A COUPLE WEEKS PASSED - 29 January 2024

Good morning everyone! Sorry it's been a fat minute, last week we went to the temple and I didn't have time to write an email. So here we are, hopefully I don't write such a long email. 

So the highlights of these past couple weeks is, we have been seeing so much success in finding and in having amazing lessons with our friends! Between both weeks, we've found 26 new people! It's been insane how much we are seeing the fruits of our labors! 

We also have amazing friends we are teaching right now. We have this one guy who was a referral and we ended up putting him on date a few weeks back and we've been having awesome lessons with him. He is so ready for this gospel and is truly accepting it all! He came to church yesterday and loved it! He said he looks forward to coming back, and his baptism is in a few weeks so pray for him!!! 

Our other friend who was on date for a while didn't come to church so we had to take him off date again. He always has something come up that stops him from coming to church, like he just got covid so that put him out of commission for a minute! But he has a great testimony of the gospel, he believes this is the true church but he just isn't making the effort to come to church. He will eventually get baptized but it won't be till after he comes to church. So pray for him as well! 

We also have been seeing lots of other friends progress as well, there is this lady who we called out of the blue and had an awesome lesson with. She literally came to church yesterday and loved it. The talks were also amazing cause they were all about the Book Of Mormon and that stirred some inspired questions about the Book that this lady wanted to ask us. She was super down to come back as well so things are looking up for us right now. 

Other than all our friends, nothing else crazy has happened, we are just seeing tons and tons of success. Probably the most success I've seen my whole mission. And it's also crazy how quick these past 3 transfers have flown by. I've had so many people tell me the last year of your mission Flys by so fast and I am starting to believe them. 

The temple was awesome too, we got to go up and do a session and it was super fulfilling. I had lots and lots of thoughts about my testimony and how I am where I am. And I won't share everything but because of an experience I had when I was younger, with my dad, I have the strongest witness of God's love for me, his existence and my divine heritage! We are all sons and Daughters of God. Even when we fail and fall short of the justice of God, we have a second chance provided to us by christ! We talk to so many people who don't have a relationship with christ and if you would describe your connection with God as not too great, I invite you to make it better, grow close to the teachings of christ, grow close to God's love, grow close to those around you who have the same godly desires. This is the way we can get through these strange times we live in. The world ain't sunshine and rainbows, it is a cruel cruel world and it will beat us to our knees if we let it. But with God we can overcome this world and have an army of angels by our side. And even when we don't feel it, or see it, God is with us. 

God is with us all. 

-Elder Milius  

ABSOLUTE MIRACLE WEEK - 15 January 2024

This week was crazy!!! Probably one of the greatest weeks in my mission!!! We found a total of 13 new people, we put 1 person on date to be baptized, we had a couple lessons with members present and had one of our friends show up randomly to church!! 

So to get into the details of everything, as I said before we found 13 people which was consistent of lots of street contacting. And it was something super cool cause in zone conference, our zone leader promised us one of the strongest blessings that we will see success if we apply the invites and use the finding flow and we did! It was incredible!! 

Zone conference was actually pretty sick! One thing that sucked though was all the sisters who came out with me gave their departing testimonies because they are going home soon, which says a lot because I've been out for literally that long! But it's whatever, our president gave a great talk about mission culture and being obedient! He is very adamant about us being laser focused because one it will make everything easier and we will see so much success! 

A crazy thing that happened after zone conference is we were invited to a Bible study at another church so of course, we went! It was so sick, and crazy!! They don't even realize how close they are to the truth!! They were teaching about baptism and how it is essential to the salvation of souls and the remission of sins, then they taught that afterwards you get a gift which is the Holy ghost and you have tk have it given by the laying on of hands! They were literally missing the power and authority! Me and Elder Weaver were both just itching to shout out, why did Jesus have to be baptized by John! Why did Peter have the authority to give the gift of the holy ghost while Simon didn't!! It was crazy! And then we got our friends who invited us to set up an appointment with us, so it was a successful night! 

Friday we had an awesome time at Walmart, we found 3 people in total that night and each were solid solid contacts! And while I was teaching someone else, my comp met a lady who literally was praying before coming to Walmart for God to help her and then we showed up at Walmart at the perfect time! She even said she never goes to that Walmart but some reason she did. 

Saturday we had an awesome lesson with this guy who we were so close to dropping. I was honestly tired of calling him but finally he answered a few days before and we set up this lesson. Then when we had this lesson he was asking about his purpose in life and felt a war for his soul. We just taught him about his divinity and God's plan for him and then we started talking about baptism. So the spirit was so strong and I felt like putting him on date. So I put him on date for the 24th of February which afterwards he said that is a day before his birthday!! It was so cool!!!! He also said before we called a couple days ago he was praying to God as well to help him and give him a sign of guidance and then we called! It was so cool! So he's on date for baptism. 

Then time finish up the week we had an awesome lesson with the lady my comp found at Walmart and we taught her about the Book Of Mormon and we were able to clear up so much of her concerns with Joseph Smith and she was so happy she came because she felt like not coming but she still did. We also read the account of Jesus Christ in America and we asked how she felt and she said she felt the spirit so strong! It was awesome! 

So that was our week, this next week is gonna be one of the busiest weeks I've ever had because of all the success we had. So be ready for my next email, it may be another long one!! Aight stay sweet! Keep it real! Don't forget that Jesus is leading us every single day whether we see it or not!!!

- Elder Milius 

CRAZY LADY AND GRINDING - 8 January 2024

Wassup everyone! This is crazy that we are already into the 2024 year, I've only got about 8 more months then I'm gonna be flying back to the desert! But my week has been a good one, nothing crazy crazy has happened this week but it's just overall been a good week. This email prolly gonna be a little short but oh well.

So on Tuesday we had a pretty good evening, we went out finding before a lesson and we met this cool guy who said he wanted to meet sometime so we got his info and then we had an awesome lesson with a member about the Book Of Mormon, then we were bout to go home but there was a guy who we recently stopped teaching who we felt impressed to visit, so we go and we were kinda fishy bout it but we said a quick prayer and there was an intense feeling that I may not have the chance to teach him again of we don't go now. So we went and he was home and let us in and we had an awesome super spiritual lesson with him. We were able to find out his issues and we just promised blessings like non other. It was super powerful and we got him to commit to letting us come back more. So that was an amazing blessing from God that day. 

Thursday we had district council for the last time with our old district before Fridaywhen transfers happened. Me and my comp however stayed together so we got another 6 weeks here in Oceana!

Saturday we had a few lessons scattered through the day. We had one of the most spiritual lessons with this less active member. He has had lots of problems in his life but we brought a member who went surfing with him when they were younger and they just talked for like an hour. We had a great time with him and got to give him a priesthood blessing before we left. Then later that night we had a lesson with a lady who was super crazy, she basically just preached to us about showing your light and how you can't be preaching repentance while smoking, drinking, cussing, and sleeping with random people. She was honestly so annoying cause she would repeat herself so many times, we didn't even get to teach her anything cause she just talked. We probably won't go back there cause that's kinda a waste of time. 

That's basically all that happened this week, we did end up finding 7 new people to teach which was really cool to see. We also got an appointment set back up with our most progressing friend which was a super blessing. 

Before I go I guess I'll share a spiritual thought. I was reading 1 Nephi 11 recently and my brother has a favorite scripture which is 1 Nephi 11: 16-17. And something I've always wondered is when the angel says "knoweth thou the condescensions of God?" And so I studied about what that is and I came to know that to condescend means to descend from an exalted point to be as low as what we are on earth, if not lower. And it made so much sense because then the angel in 1 Nephi 11 explains and shows Nephi the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the condescension of God! He was next to God and he descended to mortality and even descended lower than anyone of us. He is the lord and savior and he is the way to eternal joy because he literally knows every pain, sickness, sadness that we will ever experience. 

Anyways that's my email, hope yall have a wonderful day and enjoy your week! 

-Elder Milius 

TAKE ME TO THE NEW YEAR - 1 January 2024

Yooo!! Merry Christmas and happy new year everyone!!! I'm forgot to write last Thursday cause we was at the temple but ima try and do my best to catch up on everything.

This last couple of weeks have been pretty cool, of course it was Christmas this last Monday so that's obviously amazing. It's my last Christmas on the mission so I had to make the most of the time I have to really completely focus on the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ! 

At church this last Sunday we had an awesome service, we didn't have any friends attend but we still had a great time worshiping christ on Christmas eve. Then for Christmas we woke up and headed to play basketball with the elders in our zone. We played for like 3 hours and then went to go shower and relax basically the rest of the day. We then got to spend some time with our district and got to do some secret Santa with eachother. Can't complain, one of the elders got me a duck dynasty bobble head so that was funny! 

Tuesday was a day for sure, it's hard to get bakc into the groove of things after having the whole day off but we did some street contacting and the last time we did street contacting I absolutely hated it. I got yelled at a couple times and nobody was talking to me. But then today we had a blast, everyone was chilling and nice and I actually talked to a couple cool people! It's crazy how everything can just swing from good to bad. And honestly what makes or breaks a good day is literally if people are nice, when people are rude it just sucks. I could have no success but if people are nice, it was a good day. 

We had an awesome miracle this last week. We were knocking and this one guy opens up and he is Hispanic and so my comp takes the lead and the dude let us in. So we sit and my comp starts talking to this guy and I started to kinda pick up context clues but apparently this guy is a member who was married in the temple! Unfortunately his wife passed and he hasn't been to church in forever but my comp just testified that he will see his wife again because of christ and even though I can't understand so well, the spirit was so powerful. Then this guy says one of the most heartfelt prayers and gives me and my comp a hug for like 5 minutes each just in tears. It was so cool to see the impact we made on him and I'm so grateful I gotta a fire comp who can speak Spanish! 

Yesterday I had to give a talk in church and I lowkey didn't feel prepared but I came thinking I would speak for like 10 minutes, nah I accidentally took like 20 minutes! But it was a good talk, I had a lot of people come up and thank me for my thoughts. I also got to bless the Sacrament for the first time since I left on my mission which was pretty sick! Then the senior missionary couple in our ward invited us over for lunch which was so nice! 

Other than all that, these past couple weeks have been awesome. Something cool that's been on my mind for a while is Acts 5: 40-42 which says...

40 And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 

41 ¶ And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. 

42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

I don't think I have found such a powerful testimony of missionary work right here. We read all the time that we will be blessed because we are cursed for christs name sake. But to hear the apostles get beaten then wake away rejoicing because they were counted worthy to suffer shame for christ and that they did not stop preaching his name. Are we worthy to suffer shame for his name, and when the wicked beat down on us, do we get up and continue to preach Jesus Christ! I'm getting choked up writing this because I know gathering Israel is hard, my whole mission I've had experiences where I've been beaten or cursed at or spit upon but why do you think I'm still out here. Because I rejoice knowing I'm counted worthy to suffer for christs names sake. I will not and can not stop preaching Jesus Christ. His name will ring forever in my head and all those around me will hear his gospel whether they accept it or not. 

Anyways, that's my long long email, thanks for all the support! Hope yall had an awesome new year and I can't believe this is my last year on the mish!! See yall sooner than you think!! 

- Elder Milius