FINDING THROUGH SERVICE - 11 December 2023

So this week has been an awesome week, nothing too crazy has happened as we are just getting ready for Christmas!!! It's always fun being a missionary during Christmas season because it's like genuinely an easy way to talk to people. And everyone is honestly way nicer to us during Christmas cause ya know, Jesus! 

Anyways, some things that have happened this week was last Monday we went to the movie theater to see "The Oath" and don't worry, we got it approved by President, but the movie is basically the story of the last Moroni and his final days. Honestly kinda trash, it was a very fan fiction movie and didn't have too much wow to it. Kinda cringey not gonna lie.

Wednesday was pretty sick, we had lessons with some of our members this day and honestly just a chill day! We got to talk to 3 of our recent converts and had awesome lessons with them, and then we had dinner with our elders quorum president who is hilarious! We also had to pick up a Santa suit for one of our recent converts to wear at our Christmas party which was lit!

Thursday was the coldest day of the year so far as it got down to like 32 degrees after the sun went down. And i was feeling it a lot because after we had dinner with a member, we went to visit this one guy who when we started talking to him, he couldn't speak English very well but did not hesitate to talk to us outside for 45 minutes! After the convo me and my comp both were like, nah I didn't understand squat. So we got in the car to Unfreeze ourselves because standing outside in that weather genuinely made my body hurt! 

Saturday was a crazy day, we didn't have anything planned and our elders quorum president needed help moving a family so we decided to go help, thinking it would only take like 2 hours. Nah, we helped this family move for 6 hours!! It was honestly terrible and I felt kinda disobedient but there was no way we could leave our elders quorum president to finish that. Fortunately this is where finding through service came in. And it was crazy too, so we had to pick some more stuff up from a storage unit and take it to their new home. As we are loading up the truck, this semi pulls up and is trying to get through but we were blocking him, so he kindly got out and talked to us and immediately the spirit was so strong and I knew right there, this guy wanted to talk us and this guy needs God. He even asked my comp what his tag said cause he was curious and we just had an awesome contact with him. He has such awesome values and is so humble but wants more in life, we gave him a Book of Mormon and everything and he was loving it! He was so grateful we talked to him and it was so cool to see the lord direct our paths. Cause if we had more help than just us and our elders quorum president doing that move, we would have been done earlier, not crossed paths with this guy and never met him. So even though this move sucked, we saw why we were there!! 

Anyways, it's Christmas next Monday so that's insane! I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas season and have had the chance to share your light with others. I love Christmas not only because we get to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ but we get to celebrate his life and his death and his resurrection! God is so good! He is immaculate! He is all we need to have a happy fulfilling life!! Each day when we see his hand, we can be rooted deeper in his love and enjoy the blessings of the everlasting, living gospel of Jesus Christ!! Enjoy yalls week! Here's my address in case yall wanna send a Christmas card!! 

1205 Rose Galaxy Landing Apt 103 Virginia Beach, VA 23456 

Merry Christmas!!!

-Elder Milius

IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS - 11 December 2023

So what's up everybody! Christmas season is upon us and I'm so happy right now! I love the Christmas season because it's such an easy opportunity to spread light and truly light the world! I love how engaged we can be with the community as we serve and do what Jesus would do. It don't matter if your catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or a member of the church of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, this is a time to be gathered together in harmony celebrating the birth of the one who gave all of us a second chance! 

This week has been a great week too! We saw great miracles but also experienced sorrow but have also been edified and uplifted! So to start off this wonderful week of emotions, we had an aight Tuesday. We had four lessons planned through the day so I thought things were gonna be chill, but two of the four lessons canceled on us before the day even started. So that was a little sad because we had to do lots of finding throughout the day. But the evening was awesome! After dinner, we had a lesson with one of our friends and seriously it was baller! It was so cool, this guy literally is one of my examples of how to show charity and love. The first lesson we ever had with this guy, he was saying how much he used to butt heads with the past missionaries and how they would just argue. But we came to him with open arms and answered his questions. One of his main concerns was he didn't believe in a prophet but through us showing him charity, he came to understand that having a prophet is possible! So that lesson was awesome! 

Wednesday was incredible, we had a lesson with our most progressing friend who we ended up putting on date to be baptized on January 27th!!! So amazing! This guy has been taught for so long and he finally accepted the date to be baptized. He's super busy through the holidays but come January he is going to be ready! 

Thursday we had planning to do and a couple appointments which fell through, but we did talk to a guy whose last name is apparently Nephi. Lol. But other than us finding him and having lots of planning, Thursday was just a day of grinding. We did however have dinner with a member and lemme tell you, I have never had chicken dumpling soup like this before! It was bussin!!

Friday was a day for sure. So we had district council which I almost fell asleep during. We then had an appointment with this one lady which actually went amazing and it was so spirit filled. I let my companion just go for it to see how he did without help and he killed it! But then we had an unfortunate call with one of our friends who had come to church 2 times. He basically dropped us because he didn't feel comfortable at church but we came to find out his sister was giving him anti and now he wants to go to another church. It honestly hurt hearing him say those words, I was devastated and I just wasn't having it. But we felt like we needed to call our ward mission leader and seriously I love my ward mission leader cause he cares so much about us. He sat on the phone with me and just uplifted me and my comp, we were so sad and upset about our friend but our ward mission leader truly helped calm us down and get us back in the right mind. I'll never forget his testimony of how no matter what, all the work I do here is gonna be recognized. All the people I meet and all the families I rebuild will be there when I die wanting to thank me for my service. It will truly be a beautiful day when I meet all those I've influenced.

OK just so this email don't get too long, ima end it here but this week was awesome!! It's friggen Christmas time baby!!! Bring some holiday cheer to yall and have yourself a merry little Christmas season!! Go light the world!!!! 

-Elder Milius 

THANKSGIVING CATCH-UP - 4 December 2023

Aight so I kinda picked the wrong week to skip an email so bare with me as I try to condense the last couple weeks into a relatively short email! But I'm doing fantastic in case yall were wondering! Things here in the Virginia are fantastic! It is officially winter time and yes I'm freezing my little Arizona butt off. Good thing is, I'm a little bit more prepared than I was last year with clothing so that's been a plus.

So in case yall maybe didn't hear I am training and I have a visa waiter going to Mexico as my trainee! He's an absolute beast, we get along so well. I was so nervous to train but I was truly blessed with a legendary comp. Anyways we've been working really hard, harder than I've ever worked with the motivation I've got from him. We've had an incredible last couple weeks. Some highlights are...

We found this one couple on the side of a parking lot out asking for some money, they had a 2 year old daughter with them too so I felt so sad. But I felt so strongly while we were street contacting to go talk to them. So we went inside Walmart, got some water, and went to them. We found out that he was struggling to find work and this Christmas was gonna be a hard one for their family, I just felt such a strong impression to testify to them of the power of God and our righteous desires can bring tremendous blessings. The spirit was so strong and literally immediately after I promised some of the most straight forward and powerful blessings, some guy walks up to them and hands them 100 dollars!!! They were speechless and so were we!! It was truly a witness of God that day!! 

Another cool thing is obviously Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was chill, we had dinner with some members and a couple of different people that the members knew. We had a great time talking about football, country music, the military and all that! It was awesome!! We also played football with our ward early in the morning and of course ya boi went hard. But I ended up rolling my ankle really bad and it still hasn't fully healed. Literally as I'm typing this up I accidentally turned my foot wrong and caused a sharp pain in my foot lol. But Thanksgiving was lit and it's crazy to think this was my last Thanksgiving in Virginia!!!! 

Another cool thing that happened this past week was we were able to see 2 of our friends attend church yesterday!!! It was awesome, both friends too are wonderful very promising friends so we're were so hyped to see them attend! Hopefully this week we may be putting one of them on date to be baptized either this month or next so prayers up for us and our friends Ruben and Darrell! 

OK so that's about all I really wanna highlight from the past couple weeks, if you have any questions or wanna know more, shoot me an email! I love each and every one of yall! Keep killing it wherever you may be and always remember how divinely special you are. One thing I've learned so much on my mission is the fact that we each literally have such a personal connection with our Heavenly Father and that we are known, whether we feel alone or we feel forgotten or even unworthy of care, our father knows us, literally knows who we are. Lots of people search for fame in this world, many sell all they have to achieve that acceptance from those around them, and many just don't believe they have any impact on anyone. But we all have a father in heaven who could literally talk to us for hours about our lives, that's how much he knows us, that's how much he cares about us! Stay strong, love God, choose the right! Stay true to what you believe and find truth through prayer to learn of these things for yourself!! 

-Elder Milius