SHOTGUNNING SPRITES WITH THE ZONE LEADERS - 30 January 2023

Yo what's good with yall!!! This week has been quite the fun yet interesting yet awesome one!!!

Also for all those who I havent reached out individually, I'm making a Book of Mormon with family and friends favorite scripture in the Book Of Mormon as well as their testimonies of the Book of Mormon! If you want to be added into that just shoot me an email with your favorite Book of Momon scripture and your testimony!!

But to get on with my week!! Tuesday was a pretty sick day, we went to do service on the farm and then got back kinda late. 😅 we had to do some extra work to make sure Judy was set for the next couple days. But after that we went out to visit some people, nobody really answered but we did stop by some members and guess what, they fed us dinner!! Which was awesome!! We got to talk about some friends and ate some delicious nachos. Then we came back and called a heck ton of people to finish out the night.

Wednesday was apartment inspection day, so we spent the entire morning cleaning and then had inspections, then after that we both sat on our couches and just stared at the wall for a good minute. It was pouring rain outside so it just felt like one of those days where you don't go out and you just watch a movie. Those days don't exist when your a mission so we went out to visit some people and knock some apartments. There was this kne guy we knocked on who let us pray with him and then afterwards he gave both of us a hug and said he really needed that. So I tried to talk to him about the Book Of Mormon but he said he wasn't really interested, kinda stinks but hey at least we made his day. Then we went out and had a lesson with some members, and at this point is was just raining the whole ocean on us, but when we gotnto the members they took some time to answer and so we just had to sit out in the rain for like five minutes lol. But then we had an awesome lesson with them about temples cause with the Richmond Temple Open House coming very soon, president has really been pushing us to talk about the temple.

Thursday was just another day on duty, we had weekly planning and district council so nothing crazy, then we went out knocking, had like 2 contacts but they weren't successful, then came home and made a bunch of calls.

Friday was an exchange with the ZLs and I got to go with Elder Stacey, he's our new ZL since the other one went to AP. But Elder Stacey is an absolute Chad! The guy is just awesome, he's amazing at what he does and we just get along so well. We went out knocking for a while and had some awesome contacts with some people. We even met a lady who had read the Book of Mormon before and believed everything that was in it! Talk about the elect! Then we had a dinner appointment that I got to go to and then we went out knocking again. When we got to this place to knock we realized it was a really nice, rich neighborhood and when it comes to nice neighborhoods, those people usually aren't the nicest. BUT we had some awesome contacts and got a couple numbers. We are just that good at missionary work that even the rich are overtaken by the spirit!

Saturday we had an exchange with out district which was a blast! Nothing too crazy happened but it was my comps and another elder in our districts last exchange on their mission which blows my mind! It's crazy that they are at the end! But we had a great time.

Sunday was stake conference and we had great talks!! The temple president for the Richmond Temple came, our mission president and his wife gave talks, and we had someone from the Seventy give a talk as well, talk about a packed conference with studs for speakers! It was an awesome stake conference and we had a couple people come which was awesome! Then we got to have interviews with president! I have been looking forward to interviews with president for so long!! I honestly wish we had more time to talk but unfortunately I only got to talk for 15 minutes. But needless to say I learned a lot from president and he helped answer a lot of my questions!! Also apparently our mission president is very blessed, he has a 40 thousand dollar watch and carries around like 10 different 500 dollar pens!!! The guy is a genius and is very successful with his life. But he just has so much love for us as missionaries, I couldn't ask for a better president! 

Anyways, that wraps up the week for me!! Again if you want to be added into the Book Of Mormon that I'm making, feel free to send my your favorite scripture in the Book Of Mormon and your testimony of the Book of Mormon!!! I love you all!! Keep being a light to everyone around yall!!! 

-Elder Milius 

The Elders

More of The Elder

Elders with President

Shotgunning Sprites

Elder Allred

ZL District Council

WE WERE BUZZZZZZZY THIS WEEK - 23 January 2023

Well it's that time again! Yall get to hear from the Greatest Of All Time!! The man, the myth, the legend!! The best missionary this world has ever seen!!! THE HOLY GHOST!! What did you think I was gonna say myself pfttt I'm second best lol.

Anyway this week was pretty busy, we had a lot of lessons throughout the week but at the same time a lot of time to go out finding. 

Tuesday we had a lesson with this new lady, she was a referral and I don't think I've had to explain the Book of Mormon more to one person than I did with her. We explained that it's an ancient record of people who lived on this continent and she was like so where in the Bible is this. We then were gonna read Alma and she was like where in the Bible is he. She was having a very hard time understanding, we think she just is a little closed off and thinks the Bible is all we need, which is false because the Book of Mormon is way cooler and better and when put with the Bible it's even better. Anyway she finally let us finish our message and we set up a time to call her back. Then that night we had two other lessons over the phone, one of them fell through but the other was super cool and was a great lesson with this guy we just started teaching. We have quite a lot of new people we are teaching so that's awesome!!!

Wednesday we got some bad news, the guy we had on date for the 4th said he wanted to push his date back for a while, he's going through some stuff and wants to be in a peaceful state of mind. What stinks is I know that getting baptized is what he needs, and it would help him so much, but he just doesn't understand that. He honestly could get baptized whenever because he is so smart and has already accepted this church. But we will continue to work with him, I just hope I'm here when he gets baptized because I've put so much effort into helping him that I pray I get to see his baptism. But that afternoon we had another lesson with a new guy we are teaching and it went super well, we just taught him the restoration but he seems super accepting of it as well. Then the sisters in our district asked if we could go give someone a blessing, so we drove all the way out to Norfolk and come to find out, the lady didn't want a blessing, she just wanted a prayer, so we basically went to go say a prayer with the sisters lol it was funny, but it was also just a waste of time for us at least.

Thursday we had a little bit more of a slow day, we had district council which was super fun and then had one lesson after that, we taught another new person and he is super cool, whenever we promise blessings with him, he is always like, man I really want that, and we know that if he continues to read the Book of Mormon and to pray he will recieve those blessings! Then after that we were able to go visit with a member for a while and that was fun cause he is a little less active and he really appreciated us coming by and talking with him. Missionary work doesn't always have to be finding people and teaching non members, member work is very vital and today was living proof

Friday we were pretty much booked the whole day, we had service, weekly planning, and a lesson with a lady that loves the missionaries but isn't part of the church. Nothing too crazy happened today but it was still worth saying it was great!

Saturday was a long day of finding, we didn't have anything planned except for a couple phone lessons, we first went out talking with some members and again we got in contact with a less active and had a great conversation with him, we invited him and his family to church, unfortunately they didn't come but they are an awesome family and again, member work is important!! We then went out knocking the rest of the day, we found a couple new people and had a couple contacts with some other people. What's crazy is I've been able to recognize more and more if things aren't right, like we were knocking this one area and after two houses of people rejecting us hard, I just felt like this wasn't where we needed to be, so we packed up and went somewhere else which is where we found another lady and got her number, it's so cool to see the lord work his work through you and especially when you listen and it works out!! To finish out the night we had a lesson with our other guy on date and it went well, we went through the baptismal interview questions and for the most part he answered them correctly!! 

Sunday was an awesome day as well, we had dinner with a family in our ward and it was so fun, they make delicious food and are super nice and care so much for us. The also gave us a care package of snacks and cinnamon rolls, you already know where those are going, in my belly!! Wooooo!!!

Anyways, I'm tired of typing this email so I'm gonna send it now. Hope yall had an awesome week. I love all yall, you guys made me who I am today and I can't be more grateful for all the love and support I have back home and all over the world!! This church is so true and it's so clear to me now that without this church I would be so lost. Keep being awesome!!!! Also heard this from one my friends, Keep Slaying The Day!!!!!!

Till next time 

-Elder Milius 

MIRACLES IN THE MIGHTY CHESAPEAKE ZONE - 17 January 2023

What up y’all! Back at it again, not sure how often I'm gonna remember to write emails, I mean I've only been out like four months so I'm still relatively new but talking to other missionaries they haven't written emails in months. However I'm gonna try my best to keep the emails rolling in. 

Well you heard it, miracles do exist! It's kinda funny because my last email I was writing about how I wanted to see miracles and I wanted to be more trustworthy so that God could do his work through me. Turns out he got that email too and he didn't hesitate to reply back. 

Tuesday was an awesome day, we had a lesson with the girl we are teaching and we went into the lesson prepared to invite her to baptism. Come to find out she is having some family matters to deal with so we changed our minds and tried to focus on prayer, cause we've been trying to get her to pray about baptism so that she can recieve the answer from God for herself. We ended up having a great lesson about faith in prayer and faith for others in prayer. She enjoyed it and then the member we were at asked if she would give the closing prayer. I friggen love it when the investigator prays especially her because for one, she gives the greatest prayers ever. Honestly, one thing I'm working on is more effective prayers and she just knocks the bl out of the park. She even at the end of her prayer, said to God that she one day hopes to become a member of our church! She is so solid and wants this in her life a lot, she is just trying to balance her family into it all. 

Wednesday we finally had some success knocking!! We visited a lot of people then went to go knock some doors in the area. It was honestly our most productive day because we literally got in contact with so many people and found a new person. We knocked this one ladies door and she accepted a Book of Mormon and wanted to find a church to come to so we said we would love to have her at church, so now we are jusy trying to act on that. It's just so relaxing to get back to seeing success in my efforts, for a while there it felt like I wasn't being effective, till today. Then after that we had an awesome lesson with our guy we are teaching and actually put him back on date!! It was epic, we aren't sure if that will go through but we are gonna try our hardest to get him baptized on the day we planned, which is the 28th by the way. 

Thursday was another crazy awesome day, it was a drag for a while since we had weekly planning but after that we went out knocking. We were knocking some doors but i swear something was off, it didn't feel right. We weren't in any danger but it just didn't feel like we were in the right place. So we get back in the car and I'm trying to find a new place to knock and I finally find a place we could go knocking but as we were driving I just didn't feel like it was right, in fact it didn't feel like knocking was the right thing I needed to be doing. So I just was pondering trying to find things to do, I decided I wanted to see if a member was home but he wasn't, so then we parked and I said a little prayer in my heart. I then got the impression to visit a guy we were in contact with. So we drove over there and knocked his door and some guy poked his head put the window above us and we asked for the guy, he said he would go get him then asked us if we were church people, we said yes and he said that he's been wanting to find a church, like a nice church. Then the guy came out and we had a good conversation with him and he said we could come back another time. Then the guy who poked his head out wanted our church address, then he just said hold on and came downstairs. We then had an amazing conversation with him, invited him to church, taught about the Book Of Mormon and prayer and gave him a Book Of Mormon and invited him to read it, his reaction was what made my day. He said smiling really big, I can't wait to read this, I'm so excited. It was so awesome and I know for a fact that God put us in the spot at that time so we could talk with this guy. We got his number and he said as soon as his car gets fixed, he's coming to church. Miracles do happen and when they happen it just testifys to you that this is God's work and this is his children and I am giving my efforts to go so he can use me to work those miracles. 

Friday and saturday were so fun, we had an exchange with our district and literally just hung out the entire time. Obviously we did work but while we were making calls and stuff, we were just playing poker and laughing, playing board games and stuff! It was a blast. Honestly haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Glad our district is hype as heck!!

Sunday was super weird but so awesome as well. We had four people come to church Sunday in fact one of rhe new guys we are teaching brought his family to church with him, and stayed the whole two hours. They had a four year old son and they took him to primary. Afterwards he was coming out saying he made so many new friends! It just made me smile seeing this guy we are teaching trying to share our church with his family. Also, the guy we just put on date came and sat by us and during one of the talks he pulls out his wallet and hands both me and my comp 50 bucks! We were like uh no, you don't need to do that, he just said Marry Christmas and then went back to listening! Like literally WHAT! That does not happen and we both were like uh OK thank you!! Miracles do happen people!!!! Lol. After that we actually went back to visit the new guy we found on Thursday and taught him about the Plan of Salvation, literally already have the ball rolling with him, I hope we can stay in contact with him cause he is so cool and literally whenever we would promis blessings to him, he would be like dang I really really want that! 

Anyways, overall, great great week!! Miracles are real!! God is real!! And he also apparently gets these emails cause he hasn't failed to help me in all the ways I'm struggling. Hope yall had a fantastic week and I hope yall have a fantastic week ahead. Happy MLK day! Love all yall!! See you guys I the next one!!!

-Elder Milius 

Sunset

Swig

LIL LATE, SORRY I WAS BAPTIZING NATIONS - 9 January 2023

This is a super super late email but just pretend that you got this yesterday and didn't open it till today.... 

But how's it going yall!!! Hope you have had an awesome new years so far, it's crazy to think but 2023 will be my full blackout year as a missionary, I will be a missionary this entire year! In a way, that scares me but at the same time I don't want this year to end!

So ima keep this email a little shorter because it's so late but, some things that happened this week was we had an awesome lesson with a girl we are teaching!! It was my first time leading the lesson out because my new comp obviously still didn't know much about the area, but I pushed through my anxiety and had a banger lesson!!! We talked about baptism and what it means to take upon us the name of christ then talked about the spirit and how its a blessing to feel the spirit but it's even more of a blessing to have the gift of the holy ghost with you!! Then we invited her to pray about baptism and she was more than happy to do so!!! We are gonna have another lesson with her this week so wish us the best of luck cause we really feeling like we can put her on date soon!! 

Another thing that happened this week was we had zone conference!! It was an awesome zone conference, we talked a lot about temples and how temples are the end goal in conversion, baptism is just the first step. We then talked about how temples are centered around the family and Jesus christ! Because with temples one we know we can live with our families forever and two, we can perform those ordinances that give our ancestors the opportunity to come unto christ! Temples truly are the backbone of this world. I then had to give the closing prayer, and I mean I've said the closing prayer in church a lot but there was something about being up in front of a bunch of missionaries and behind me was my mission president, his wife, and the APs and the STLTs. Needless to say I said an awesome prayer to finish out Zone conference lol. 

Another awesome thing that happened was yesterday aka Monday, we had district Pday and we went bowling, went got dairy queen, went to Dickson sporting goods, then got haircuts, did missionary work for a little bit and played a board game at the end of the night. Prolly one the best Pdays I've had, for one I smacked the crap out of my district in bowling, I don't know what happened but I felt a little extra spice in my hands that day. I basically beat everybody by like 100 points, ill tag the picture so yall can see the proof. It was so fun though, had an awesome time with our district and that was my comps last district Pday before he goes home. Crazy!!! 

That's about it for the week but I did want to share a couple thoughts from my personal study today. Backstory, I've been a little frustrated and down lately because we've been doing a lot of finding, lots of knocking doors, lots of making phone calls lots of grinding!! And you would expect us to at least have some success right? Well no. It's been about a week and a half of just nothing. What stinks is each night I go to bed and I pray with all I got asking the lord to let me be an instrument in his work, what I want is that I can experience that miracle of bringing one of God's children to the light of christ. Sometimes I wonder if it's my personal worthiness like maybe the lord hasn't let me perform miracles because he doesn't trust me. I've even thought to myself that I just am not capable of doing what the lord wants me to do. But every night I still plead, praying for forgiveness for anything asking if I can help even a little. Well today I was reading in Alma 21, and this chapter is basically talking about the sons of mosiah when they went out to the Lamanites and the Amalekites to preach the word of God. Specifically this is the account of Aaron, and Muloki, and their brethren. But we read that they went to three different places, one was with the Amalekites in their synagogues but they did not want to hear the words Aaron spoke, he then went to a village and both Aaron and muloki preached but they didn't want to hear their words, then they went to the land of middoni and everyone there didn't want to hear the words he preached. So much so that they were cast into prison and of their brethren that weren't in prison fled out of the city. But those inside prison suffered horribly, fortunately they were released because ammon came with king Lamoni to help. After reading all this failure and their sorrow, one would suspect, they must be done preaching, I mean finding no success and even being cast into prison would be a breaking point for me. Instead of doing that, they went out again! And preached even more back to the synagogues and to every place that they were allowed to be in the land of the Lamanites. And a few verses that I love are Verse 16 and 17.

"16 And they went forth whithersoever they were led by the Spirit of the Lord, preaching the word of God in every synagogue of the Amalekites, or in every assembly of the Lamanites where they could be admitted. 

17 And it came to pass that the Lord began to bless them, insomuch that they brought many to the knowledge of the truth; yea, they did convince many of their sins, and of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct."

After all that effort and sorrow, they finally started to be blessed from the lord with those miracles that I want to see in my missionary work!! The reason I wanted to share this is one for me to realize that if I keep pressing forward, not worrying about the failures I have and looking forward to those times when I can too be blessed for my efforts with those miracles I yurn for. I'm so grateful for the scriptures because I was feeling pretty crappy the past couple days and this was the perfect thing I needed to hear. I can testify that the Book of Mormon can answer questions to our souls and help us feel the love of God more than anything else on this planet! If you haven't opened the Book of Mormon in a while, I pray that you will do so, without the Book of Mormon, for one I probably wouldn't have given up two years of my life to preach the gospel, and two I wouldn't feel my saviors love as much as I do right now. 

I'm grateful for everything I have in my life, this gospel, the savior, the scriptures, the power of prayer, my family, and all my loved ones, and my friends. I love you all and I hope you have an awesome week, hopefully next week I can send this email out on time lol. 

I am a glowing Chad

Zone Conference!

My bowling score, I am “Milly”

and also the only one over 100 points lol 

 

TRANSFERS AKA NEW COMP - 2 January 2023

What up y'all, it's ya boi elder milius....

This week has been crazy, lots of change is happening, I am writing this super late so I might not keep it long but lots of stuff happened, I'm doing great! Each day I wake up is a new day, sometimes we do the same stuff but sometimes something spicy happens and that's the fun of being a missionary!

Tuesday was pretty fun, we had basically an exit meeting for all the people who were coming out of training. That would be me, yes I finally finished training and am now a normal missionary, nobody can call me a greenie or anything, I am a pro now. Jkjk, but after that we had some service then came home, deep cleaned our apartment, had dinner and got to go to a lesson with a girl we are teaching. She just got back from a cruise so we were super hyped to hear from her and she was super hyped to meet with us so she is super super solid. We had an awesome lessons and set up a time to talk again. after that my comp went to go say bye to a member we got really close too, talked for a good hour and a half and finally said our goodbyes, well he did at least lol.

Wednesday was transfer day!!!!!!!!! We went out to eat breakfast with some elders and a guy who just likes missionaries. Then went and met our Zone Leaders in Richmond and had lunch, then we went to the Mission office and basically met our companions. My new comp is named Elder Naylor and he's pretty sick!! He is leaving for home in what is now 37 days but he isnt a pile and definelty finds joy in doing the work even when he's going home in a month. But things have been great so far with him and I'm looking forward to the transfer ahead. After we met our comps we basically watched all the trainees meet their trainers then left back for our home. We had a 2 hour car ride both there and back so me and my comp got to know eachother a little bit. After we got back we had a member meal that we got to go to and they made delicious dinner, it was soooooo gooood and definelyy filled us up. 

Thursday and Friday were pretty chill, we had some lessons, weekly planning, knocked some doors, made some calls, nothing too crazy. We did meet this one lady who accepted a copy of the Book Of Mormon on her door step which was super cool. Friday was actually really fun, we had a baptism for a kid in our ward who turned 8 and so we were able to go to that and support him in that. It's so cool to see how awesome it is to see someone make those covenants with God and recieve that gift of the holy ghost. This truly is the true church and its so special to be part of this work to bring this gospel to all.

New years eve was sweet!!!! We stopped doing missionary work after 4:30 so we decided to go hang with some elders, we then went out to go get pizza but when we got there they said we woukd have to wait an hour so we said heck no! We then went to KFC and when we got there she said it would be an hour!! So one of the elders in my district goes "So yall don't have chicken!!" As to which she said well we have sandwiches, so he said cool well take 4 of those lol. Then after that we went back, talked and played games. We then left their apartment at like 9:30 so we kinda got home late 💀 but it was our district leader who we were hanging out with so if it's OK with him then all is well lol.

Sunday was also chill, we had church then went to have dinner with a member then went home and made a butt ton of calls and then went to our ward missio leaders house and ate more food and might have glanced/watched a little of maverick lolol. We then came home and made more calls then went to bed cause we were tired lol. 

But that's pretty much my entire week, can't believe I have a new comp, it feels weird to be the lead of the area, it's definitely been a lot of change and getting used to but I'm super happy and super excited for what lays ahead. Hopefully y’all had an awesome new years and I will talk to y’all in the next one!!

we had to send in a picture of our clean beds and our cute faces, don't mind my awful hair lo

I got an Arizona flag 

My new comp Elder Naylor