Hello Everyone,
This week has been pretty great. We did a better job at evening out the efforts in each of the areas that we are supposed to work in. We cover a very small singles branch and thusfar we were afraid that they felt like we had been sort of ignoring them and not doing any missionary work with them in mind. There have been three baptisms there fairly recently but still they felt like we were overlooking them. But we have great branch mission leader in that branch and he got us working on trying to just find a bunch of single adults in the area and seeing if they wanted to come or even if they just lived there at all anymore. It's a struggle to try and do more work to show that we care about one unit of the church without affecting our efforts in another unit. Actually it's kind of impossible to be perfectly equal. We have to just try to always be conscious what's happening in two units at once and make it work.
We did what we call a blitz where all of the companionships in the district work in one companionships area for a couple of hours. The point being to jumpstart or scrounge up some work in an otherwise struggling area. My companion and I kind of cheated in that we took the opportunity to look up more of the young single adults that could be coming to our branch and live in that part of the stake boundaries. Not really cheating we were just helping ourselves at the same time as helping the missionaries there. A win-win situation. It was kind of fun though, I hadn't been to that section of our zone yet. A tiny little town called Felton in the San Lorenzo Valley. Houses we visited were just way up these hilly roads. My biggest fear was that we would just find some one coming in the opposite direction on the tiny practically one lane roads.
We also had quite the adventure just sitting in our apartment trying to call some of the people that we couldn't visit. My companion got into a pretty tense texting conversation with a guy who was very verbose and had a lot of things to say. It seemed like he refused to talk over the phone but seemed to be enjoying texting us pages of thinly veiled threats and triumphant points that made my companion kind of angry. Although the guy first sent a text to tell us to never attempt to contact him so my companion was kind of asking for it when he responded.
On Saturday we helped a family move to a new place. Let me tell you, king size mattresses just aren't worth it. Going up a flight of stairs it seemed to get jammed in like 4 different ways at the same time. The edges got pretty dirty and I felt bad about that but I'm not sure there was anything else we could have done. I don't see why someone would make a perfectly square mattress. There is no alternate angle to try with one of those. It either fits or it doesn't, don't try to move it any other way cause it's still the same size. Anyway, we got doughnuts off of that gig so that was a bonus. It's a really nice family too so we loved to help them.
We are struggling to find new people to teach so far but we're not giving up and I know someone will fall into place. There are a number of less active families that we are hoping to work with and we are having a bonfire on the beach this Saturday that should draw them out and have them socializing with all of our ward members who will do an excellent job of making them feel at home and inviting them back. We are looking forward to that and perhaps some members will invite their friends as well and they'll enjoy it. We don't really have a program for it, we were told that you don't need one. People will just come and do beachy things and the kids will get into playing random things and basically you just can't not have fun at the beach, especially when there is a huge fire. And tiki torches.
I hope everyone is doing well and having a good end of January.
Sincerely, Elder F. Miller
Monday, January 30, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Hello Everybody,
This week we had another zone conference which was fun kind of. The Zone conferences we have with our new Mission President was a bit different than the old ones we used to have. Our old mission President would always give us a bit of instruction and then have us go try it out by role playing a teaching scenario and teach other missionaries but the last zone conference we had was basically a long lecture. I'm not sure which I prefer. Most missionaries consider the role plays a little idiotic but recognize that they are helping us teach better and practice the new skills we've learned but still they aren't very enjoyable. So just being talked at for the whole time is a little lame cause we don't get to move for hours at a time but also nice that we don't have to teach people that already know it all. I'm not sure which type of zone conference I prefer yet.
Some exciting news that we got while we were at zone conference came from a new senior couple that just got called to serve in our mission. They are very experienced missionaries, this being the 4th mission they've served together and they have kind of a special assignment, that being they focus on setting up community service for all the missionaries. So they are going to be trying to get us missionaries out and about working with other people in the community to serve. I really like this idea. Essentially we hope to contact and find people to teach from the people that we are serving alongside. I think it's kind of brilliant in that we are going to be associating ourselves with people who are already demonstrating the same ideals that we find admirable. There are few things that missionaries can do that are actually productive between the hours of like 10:00 to 2:00 every day. Most people are working and we usually don't have lessons during that time so this is something that I am excited about. A good thing to do during a time of day that most missionaries really struggle to fill up on their planners.
Also at Zone conference we got new cell phones which we didn't open until afterward but I like them less than our old cell phones and so that' s not really exciting news. A big focus during zone conference was on goal setting though. That is a major part of missionary life that I never gave a second thought to back home. But there is a great quote in Preach My Gospel which I don't have memorized but essentially it says that "when goals are set productivity increases, when results are measured productivity accelerates." It's like a way of harnessing peoples own aggressiveness and pitting them against themselves. Anyway, we're trying to improve this area and help people out. It's slow going so far. There are a lot of inactive members that want to stay that way that it seems we've been wasting our time on. But we were also told at zone conference that we should be just as happy and excited to get a less active member to come back to church as we should be to have a convert baptism. Whether people making new covenants or people picking up their old covenants it is just as exciting and brings joy to our Heavenly Father.
I hope everyone has a great week.
Sincerely, Elder F. Miller
This week we had another zone conference which was fun kind of. The Zone conferences we have with our new Mission President was a bit different than the old ones we used to have. Our old mission President would always give us a bit of instruction and then have us go try it out by role playing a teaching scenario and teach other missionaries but the last zone conference we had was basically a long lecture. I'm not sure which I prefer. Most missionaries consider the role plays a little idiotic but recognize that they are helping us teach better and practice the new skills we've learned but still they aren't very enjoyable. So just being talked at for the whole time is a little lame cause we don't get to move for hours at a time but also nice that we don't have to teach people that already know it all. I'm not sure which type of zone conference I prefer yet.
Some exciting news that we got while we were at zone conference came from a new senior couple that just got called to serve in our mission. They are very experienced missionaries, this being the 4th mission they've served together and they have kind of a special assignment, that being they focus on setting up community service for all the missionaries. So they are going to be trying to get us missionaries out and about working with other people in the community to serve. I really like this idea. Essentially we hope to contact and find people to teach from the people that we are serving alongside. I think it's kind of brilliant in that we are going to be associating ourselves with people who are already demonstrating the same ideals that we find admirable. There are few things that missionaries can do that are actually productive between the hours of like 10:00 to 2:00 every day. Most people are working and we usually don't have lessons during that time so this is something that I am excited about. A good thing to do during a time of day that most missionaries really struggle to fill up on their planners.
Also at Zone conference we got new cell phones which we didn't open until afterward but I like them less than our old cell phones and so that' s not really exciting news. A big focus during zone conference was on goal setting though. That is a major part of missionary life that I never gave a second thought to back home. But there is a great quote in Preach My Gospel which I don't have memorized but essentially it says that "when goals are set productivity increases, when results are measured productivity accelerates." It's like a way of harnessing peoples own aggressiveness and pitting them against themselves. Anyway, we're trying to improve this area and help people out. It's slow going so far. There are a lot of inactive members that want to stay that way that it seems we've been wasting our time on. But we were also told at zone conference that we should be just as happy and excited to get a less active member to come back to church as we should be to have a convert baptism. Whether people making new covenants or people picking up their old covenants it is just as exciting and brings joy to our Heavenly Father.
I hope everyone has a great week.
Sincerely, Elder F. Miller
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Hello Everybody,
This past week was good. Still trying to understand how to navigate my area. We have this giant map on our wall that covers much of our area but the thing is it is oriented so that Northeast is up and that keeps throwing me off cause I keep assuming that up is North. It reminds me of those Ender's Game books where the little kids are playing war games in a zero gravity room and so in order to not get nauseated they designate each wall of the room as east, west, north, south, up, and down. But the directions are contrary to what they were used to outside the room so they have to force their minds to just accept it and then they no longer feel sick from lack of gravity. That was a long and perhaps confusing comparison but that's what I feel like. I have to force my mind to accept that the map we have is only accurate when I accept that north isn't up. Anyway, my first preparation day was okay. Our Zone is kind of small and spread out so the activities we used to do in my old zone aren't as successful here since we have no participation. Basically we have a few people who never feel like playing any sports or doing anything really which we had in our last zone but there it didn't make a difference cause we had people to replace them. Here if one person doesn't want to play then no one can really play. But that's just P-day and doesn't really matter I guess.
On Wednesday we had our Mission President come for an inspection of sorts. He really just wants to know where all the missionaries are staying and get to understand their areas a little better so that he can make better judgments when assigning missionaries to areas I guess. You may recall that I wrote about this similarly about a month ago I suspect. Cause President Watkins made a tour of my last zone in December I think and so Elder McKenzie and I had him at our old place in Redwood City. I think the plan was for President Watkins to tour the whole mission before Christmas, he made it to every zone except one, Santa Cruz. I was the only missionary transferred into Santa Cruz recently so I think I am the only missionary to have President Watkins visit twice. It's not really a bad thing I guess. But it is kind of stressful to find out that you mission president is visiting and then having to be a little worried about whether your bathroom is clean enough or if you'll make a good impression or not. But the meeting went well. President Watkins is very good at putting people at ease with his sense of humor and he is in no way judgmental or critical, or at least he has never been towards me. So it was a good visit. Actually it was my first opportunity to put my ELDER FLETCHER name tag to use and so I was wearing it when our President and our housing coordinator came. I was just thinking that President probably wouldn't even notice cause he has everyone's names memorized and knows us by face. So I was just seeing if I could get away with wearing it and not have him notice. What I didn't count on was that our housing coordinator would. He's a senior missionary and right when he came in he was double checking that he had his records correct. I saw him looking at his clipboard and saying "Are you guys on exchanges cause I have it here that Elder Reay and Elder F. Miller should be here, not Elder Fletcher?"
When he had said the first few words I slipped my name tag off and put on my real one. Our housing coordinator noticed though and so dropped his question, but our president who was inspecting our kitchen turned around to answer the question, saying "This IS Elder F. Miller of course." and then president made a show of naming all the Millers in the mission with their appropriate first initial. "C. Miller, P. Miller, F. Miller and Z. Miller." And then the subject changed. President just kind of looked around and said that everything was okay, not great but okay and he recognizes that all the stains in the carpet and scrapes on the vinyl and holes in the wall have been accumulated through years of missionaries staying here, but they'd be sending a carpet cleaner our way and expect us to clean some of those stains up even though we didn't necessarily put them there. President noticed my sewing machine that I put under my desk cause I still don't know how to use it and he asked about it. I imagine some missionaries have things they shouldn't and so have creative means for hiding them and I suspect that that is what President suspected of my sewing machine, that it was just a case with contraband cds in it or something. But it's just an old crummy sewing machine. Come to think of it, President probably thinks me more odd for having a sewing machine than if it were just inappropriate music.
We met with our ward missionaries on Wednesday night and discussed what we might do to draw some of our less active members and potential members. And we decided that we should throw a bonfire activity on a beach some where. So we really have no plans for it as of yet but on February 4th we have one scheduled. It's our job to go out and invite a ton of people and then we'll also share a lesson with everyone there I guess. I'm looking forward to it cause it should be fun, plus I haven't been on the beach yet so that should be cool.
This Thursday we have zone conference and there is a rumor that we are getting new cell phones. Which in a mission seems like bigger news than if President Monson were to be making a visit. I remember last year around this time we got our current cell phones and I think the phones before that were here much longer but they were more rugged.
Not much else going on for now. We have a bunch of great members that never fail to give us names of people that we can go visit. There seem to be quite a few part member families in the ward that we look forward to eventually working with. I'm sure missionaries have tried before but sometimes it's just a special message or right time that makes the difference. Many members talk about how Santa Cruz is a good place for members who don't want to be members anymore to come. There are a lot of less active members that seem to have moved here from Utah just to kind of disappear in the crowd. Hard to truly reach out to them but it's worth a try. We don't want to let anyone drift away without at least asking them if there is anything we can do to keep them coming or to help them. We don't find much success there but at least we know that these people are aware that we care about them. Thanks for reading my e-mails.
Sincerely, Elder F. Miller
This past week was good. Still trying to understand how to navigate my area. We have this giant map on our wall that covers much of our area but the thing is it is oriented so that Northeast is up and that keeps throwing me off cause I keep assuming that up is North. It reminds me of those Ender's Game books where the little kids are playing war games in a zero gravity room and so in order to not get nauseated they designate each wall of the room as east, west, north, south, up, and down. But the directions are contrary to what they were used to outside the room so they have to force their minds to just accept it and then they no longer feel sick from lack of gravity. That was a long and perhaps confusing comparison but that's what I feel like. I have to force my mind to accept that the map we have is only accurate when I accept that north isn't up. Anyway, my first preparation day was okay. Our Zone is kind of small and spread out so the activities we used to do in my old zone aren't as successful here since we have no participation. Basically we have a few people who never feel like playing any sports or doing anything really which we had in our last zone but there it didn't make a difference cause we had people to replace them. Here if one person doesn't want to play then no one can really play. But that's just P-day and doesn't really matter I guess.
On Wednesday we had our Mission President come for an inspection of sorts. He really just wants to know where all the missionaries are staying and get to understand their areas a little better so that he can make better judgments when assigning missionaries to areas I guess. You may recall that I wrote about this similarly about a month ago I suspect. Cause President Watkins made a tour of my last zone in December I think and so Elder McKenzie and I had him at our old place in Redwood City. I think the plan was for President Watkins to tour the whole mission before Christmas, he made it to every zone except one, Santa Cruz. I was the only missionary transferred into Santa Cruz recently so I think I am the only missionary to have President Watkins visit twice. It's not really a bad thing I guess. But it is kind of stressful to find out that you mission president is visiting and then having to be a little worried about whether your bathroom is clean enough or if you'll make a good impression or not. But the meeting went well. President Watkins is very good at putting people at ease with his sense of humor and he is in no way judgmental or critical, or at least he has never been towards me. So it was a good visit. Actually it was my first opportunity to put my ELDER FLETCHER name tag to use and so I was wearing it when our President and our housing coordinator came. I was just thinking that President probably wouldn't even notice cause he has everyone's names memorized and knows us by face. So I was just seeing if I could get away with wearing it and not have him notice. What I didn't count on was that our housing coordinator would. He's a senior missionary and right when he came in he was double checking that he had his records correct. I saw him looking at his clipboard and saying "Are you guys on exchanges cause I have it here that Elder Reay and Elder F. Miller should be here, not Elder Fletcher?"
When he had said the first few words I slipped my name tag off and put on my real one. Our housing coordinator noticed though and so dropped his question, but our president who was inspecting our kitchen turned around to answer the question, saying "This IS Elder F. Miller of course." and then president made a show of naming all the Millers in the mission with their appropriate first initial. "C. Miller, P. Miller, F. Miller and Z. Miller." And then the subject changed. President just kind of looked around and said that everything was okay, not great but okay and he recognizes that all the stains in the carpet and scrapes on the vinyl and holes in the wall have been accumulated through years of missionaries staying here, but they'd be sending a carpet cleaner our way and expect us to clean some of those stains up even though we didn't necessarily put them there. President noticed my sewing machine that I put under my desk cause I still don't know how to use it and he asked about it. I imagine some missionaries have things they shouldn't and so have creative means for hiding them and I suspect that that is what President suspected of my sewing machine, that it was just a case with contraband cds in it or something. But it's just an old crummy sewing machine. Come to think of it, President probably thinks me more odd for having a sewing machine than if it were just inappropriate music.
We met with our ward missionaries on Wednesday night and discussed what we might do to draw some of our less active members and potential members. And we decided that we should throw a bonfire activity on a beach some where. So we really have no plans for it as of yet but on February 4th we have one scheduled. It's our job to go out and invite a ton of people and then we'll also share a lesson with everyone there I guess. I'm looking forward to it cause it should be fun, plus I haven't been on the beach yet so that should be cool.
This Thursday we have zone conference and there is a rumor that we are getting new cell phones. Which in a mission seems like bigger news than if President Monson were to be making a visit. I remember last year around this time we got our current cell phones and I think the phones before that were here much longer but they were more rugged.
Not much else going on for now. We have a bunch of great members that never fail to give us names of people that we can go visit. There seem to be quite a few part member families in the ward that we look forward to eventually working with. I'm sure missionaries have tried before but sometimes it's just a special message or right time that makes the difference. Many members talk about how Santa Cruz is a good place for members who don't want to be members anymore to come. There are a lot of less active members that seem to have moved here from Utah just to kind of disappear in the crowd. Hard to truly reach out to them but it's worth a try. We don't want to let anyone drift away without at least asking them if there is anything we can do to keep them coming or to help them. We don't find much success there but at least we know that these people are aware that we care about them. Thanks for reading my e-mails.
Sincerely, Elder F. Miller
Monday, January 9, 2012
Hello Everyone,
Well this past week has kind of floated on by. Normally the first week in a new area feels like it's super slow as you're trying to learn a bunch of stuff and you just don't know anything. But there was a baptism to plan for and we cover a ward and a branch so we stayed pretty busy and my mind had no time to think about how long it's been since I got here. The first night on Tuesday I got to attend a meeting with the leaders in the YSA Ocean Branch and discuss how to advance missionary work. We have a brand new Branch mission leader who just returned from his mission in New Jersey I think and he is still very much invested in the work. Still in missionary mode and really gung ho. It's pretty great but at the same time he's on a bit of a different plane. It's apparent that they do things a bit differently in New Jersey than we do here. Nothing bad but he thinks of things that we aren't accustomed to. He brings a whole new view to things so I think we have everything covered and it will really be good for this area but at the same time we may end up disagreeing quite a bit which won't be good. We'll have to see what happens in the future. Anyway, there is a huge surfer community here. My first night we had dinner with an older couple and the husband had just gotten back from surfing. It's not too strange I guess but it seems like most of the avid surfers are all older guys. They seem to be in pretty great shape so there must be something to it. I just pictured the average surfer bum to be younger guys but I guess they must have jobs or school in the winter and then they must hit the beach hard in the summer perhaps.
Anyway on Wednesday we got to teach a young man who was to be re-baptized on Sunday. He was baptized in the Philippines when he was younger but his records can't be found so we got to teach him and prepare him to be baptized again and take careful record of the event this time. That night we went out with members from the YSA Branch cause once a month all head out to visit less active members and just check up on them. I went with one of the Presidency counselors and we had a good time. He knew it was my second day so made sure to kind of familiarize me with the area. He's lived here a long time and so knew what streets to teach me and sites to see. We visited a couple of people and then we all met up at an ice cream place and all got treated to ice cream. It was a good night. One of the people we visited was actually a lady and her non-member husband. As we were leaving the member driving me around told me that the non-member was a really great guy but has just never cared for religion, said that tennis was his religion. And I was like "hey, I like to play tennis." So it would be neat if I could connect with this man through tennis. Challenge him to a game some time. Except he'd probably lose respect for the church when he beats too easily. I'm probably terribly rusty now and singles I was never very adept at.
On Thursday we had District meeting and I got to meet the rest of my district. We have a very jovial guy from Samoa who I'm looking forward to playing volleyball with cause he is supposed to be really good, and then we have the usual couple of Utahans, my companion and another, our district leader is from Arizona and his companion is from Texas most recently I think. My companion goes home in one transfer and our district leader goes home in 2 transfers, the missionary from Ogden is a transfer ahead of me and then the other two are relatively young I guess. It should be interesting how the next couple of transfers pan out for our zone cause our zone leader goes home next transfer as well. In fact about 20 missionaries are completing their missions and going home at the end of this transfer. Lots of changes are going to be made I take it. We had to take our car in to get new tires and an oil change which left us a little stranded for a while but that night we had dinner with a neat family. I guess this brother is way knowledgeable about cars and our mission president happens to love cars as well and so apparently this member is on good terms with our mission president and our president will call this member every now and again just to talk about cars and which ones are best to buy and whatnot. And then they are family friends with a family from my last ward so it was neat to make that connection as well.
On Friday we had our baptismal candidate interviewed by our district leader and he was giving the green light. All set to go. Then we were kind of behind on setting things up for the baptismal program so we spent a while calling and visiting people to help out with the program.
Finally yesterday was long. We have our Santa Cruz ward that starts at 11:30 and then we transitioned into the branch for their Sunday school. The wards Sunday school overlaps with the Branchs' Elders quorum now that the new year has begun and the Branch works it's meetings in reverse of the normal way. So they have priesthood and relief society first cause the building doesn't have a free room big enough for them all to start off with. So it seems like I may be missing a lot of Priesthood lessons this year. Sacrament meeting for the branch was held in the Relief society room and we kept ducking out to check how the water was filling up in the baptismal font. After the meeting we had a Break the Fast and ate some wonderful food and then broke everything down and set up in the chapel for the baptism. It went well and our branch mission leader baptized the young man. It was great. The missionary that was here before me was able to come and see the finish to what was mostly his work, I just stepped in at the last second. He is now companions with one of my former companions, Elder Maughan so it was good to catch up with him. So we were at the church from 11:00 to about 6:00pm. Seven hours is perhaps the longest I've ever stayed at church. It was just long cause of the additional break the fast and the baptism it will normally only be five hours which sounds like it won't be too harsh.
Today I'm looking forward to playing some volleyball or basketball or something with my new zone and also perhaps trying to scour the town looking for a cheaper place to do laundry. Cause after paying about $2.25 in my last area I don't want to jump to $3.50 without a fight. There has got to be a cheaper place than our apartments one. It's a little more work to haul our laundry someplace else but I think it will be worth it to find a cheaper place. Anyway, that's my exciting life. I hope that you are all having a wonderful new year and enjoying whatever blessings we have.
Sincerely, Elder Miller
Well this past week has kind of floated on by. Normally the first week in a new area feels like it's super slow as you're trying to learn a bunch of stuff and you just don't know anything. But there was a baptism to plan for and we cover a ward and a branch so we stayed pretty busy and my mind had no time to think about how long it's been since I got here. The first night on Tuesday I got to attend a meeting with the leaders in the YSA Ocean Branch and discuss how to advance missionary work. We have a brand new Branch mission leader who just returned from his mission in New Jersey I think and he is still very much invested in the work. Still in missionary mode and really gung ho. It's pretty great but at the same time he's on a bit of a different plane. It's apparent that they do things a bit differently in New Jersey than we do here. Nothing bad but he thinks of things that we aren't accustomed to. He brings a whole new view to things so I think we have everything covered and it will really be good for this area but at the same time we may end up disagreeing quite a bit which won't be good. We'll have to see what happens in the future. Anyway, there is a huge surfer community here. My first night we had dinner with an older couple and the husband had just gotten back from surfing. It's not too strange I guess but it seems like most of the avid surfers are all older guys. They seem to be in pretty great shape so there must be something to it. I just pictured the average surfer bum to be younger guys but I guess they must have jobs or school in the winter and then they must hit the beach hard in the summer perhaps.
Anyway on Wednesday we got to teach a young man who was to be re-baptized on Sunday. He was baptized in the Philippines when he was younger but his records can't be found so we got to teach him and prepare him to be baptized again and take careful record of the event this time. That night we went out with members from the YSA Branch cause once a month all head out to visit less active members and just check up on them. I went with one of the Presidency counselors and we had a good time. He knew it was my second day so made sure to kind of familiarize me with the area. He's lived here a long time and so knew what streets to teach me and sites to see. We visited a couple of people and then we all met up at an ice cream place and all got treated to ice cream. It was a good night. One of the people we visited was actually a lady and her non-member husband. As we were leaving the member driving me around told me that the non-member was a really great guy but has just never cared for religion, said that tennis was his religion. And I was like "hey, I like to play tennis." So it would be neat if I could connect with this man through tennis. Challenge him to a game some time. Except he'd probably lose respect for the church when he beats too easily. I'm probably terribly rusty now and singles I was never very adept at.
On Thursday we had District meeting and I got to meet the rest of my district. We have a very jovial guy from Samoa who I'm looking forward to playing volleyball with cause he is supposed to be really good, and then we have the usual couple of Utahans, my companion and another, our district leader is from Arizona and his companion is from Texas most recently I think. My companion goes home in one transfer and our district leader goes home in 2 transfers, the missionary from Ogden is a transfer ahead of me and then the other two are relatively young I guess. It should be interesting how the next couple of transfers pan out for our zone cause our zone leader goes home next transfer as well. In fact about 20 missionaries are completing their missions and going home at the end of this transfer. Lots of changes are going to be made I take it. We had to take our car in to get new tires and an oil change which left us a little stranded for a while but that night we had dinner with a neat family. I guess this brother is way knowledgeable about cars and our mission president happens to love cars as well and so apparently this member is on good terms with our mission president and our president will call this member every now and again just to talk about cars and which ones are best to buy and whatnot. And then they are family friends with a family from my last ward so it was neat to make that connection as well.
On Friday we had our baptismal candidate interviewed by our district leader and he was giving the green light. All set to go. Then we were kind of behind on setting things up for the baptismal program so we spent a while calling and visiting people to help out with the program.
Finally yesterday was long. We have our Santa Cruz ward that starts at 11:30 and then we transitioned into the branch for their Sunday school. The wards Sunday school overlaps with the Branchs' Elders quorum now that the new year has begun and the Branch works it's meetings in reverse of the normal way. So they have priesthood and relief society first cause the building doesn't have a free room big enough for them all to start off with. So it seems like I may be missing a lot of Priesthood lessons this year. Sacrament meeting for the branch was held in the Relief society room and we kept ducking out to check how the water was filling up in the baptismal font. After the meeting we had a Break the Fast and ate some wonderful food and then broke everything down and set up in the chapel for the baptism. It went well and our branch mission leader baptized the young man. It was great. The missionary that was here before me was able to come and see the finish to what was mostly his work, I just stepped in at the last second. He is now companions with one of my former companions, Elder Maughan so it was good to catch up with him. So we were at the church from 11:00 to about 6:00pm. Seven hours is perhaps the longest I've ever stayed at church. It was just long cause of the additional break the fast and the baptism it will normally only be five hours which sounds like it won't be too harsh.
Today I'm looking forward to playing some volleyball or basketball or something with my new zone and also perhaps trying to scour the town looking for a cheaper place to do laundry. Cause after paying about $2.25 in my last area I don't want to jump to $3.50 without a fight. There has got to be a cheaper place than our apartments one. It's a little more work to haul our laundry someplace else but I think it will be worth it to find a cheaper place. Anyway, that's my exciting life. I hope that you are all having a wonderful new year and enjoying whatever blessings we have.
Sincerely, Elder Miller
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Hello Everyone,
Big news this week is that I was just transferred, so I am now writing to you from Santa Cruz, have you heard of it? My new companion is Elder Reay from Murry Utah and he goes home in only six weeks so I have to learn all about this area and then expect to teach it to somebody else pretty quick. I haven't been here long and I don't know what to expect but at our transfer meeting we were told that we should always expect miracles so that is what I guess I'll do. At this point I have 5 transfers left on my mission and I think they might just all be spent here in Santa Cruz so I'll see what kind of things I can do before the end.
While saying goodbye to my old bishop last night he asked if there was anything that he could give me or offer as a kind of parting gift. And I just remembered that he had mentioned that when he went on his mission he was so excited to be a missionary that he bought a whole bunch of extra name tags. This is significant because my last bishops name was Bishop Fletcher. I asked him if there was any chance he had a spare name tag that he wouldn't miss and he just so happened to have dug one up while cleaning the other day and he just produced it really quick and said "it's yours." Overjoyed is the best word, I don't know why but I think it's super cool that I have a name tag with my first name on it. ELDER FLETCHER. I was tempted to wear it around our transfer meeting but resisted. But I might fake out some members in this new area. It has the old Church logo on it though so when standing near another missionary with a modern badge it might stick out.
I hope you all have a great week.
Sincerely,
Elder MIller
Big news this week is that I was just transferred, so I am now writing to you from Santa Cruz, have you heard of it? My new companion is Elder Reay from Murry Utah and he goes home in only six weeks so I have to learn all about this area and then expect to teach it to somebody else pretty quick. I haven't been here long and I don't know what to expect but at our transfer meeting we were told that we should always expect miracles so that is what I guess I'll do. At this point I have 5 transfers left on my mission and I think they might just all be spent here in Santa Cruz so I'll see what kind of things I can do before the end.
While saying goodbye to my old bishop last night he asked if there was anything that he could give me or offer as a kind of parting gift. And I just remembered that he had mentioned that when he went on his mission he was so excited to be a missionary that he bought a whole bunch of extra name tags. This is significant because my last bishops name was Bishop Fletcher. I asked him if there was any chance he had a spare name tag that he wouldn't miss and he just so happened to have dug one up while cleaning the other day and he just produced it really quick and said "it's yours." Overjoyed is the best word, I don't know why but I think it's super cool that I have a name tag with my first name on it. ELDER FLETCHER. I was tempted to wear it around our transfer meeting but resisted. But I might fake out some members in this new area. It has the old Church logo on it though so when standing near another missionary with a modern badge it might stick out.
I hope you all have a great week.
Sincerely,
Elder MIller
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