Hello from the beach : ) June 22, 2009

Hello my Florida family!

(by the way: the squares in the text are supposed to be smiley faces.)

Wow, it sounds like you have had an eventful week! I really appreciate your letters and I will do my best to reply to them often (you specifically requested that Reece and I will definitely reply. : )

Remi, I cannot tell you how excited I was to hear that you can swim!!! That made my day. I remember working with you at the Lloyd’s pool for many days and it seems like you have been working even harder as of late because you can swim. I know you have some awesome instructors who love you a lot so just keep learning from them and you will do great! I love you Remington.

Reece, I am sorry you got burnt and eaten alive but other that that it sounds like you have really been having a fun time and making lots of new friends. : ) Please know that I love you and that I hope you have an awesome summer. Take it from me, Reece; there is some awesome missionary work to be done here in Florida and some awesome missionaries to do it with. Please contact your missionaries there in Lakeland and tell them that your brother who is serving in the Daytona area said for you to come out with them and go on exchanges. We did that with the youth of Kissimmee and they loved it!! At first I could tell that they weren’t so sure if they would enjoy it or not, but after they came out the first time with us and saw how much fun we had they were the ones calling us to go on exchanges. Let me know when you go on your first exchange with those Elders in Lakeland and tell me how it went. I love you Reece.

Mom, congratulations on getting almost unpacked, I know how you feel! I just barely got all unpacked today and I arrived here on Tuesday.  I love you Mom.

Dad, I appreciate your experienced advice and I know what you mean. I was only called to Zone Leader to give me expanded opportunities to serve those around me, and I am really glad that the Lord blessed me with this new responsibility. I hope you had a wonderful Father’s Day! I love you Dad.

Well, I feel like a month has passed instead of a week (because so much has happened since I got here). I will start from the beginning… It was hard to say goodbye to all the wonderful people in Kissimmee, especially the investigators that were about to be baptized, but I know they will learn a lot from Elder Nelson and Elder Peters. Harvey R. was the hardest one to say goodbye to, because he has been taking the lessons for over 8 months and is now finally going to be baptized. I am so happy for him and he knows that the Lord will be happy with him for the decisions he is making.

I got a ride from Michael R. (the 18 year old that always went on exchanges with us) and to thank him for driving me and another missionary all the way to Daytona I treated him to lunch at a BBQ place. My first day was kind of crazy… Lots of missionary work of course (including tracting in the hot sun and humidity, which actually by now I have gotten used to and isn’t that bad) and also I was pranked by the Elders I live with now (My companion Elder Palmer, and Elders Hulon and Maughn). My companion took me tracting in a “random” neighborhood -- which was actually a previously selected location where they had a member named “Grandpa” pull a prank on me. We just happened to knock on this member’s door and the man said, "What do you want?" But he was on the phone so he just had us come in before we could answer. He then had us sit down and he was yelling on the phone at someone who he was mad at. He kept threatening them that if they didn’t send him the money that he would send “the Haitian” to pay them a visit. In other words he was leading me to believe that he was a member of the mafia or something. He finally finished his phone conversation and then said, “What do you want?” pointing at me. My companion started to answer and he told him to shut up and that he was asking me, not him. I simply told him of the message that we share (I wasn’t scared just a little surprised at the audacity of this man) and he said, “Do you mean this?” and threw a book of Mormon onto the couch next to me. At that point he looked at my companion and started laughing and I realized it was a joke!

The joke was really on him because I broke one of his glassed on accident later when he offered us a drink of water. (It was truly an accident but it was an expensive glass that was many, many years old. He didn’t mind because he is well off and had many of them). Grandpa is a lot of fun and takes good care of the missionaries (after he scares them, ha-ha).

The rest of my week was full of new meetings and lots of finding people to teach. Elder Palmer is a great companion and a great example. That’s one of the nice things about being a zone leader is that your companions are always hard working and missionary minded. We work really hard together both spiritually and physically. I joined them in their morning workout routine and I lost five pounds this week! I have now lost the fat that I gained in Kissimmee and I am at my target body weight. (Elder Palmer knows good work out routines because he played football ever since he was nine and our whole four man apartment is unified in staying physically and spiritually strong. This morning I set my foot in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in my life. The water felt good on my toes (that’s as far as a missionary is allowed) and we played football in the sand for zone P-day. We also watched an edited version (approved by president Darrington) of Forever Strong, the rugby movie that just came out on DVD. It is really an awesome movie with a good lesson to it if you ever get the chance to watch it.

Guess what? During our football game we were on live TV for a few minutes on the WESH 2 channel during the “riptide” segment they were doing this morning. You can probably find it on TV or on the Internet and see me and the other missionaries in our zone playing (and winning) the football game. Cool huh?

So, my other new responsibilities as a ZL include representing our zone at meetings, more paper work, more phone calls, but more importantly getting to serve the elders in our zone in a special way, helping them to be successful in missionary work. Part of that included going on exchanges with the elders in the zone. I went with one of our district leaders this week, Elder O., and he is actually one of the missionaries that came out with me on the plane! I just didn’t recognize him at first because he had lost 55 lbs. so far on his mission.  We set goals together to help each other, his district, and the zone improve.

We also biked over 20 miles around the city of Deland going to appointments. Our last appointment was in a neighboring city in his area and it was worth the long bike ride because it was my first baptismal interviews that I have been able to conduct. I had the unique opportunity to interview a mother and her daughter for baptism and it was a very sweet and spiritual experience. They were baptized and confirmed this week. Our zone did amazing this week and was blessed with a lot of success!! More than the mission has seen in a long time. We had 101 new investigators, 26 new baptismal dates, and 1,370 contacts all in one week!

The ward is great and they are missionary-minded. We are going to be focusing as a mission this week on member work and seeking referrals and I am excited to see the many baptisms that come as a result of member referrals.

Well I have about run out of time telling you about all the events of my week, and I sure there will be a lot more to tell next week as well. I love you all so much and I am so glad you got the package I sent! I hope that all is well for you in Lakeland and I will keep you in my prayers as I always do.  Stay strong!

Love,

Elder Miller