TEMPLE PDAY THIS WEEK - 24 July 2024

The temple is finally back open after the renovations inside and so we as a district got the chance to go to the temple today!!!

Also super super big thank you to all who sent birthday wishes yesterday! Birthdays on the mission can be a drag sometimes but it was an awesome day to be alive!!

So to jump into the past week and a half, we have had lots of good things coming for us. We've started meeting with this girl who wants to be baptized and we've gone over a few times to teach her all the principles before her baptism. We've got an incredible relationship with this family and I'm super excited to see her enter into a covenant with God. In fact for my birthday they had us over for a lesson and dinner and they ended up making me cupcakes and lit a candle and sang happy birthday to me so it was so so nice to be there for that!! 

We had exchanges with our zone leaders this past week which was lots of fun. We drove around downtown Richmond, found lots of interesting people, had delicious dinner from a restaurant off main street and just had the time of our lives doing missionary work! I will never forget the many things I saw and heard, I mean cmon, it's downtown Richmond Virginia, full of some of God's funniest, most awkward, kindest, most interesting people! It's awesome!!

Another thing I got to do is, as district leader I get to interview people before they are baptized and it is one of my favorite things to do. To sit down with someone who is ready to make a covenant and just hear their conversion story. So as our mission is striving to baptize weekly, that means I get to meet lots of people who are ready for baptism! It honestly changes my perspective on finding because some of the people I've met have literally been found in some of the most random circumstances ever, like at a gas station or a subway parking lot or a dollar tree! It's so cool. 

Speaking of baptisms, as we finish this transfer in a week, I'm super excited to help all the miracle people we've found get baptized, 2 of which are very promising and if God continues to work, we could have 2-4 more people make a covenant these next 6 weeks! One of them is awesome, she has been coming to church and has been felloshipped like none other! The ward has taken her and her mom in as their own and I'm so grateful that we have such an awesome ward where our friends feel so comfortable at church and at activities! So as long as we can get a steady appointment, come September she will be ready for baptism!! 

Other than those friends, there isn't much new updates on anyone else. We have been trying out new methods of finding as walmart is pretty much completely dry and we've been kicked out plenty of times that we probably need to give it a few months to rest. Our other finding spots like food lion and gas stations are just tense when we go. We have to go at certain times for it to work well. But we've been getting into knocking doors at night and visiting people as well as just turning off the car, grabbing the bikes and hitting the road talking to everyone as we bike by. That's the one thing I'm worries about with this next transfer is the struggle it might be to find. But I know God won't stop the work as long as we are willing to get out and talk to everyone. 

Sorry this email is kinda long but I read a cool scripture the other day and with us being kicked out constantly I thought it was relatable! It's Mormon 8: 21-22...

"21 And he that shall breathe out wrath and strifes against the work of the Lord, and against the covenant people of the Lord who are the house of Israel, and shall say: We will destroy the work of the Lord, and the Lord will not remember his covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel—the same is in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire; 

22 For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled."

I mean that sums up all my thoughts on this topic perfectly. No matter how many times the cops are called, or we get kicked out, or yelled at, or spit on, or chastised for doing what we are doing, God's eternal purpose shall roll on!!!

Anyways sorry for the long email, I hope you have a fantastic week and stay cool if it is hot where you are, because it is very warm here, love yall tons!!!

-Elder Milius 

ALMOST ARRESTED AGAIN - 15 July 2024

What a week! There was lots of highs and lots of lows for this week. It honestly was a pretty crazy week but it was a good one in the end. But how is everyone doing? Hope your having a great Monday. To jump right in let's start with the bad.

So about halfway through the week we had exchanges with some elders in our district. Things we gonna be good but as we started going out finding we ended up getting kicked out of every place we went to, then when the other set of elders went to a finding spot that we had previously been kicked out of, they got the cops called on them and they had a very long situation to figure out with the cops. Fortunately the cops just told them not to come back but ever since that exchange, things have just been so tense with finding. It feels like we are being watched like a hawk. Since the town is so small I feel like everyone knows who we are and has seen us before so everywhere we go it always seems like cops are following us. We also had a member who happened to be a cop chastise us for public contacting. He threatened to call our Mission President and I wanted to just tell him that our mission president is the one encouraging us to do this so your phone call won't get anywhere. 

Anyways that is really all the cruddy part of the week. Finding has been paused for a little. However I think God knew we would struggle with this so he has placed so many people in our paths to help prepare for baptism. On Wednesday we put 2 of our friends on date for baptism which was incredible. We also have a family who we want to put on date this Sunday. Then we kept getting texts and calls from members saying they want their kids baptized and so we've got 2 unbaptized youth who want to prepare soon for baptism which is incredible! This has never happened on my mission. I think God knew I needed some motivation and so he has given us so many opportunities to baptize! I am praying me and my companion stay this next transfer cause for my last transfer, we potentially could have 5 or more people get baptized and what a way to end a mission that would be! Ah I'm enjoying my time very much right now. While day to day can be slow, these past couple months have flown by. Soon ill be 20 and soon ill be giving my departing testimony at zone conference. Soon I'll be meeting with president for my departing interview and soon I'll be getting on a plane leaving all my energy in the mission field. It's a bitter sweet thing to think about but I'm so excited to see how my last couple months of the mission entail for me! God is so good and he is the reason we've had so many miracles. For I am weak and am nothing but with God I can bless lives! 

Anyways I hope yall have a great week! Keep being awesome and don't forget to read your scriptures! 

-Elder Milius 

I’M A BUM AT WRITING EMAILS - 8 July 2024

OK OK, yes I missed another week for my emails. I need to be better so yall know what's going on with me. So I'm gonna try to recap all that has happened the past couple weeks. I will let you know though, the first week I didn't have much stuff happened but I'll write a little bit. This week however was a cool one, especially yesterday! It was a miracle Sunday!! So let's get into it.

June 24th-30th

So this week was a long week of finding, we found a couple cool people but then they ended up not being as cool as they were when we first met them, which is a daily occurrence here. Anyways, some cool stuff that happened though was on Thursday we went up to louisa and did some missionary work up there. From us Louisa is like an hour drive so it's an all day thing. We spent a lot of time at some parking lots finding people but when it all came down to it, the only place we were able to find people was at a gas station! We then had dinner with this member who is kinda crazy haha. She says she has the gift of seeing spirits and while she may be telling the truth she was telling us all these stories about these non human entities she's encountered. She even said that while we were speaking one of them had made presence in the room with us. So that was a little wack. 

This week was going the same as last week, we spent lots of time at parking lots, specifically this one food lion that doesn't kick us out which is really nice. We spend hours there in the week just inviting everyone we see. It's gotten to the point that I'm recognizing people I've already asked which may annoy people but hey maybe eventually they will just say yes! 

This week we did get to celebrate the Fourth of July!!! God bless America!!! It did however start pouring rain on us while we were street contacting and so it kinda put a damper on fireworks but it cleared up before night came which was good. After 6 though, we went out to go do some more contacting but everywhere was dead. There were few cars on the road and a few cars in parking lots so we couldn't really do much, so we spent most of the night at the church calling through our teaching pool. It was a fun way to spend the fourth. I did get to enjoy some brats and chips and soda for dinner which was delicious! 

OK time for miracle Sunday! So we get to church and one of the friends we invited showed up with her mom! It was great to see them and they enjoyed fast and testimony meeting a lot. Then we had an awesome second hour lesson about why we in our church share with people what we know and it's because we want people to know the truths that mean so much to us and have healed us so much. That way they can see how important this is in our lives and possibly come to see how it can change their lives. We'll after church our friend looks at us and asks us about baptism because she feels she wants tk be a part of this church family and so we told her we can help get her baptized within these next couple weeks!! 

Then at dinner time we had a lesson scheduled with a member referral. This family was going through a lot but the member came in and just testified of how the gospel can change their lives. So we shared the first lesson about the church, about Joseph Smith and about the Book of mormon. We gave every member a copy of the Book of mormon and even gave them all blessings as well. Going into the lesson I was a little nervous but the spirit was so strong in that room that I knew God had lead all of us to that very moment. The mother even mentioned she wants to be a part of a church and help her kids get baptized so next Sunday we are gonna go over there and hopefully give them a date ti be baptized!! 

An absolutely amazing week for us and I am so happy this is how ill get to spend the rest of my mission! It will keep me so focused and so hyped up on what my missionary purpose is, to preach repentance and Baptize Converts! Anyways, I hope yall had an awesome fourth! I miss you all, I love you all! Talk to you in the next one! 

-Elder Milius 

MY COMP GOT PULLED OVER - 24 June 2024

So here I am, in scotchtown! New district, new companion, new area, ready to grind out the end of my mission. I hope everyone had a fantastic week! My week was pretty fun, filled with finding and transfers! 

So to jump right in, my last week in Fredericksburg was great. We still spent a lot of time finding but we were able to spend some time with some recent Converts so I could say goodbye. I really enjoyed the people here in Fredericksburg, even thought the work was challenging at times I still enjoyed the overall experience being in the wards I was in! 

Once transfers came we drove down to Richmond. I had to say goodbye to so many missionaries including my trainer. It was a sad day for a lot of people. Our mission has had so many amazing missionaries finish their missions recently and it's sad to see all my friends I know head home. But the work continues! The work was here before we arrived and it will be here after, all that matters now is how I can leave my mark on the people here in Virginia! And I'm getting close to being done so I have to do all I can to make the most out of my time here. 

Once I got my new companion we headed to Ashland Virginia where we started off the transfer with some street contacting! I'm excited to be here, I actually used to be in this district about a year ago so I am recognizing a lot of places that I have been to. 

OK so for the more exciting stuff, on Sunday, we had a baptism for our friend Jose!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a way to come into the area, started off the transfer with a baptism! It was however the most stressful baptism ever, we had 6 people pull up to church so we were running all over the place while trying to fill the font, then we found out that there was no hot water in the building so we had to use the cold water which was not good. Then come to the baptism, we had an older member baptize him and when Jose went under, he tensed up and was like in shock because of the cold water so we had to do it again. Then after the baptism we had to quickly confirm him so that he could go to work and so that we could get to a meeting on time. Ah it was so chaotic! But in the end we witnessed a man make the most amazing decision in his life so far. And the spirit was so strong after the baptism and after the confirmation! 

Same day, we were at a food lion street contacting when the manager decided to call the cops, so we got in our car and waited and sure enough a cop pulls up. Now for some reason my comp decided he wanted to quickly leave and of course that looked suspicious. We also have a temporary license plate hung up in our back window that is impossible to see. So when the cop followed us out he quickly pulled us over and had a talk with us about not street contacting at stores (even though we literally aren't doing anything illegal, we are just practicing our first ammendment right) and he also talked to us about the license plate. He was chill, just a little confused and stern lol. But hey in the end, Satan will lose and God will reign! 

But that's about all my week was! Lots of fun! Lots of challenges! Lots of opportunities! I'm excited to see how this transfer goes, hopefully we can get another one of our friends baptized before the transfer ends! So that's what we've got going for the next few weeks! I love you all! I miss you all! I hope you all have an amazing week! 

-Elder Milius

FISHING FOR THE FINAL TIME - 17 June 2024

Yo hello everybody! I hope all us well with everyone! I'm gonna make this one quick as I don't have that much time. 

This week was an interesting one, it was definitely a grind. Every day we head out into the hot sun and stand outside walmart, Ross, target, gas stations and invite everyone we can to church. One really interesting thing about this area is it feels like we should be having a lot more success but everyone just says no to us. It's very sad when at the end of the day we don't have any new people to teach. But one thing I have truly come to know is success is not measured by the amount of people we find. It's about how dedicated we were to find, and even in the hardest longest days, joy is present as we focus on our desire. I'm coming close to the end of my mission and I've thought a lot back to the beginning of what it means to be a missionary and how to be a successful missionary. It's really enlightening to read and learn about a successful mission now in comparison to when I first started the work in 2022! 

Anyways, some fun things that happened was our ZL lost his keys at district council and so we spent an hour driving around town looking for them, when we finally had the impression to go back to the church and boom there they were! Thursday we were gonna go shop because we needed food, but we were gonna street contact before. We'll that didn't last too long and we ended up getting kicked out before we could even go shop! So we had to drive across town to another Walmart to get groceries for that week haha! We did some service this week for a lady and then they fed us dinner. They gave us hash brown casserole! It was delicious, apparently that is a utah thing I guess. She also loaded us up with goodies before we left which was really nice! We had a long lesson with a recent convert of ours and it was a really good lesson. He talks a lot though so it was a long lesson. He is trying to prepare for everything a little more, he feels a little pressured about doing the Sacrament and or baptisms in the temple but he wanted to relearn everything that way he is more comfortable when time comes for him to do those things so that was good to be there to start teaching him again.

I got transfer news on Saturday and I am headed out of the fredericksburg area and I'm going down 30 minutes, closer to Richmond in a town called Ashland! I'm so excited, I'm back in the same district I was 1 year ago, we have the APs in our district and so I'm super excited to most likely finish out my mission there. I've got 2 transfers left so I'm at 3 months until I'm the one getting on a plane to go home. I don't know if I will be sad or happy but I hope that once I'm settled in my new area that I will just forget about it until the week of haha. 

Sunday was my last Sunday in this area and it was super sad to say goodbye to all the members. We also got to go fishing today with a member and I got to say goodbye to Fernando who I helped get baptized in this area. I may have shed a little tear but this will definitely be a place I will visit when I come back! 

Anyways that's all I got for yall! I hope your week was incredible! Happy happy father's day to all the dad's out there but especially to my dad who is an absolute beast of a person. I will always look up to him as someone I want to be. I seriously wouldn't be the person I am without his helping hand through many years of my life! So thanks dad! 

Aight have a great week everyone! Talk to you later!

-Elder Milius

GETTING KICKED OUT OF WALMART - 10 June 2023

Hello everybody!! It is another beautiful Pday in the Might Virginia Richmond Mission right now. Things here are going good. We are grinding a lot right now. finding has been a struggle because everybody we talk to Is either not interested or kinda lies to us about coming to church and or having lessons. 

It's crazy to see so many people blinded by the spirit but I guess satan is really working his hardest right now to keep everyone from recieveing the gospel. In the grand scheme of things however our mission is doing amazing! We have 22 people on date to be baptized this week which if all 22 get baptized we will break the mission record again setting the record at 86!! I really hope by the end of my mission we break triple digits in one transfer! That would be a miracle!!! 

We didn't have any lessons this week unfortunately and like I said before we have been struggling with finding. We've been kicked out of walmart at least 3 times now and I feel like if we go again they are going to call the cops on us. But we will keep going until we are escorted off the property by police 💪 

We did meet this really cool lady who was so hyped and excited for church, we even extended a soft baptism date!! And she accepted. Unfortunately she didn't show up to church or her return appointment. But maybe if she responds to us we can totally get her progressing! 

We also had interviews this past week which was awesome. I got to talk to president Hutchison and he gave both me and Elder Davis a lot of council on how we can find better. Our Spotsylvania ward is absolutely motivated for Missionary work which our president told us to utilize and work with more than anything else. He said this is their season now! 

We actually had a Bishopric change in Spotsylvania ward and I love the old bishop a ton because he was so genuine and bright and hard working and now our new bishop is just the same with a continued strong focus on missionary work! I'm so excited to see how this ward grows zion right here! 

Pday today was super fun too, we went to Buffalo wild wings and then went and bowled for an hour! It was lots of fun.

Anyways this week was a tough week for work but we saw many blessings and many miracles throughout it all! I hope you all had a great week and continue to have a great week this week! Love each and everyone of yall, I will talk to you in the next one! 

-Elder Milius

I MISSED A WEEK - 3 June 2024

Whoops, I definitely forgot to send an email last week I am so sorry yall!! Ima make this email quick as I'm very unmotivated to write today too. 

So run down on the work so far, I am so so so so so sad to say that our amazing miracle friend Michael ended up heading another direction for his religious life. I honestly have never seen such an elect person drop us that hard before. So we were pretty upset about that. He actually ghosted us for quite some time until a couple days ago we were out street contacting at Walmart and he pulls up! We were then able to talk to him and he told us his path was different. We did however send him a talk to explain the Book of mormon and the importance of it and how we don't worship the Book but the Book points us to worship God and follow Jesus christ. Maybe that'll humble him and change his idea of what is the purpose of life. 

We have a lot of other people who we are finding but aren't really keeping commitments. It's been rough in that way but we do have this one friend who still just needs a miracle and he could get baptized. He comes to church every week and brings his kids too. His name is Eric so if yall could please pray for a miracle for him that would be amazing!!

Our wards are pretty snazzy still with missionary work, Spotsylvania ward is insane with their dedication to the work. They've scheduled lessons for us and set up appointments with members for us. They always make sure we have members on lessons so that is amazing!! They care so much about the work I just pray that we find someone elect and ready to recieve the gospel in their area. As for the other ward we have lots and lots of help from leaders. Our bishop has basketball nights every Tuesday and Thursday which we go share messages at and our bishop has said that there are 4-5 people who want to join us for church so eventually we hope to see some success with that. 

As for everything else, we are doing great! We had exchanges this past week where we got kicked out of like everywhere. It was pretty funny actually. We were at Walmart and my ZL who I was with was talking to this guy having a great convo and some worker just comes up to him, told him to leave but he just brushed her off and said one second. Then 5 minutes later she yells across the parking lot to leave and the guy he was talking to started yelling back at the worker!! It was so funny. Being backed up by our friends is the best.

This week should be good, we have interviews with our president this week which I'm excited for, I'm getting closer and closer to the end which I am so excited, nervous and sad for not gonna lie hahah! But I love yall, keep being awesome! Stay strong to what you know is right and you'll never fall away from the light!! 

-Elder Milius