Another Week!!

Hello everybody! 🙋

This week my companion and I decided we're in a route and we really need get out of it. So one of the things we're doing is we've started a competition between the two of us to ITL (invite to learn) as many people as we see when we're out and about because sometimes we're shy about doing it. It starts today! And the one who ITLs the least by Sunday night has to clean the apartment by themselves on Monday. :P My companion is a lot more competitive than I am so I really need to step it up to beat her. 😰

We got together with the Branch President, his wife, and the Branch Mission Leader and his wife to make a Branch Mission Plan! Obviously, it's not done yet. But we've started. We'll see how long it takes to actually get it done... 😅

We made a quote wall with sticky notes of funny things that we've said or heard. Our most recent one is by an investigator who called us and asked us what we were doing. We told her nothing (because we had one hour left before we had to go to the apartment and all the people we had planned to see weren't home) and she said "Well then get your butt over here and preach to me!"😄

Taught new investigator! She's a young mom and wants to get back into religion and come closer to God. Unfortunately we can't help her with that but we wished her luck.😜 Juuuust kiiiiiding, we taught her about the importance of Jesus Christ in her life and her family and will go back on Wednesday.

ALSO! Sister KIRKBY did a MEEEAAAN thing to me this week! 😱 We were walking around Ripley to the people that we had planned to teach and no one was home. I asked Sister Kirkby what we should do and she shrugged "I don't care. Whatever you want," which is very weird for her. We start walking down the street and she sits on the curb and says, "what's the point? We're not finding anyone, we haven't taught anyone all day and no one wants to hear our message" etc. And I'm just like 😨 oh my gosh my trainer's lost it and now I have to give her a pep talk what the heck is happening. Of course, she was FAKING it the WHOLE time and she made me give her a pep talk for NO reason! Ok, she had a reason. It was "part of training" to "train me for when I have a companion one day that becomes discouraged and gives up." Fun stuff. :P

She says I passed, so, I guess that's good. 👏

There's my week! Have a good one!

Sister Miller

Exchanges!!

Hello everyone! Happy beginning of school time!

I don't know when school started so I'm just gonna be vague. 😝

On Wednesday we had my first Zone Conference!🎉 I went totally expecting to be spiritually enlightened and invigorated (you know, like how you feel after General Conference or something) and after we talked for hours about faith and helping people keep commitments.... I ended up feeling just really stressed out. 😲 But I learned a lot and I am getting much better at those two things. 🙌

Then we went on exchanges right after and I stayed in my area and had to plan what me and the Sister Training Leader were doing and what we were gonna teach and I was already stressed out and.... yeah it was special. We did teach though, it wasn't too bad and we did do things I promise! :) Afterwards, I gave my planner to Sister Kirkby saying "I'm sorry! This is a horrible schedule and I didn't know what I was doing and I tried, I tried so hard I'm so sorry!" She looked at it and read who I had put on there, looked at me, and asked me who Elanor was. We're not teaching an Elanor. 😶 

Lets just all be glad that I'm not training this transfer. 😌

We had a new investigator at church yesterday! ⛪It was Amanda and she really liked it. She brought her Bible and everything and one of the speakers in Sacrament asked us to turn to a scripture in the Bible and she got really excited that she could use it.🔰

Hope you all are doing well!

Sister Miller

A Lot of Memorizing!!

Hello everybody!

Hmmm let see... this week (not even because I talked to you guys on wednesday) we did a little of everything. We met with members, less actives, and investigators, and did some tracting. My companion and I have learned a lot about the mind set we need to have when we teach and talk to people and how important it is to have charity. We can always have more charity. :)

Taught a lot of people about the importance of prayer and Sacrament Meeting. More less actives are coming to church so yay! And we would have had 3 investigators there but 2 couldn't because one was really sick. They plan to come next week and tomorrow we're putting them on date again. My companion and I have made a goal of 2 baptisms this transfer. We know that if we work hard for these people and help them as best we can and get the branch involved, we can do it.

Finally memorized everything I need to memorize! Woot! Every morning before we leave the apartment, my companion and I recite the Mission Commission:

"I am called of God. My authority is above that of the kings of the Earth. By revelation, I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my master. And He has chosen me to represent Him. To stand in His place. To say and do everything He would say and do if He personally were administering to the very people to whom He has sent me. My voice is His voice. My acts are His acts. My words are His words. My doctrine is His doctrine. My commission is to do what He wants done. To say what He wants said. To be a living, modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of His great and marvelous latter-day work. How great is my calling!"

And then we say, "Eliminate all self-defeating, faith-destroying, atonement-denying thoughts, words, and actions."

Then we recite a promise that our Mission President made to us:

"If you, each of you, individually and personally become Preach My Gospel missionaries, and we become unified as a mission in our love of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel, you will become strengthened and sanctified, and your families and loved ones will be blessed mightily by the power of God, and we will significantly increase those who are converted by baptism, by renewing covenants, and by returning to covenants."

And throughout the day we recite D&C 4 and our Mission Statement: "The West Virginia Charleston Mission is a covenant loving mission, with covenant keeping missionaries. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Through Preach My Gospel principles, we will be obedient, teach by the spirit, work hard, love one another, and pray with faith to help others make and keep sacred covenants."

Whoosh.

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Miller

Transfer Week!!

I have officially been here for one transfer! Woot! My companion and I are staying here (thank goodness). She kept teasing me and saying that I might have to train someone even though I haven't finished training myself. :P I found out though that one of the sisters in my MTC district IS training someone now! Oh my goodness that would be so stressful!😵

We taught less lessons this week (awww)😢 because we didn't see three of our investigators. One moved unexpectedly and one had a lot of work hours and one had a surgery for her teeth. (By the way, everyone has surgery on their teeth here. I've met so many people who had their teeth pulled out and just have fake ones. Brush your teeth everybody!) 😁So we did some tracting and finding. Ugh, I don't like tracting. Iz no fun.

Last week we got a referral from a friend of one of our less actives that came at the same time we were teaching him. The referral is her sister, Virginia, who she wanted us to see because she is having some serious struggles and challenges in her life right now. 😮We went on tuesday and met Virginia, her husband, Mike, and their daughter, Amanda, who is in her 30s and has 2 children who she can't see anymore because of some stuff that happened. They allowed us to come see them and teach them because Mike was not sure God existed because of all the horrible things he's seen. We've visited them 2 times since then and they are awesome. Mike is really funny and terribly blunt. He drinks and smokes😯 and has a serious anger problem but he tells us all the time that he knows he needs to change and wants to change. He is very protective over his family and wants to be better for them. Amanda is so sweet and loving despite what she's seen and gone through, which is a lot. Virginia doesn't talk much but we know that she's been through a lot as well and we are excited to teach them all. Every time we go Mike calls us angels. :P😇 So we like going there.

Oh yes, and I turned old on Saturday.😒 I ate sooooooo much foooooood that day! The branch had their annual picnic that morning and one of our investigators and her two girls were able to come. They had a lot of fun and I think it was good for the branch members to see that we actually are teaching people... even though none of them come to church. Still working on that. And my companion blabbed that it was my birthday so the branch sang to me. I'll get her back for that one day. Then for dinner we ate at a less active's home. My companion warned me that he gets really insulted if you refuse more than one serving so we had to eat... a lot. And that night I opened up my birthday packages from my family and one from our investigator, Lisa. They were awesome! I loved them so much.🙌

One transfer down!

Sister Miller

Constantly Improving!!

My goodness this week went by so fast. Phew!

With the exception of last monday, every day has been sooo busy and we've had no time to even think. Thank goodness we have two hours of study every morning but even that doesn't seem like enough. I am learning so much as I study and as I learn about the people here that I am teaching. My trainer is sooo wonderful I love her to death.

So this week we started meeting with some members and taught them about member missionary work. A lot of the people here have concerns about sharing the gospel and we hope to help them through them because we know that they have so much to offer their friends and family.

We dropped a couple investigators this week :( but we also gained a few! One is named Michael and he lives in an apartment owned by one of the members, so that's how we met him. He's on house arrest so I think he initially let us talk to him because he had no one to talk to. :P But we've taught him the Restoration and he wants us to come back. I hope and pray he will read and pray about the Book of Mormon.

So, I've done A LOT of improving this week because I have practiced tracting and ITLing (Invite to learn) so I have definitely improved on my confidence. :P And my testimony of charity has improved sooooo much. These are my brothers and sisters and I know that they need what I have. If I remember that, my desire to share it grows and it is so much easier for me to ask them to hear our message. Funny thing that happened this week was one of our investigators was being told by her friends that we missionaries are trained to love people and don't actually care. We just want to get people to join the church. So she was telling us this and we shared with her our testimonies of how this gospel has brought us so much joy and helped us get through any trials that come up in our lives so because we love her we want to share this gospel with her and help her move toward being baptized so she can experience that same joy and strength through trials.

So, I'm turning old on saturday.... and it's the same day as the branch picnic so we're inviting tons of people to that in hopes that everyone will get to know the members and build relationships with them so they won't be afraid to come to church. Everyone's afraid and nervous to come to church. 😶 I don't know why. (That's a picture of a confused blob) Soooo we're working on that.

Here goes my last week of being 19! 😰😫🙇

Ok, I love these blobs. Can you guys see them? They're now my favorite thing.

-Sister Miller