GOD IS REAL!!! - 25 September 2023

 Good morning from ya boy Elder Milius! It has been a couple weeks since I've emailed, and that's because last week, we switched our pday to Wednesday cause we got to go through the temple!!!! Which was a blast, I love being inside the temple, especially as a missionary because then I get to continue to do missionary work but without the world yelling at me for it lol. 

Basically these past couple weeks we had a blast! Lots and lots of miracles and spirit filled experiences just engulfed us! One thing that was super cool was we had a lesson with one of our friends and we had a member join us on the lesson, unfortunately that lesson fell through so we decided to go knock some doors around her with the member. Eventually we knocked on this one door and a young married couple answered and for some reason they had the most relatable life with the member ever!! Both our member and the guy were both in the military and both of them had experiences that related so well to eachother! It was incredible, we ended up sharing how powerful the gospel is and families and our member just testified so strongly! The spirit was so strong and we know that the lesson we had planned was not the lesson we had to be at. This couple was the reason we were there with that specific member!

Another cool thing was we went to go visit some people who had been taught in the past and for some reason when I knocked the first door, I had a feeling to just continue knocking the row of doors and to our surprise, we found a super cool guy who accepted a Book of Mormon and was really interested! It was all because of the Spirit! And it's so cool to see spiritual promptings actually create something right there! 

Something else that I just loved this past couple weeks was, recently I've been struggling with some things and I just felt completely broken down, lost, scared and had no way to feel peace. I found myself in our bedroom one day just down on the ground in tears, of course I decided to pray and plead for forgiveness and mercy and for peace and comfort. After this prayer I got up and felt a prompting to open up Gospel Library. When I did, I found a talk just randomly opened. It was titled "My ming caught hold upon this thought of Jesus Christ" from Elder Andersen from this previous general conference. Basically this is one of my favorite talks now as I genuinely felt so loved thinking about christ! The wonderful quote from this talk is 

"As you continue to attentively catch hold of the thought of Jesus Christ, I promise you not only heavenly guidance but heavenly power."

Right then and there I felt the overwhelming power from Heaven just fill my soul. Then when I clicked out of the talk, it just disappeared and there was no evidence that showed I ever opened that talk, it was just there! I've seen miracles and blessings before in my life with heavenly protection to guidance but this was something I've never seen before, something that should not have happened, happen to me personally. God is real and he has the power to do anything, I know that as we remember christ and never forget him in our daily lives, we are promised heavenly power and guidance! 

That's pretty much the highlight of my past couple weeks, I did go on exchanges with our zone leaders which was mega fun of course, but other than that, we've just been grinding the finding, and teaching a lot more people now!! So things are going great for me!

Hope yall have had an awesome past couple weeks and I hope yall have an amazing week ahead of yall!! Talk to you in the next one!!

-Elder Milius 

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD - 11 September 2023

So this week went by slow but also super fast! I'm at the point in my mission that I'm just so used to doing missionary work that everything is just a blur! 

But this week truly was one of the best weeks I've had! We as a missionary baptized 52 children of God last transfer which means we broke the mission record and have set a new one! So to celebrate our president allowed us to have a celebration game hour before zone conference started. It was a blast! We did a zone against zone party and all zones were hyped up, we were going crazy! We ended up winning two out of the four games that were played, one of which was the oreo on the forehead challenge, then a wrap the mummy challenge. But the other zone won two as well so we had to go to a tie breaker. We were doing a trick shot with ping pong balls and a water cup and you just had to throw it in. So we start the tie breaker and the other zone got so close so many times, adrenaline was pumping through us all and then it gets to my turn, so I step up, throw the ball and I swear, life was in slow mo as I let go of the ball. To my surprise, I made the shot and the whole zone went wild!!!! We won the zone challenge and truly became certified as the best zone in the dang mission!!! Best part? I was lucky enough to seal that with my shot! I kid you not this was a core memory for me!! My zone leaders hoisting me up in the air, all of us chanting our zone name! It was awesome! 

Then we got to relax a little and we had an awesome spirit filled zone conference. My favorite part was obviously president, and one thing I love about my president is he is just so fired up and truly helps us remember how important our role is in the world. When we baptize people we aren't just increasing numbers to the church, we are literally handing people the keys to the Celestial kingdom. We are the only ones on earth who can do that. Members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have that important role to invite others to come unto christ so they can in the end belong to God's Celestial kingdom. 

Other than zone conference we had a pretty chill week! We were able to get back into contact with some of our friends and they were seriously the most spirit led miracles we could have asked for. I had such a strong prompting to go stop by one of our friends but I almost disregarded it. Fortunately I didn't and we ended up getting a return appointment with this lady!

Another crazy thing was I had to give a talk in church about faith and hope. I thought it was a pretty good talk but I hate talking in front of that many people so my chest was pounding all week! Fortunately I ended up doing great and I had a lot of members come up and tell me how awesome my talk was which felt very good to hear. I've never been too fond of talking but I do love it when I can not only enlighten other people but myself as well! Just preparing for this talk I learned so much about faith and hope. Personally I never fully understood hope and how it applies to the gospel but now I've learned that hope are the dreams we have of happiness and eternal life and how that hope leads to action because if I want eternal life, I've got to take the necessary steps to achieve eternal life! And then that's where faith comes into play as well! I need to have faith that what I am doing will give me the chance to have eternal life! It's awesome and I'm so glad I learned more. 

Well that was pretty much my week, we just became champions in zone conference, we have done lots of finding with little to no success but then saw miracles as we were led to people to visit and I had to give a talk in sacrament on Sunday! Aight! Yall have a wonderful day/week! Love and miss each and every one of yall! Talk to yall in the next one!!!

-Elder Milius 

STAYIN IN ROCKHILL - 4 September 2023

Aye yo! What's up everybody! How's life been going for yall? Things up here in Stafford Virginia are going well! This week wasn't too crazy but we had some cool miracles throughout which made the week a baller week! Since this was the final week of the transfer we had lots of meeting and since me and my comps are all staying together we didn't have to worry about transfers at all. So we kinda just spent some time cleaning, having lots of meetings and doing lots and lots of finding!

Tuesday was a chill day, we did however get the chance to go to mutual for one the wards we cover and it was so fun! We played gator ball which is a mix of football and soccer, it was lots of fun. The bishop was popping off and so were a couple of the other leaders, we did show up in our white shirts and ties though so we got super super sweaty lol. 

Wednesday we had an awesome miracle with one of our friends. She has struggled finding time to talk with us and I personally have never met her since I came to the area and so we were getting really close to dropping her but then we decided to go over and knock her door for some reason and to our surprise, nobody answered the door. So it was sad and we just walked away but then she came around the corner yelling out to us and we were able to go back and have an awesome lesson with her. She struggled to understand where Mormon came from and after a lot of attempts to explain it, we finally explained how Mormon is a descendant of Lehi who is a descendant of Joseph from Egypt. This was the answer to her question and after that she seemed really interested in learning more! It was awesome 

Thursday, friday and saturday,we did a lot if finding and unfortunately haven't been able to find any very promising people. Things are incredibly slow up in Rockhill and I've truly been pleading with God to give us more miracles. But no matter how slow it is, we keep trekking along hoping for either a door to open with someone or a referral to come in who is ready to hear and accept the gospel! 

Sunday was awesome as always! We got to take the Sacrament and hang with members and talk about the section for come follow me! Which this week's come follow me is an amazing section talking about unity and about the gifts of the spirit and how everyone has a unique roll to play on the earth! But! When we went to go to Rockhill sacrament meeting, we saw our friend sitting in church!!! This friend we were struggling to get in contact with too, in fact I've never met him either and he was getting ready to be dropped off our teaching list very soon. But to our surprise he showed up at church and I was able to say hi and meet him and he seemed super happy to see us! So we are hoping it will soon become the miracle person we need to baptize his transfer! 

Anyways, as long as this week was and as hard as this week was, we had a couple miracles that sealed the cracks in our hearts. It's truly amazing to see how God will wait till the last second to throw a miracle at us and just lift up our spirits entirely. God is a God of miracles and these miracles have not and will not cease. Moroni 7: 27-30 these are the set of scriptures that keep me going every day...

"29 And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men."

Enjoy yalls week and keep on praying for miracles, God will call his troops in and we will watch as God rains his glory upon the earth! 

-Elder Milius 

EDWINS BAPTISM AND THE STAFFORD STALLIONS - 28 August 2023

Yo, what is good? Everybody good to have everybody here. This week was pretty Baller. We had a great-great week. I know, I haven't emailed in like, 2 weeks. So this email is gonna be really long. So best with me. 

So just started off last week we had an awesome week. We were preparing for Edwin's baptism. And it just went so well. We had great lessons with him. They just went awesome and he ended up getting baptized on Saturday!!!!! WOOOOOOO

Edwin got baptized which was amazing. It was funny because we showed up and People were all showing up for his Baptism and we were getting close to the time. And Edwin hasn't shown up yet. So we were desperately giving him a call trying to find out where he was and he finally pulls up 5 minutes before his baptism, which was totally fine. Then he gets baptized and as soon as he comes out of the water he just says "Thank you Jesus!" It was so cool! He is so awesome. Then the stress came to Sunday because he was gonna get confirmed and Edwin was struggling to show up on time for church and we seriously needed him to show up. So we don't hear from him for a while until this brutha pulls up in a full tux looking like a million bucks! He was awesome and got confirmed in church!! So Edwin is a member!!!! Let's goooo!!!

Aight well now that we baptized Edwin we really didn't know what to do since that's all we spent our time on this whole transfer. So now we have to do a lot of finding and try and find someone else to help progress towards baptism, which shouldn't be too hard hopefully. 

But other than that, last week we had to move our pday, hence the reason I haven't emailed, and it was because we all got to go to the temple on Thursday!!! Oh man it was so awesome to go to the temple again, seriously I am so happy I get to go to the temple once a transfer because it seriously makes life so much better. What was super cool was when I was in the Celestial Room I didn't want to leave because I was like this is the best I've felt in a while but then I heard a voice in my head tell me that it was OK and that I can come back soon. Our heavenly father is truly the best! Love him so much and I can't wait to go back to the temple to talk with him again! After the temple we got to go to bodillaz which was absolutely bussin! Then we went and checked out this really cool antique store and then headed over to president hutchisons house to say hi! Overall one the best Pdays I've had! 

Other than the temple and finding a bunch of nobody and just being completely exhausted every day, we did have zone pday today and it was so fun! We played water balloon volley ball and some other yard games, then me and my zone leaders all went and got dressed up in cowboy stuff and we brought our guitars and played our Stafford Zone theme song! It was so cool! We looked so sick, we definitely messed up but it was such an awesome zone pday! Our band is called "Wild Willie in the West plus Cade" lol  

Anyways I don't want to make this email any longer but I truly want to share my testimony of the gospel, I haven't done it on here in a while and I just feel it's important to leave yall with the spirit. Yall, the gospel is so true, I've never been more converted to something in my entire life than I am to christ and his gospel, Jesus Christ is at the helm and this is his work, this is his family and he is not gonna stop the gathering of Israel, people will mock, people will murmur, people with persecute but people did that to prophets years and years ago. People did that to Jesus Christ and yet his plan was still fulfilled and so will his plan today! We are the armies of helamen taught in our youth and we will be the lords missionaries to bring the World His Truth! HIS TRUTH! HIS LIGHT! HIS GLORY! HIS LOVE! 

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week! 

-Elder Milius 

YOUNG DUMB BROKE MISSIONARY KIDS - 14 August 2023

Never thought I'd actually send an email out on time but hey here I am! Motivated to write my email! Anyway how's everyone doing? Hope yall have been doing very well! Time just keeps flying by, we are already on the 5th week into this transfer and it feels like yesterday I was driving up from Richmond to be here. What's even crazier is I hit a year in 1 month!! That's insane! Never thought I'd actually be at the point in my life that I am right now. I've always dreamt of the day I serve a mission and when that day came I was like this is it! And now I'm a year in and I don't even know what to think! 

Anyway my week was pretty awesome! We had some good lessons and activities to fill our week! One of which was helping our friend Edwin get closer to baptism, we taught him everything he needs to know and now all he needs to go over is the interview questions! I'm so excited! He should be baptized this Saturday so that's gonna be fantastic!!! 

On Wednesday we got to go teach the teachers in our ward how to be missionaries, and it was kinda fun! Kinda weird as well because I remember activities where I was the one watching the missionaries demonstrate being a missionary and now I'm the missionary! But it was really fun. We talked about what the mission can offer and all that, then we roleplayed knocking a door and having to talk to a random stranger. The kids were loving it! They definitely were having a great time and I was just reliving those days when I was a teacher haha. 

Thursday was crazy! We had four lessons that day, and only one fell through! First we had a lesson with this super cool guy who has like every story you could possibly think of happen to him. He had so much cool stuff in his office too. Lots of arrows of light, bear skin, deer skin, turtle shells. He's got native American blood and he definitely lets it show! It's so cool! Then after that we went to a lesson with edwin and that went awesome of course! Then we went to a member lesson and that went well, we shared mosiah 24 with them and it seemed to be perfect for what they've been going through, the spirit was very strong in that home that day. 

We also went out knocking with one the priests in our ward and that was a blast as well, he was having a blast knocking with us and we even met a couple cool people. One guy has been a gospel guitarist for longer than I've been alive and so I told him maybe we could jam out one day, so ima figure out how to have some fun with that haha. I also got to meet a member named Marc allred, who is a sweet guitarist and makes his own music, he basically has a studio out in his yard to just jam out and make songs and I was seriously jealous cause thay would be the dream! Maybe it's a sign hahah, maybe I should come home and make music lol. 

Other than that, that's about everything cool that happend this week, rock hill isn't the fastest area but we are going to be baptizing someone and that is all that matters. As long as we bring one soul to Jesus christ our joy will be great, And that is what I'm living off! Anyways! Love yall! Enjoy your week, don't be stupid but "if your gonna do something stupid, be smart about it" -my dad 

-Elder Milius

FOOLS MOCK BUT THEY SHALL MOURN - 7 August 2023

Whats up yall!! It's another Monday(even though this is going out Tuesday) I'm having a blast up here in Stafford. Things have been going really well, I've seen lots of miracles and the power of God has truly influenced my life and those around me! 

So this week was pretty sweet! Lots of things happened! First we had zone leader exchanges this week and heck ya! I got to to go with my trainer!!! It was so fun to be hanging out with him doing missionary work with him again! We had a great day too, we talked to a lot of people and got to go to a Walmart just to talk to random people, it was nerve wracking! But once I finally got talking to people things git easier, I did however ask this one lady if she wanted to come to church and she put her hand up and yelled CREEP!! So I kinda just laughed at her and said God bless, then my comps reminded me of the scripture in Ether that says, "Fools Mock but they shall mourn." It's a pretty boss scripture if you ask me, especially when you get called a creep lol.

Other than the zone leader exchange we were able to have a lesson with our friend on date on Sunday, things went well and he is super open to this restored gospel and wants to learn more and more. We talked about the word of wisdom and although he did have minor issues, he still was like I absolutely will follow this commandment! So that was pretty sick! 

Sunday we did get to have a member dinner and it was a delicious dinner on a fast Sunday. But the awesome part was they had a cello sitting in the room and so we started talking about cellos and orchestra and they let me play the cello! I mean this was the first time I've picked up a cello in like a year but it was seriously like riding a bike and I never thought I missed it so much till I played. I was a little trunky that night for some cello lol. Oh well it's OK, I've just been grinding at the guitar day in and day out, I've also got a harmonica that I'm trying to master, I've also got a ukelele out here as well and I have a banjo that once I replace the strings ima start mastering that as well hahah. So I guess I'll live without a cello till I get home.

So Monday night was crazy though!! We had a member dinner which went really well, the member made us steaks and pasta so can't complain about that. Then we had time to go visit some referrals. Little bit of background, we got a text from the office missionaries saying be careful for thunderstorms and even tornados! But we didn't care so we go visit this referral and as soon as we get there, it starts flooding out the sky. We were just stupid enough to get out and knock and the lady who answered was like dude! Go away! Come back later!! So we decided we would go home and it's jusy absolutely storming! Once we finally reach the road to home, there were cars stopped because there was like 2 trees that had collapsed on the road and from what we heard, there was a tornado funnel that formed and started causing dammage on this place but it never touched the ground. Still we had to move this giant tree to drive through so we had 10 guys all chucking tree sticks off the road and a couple guys with chainsaws chopping this tree trunk down. Finally the police and fire department showed up and with all the help, we were able to get the tree off the road and get traffic moving. Of course that didn't happen till it started raining cats and dogs again so me and my comps, in our white shirts and ties, were covered in dirt, grime, and lots of water! It was insane, but an experience I'll never forget and I'm sure other won't forget we were there either! 

Anyways this was sorta a long email so ima end it here! But hope yall had an awesome week and are just having a blast! Stay safe out there and I'll talk to you guys in the next one!!

-Elder Milius