Exciting News! 23 March 2009

Hello family!

Thank you for your emails, and Dad, thank you for your letter last week, I appreciated hearing from you and it was neat to hear that you had seen the shuttle launch, too!

Well, lots of new things are happening! We now have 7! baptismal dates set for the month of April and we are exited for our progressing investigators. I told you about most of the main ones in my last e-mail. The M family from Haiti has 3 dates, The V family from Puerto Rico has 3 dates, and Michael R from Puerto Rico has a date, all for the 4th and 11th of April. Then of course there are some who are close to baptism without a date: Harvey I, Eugene P (but he's moving to the Dominican Republic this week, because the Army assigned him to the embassy there or something even though he's retired), the K family, and Danny our neighbor. Please keep these individuals and families in your prayers. : ) They can sure use your help! And we will be setting many more dates this week so please pray for us for that, too. : )

So now for some even bigger news... Elder Urry is getting transferred. And I'm training again. : ) I will pick up my new companion tomorrow from the mission office. I'm excited for the opportunity to serve the Lord as a trainer again and I look forward to helping him work towards accomplishing our goals. Don't know his name yet but I will find out tomorrow when I meet him. There are only two new English Elders coming in so I have a 50% chance of knowing who I am getting but I'm excited and will let you know who my new companion is soon.

Now for the biggest news: On this coming Saturday, the 28th, at 4:00pm at the Clermont chapel, I will have the opportunity to baptize someone for the first time ever. Remember the K family from my last area? Well I taught the twin nine-year-old daughters the lessons and they are now getting baptized. Anna has asked that I baptize her and I am really excited for that wonderful opportunity. : ) And I will send pictures as soon as possible.

We were blessed with another awesome week with 11 exchanges, 12 lessons taught to an investigator with a member present, 3 investigators at Sacrament meeting, and 6 referrals. Thank you for your prayers. I know that they help! And when my new companion arrives we will continue to stoke the fire that is already burning!

In other news I have taken up racket ball as of late with our nice apartment racquetball court and we play every morning as a part of our exercise routine. You should come play with us sometime, Dad, J/K : ) We play on Mondays with the prospective missionaries from our ward and because I have been practicing every morning I actually beat Michael R for the first time last Monday and he's pretty good. We had dinner with the B's on Monday night. Brother B is a very successful business man who has started and owns many of his own companies including an alkaline water company and an orthopedic shoe company. I was thinking about the Rich Dad Poor Dad book you had me read dad and realized that talking to this brother was like reading one of those books in 3D. He's very knowledgeable about business and money management, etc. and he is willing to teach anyone, anywhere how to do what he has done for free. Just thought that could be a great learning opportunity in the future for anyone of us.

Regardless of anything you might have seen in past college clean checks of mine, we passed our missionary clean check last week. : ) So you don't have to worry about my cleanliness Mom and Dad. ; )

We had a great experience this week teaching and receiving a new investigator. Her name is Leandra and she is the girlfriend of a church member my age named Conrad. He is coming back to church and his girlfriend is now our investigator. We had an awesome lesson in Brother S's home (a close friend of Conrad and Leandra who has been like a father for them). We taught the restoration and committed Leandra to reading and praying about 3 Nephi chapter 11. We have had a lot of help from the ward and it is amazing to see so many of them so involved in the missionary work here. Especially the 16-19-year-olds who come out with us weekly. Reece, I would definitely encourage you to volunteer to go out with the Elders in 6th ward as soon as possible. The age requirement to go out with the missionaries is 16 and older so you are the perfect age. : ) And hey, when you move here you can just come out on exchanges with me k? : )

One investigator family that we are meeting with a lot is the M family. Nathan is really searching for is answer that this is God's authority on the earth today and that he needs to be baptized "again." His children already have received their answers. He is also suffering from diabetes and has recently lost his eyesight and has been on dialysis for two years because he lost both his kidneys a while back. Please keep him in your prayers.

Well that was my week. I love you a lot and I will continue to keep you in my prayers, too.

Love,

Elder Miller