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

IVE BEVER BEEN MORE MOTIVATED TO GRIND THAN RIGHT NOW - 20 November 2023

Good morning everyone! Yet another week has passed us by and I will say, while this week was full of lots of things to do, we didn't do too much finding unfortunately. Which didn't look good for people having lessons with us, which didn't looks good for people who come to Sacrament. So this week when you look at our Key Indicators, is one of the worst weeks of my mission. But I swear we were working hard and doing everything we could in our control. It just sucks to see us donut shopping pulling straight 0s all week.

Anyway, this week was kinda for elder robison to say goodbye to people, we got to go over to have dinner with a few members and have lessons with our recent Converts so elder robison could say goodbye. It was relatively a fun week, we were busy like every second just with meetings and member lessons and with elder robison packing.

Come Thursday we had to pack and leave for Richmond cause the visa waiter in our district had his flight that night so we headed up to the Mission office. The whole day was really fine up until we were about 10 minutes late to the airport and the kid that was leaving feels around and can't find his phone, so we spend an hour looking for this phone. Finally we find it but now we are like an hour late to the airport! So we rush over there and drop him off, his flight was leaving at like 5:30 and we got him there at like 4:50! It was nuts, then me and my comp and our DL (who was without a comp) all went to Buffalo wild wings and just had a blast! We then slept over at the APs apartment and chilled the rest of the night. 

Then come transfer day and I got ready to meet my new companion! So I'm sitting there, trainees on the other side of the room. Finally they call this one elder and president read off my name and the crowd went wild! I went up, gave him a hug and we got ready for the trip home. My new trainee is named Elder Weaver, he's also a visa waiter waiting to go to Mexico! So that's pretty legit. He is also from Arizona so that's friggen lit! He's a homie though, we've had a blast the past couple of days. I honestly am so surprised, we talked to this one guy on Saturday and he was going off, testifying of the plan of salvation and everything! I have never been more proud lol.

Sunday came and I had to give a talk in church, I focused on missionary work and how it connects us to the Savior, I think it went really well. Our ward is so small that it really doesn't feel like I'm talking to a ward. But Sunday was chill, we went out knocking and visited a bunch of members, unfortunately we weren't able to find anyone. That was the most depressing thing to see our KIs for the end of the week but literally I can't see 0s again, I'm gonna work hard these next few days pleading with the lord to help us find people, to help us have lessons, and to help us get friends to church on Sunday. 

So with Thanksgiving coming up I probably am not the first nor the last to share what I'm grateful for but...

I've never been more grateful of yall before in my life. Everyone who has helped me become the man I am, I thank you! I love my mom, I love my dad, I love my brothers, I love my sisters, I love my grandparents, I love my great grandparents, I love my cousins, I love my aunts, I love my uncles and I love my friends! I seriously am so grateful for all yall and wish I could be with you for this holiday season. I'm however so grateful for the savior. I'm grateful for his atonement, for his love, for his example, for his strength, for his help, for his compassion, and for his mercy. I'm so grateful for all this that I want others to be grateful of it as well. There are thousands of people around us who may be struggling, who may be depressed, who may be hurt, who may be stressed and a simple hi, or smile, or anything that could lift their burdens could mean the world. The savior is the way to that joy we all need and I'm so grateful for it that I want to share it with the world.

Anyways that's the highlights of my week, got a new kid and a new transfer ahead of me. Things are just trekking along!! Aight keep it real, have a blast week. Enjoy the Thanksgiving, don't get too fat!! 

-Elder Milius 

 

MY CHILD - 13 November 2023

So this week was sorta interesting, there was a lot that happened but not a lot that happened if that makes sense. But the transfer news has been received and I found out that I'm not only staying in my area but I'm recieveing a new missionary straight out the MTC! Absolutely wild. To be honest this is gonna be my first time actually training, I follow up trained a visa waiter a couple transfers back but I was in a trio and he was a beast so I didn't feel like I was training him. But now im gonna be alone with a kid, and he's gonna be literally the freshest out the MTC! So that's the crazy news that will soon come to be next Friday! 

But this week was good! Monday night we had dinner with a family in the ward and it was awesome, we had a great conversation about everything relating to the afterlife and all that. We got deep into Doctrine which is cool to try and understand with our very narrow minded minds. 

Tuesday was a long day, we had a lot of finding to do which didn't see for much success unfortunately, but the Wednesday we had an exchange with Providence and I got to go with my DL! We had to bike though and lemme tell you, we had a long bike ride today. In the end we biked prolly bout 20 miles round trip all over the area! It was nuts. We did teach a very interesting member though, he made us monkey tails which is apparently some sparkling water and fruit juice, idk it was pretty good. Then we had an awesome book of mormon study with this one lady and it went well. We read through 2 Nephi 4 and answered her questions about what each phrase meant spiritually. Then we had a member dinner so that was a great way to end out the night. 

Thursday was also a rough day, we had three lessons planned with three of our most progressing friends and who would have guessed that they all fell through! It was kinda frustrating especially because it all fell through right at the beginning of the day. So we had weekly planning instead and knocked some doors with one of our members, then we got to go out to dinner with this member and he took us to a pizza restaurant in Chesapeake! It definitely helped our spirits.

Friday was wild!! We had district council today and throughout the whole transfer, we had some struggles in our district with being diligent, and I'm not saying we were perfect either but there definitely was others who needed to improve. So my comp gave a though and basically just dropped the ball that we aren't working hard enough and that we shouldn't have to be worried about "running faster than you have strength" because we all weren't running our fastest. It kinda made some of the missionaries in our district mad, there was lots of tension all day. But it hyped me up honestly and that night we grinded the find like crazy!! 

Saturday was prolly one of the hardest days but the most rewarding, like last week. Idk what it is but Saturday is just always hard for me. We were dragging ourselves along all day, not finding anyone but continuing to find. Then we called it a night to go home and call one our friends we met the first night I was here. Holy nuts!! We had an amazing lesson with him, we had a member join our call, the spirit was so strong especially at the end because he kinda just gave so much thanks for us talking to him and teaching him. He said he will forever remember the day we pulled up in our car on a dark night to come out to talk to him! It was awesome, then our member bore a strong testimony and we ended with ours as well! It was so strong and I still remember the night we met him. We had one of our members question whether or not we should go visit this one area but I said let's just do it! And when we arrived I saw this guy and felt so strongly to talk to him, so I did and now here we are! 

It's so cool how the lord puts people in our lives and places them perfectly at the right time for us to meet! God truly is in this work, he seriously isn't gonna let it fail and even when it's excruciatingly hard. It's worth it when you have a lesson like that. 

Anyways this is quite the email so ima end it here! Love everyone! Talk to everyone next week when I have a child with me!!!

-Elder Milius 

THE TEMPLE AND HALLOWEEN AND TEXAS ROADHOUSE - 6 November 2023

Yo how's everyone been!! Hope your doing good, things have been chilling here in Virginia Beach. This week was one hecka long week but it was OK once I got through it hahah. 

Monday we spent the night with the Providence elders and had an exchange the next day. On the exchange I went with Elder Xhang, who is gonna be serving in Taiwan soon. He's pretty cool, we had a good day. We had an awesome lesson with one of their friends on date which was cool. He's like 19 so it was me, my comp, him, his buddy and another guy. I felt like I was just hanging with my friends! It was sick, I miss that fr. But then after that we were getting close to finishing the day since it was Halloween so we had to stop proselytizing by 6. So we decided to go visit this one yellow dot in their area. When we pulled up, we realized we had her address to her apartment building but not her apartment number. So we were like well, let's just knock the first floor. So we go and I just pointed at a door and told Elder Xhang to knock it, so he does and a lady answered and we ask if she knows Lea. She said she was Lea!! I kid you not the first door we knock on was hers! It was crazy!! We taught her bout the Book of Mormon and set up a time to come back! That was a cool miracle for that day.

Then after 6, we were obviously gonna go get dinner and yes, my favorite, we went to Texas roadhouse!!! Let's go! Had a delicious steak! Ya know the usually! Thanks mom and dad for the gift card!! 

Then on Wednesday we went to the temple in Richmond which was like 2 hours away! It was a long trip, this day honestly wasn't the best. I have been pretty sick with allergies and so I was struggling to breath all day 🤧! But we had a great temple session then hung out a little and came back home to just relax for a little. But honestly that trip killed me because I just got more sick and my head wanted to explode. So I loaded up on drugs, thanks dad. Now I'm tryna blow this over

Saturday was prolly the worst day of my life, I was so sick. My head was pounding all day but I didn't want to burden my comp so we just drove around visiting a bunch of people, and fir some reason I wanted to go home but felt like I needed to put in the work. So we work hard and I was dying, barley walking. Fortunately I think the lord looked down on us and our efforts because we had three phone call lessons with some of our friends which all went through! The lessons were really great lessons too! We ended up finding 3 of our friends and felt like our efforts were rewarded. God's pretty cool with that.

Today we had zone pday which was fun, we tie dyed some shirts then played some gym games, nothing too crazy! 

This week and last week were all just a blur, we've been finding but we haven't been able to get a solid person to start coming to church which kinda stinks but we are working hard and if we don't get someone baptized while I'm here, I can confidently say I worked my hardest I could. I'm enjoying it too! Life has been crazy the past year but I wouldn't trade it for the world, even when im broken and literally done with all the rejection and the exhaustion and the life of a missionary, I know I'm not gonna give up because this will be the best thing I've done for the rest of my life. I love it, I love God, I love yall, I love life! Hope yall do too!! Anyways I will talk to yall next week, bouta go take a fat nap! 

-Elder Milius 

TALK TO GOD!! - 23 October 2023

Well hello! How's everyone doing!! Time for another weekly email from ya boi! So to get started this week was pretty great, I feel like I never realize how hard coming to a new area is and how hard that first week is but now that I've been here for a week I'm chillin!! 

So early in this week we pretty much have had lessons planned that have fallen through so we've been doing lots of finding. But it hasn't been too bad, I'm starting to get a feel for the area and have enjoyed my time so far with elder robison!! On Wednesday we got the chance to teach one of our recent Converts about the articles of Faith. It was kinda nice to have a lesson and not have to teach loads of Doctrine. We just read the articles of Faith and talked about what they meant, it was pretty cool. Then later that night we had dinner with a member in our ward and we were there for like 2 hours. They were pretty sweet though and we had a great time, after that though both me and my comp kinda died a little, just with allergies and probably a little bug going round. But it was OK, wendesday we were able to find someone to teach which was cool, it's been a fat minute since I've had some success just with the slow areas and the season but it's been good since!

Thursday we had zone conference which was awesome. I got to hang out with all my mission friends and then we got to hear from our wonderful president who talked a lot about just our faith and the continuation of miracles and how faith is a principle of power and how sometimes if not all the time, faith has to be acted upon before a miracle come occur. Then he talked a lot about personal studies and the significance of having our study and how we can have effective studies. I was kinda happy when he mentioned that the best personal study layout consists of reading a little of the Book of mormon, reading a little from the four gospels, and then spending some time in preach my gospel. I've literally been doing that for a while and I've had some of the best personal studies following that outline. Spend some time with the book of mormon, spend some time with Jesus, and spend some time on how to be a better missionary! 

Anyways Friday was a chill day, we had a few lessons throughout the day and a couple of then canceled but we were able to find someone and have an awesome lesson with this one girl who is truly searching for something and is close to finding it. So it was fun to be able to teach people more and share my testimony more. I've been focusing on sharing my testimony more because as much as I know I've had one, I've never shared it enough to put a stamp with my name on it. So ive been studying my own testimony and been trying to share it more which has helped me so much with teaching and it honestly makes lessons more genuine and sincere rather than just a history lesson. 

Saturday and Sunday were kinds the same, we had planning on Saturday and knocked lots of doors, then Sunday was bout the same. Except on Sunday it was around 6pm and we went out to knock and there was a lady walking her dog outside, so since we are trying to talk to everyone, I called out to her. We told her we were inviting people to church and she told us she already had a church but then her dog started pulling her over to us. So we pet her dog for a while and just talked to her. She shared her story of how she is trying tk get back into church and understand the Bible and her own testimony. Over a while as we were talking about her church and what not, we pulled the Book of mormon out and explained it to her, she had lots of questions and was very interested in learning and reading more about the Book Of Mormon, so we gave her one and she said she would totally read it. She wasn't interested in church or anything at first but after a long 40 minute conversation, thanks to her dog wanting to say hi to us, we were able to teach her about the Book Of Mormon and get her info to share more about it sometime in the future. God works in mysterious ways and sometimes he works through dogs. 

Anyways, this is getting long so I'll end it here, I love yall, miss yall, and think about all yall everyday. There is a reason I'm on my mission and the testimony of hope I have is what is keeping me going through some hard times. But enjoy yalls week and I'll talk to you in the next one! 

-Elder Milius