Hello Everyone,
So on Sunday we performed at a musical Fireside that was put on my my zone. It was the sister missionaries idea and they did most of the work. We had four or so practices and frankly I felt we sounded terrible and wasn't looking forward to performing in front of anyone, let alone our mission president who was coming. But we invited a number of people that we have been teaching or are trying to teach. The musical fireside was just all about Christ. Being only and english missionary who can't really sing very well I only had to participate in the group songs, one to kick it off and another to end it. But throughout our zone we have a sister who is from India and so sang in Hindi, and then we had Spanish elders, and Chinese elders and also the American Sign Language elders. Then there was a member couple who sang an operatic type hymn in Italian. And then the master mind sister Robson is pretty awesome at singing so she had a couple of solos. And between performances we played video clips or mormon messages from mormon.org. So of all the people we invited one came but she brought her boyfriend and afterward we got to talk to them for a long time and many of our ward leaders and our old bishop chatted with them and it was great.
During most of the night I sat next to a flutist and when she learned where I was from she said that her husband grew up in Beaverton and went to Beaverton High School. But he wasn't a member until he was converted in Paolo Alto. But she asked if I knew the Miners. Which doesn't sound familiar to me, but she said that they were in one of the ward bishoprics many years ago so I thought I'd throw the name out there and see if anyone knows them.
So last night was pretty great, but Sunday we had our primary program which we encouraged everyone to invite their friends to. And one member actually did and now we will be teaching her. She sounds like she's already converted. The only problem is she didn't sound too enthusiastic about how her husband would feel. So it won't be choice to only baptize one member of a family but we will try and hope that the rest will follow.
And then we also went through a list of less active members that our Bishop gave us and found a man who is married to a non-member. We come accross a lot of them but this guy is totally friendly and even said that he's been meaning to get back to church. But we got invited back to teach them and we hope that we can reactivate him and perhaps get his wife and even her two daughters interested. It seems a long shot but it's not like we have much else to focus on. That's one of the great things about being out here and knowing your purpose. As a member you generally don't want to be too forward with people. Your goal is to be their friend and then slowly get them to come to church and whatnot. As a missionary everyone already knows why you're at their house so you might as well just spit it out. I'm not saying that I've totally lost all sense of tact with people but it's a very freeing thing to know what is expected of you and to know that everyone knows it as well.
Well I also finally found out that my sisters' new baby is a boy named Benjamin. I wasn't hurting too bad from info lag until I knew that I had a new baby something on Wednesday but had to wait until Monday to finally find out that it's a nephew. I still have no pictures but I'm glad I no longer am anticipating something. I was hoping I'd get an express letter in the mail. Overnight delivery or something, but I guess it doesn't exactly matter.
Have a good week everyone.
-Elder Miller
Monday, October 25, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Post Script
Just wanted to post my favorite part of the email Fletch sent me this week. It's in reference to dad's new computer.
"yeah dad wrote me about how Hannah ruined his computer through using facebook. We've really put dad through a lot of computer grief. If it was common to bury your computers when they die we'd almost have as many computers in the backyard as little pets."
Also this in response to something I said about Fletch's favorite show "Modern Family"
"I miss Modern Family, and my family too of course."
-Freyja
"yeah dad wrote me about how Hannah ruined his computer through using facebook. We've really put dad through a lot of computer grief. If it was common to bury your computers when they die we'd almost have as many computers in the backyard as little pets."
Also this in response to something I said about Fletch's favorite show "Modern Family"
"I miss Modern Family, and my family too of course."
-Freyja
Not Much To Report
Sorry everyone, I recieved a slew of e-mails from friends and family that I spent too much time on prior to starting this e-mail so I am about out of time. But I am doing great and am teaching a few people, thought they never seem able to make it to church I am enjoying the work. Don't really have any fun or crazy stories but have been trying my best create some. There are a number of members that are working with friends of theirs and so we are pretty excited to hopefully start teaching even more people. It actually rained here on Sunday if you can believe that. I thought it was crazy, but then I thought about the time of year and what that must be like in Portland and kind of laughed at how mild California is.
I hope you all are doing well and having a wonderful Fall. Have a great week.
Sincerely, Elder Miller
I hope you all are doing well and having a wonderful Fall. Have a great week.
Sincerely, Elder Miller
Monday, October 11, 2010
A Messianic Jewish Sikh and a Dead Lemon Tree
Hey everyone,
This week was good. On Tuesday we had interviews with our mission President and also his wife sort of. They, as well as our housing coordinator Elder Winn, came around 10:00am and President Jackson shook our hands and then immediately said "Who's first?" It was good we just caught up on how my mission has been thusfar and he suggested how we can help our ward out and improve the work. I really like President Jackson. He's a little shorter than me and has some large glasses and gray hair and a booming voice. I think I've heard that he has done some stage performance in his time as a hobby. He's a farily successful lawyer from Arizona though. His wife is Canadian I learned though. Not to be stereotypical but she always talks in a high pitched voice and once I learned that she was Canadian I felt that explained it. Elder Winn was there to kind of inspect the living quarters plus Sister Jackson is a bit of a skeptic and so her suggestions on how to improve the places were given and I think Elder Winn was there so that he could take her suggestions into account and try to make changes. We were a little wary of how Elder Winn would react when we told him that one of the two main limbs of our lemon tree in the backyard broke at the trunk. It had so much fruit on there that the limb just cracked. We were only instructed to take a half a bag to the lady that owns the house and so we toss the lemons that fall and the rest just weighed down the limb. We don't have enough time to pick all that fruit but we probably should have cause now half the tree is dead. Anyway Elder Winn is a pretty relaxed individual and didn't mind too much, just told us he'd get us a saw so we can chop it up.
On missionary work: it's been crazy. It seems like it's very simple and easy to extend baptism invitations and people commit to certain dates but then they never come to church and so don't qualify to be baptized. I don't understand it. Why would you commit to baptism if you won't ever go to church?
We tracted an apartment complex the other night though and this lady chatted with us. "oh, you're missionaries, so am I. Latter day saints right? Well I'll tell you what I am but you probably won't understand. I'm a messianic jewish sikh."
We talked with her for a while. Most of the time got eaten up cause she would tell us something and then she'd back up her belief with something from the bible. But she is fluent in Hebrew and has the bible memorized practically in Hebrew. So she would quote the scripture in Hebrew and then translate it. There wasn't much point in talking with her cause there was no way that she'd be interested in taking lessons from us but she was kind of fun to listen to go on. She mainly pretended to listen to us and then would get off on a tangent of her own crazy thinking and end up at a random topic. Just in one conversation we probably touched on everything that we are supposed to teach and investigator in 4 lessons. But she was an interesting person. She is very involved in her community of Sikhs and on her wall there was an election poster with pictures of candidates, all men wearing turbans and had beards. She pointed to the poster at one point when she talked about her husband. My companion afterwards in the car told me that he didn't realize what the poster was for and was about to make a joke about her having an FBI most wanted terrorist poster in her house when she pointed to her husband on it running for some religious postion.
I was glad he didn't make that joke.
Well we're just trying to meet new people and talk about the Gospel. Being out here makes me think about how un-outgoing I was at home. We try to rely so heavily on members and I never really thought much about what the missionaries challenged me to do but now I recognize the importance and really wish I had been more helpful.
Have a good week everyone.
Sincerely Elder Miller
This week was good. On Tuesday we had interviews with our mission President and also his wife sort of. They, as well as our housing coordinator Elder Winn, came around 10:00am and President Jackson shook our hands and then immediately said "Who's first?" It was good we just caught up on how my mission has been thusfar and he suggested how we can help our ward out and improve the work. I really like President Jackson. He's a little shorter than me and has some large glasses and gray hair and a booming voice. I think I've heard that he has done some stage performance in his time as a hobby. He's a farily successful lawyer from Arizona though. His wife is Canadian I learned though. Not to be stereotypical but she always talks in a high pitched voice and once I learned that she was Canadian I felt that explained it. Elder Winn was there to kind of inspect the living quarters plus Sister Jackson is a bit of a skeptic and so her suggestions on how to improve the places were given and I think Elder Winn was there so that he could take her suggestions into account and try to make changes. We were a little wary of how Elder Winn would react when we told him that one of the two main limbs of our lemon tree in the backyard broke at the trunk. It had so much fruit on there that the limb just cracked. We were only instructed to take a half a bag to the lady that owns the house and so we toss the lemons that fall and the rest just weighed down the limb. We don't have enough time to pick all that fruit but we probably should have cause now half the tree is dead. Anyway Elder Winn is a pretty relaxed individual and didn't mind too much, just told us he'd get us a saw so we can chop it up.
On missionary work: it's been crazy. It seems like it's very simple and easy to extend baptism invitations and people commit to certain dates but then they never come to church and so don't qualify to be baptized. I don't understand it. Why would you commit to baptism if you won't ever go to church?
We tracted an apartment complex the other night though and this lady chatted with us. "oh, you're missionaries, so am I. Latter day saints right? Well I'll tell you what I am but you probably won't understand. I'm a messianic jewish sikh."
We talked with her for a while. Most of the time got eaten up cause she would tell us something and then she'd back up her belief with something from the bible. But she is fluent in Hebrew and has the bible memorized practically in Hebrew. So she would quote the scripture in Hebrew and then translate it. There wasn't much point in talking with her cause there was no way that she'd be interested in taking lessons from us but she was kind of fun to listen to go on. She mainly pretended to listen to us and then would get off on a tangent of her own crazy thinking and end up at a random topic. Just in one conversation we probably touched on everything that we are supposed to teach and investigator in 4 lessons. But she was an interesting person. She is very involved in her community of Sikhs and on her wall there was an election poster with pictures of candidates, all men wearing turbans and had beards. She pointed to the poster at one point when she talked about her husband. My companion afterwards in the car told me that he didn't realize what the poster was for and was about to make a joke about her having an FBI most wanted terrorist poster in her house when she pointed to her husband on it running for some religious postion.
I was glad he didn't make that joke.
Well we're just trying to meet new people and talk about the Gospel. Being out here makes me think about how un-outgoing I was at home. We try to rely so heavily on members and I never really thought much about what the missionaries challenged me to do but now I recognize the importance and really wish I had been more helpful.
Have a good week everyone.
Sincerely Elder Miller
Monday, October 4, 2010
Conference Weekend
Well this week feels like it's automatically going to be great just because we were blessed with the opportunity to listen to conference. I never seem to remember what any of the speakers said in particular so I took notes this time and when I get around to reviewing them I'm sure I'll be delighted in what was said. Mainly I remember the jokes that were made. When President Uchtdorf lost his voice and cracked that joke I thought it was pretty witty.
Today feels cut short though cause we scheduled an appointment for 5:30 which isn't bad cause P-day wraps up at 6 anyway but then our dinner appointment said they'd rather eat before our teaching appointment than after so we are eating at 4 and now it's 1:40 and I don't even know where the day has gone. It's kind of crazy cause on a proselyting day we have time up the wahzoo. It tends to feel like forever when you are knocking on doors but when you're doing nothing somehow it slips away.
The work has picked up a little. We found a couple of people to teach. They don't seem too strong but who knows what will happen. It's all just about relying on the Spirit to convert them and having faith that they'll accept when you ask them to be baptized.
I hope you all enjoyed conference or, if you didn't watch, that you will cause it's great. Have a great week everyone.
-Elder Miller
Today feels cut short though cause we scheduled an appointment for 5:30 which isn't bad cause P-day wraps up at 6 anyway but then our dinner appointment said they'd rather eat before our teaching appointment than after so we are eating at 4 and now it's 1:40 and I don't even know where the day has gone. It's kind of crazy cause on a proselyting day we have time up the wahzoo. It tends to feel like forever when you are knocking on doors but when you're doing nothing somehow it slips away.
The work has picked up a little. We found a couple of people to teach. They don't seem too strong but who knows what will happen. It's all just about relying on the Spirit to convert them and having faith that they'll accept when you ask them to be baptized.
I hope you all enjoyed conference or, if you didn't watch, that you will cause it's great. Have a great week everyone.
-Elder Miller
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