MTC Companions Reunite!

Hello!!

I'm with Sister Willis again!! :D And it's the start of a new transfer with new Sisters in our zone and four of them are being trained!! Goodness gracious.

We finally saw an inactive member and his wife this week and we talked about the priesthood and going to the temple and stuff and they said they'd like to learn more! :D I love teaching families. Families are so important.

Cool thing:

We were in an area yesterday and had about 20 minutes left before we had to go so we were like, "Well, let's go out and talk to people and find a miracle!" Every time I have gone out with this attitude, I have found one, by the way. So we go and we're knocking on doors and the neighborhood is totally bear. As we were going up to knock on one door, the woman who lived there pulled in in her car. She was not interested at first but then we asked her some questions about herself and she started being super nice to us. :) She asked us which church we were from and we told her, and where the church building was. She told us about how she had searched through tons of churches and read different Bibles and she just never found answers so she just didn't know what to believe. We told her about the Book of Mormon and our message and she said she could see her and she might even come to church on Sunday. :D God is good. :)

I think it's so fun to see how the spirit works with people. The process of conversion takes such a long time and I love how patient God is with us. He is the perfect Teacher and Father. I know that when we trust Him and just let Him do his thing, we can have the assurance that everything is going to be ok and work out for our good.

We have 45 miles left for the next three days..... God's worked with less so I'm not worried. :)

Have an awesome week!!

Sister Miller

First Day!!

Trip-Ship and So Many Sisters!!!

I was in a trip-ship this week! Plus trip-ship is really fun to say. :) This transfer was really close to school starting so President had all the missionaries who were going home go home a week before the actual transfer date. So we adopted Sister Mortensen for a week because her companion went home. :) It has been really fun. :) She's actually Sister Farnsworth's trainee so it really helped Sister Mortensen. :) Sadly, today is our last day together. Sister Farnsworth is being doubled-in training to a new area near Roanoke, Virginia and Sister Farnsworth will be training in her usual area. And guess who my next companion is!! Sister Willis!!!! She was one of my MTC companions and Sister Farnsworth's trainer. How fun. :) I'm super excited.

We're also getting a HUGE rush of Sisters the next couple transfers so now I am going to be over 10 sisters!!!!! Oh my goodness. So we'll be going on exchanges every week. 😐😅 And all but one set is training. I think every sister in the mission is either training or being a Sister Training Leader right now. It's crazy.

Isn't that cool though?!? A lot of Sisters are going on missions and the work is hastening!!! I think it's cool. :)

So many people have been opening up to the gospel this past week, which is the coolest thing to see, by the way, and I am so excited for all the miracles that are gonna happen over the next six weeks. I know this church is the Church of Jesus Christ and He is actively preparing everyone to receive it. :) Not everyone does, but I know that as we open our hearts to Him and what He has in store for us, we will experience true joy here, and in the presence of our Father.

Have a great week everyone!

Sister Miller

Trip Ship Photo

We went on a sunrise hike for exercising because the sunrises here are sooooo beautiful.

Probably the only district ever that has more Sister than Elders. :)

Only 1 More Zone Conference!!

This week we had Zone Conference (long meeting with President Salisbury) and exchanges with the Radford Sisters and picked up a nice man named Jommy. :)

Zone Conference was actually pretty different than usual Zone Conferences because President usually gives us training on how to, you know, be better missionaries and how we can improve ourselves on finding and teaching and stuff like that. But this time he mostly talked about how we can improve ourselves just as people in general. We made goals and set plans on what we wanted to improve on with ourselves (like being more patient or humble or selfless) so it was kind of like this soul-searching session. Pretty cool though. Learned a lot. :) Everyone we talked to about it afterwards was like, "That was the best zone conference! I learned so much!"

I also got a friendly reminder today that I only have one Zone Conference left.

😶

Exchanges with the Radford sisters was awesome because I went on exchanges with Sister Johnson who was the Sister I replaced in Buckhannon and she was the one who replaced me in Ripley, so we basically just switched places and companions. Then we both came to this zone at the same time. So we got caught up on both of our areas and companions and different people which was fun. :)

We also taught Sister Lamb the Word of Wisdom and she was all for it. :D We taught her the Stop smoking workshop the next time and she seems to be doing well so far. She came to church for the first time yesterday and she hadn't smoked yet. Wahoo!! She is seriously the sweetest lady I have ever met, I love her to pieces.

Jommy is the husband of an investigator we have and we talked about the Book of Mormon and he agreed with everything we were saying. He's basically a dry Mormon. Except he didn't come to church yesterday even though he said he would. Stinker.

Today the Sisters in the Zone went to Mountain Lake where Dirty Dancing was filmed. :P Kinda cool. :)

Thank you all for your birthday wishes! :) Had a great one.

Don't forget to spray on bug spray, because, they murder.

Sister Miller

Stopped at a little overlook. Loved all the green and cool misty thing the clouds are doing. :)

We're so Graceful! :)

Mountain Lake

We decided to do WVCM (West Virginia Charleston Mission). My V is a little sad.... My abs are not strong enough.. :(

Me, at the "Dirty Dancing" lake, clean dancing. Because I'm a missionary. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!

🎶Happy birthday to me!!

Happy birthday to me!!

Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeee!

Happy birthday to me!!🎤

Guys. I'm 21. 😐

As far as my companion and I can figure, that means that I can now have a horizontal drivers license and I can be tried as an adult in a court of law.

Wahoo!

This week we had Mission Leadership Council which meant that I woke up at 4:30 am to get there and we talked about what we can do better and how we can help the other missionaries and got home at 8:50. :) We did all we could during those ten minutes of proselyting time though. :)

We were totally going to have THREE people at church yesterday but none of them came!!!!!😭 One's husband got sick and she couldn't leave her little girl there with him being unable to watch her, the other's ride didn't come, and we have no clue what happened to the other one. Sad day.

BUT the good news is two of the less actives we are working with came to church for the FIRST time in YEARS! Everyone in the ward was so excited to see them. He's a prospective Elder and we've been trying to help them to make their way to the temple. Happy day.

Also, we had a lesson with Brother Lennard and at the end he says, "Oh, and I'm noticing some similarities between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. See? Ya'll didn't think I was getting there, did ya? I'm getting there." :) He was so proud of himself.

Have a wonderful August 8th!! Best day of the year! :P

Sister Miller

Exchanges!!

Hello!

This week we went on exchanges with the Bluefield Sisters and taught Sister Lamb again! We brought someone from the neighboring ward because she knew here years ago so we thought it'd be fun to bring her. It was a wonderful lesson and Sister Lamb said she looks forward to our visits and really wants to get into church for her and her daughter. The sad part is she didn't come to church yesterday because her husband surprised them by coming home for the weekend. Grr.

We also taught Sister Breeden's boyfriend! Marc isn't very religious but liked the idea of eternal families and the priesthood being in every home. At the end of the lesson he asked some questions about different anti he'd heard (and it was the ridiculous anti, by the way, like that we have horns and lock our children up in basements and starve them while we go to church) so we ended on a good note of him realizing that we are normal, nice people. :)

Sister Quesenberry paid her tithing for the first time this week!! We're so happy for her. And she should be getting a temple recommend soon! Brother Davis is still hesitant about going to the temple because it's such a long ride and he has some health concerns but we are trying to work with the members to resolve that.

Meeting lots of new people and helping them also realize that Mormons are nice, normal people. :)

For the past year the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have been emphasizing the importance of Sabbath Day observance and the importance of partaking the Sacrament. One of the cool things about being a missionary during this is that I get to be in different wards and get to talk about it over and over each time. :)

Yesterday we reviewed it again and these are the things that I loved that stuck out to me:

-The repentance part of the Sacrament takes place before the actual ordinance. We are to repent daily and come to the chapel with an already broken heart and contrite spirit.

-Sacrament not only cleans us from the sin and dirt that we get, but also keeps us clean, so we don't get even more dirty.

-Remember the covenant you make at Sacrament throughout the week. Then will you see the power and promise of that ordinance in your life.

-It's important to remember how you treat the Sacrament, and how you treat the Sabbath as a whole. Think, "What would the Lord have me do today?"

-The Sabbath should be different than every other day.

As a missionary, it's kind of hard to make Sabbath's extra special because we already kind of treat everyday like the Sabbath and our activities are the same as any other proselyting day. Sister Farnsworth and I have decided to make sure that the music we listen to on Sundays is especially reverent and spiritually uplifting. I'm also going to try to make the Atonement or the Sabbath a portion of my personal study on Sundays. If you have any other ideas, let me know!

I know that the Sabbath is truly a day of rest (in the Lord, not sleeping rest. :)) And I know that as we treat it that way, we will have more spiritual strength for the week and a closer connection with our Father in Heaven.

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Miller