TEXAS ROADHOUSE!!!! 🤠👢🐄 - 26 June 2023

Good Morning my brothers and sisters in christ! It is pday yet again and we've got another stellar week to talk about! 

Things this week were basic not gonna lie, we have been doing a lot of street contacting just around neighborhoods and stuff like that because we've gotten so tired of knocking doors for two hours straight with no success. But my dad told me that finding is a missionaries tithing and the blessings that come from it are referrals! Because we've been so fortunate with referrals lately. I mean our boy Charles who was baptized last transfer was a referral and we have anew referral from some England sisters who teach at an online teaching center. They sent us an absolute stud of a man! I can't remember if I mentioned him in my last email but he is so cool! So open to learning and so dedicated to God! He is a true homie for real! Also we just put another guy on Date for the end of July, he is super cool and guess what, he was also a referral so seriously our referrals are what keep us busy, as long as we pay our finding tithing haha. 

We also had am exchange with the elders in our district and it was awesome! The day was pretty sad because it was raining and nobody was answering their door BUT! Me and this other elder wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse! So we totally went! Had some delicious steaks and a delicious onion blossom and of course some delicious rolls!! Honestly made the day the best day of the week! The crazy part was when my parents were in Virginia to visit the temple, they totally ate at the same Texas roadhouse that we went to so both me and my parents have eaten ate that exact Texas roadhouse and I guess it'll have to be the place we come back to if we all visit again hahah. 

We also had a humanitarian project we were planning to go to but there was so much confusion and chaos, fortunately we figured everything out. We were unloading a huge 18 wheeler of food at a highschool for a Baptist church and at first it was supposed to be on Thursday, then our zone leaders told us it was Friday then we get a call from the person in our ward who is helping out and he was gonna tell us that it actually was on Thursday but literally in that call we found out the truck was in an accident so it was gonna be pushed back to Friday and so come Thursday morning, we weren't planning on doing anything and the member calls us and says the truck is there and he was wondering where we were. So we threw our service clothes on and booked it over there. It was super cool though, helping out this church, we even got to participate in a big prayer circle, there were like 20 of us all in a big circle, holding hands and praying! It was sweet!!

Anyways, that's the hype for the week! Some things I've been learning recently though is seriously how much we can do with christ. 

Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through christ which strengtheneth me."

That scripture can't be more true. I've been reading a lot about the Israelites in the old testament and I mean everything they go through is crazy! From Moses parting the Red Sea, to them destroying the walls of Jericho, to Gideons army of 300 men destroying the Midianites who had like 50,000 men. All their lives they accomplished things no mortal man could comprehend and it seriously was because they had the Lord on their side. But the interesting thing about their lives is that they constantly would forget the lord and fall into sin and destruction would come upon them like none other, but it was only when they repented, turned to the Lord and had faith in him that he truly strengthened them to do all these crazy things! 

Anyways that's my thoughts for the week! I hope yall had an awesome week as well! Please enjoy the weeks ahead! It's summer time!!! Time to party!!! Its a Party in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!!

-Elder Milius 

Happy Father’s Day Dad!

I’m only slightly addicted to buying hats

STEAK

Texas Roadhouse

New Preach My Gospel

Area Book doesn't exist anymore 

FREDRICKSBURG ZONE CONFERENCE - 19 June 2023

So the past couple weeks have been sweet! I'm sorry I haven't been writing emails everyweek, but don't worry, I've talked with my mom, she's given me some ideas for how to continue writing every week because I know yall want to hear from me, I hope, and so I want to do my best to share with yall all my activities as well as my thoughts and impressions and how things are just going! 

But last week was awesome, it was the final one of the transfer and I'm not sure if yall knew but I'm staying in Mechanicsville with Elder Mathews! I'm still district leader and just trekking along one day at a time! The awesome things that took place over that last week of the transfer was we found a Persian family in our Area Book and we found a copy of the Book of Mormon written in Persian so we drove by and introduced ourselves and gave them that copy. It's super hard to communicate with so we are trying to find people in Richmond or online that speak Persian to help us out with that. We've also had some lessons with our friend Hunter, he's on date to be baptized July 22nd which is literally the day before my birthday, how cool would it be if I got that as a present for my Bday, that would be so sweet! He's definitely progressing, still got some more we got to help him with but he's totally ready for it! A couple Sundays ago we had dinner with this family that just moved into our ward, and they are so fun! They've got three little kids, super funny, they both served missions so it's so fun to just talk mission talk with them, reminiscing on the good old days lol. But that was literally like the first member meal we had in like a couple weeks so we were super happy. 

This past week was beast, it was the first full week of the transfer and it was honestly very interesting and cool! Tuesday was Zone Conference day except it wasn't our Zone Conference. So my Companion, Elder Mathews had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday which was supposed to be our zone conference day but he couldn't change the appointment so president told us to ride up with the APs for the northern Zone Conference! It was so fun, the APs are so funny and just a blast to hang with, we felt like the coolest people just hanging out with the APs when we pulled up. We had an amazing zone conference too, our president is just amazing, he shared a fantastic talk about the importance of missionary work and the importance of us being out here right now, that nothing in the world matters more to God than what we are doing, we could be back, going out on dates, starting school, getting married but the lord is so grateful and happy that we chose to sacrifice all of that for him that he is just gonna pour out blessings 100 fold! He also talked about how much we will grow on our missions compared to if we didn't come out. He said that going on a mission and staying home are both accepted by God and both have wonderful purposes to our lives but there is a difference between a return Missionary and a brand new greenie that he wants all of us to be excited for. He then shared the example that if God wanted Israel to be gathered tomorrow he could very well send thousands of Elder Hollands out and do so, but he doesn't because he wants us to come out here, to experience the hardships and to fall down on our knees absolutely broken inside So that he can fill in our cracks and make us never fall away saints. That is why he sends out 18-20 year Olds every year to do something like this. Because in the end, when we go home changed from our kid selves to a chiseled masterpiece, our testimonies will never be destroyed, presidents exact words were...

"EXPERIENCE BEATS OPINION" 

he also shared that when someone questions our beliefs, we need to take a stand and tell them what we know and why we know it because you can't argue with someone's experience with opinion. 

President is a big politician so he just loves throwing things like that at us but it's so true! 

Then after zone conference throughout the week we have just been cleaning out our area book trying to find those who are ready for this gospel and those who aren't. We obviously went tk Elder Mathews doctors appointment this week which was beast, then we also got a crazy referral from some missionaries in England who run like an online teaching center, they said there is a guy they've been teaching who wants to come to church and wants to learn more. This guy is named Chris and he is just a smart stud! He's so awesome and accepting and he was able to come to church, he took the Sacrament and absolutely loved it. He said God told him to go to this church and if he liked it, he would stay, so it seems to me like he really really liked it and enjoyed it which is awesome! We are gonna keep this momentum going and hopefully help him be baptized very soon!!! 

Another amazing thing we did this week was we went to a gospel music concert! The Baptist church we do service for invited us to a barbecue and a concert at their church. We obviously went and it was a blast! We ate some delicious food and talked to all the people there, we listened to amazing gospel music by this band named Calvarys Hill and it was just to coolest thing ever! Ten out of ten would recommend, perks of being a missionary and doing service for a bapstist church I guess! 

Anyways that's the past couple of weeks for me! I'll try my best to do weekly ones again because this was a hefty email so hopefully yall don't get too bored by the end! I love yall! We are on the Lords Team and we will not be stopped! The glory of God will prevail cause in the end... JESUS IS COMING BACK!!

-Elder Milius 

Elder Brown 🥹

The Comp

Baptist Concert with Elder Matthews 

The District

 Us in Staffords Zone pic 

cause we weren't in our own 

CHARLES GOT BAPTIZED!! - 5 June 2023

Aight this email is loaded, cause I'm bad at writing emails every week, I'll try my best to continue a weekly but I might switch to a two week deal, cause now I actually have things to fill up my email other than knocking and knocking and calling and knocking, which is a grind but it's the best grind ever. Our mission president shared something during last zone conference which was like we will be blessed 100 times more than what we give out on the mission. It was great to hear cause I've been a little homesick but it was great to hear that and keep me motivated to do my best out here because what I give, I will get in return 100 times more. 

Anyways so last week was beast, we had interviews with president on Tuesday and we just talked and talked! Our president is the coolest dude ever! I could talk with him for hours. We talked about our boy Charles a little bit and how much of a miracle it was that we found him, cause he literally reached out to us to meet with him and he was blessed as well as we were blessed for reaching out to him. But then later in the week we had a pretty cool lesson with this lady named Martha. We found her knocking one time and gave her our number and mentioned we would stop by sometime but then we get a call on Wednesday and it was her asking if we were on our way, but I never saved her number so I had no clue who this was until she told us her name. But we get to her house and there is a member just chilling inside! It was a good lesson with a member and this lady so hopefully we could get her more interested in the future. Friday of this week I got super sick, I don't know what happened but I just starting throwing up and I literally died after dinner, the next day wasn't any better, we had a lesson with Charles that we had to go to but other than that I was just at our apartment throwing up, it was so bad, then Sunday rolled around and at first I was fine but by the end of the day I threw up one more time and died. Luckily I was better the next day.

So last Monday was sweet! We got to go to the Virginia art museum which was pretty sweet, just walked around for a couple hours looking at random art collections. Not my favorite but now I can say I've been and now I don't have to go again. Tuesday was awesome, we had an exchange with the ZLs and it was just fire, I went with Elder Terry who is literally beast, we just had a ton of fun and just grinded all day. I did however play a game of darts with a blow dart stick one of the elders in that apartment had, and I lost big time and had to get shot in the butt with a thumbtack. It didn't hurt but man did it bleed, I has some blood stains on my undies and my shirt. The next day however was also beast! I got to go on another exchange with the APs in our district and it was so fire, we talked to so many people and at the end of the day, there was a guy playing basketball at the court at our apartment and Elder Brown just tightens his shoes and says, let's go play with this brotha! So we go and just ball out with this guy, got his number and invited him to church, it was so cool. Then the rest of the week we were basically preparing for saturday which was awesome!

So Saturday our boy Charles Brown entered the waters of Baptism!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!! HE IS A MEMBER!! We literally baptized this guy the quickest we possibly could have, he reached out to us on a Friday and we got him to the next three church meetings and taught him everything. Got him baptized on Saturday and I had the amazing chance to confirm him a member in church on Sunday! It was the coolest thing I've ever done, giving that guy the gift of the holy ghost was so cool, it felt like the heavens were opening and the spirit was so strong! This truly is the true church with the power and authority to bless so many people!! 

Anyways today was also beast! We went to IHOP for district PDay, then went shopping, then went to the Virginia state capital!! It was so cool, honestly one of my favorite Pdays so far! But that finishes my week! I hope yall had an awesome week and that everything is just going to God's plan!! God Gives, God Loves, and God Lives!!!!!! 

-Elder Milius 

Charles got baptized!

Cat

ZL Exchange 

State Capitol