A long letter!

8-16-08

Dear Mom, Dad, Reece, Roxy & Truman

How is everything in Visalia? It’s weird to think that school has started for you.

Time here passes in a weird way and it’s hard to explain. The days are long and at first so were the weeks. But now it seems like I’ve been here for many months already and yet I can’t believe that I’m leaving a week from Monday on the 25th.

I received my flight plans along with the rest of my district a couple of days ago. Exciting, I know! We fly out early in the morning (not as early as from Fresno, though) and I believe there are a total of 13 missionaries flying to Orlando on the same day as me. Seven of them are the Elders from my [MTC] District and one of the other districts is sending one sister to Orlando. The rest of the group is Elders. Anyway, I’m way excited to go to Orlando!

An experience I want to share with everyone is the Referral Center. Here we make and receive phone calls for people who request church videos, Bibles, copies of the Book of Mormon and other items. Yesterday I had my first referral, which meant that out of the hundreds of people that I have called I actually talked to one lady and committed her to having the missionaries over and sharing with her a message about Christ and giving her a Book of Mormon. She was excited and it felt good to help her. Anyway, these have been just a few of my experiences here and I’m really enjoying my time here.

You know, before my mission I really wasn’t going because I wanted to, but because it was something I thought I was supposed to do. But after my first few days here my attitude has changed. I have become so close to my Heavenly Father, I have realized the power of the Atonement in my life, and I have never wanted anything more, than to serve a faithful mission and to share what I know to be true with the people of Orlando. What an honor it is to do so! I hope you are all doing well and I want to hear all about what everyone is doing and how school is going. Sorry this letter is a little late, but I had to get my pictures on CD for you and that took four days to develop! I hope you enjoy the pictures and I will e-mail you on Tuesday.

Love you all and talk to you later.

Love,
Elder Ryan Miller

P.S.
Thank you for your package! I can wear my CTR ring now (and have been ever since I got the package)! I’m looking forward to getting my Patriarchal Blessing soon in the mail and I thank you for always writing me even though I can only write every once in a while, because I’m so busy.
Love you, talk to you soon.

P.S.S.
By the way . . . my phone call will be made sometime between 5:45 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. on this Monday, the 25th, your time. So be ready. I’ll call the home phone first, and then Dad’s work or Mom’s cell phone if I need to.