Elder Gavin Milius: TWO VIRGINIA TEMPLES?!

What’s good! Guess who's back! Ya boi! Elder Milius!! Back with another email!! Yes today is my Pday. We had to go work in the temple yesterday from 8am-2:30pm so we just moved our Pday to today. But I'm doing amazing in my new area. My comp is honestly awesome, we get along very well and I have had a ton of fun just grinding out the work all the time. We've actually got a baptism this Saturday so pray for my boy Joshua! He's 10 years old and an absolute genius, he can name any capital of any state in like 2 seconds! It's insane, he is so excited for his baptism and we can't wait to help him enter into that covenant with God!

Anyway my week was awesome! Tuesday was a pretty open day, we went a did some service at this farm one of our friends has. Yes I am a farm boy now, I've got boots, dirt on my hands and just a will to do the dirty work! But after the farm we literally just went out knocking all day. The one thing that is hard about this area is that it is a very wealthy stable area so everyone we knock on is either not interested or mad that we are there. We've had a lot of confrontational people open their doors, we had one guy tell us he hopes God blows up the temple we just built. But needless to say we continue to grind because we know there is someone out there who has been prepared by God for us to meet.

Wednesday was Zone Conference and it was an awesome one too! We learned a lot about baptism and the importance of focusing on that goal of helping people make covenants. President Hutchison shared a very powerful talk about our prophetic priority and our purpose as missionaries. We are called to "Preach Repentance and Baptize Converts" it was an awesome zone conference and it was really nice to relax a little and see a bunch of missionaries. After that we went out knocking some more and met a catholic guy who was super friendly and knows who we are as missionaries of the church of Jesus christ. He said he knew a bishop in north Carolina and that he had missionaries over for dinner all the time, so we might be having dinner with him in the future.

Thursday we finally got paid after three weeks of trying to stretch our missionary money. It's funny cause when we first got to Virginia they told us we get paid every two weeks but they has not been the case, we have had three week long money weeks all the time and it is hard to stretch that money. But we finally got paid and went to the store. We then had some weekly planning and went knocking the rest of the day

Friday was awesome! We got to go do service at this Baptist church that does a clothes supply. We basically just moved a bunch of boxes around because all the people that work there are old ladies hahah! But it was awesome they were all so nice and it was a great way to start the day. Then I had to give my second district council and I actually think I'm getting better, I still forget sometimes that I'm the lead of the whole council because we will finish with one part and then just sit in silence and I'm like Oh Crap! It's still my turn! But I'm definetly getting the hang of training the APs surprisingly. The rest of the day we went knocking!! Crazy!!! We do a lot of knocking in this area!!

Saturday was general Conference!!!!! Woooooo!!!! I have grown to absolutely love general conference. I've always loved conference but most of my life it was because I didn't have to change and I could just lay there and sometimes sleep. But now I love it cause i get to hear so many inspired great things from so many inspired great people. One of the things I loved was how everyone was emphasizing the importance of Easter is more than just a bunny in fact Easter is more important than Christmas because without Easter we would celebrate the birth of Jesus. Because Jesus christ lives today, we celebrate his birth. That's something I think I've always overlooked but not anymore. But between conferences we basically just went out knocking doors and visiting people because that's all we had time for. Sunday was the same pretty much. But we did get to have a lesson with Joshua, the kid we have on date for saturday!! He is literally a genius and is so excited to be baptized, I can't wait to see him enter into the waters of baptism and make the covenant he is ready for!! Oh yeah also Virginia is getting blessed with Another Temple!!!!! Praise the lord, he is so good!!!! This state is the greatest!!!!

Yesterday we got to work in the temple and I got to hold the doors open as people entered into the temple! It was so fun, long day of standing but fun. I did however get pretty sun burnt so that wasn't as fun but hey sometimes we have to sacrifice stuff to help gather Israel, and in this case I sacrificed my skin lol. But after that we had a couple member lessons but the last one we had, we got to meet a members husband who isn't a member and we taught him about the three kindgoms. His name is Ben and he is super smart and knows a lot about the church but has a very open mind and a lot of questions we were able to answer. He even wants us to come back!!!

Anyways I'm getting tired of writing this email, I'm starting to procrastinate and if you know me I have a bad problem when it comes to procrastination. So I'm gonna end it right here but I love you all!! Yall are just the best!! I hope yall know how much fun I'm having and that I'm so happy to know I've got a whole army of family and friends cheering me on haha! Anyways I'll talk to yall in the next email!!