine, bless her heart.

We also found four new investigators this week! Two of which are Millers. Obviously. The other two are great and we're really excited for them. One, Sister Green, was taught by the Elders about 5 months ago but then moved to live with her sister (and whenever someone moves out of the area, we throw the teaching record away, so there was no record of her in the area book) but then she moved back three months later! The only reason we found her was because we decided to go through the phone and make sure we knew who all the people in the contacts were. There were a few who didn't have records in the area book, she being one of them, so we called her and we got to meet with her! She has read all the way to Mosiah and went to church several times while the Elders were teaching her. She is awesome and hopefully we'll be able to help her finish her journey. :)

And Sister Smith came to church yesterday! We met with her Saturday night and were trying to help her come, but she wouldn't do it. She was too nervous and her car was in really bad shape so she wanted to wait another week. But Sunday morning she texted and said that she was coming! :O We were shocked. But she came and it was awesome. :) An 8 year old was getting baptized right after church too so she decided to stay for that and watch it. :) How inspired is that?

Funny thing too, so we have our mission coordination at our Bishop's house on Saturday mornings. Well, this last Saturday was the day of someone in the ward's wedding that was going to be happening at the church (just a small little ceremony) and the Bishop's wife was asked to be the photographer. She didn't know very much about photography though and she knew that Sister Donahoo was a professional photographer so she asked her to help her at the wedding. So we went to a wedding for lunch. :)

Whenever I think of Thanksgiving, or just being grateful in general, I think of the story in the Bible of the 10 lepers that Jesus Christ healed. Ten lepers asked Him to heal them, and He sent ten lepers to be healed. But only one came back and thanked Him for this miracle. May we all remember who gave us our blessings, and never take them for granted. May we all remember to thank Him with an attitude of worship not just this week, but every week. After all, doesn't He bless us more than once a year?

I am so grateful for the opportunity that God has given me to serve a mission on His behalf. I am grateful for all the experiences I have had and the people that I have met who have strengthened my testimony and my love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that He is our Savior and I will never be able to thank Him enough for His Atoning Sacrifice.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Sister Miller

And then there was ONE TRANSFER LEFT!!

But we won't talk about that.

This week was eventful. :) I like those weeks.

Our most progressing investigator is Sister Smith and she said she can't put down the Book of Mormon. :) And she said she would try to come to church on Sunday. She's super nervous but we're going to try to bring a member to her house before so she knows someone. :) She is such a sweet heart.

One of our other progressing investigators came to church on Sunday! She is the 11 year old daughter of a less active family who are trying to come back to church and they want her to be baptized. :) We're so glad they finally came. They are wonderful and we love them to pieces.

I also went to Ashland, Kentucky this week on exchanges!! Which was super fun because I have had two companions who both were trained there. :) And now I can say that I have served in FOUR different states! 😎

Ok, and I've decided that I am going to convert every Miller in this area because there are so many people with my last name so I go and talk to them, obviously, and then they totally want to go to church! Millers are elect. :) And there's a less active family named the Millers and we're working with them too. :) It must be meant to be.

Today for P-day we went to the Marshall University campus (in the Elders area (had to get special permission :))) and took pictures with the Marshall plane crash memorial fountain that they turn off every year on the anniversary of the plane crash. They also place roses down for each person who died. That was on November 14th so the roses were still there which was cool. I'm going to have to watch the movie when I get home. :)

Have a great week everyone!!!!

Sister Miller

The Bishop's wife here works at a student housing office and she has a movie poster for the Marshall movie in her office. :) 

We went to the marshall memorial fountain and the roses were still on there from the memorial ceremony that was on the 14th. That's the day the plane crashed. They turn off the fountain and put roses on for each person who died every year. And we went to Chipotle. :)

We went by the campus today and I took what pictures I could. :) The two are of the football stadium