4th of July 2009 Daytona style!

The Elders in Ryan's zone had special permission to stay out until 10 p.m. and catch the fireworks show.

"Fourth of July at the Halifax River. We watched the fireworks show off of the barge in the river."

Photos from Daytona July 2009

TOP: "The Deland Zone: Sisters Atwood and Campbell. Elders (left to right) Adams, Maughan, Wilson, Hulon, Palmer, Miller, Osborne, Carter, Brown, Dahle, Chittock (hiding), Goodwin, Carroll and Peterson."

MIDDLE: "Elders Maughan, Hulon, Palmer and me at Sunsplash Beach in Daytona." [They play football for P-day on the beach sometimes.]

BOTTOM: "Elder Palmer spilled a whole bowl of cereal on his pants." [Okay, so what do you do when your companion is in a pickle? Take a picture, of course!]

Missionaries and Cars in Daytona July 2009

TOP: "Elders Maughan and Hulon admiring a race car that was in Daytona for the Coca-Cola 400. You could hear the races from miles away!"

MIDDLE: Elder Miller with "the new mission vehicle!!! (J/K) This is one of the good lookin' Camaros being advertised here in Daytona."

BOTTOM: "The 6:30 a.m. car push for our workout routine." [Yes, that is Elder Ryan!]

Mom and Dad IN the Orlando Mission! Oh, my!

We sent this to Elder Ryan and asked him if he recognized it! (It's the Orlando Temple!]

Hello from stormy Florida 20 July 2009

Hello my family!

Thank you so much for the awesome and creative package that you sent! I loved putting together the puzzle to get the message. And I have definitely been sharing that candy with the other missionaries. (There’s now way I could eat all that by myself with the diet that I am on, ha-ha.)

[A fill-in-the-blank Candy Gram.]

So have you been getting the crazy storms that we have been getting here?

Reece, that’s pretty crazy that you want to go sky diving. My last companion (Elder Nelson) went skydiving before his mission and he really enjoyed it. Just be safe and smart. :) One way you could stay busy is by going on exchanges with the missionaries. I know that I have mentioned it before but some of the coolest experiences I have had on my mission have involved going on exchanges with the youth. Last night I went on exchange with a 16-year-old young man named Sam. This was his first opportunity for a missionary exchange and he said he was nervous but that he felt the spirit very strongly and really enjoyed the evening of teaching investigators. Definitely get in contact with the Elders in your ward and let them know that you want to go on exchanges with them. I wonder if I will even have a face book when I get back? I don’t know exactly how long those things last when you don’t check them. :)

Remi, I am glad to hear that you had your first home teaching appointment and that it went so well. I think that it is awesome that you are going to teach the lesson next time! You are growing up so fast! Keep up the great work.

Mom, to celebrate the one year mark missionaries do all sorts of things: burn a shirt and tie, go out to eat, have someone send them a “over the hump” missionary camel, etc. I am definitely not going to burn any of the clothes that I bought but what I will do is work really hard and maybe go out to eat or something for lunch or dinner with "Grandpa A." and the other missionaries. Yes, that was me pushing the car for our work out. That is a tough work out. Keep up the hard work looking for the house and for a job, you’re awesome!

Dad, I think it is awesome that you are doing so much for the ward there. Thank you for your enthusiasm. Do you have any advice from your experience as a zone leader to help with struggling Elders in our zone? I love you all and hope that your last weeks of summer are fun, productive, and fulfilling.

My week went well. Elder Palmer and I had 3 investigators at church on Sunday which is a lot more than we have had lately. And church went really well! The members did a great job fellow-shipping and welcoming Cathy (a mother in her 20’s), Bro. C. (a father in his 20’s), and Tony (a father in his 50’s), the three investigators that we had at church this week. I am starting to get to know a majority of the members and it is helping in our efforts to fellowship investigators. Cathy and Eddie are our investigators that have a lot of potential. We taught them the restoration this week and watched the restoration DVD with them. They really felt the spirit and said that we really made a difference when we came into their home. I am glad that they recognize the spirit when it is present and I know that will help in their searching for the truth. Cathy has family in Puerto Rico that just joined the church and that will have a very positive effect on her and Eddie as they take the lessons and decide for their family (they have two children). Please keep their family in your prayers. :)

We will continue to work hard and with faith we will see many more baptisms in our zone during the upcoming weeks.

Well, I really hope that you are able to find the right house that you are looking for. I will continue to pray on your behalf. I love you all and hope that you have an awesome week!

With Love from Daytona 13 July 2009

Hello my Family!

It was so good to hear about your week!

Dad and Mom that is so neat you went to the temple! I should have told you before but next time you go just remember that I know most of the ordinance workers there, especially the ones that are from the wards I have served in so far. Say Hi for me if you run into any of them that knows me. :) Mom, don’t be silly, the picture looked great. I thought it was so neat to see you guys in front of OUR new temple. Dad, congratulations on your new/old callings. The Lord is really using you to help his youth out and that is a great blessing and honor. Reece, congrats on all your hard work. That’s awesome that you still have your job at Mimi’s and that it was an upgrade as well! Keep up the hard work for the Stake President as well. Remi, I was surprised to hear that Aunt Jenny sent you a PS2, wow! Please tell all of our relatives that I say hi! It sounds like you are having a lot of fun with your brother and your new friend. I love you all!

I hope you got my letters that I sent mid last week. If you haven’t received them yet they should get there today along with pictures and other cool things that I sent. I did receive your wonderful letters and so I replied to each of you. I haven’t received the package yet but I am sure that I will get it sometime today hopefully. :) Thank you for your kindness in sending me the letters and the package. :)

Thank you for reminding me about the launch tonight. I will keep an eye out for it as well and hopefully we can both see it at the same time. :)

[They "scrubbed" the launch at the last minute on Monday and then we missed it on Wednesday, ah well.]

I think that is awesome that you take such good care of the missionaries (feeding them, helping them out zone conference, sending them messages from their family, etc.) I know the Lord really appreciates all that you do for His servants and you will be blessed for your efforts. To answer your question we are really cared for by the members in the area; they are very kind to us. And they always take really good care of us at zone conference with a large, delicious meal! So I can tell you first hand that your efforts will be appreciated.

To answer you question, Dad, Elder Palmer and I, as zone leaders, give training to our District leaders on both the mission transfer focus (ex. this 6 week period focus is working in unity with the members) as well as specific concerns and challenges that come up throughout the weeks. It is a great opportunity to serve the other Elders and Sisters in our zone and help them accomplish the goals and plans that they have made. Examples of specific trainings we have given include: the importance of obedience, how to work with the members in the ward, and attitude and effort.Thank you for your continued prayers on my behalf and more importantly for our investigators. They definitely need your prayers.

Let me tell you a little more about our current investigators. One of our main investigators is Brother C. He is a young man who previously served in the military but is now working at Wal-Mart. He has a little boy who is very energetic and his wife and his wife’s sister live in the apartment with him as well. They live in apartments that are a block away from the church. We usually teach him at his house but it is difficult to teach there because of all the distractions. We are trying to get him into a member’s home to teach him where the spirit can reside better. Just so you know, if you ever want to really help the missionaries out when you guys buy that new home and get situated, invite the missionaries’ investigators into your home so they can be taught there. It is essential to an investigators progress to have not only that member friendship but also the spiritually safe environment where they can learn on a higher level. Bro. C. is coming to church again this Sunday and hopefully not only staying for the first and second hour but the third hour as well. He has fasted and prayed in efforts to receive an answer but he must put his full efforts into this in order to really receive his answer. Part of that is coming to church (he didn’t come the past two weeks) and another part of it is being willing to change churches when he does receive his answer from God. We have not yet met with his wife because she is not comfortable with meeting with us yet but please keep her (I don’t know her first name but you can call her Sister C.) and Bro. C. in your prayers. Thank you for your help.

I answered your questions from your letters in my letters to you so please let me know that you got them. I told you already in the letter, but I honestly will be happy with whatever house you choose. Please do not hesitate to get a three bedroom house if that is what you need to do, because like Dad said I will definitely be there sometimes, but at the same time I will be spending a lot of time up at college furthering my education and won't be at the house often enough for you to have to sacrifice an entire room for me. I love you and thank you for considering me in your decision, but definitely go ahead with whatever is best for the family now. [Remington is now absolutely thrilled to "share" a room with Elder Ryan!]

Well, I have been doing well, besides multiple mosquito bites, ha-ha. But you probably know how that goes. :) I told you a lot about what I have up to do in my letters to you so I won’t repeat myself. But I will share one crazy story with you that happened a couple of days ago. Elder Palmer and I have been tracting the streets closer to the beach recently and there are a lot of crazy people who live there! We ended up teaching this older man (81) who was emotionally unstable and had supported his family through gambling on dog races. He liked the message, although he cried off and on through the whole thing. We are bringing him back a copy of the Book of Mormon but I don’t know how much we can really teach him due to his emotional circumstances. There are definitely crazy people here in Daytona area, but every one of them are children of God and they need our help.

I love each of you and I look forward to opening that package today. Thank you again and I hope you get my mail soon, too. I hope you have an awesome week. Think of me if you see the shuttle. :)

Love,

Elder Miller

Hello Neighbor 6 July 2009

Hello family, how are you? It sounds like things are still coming along in Lakeland for you.

Reece, don't worry about the snowboarding; you will go snowboarding with me in winter of next year, ok? :) And you will get used the bugs and humidity too so don't worry about that either. Actually most of the year here in Florida is very nice! You just happened to come in the worst part of summer.

Remi, I was very surprised to hear that you are Dad's new home teaching companion! I am very happy for you in your new responsibilities and opportunities that will come through serving as Dad's home teaching companion. I am glad that you have made new friends as well. Keep up the great work. I love you, Remi.

Dad, how is everything going at work? (Same old same old I’d imagine.) :) I am so happy to hear that you and our family are taking advantage of the missionary opportunities all around you. Just remember that our responsibility as members of the restored gospel is to, "Invite others to come unto Christ…." All we can do is invite and encourage because of the wonderful gift of agency that we each have. Keep up the awesome missionary work!

Mom, I will keep praying for you and the family for help in finding a new home. I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of your situation and that he will help you as you pray for that help. I learned through personal experiences this week, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." As you pray with faith you will be blessed with strength and comfort in your trials. Your trial is not necessarily taken away from you but you will receive divine help to strengthen you in the challenges you have. I promise you that with a missionary promise. :)

By the way I sent my new address in the email before I left Kissimmee (three weeks ago) and hopefully you have been saving the emails because I can't save them because of my lack of a computer to save them to and they will be fun memories (almost like a journal on the computer) and one day I hope to print them all out to have a hard copy journal of all these memories. Plus they usually contain important information like addresses to save. But just in case the office didn’t give you the right address here is my address for Daytona Beach:

[Mom editied that out for safety reasons, and because it is temporary and you never know when he’ll be transferred. If you want to send Elder Miller a package – e-mail me and I’ll give you his current address!]

And with letters (packages will just sit there till the next zone conference or meeting) you can always send them to the mission office and they will get to me even during a transfer when I am moving. Here is the mission address: Elder Ryan J.J. Miller Florida Orlando Mission10502 Satellite Boulevard Suite E, Orlando, Florida 32837-8426 I hope that helps and that you are able to still send the package you have been working on. (I’m excited for it.) :)I actually haven’t received any mail since I have been in Daytona but that’s ok.

[No, it’s not okay! :-( And he just hadn’t got our latest bunch of letters, yet!]

No, wait, actually I did receive a card when I first got here from the Palmers in Visalia. That was very kind of them. :) Elder Palmer (no relation to the Palmers from his knowledge) and I were talking about it and after you have been out as long as we have your mail flow slows down, which is fine because at this point we are more seasoned and rely more on the strength of spiritual experiences rather than the support of mail. I am really grateful for the support and strength that you each give me because it means a lot to me and I love you so much.

So how was your 4th of July? I am curious to know what you did as a family for the weekend. I had a great 4th of July. There were lots of people to talk to because everyone was outside BBQin’ and everyone was here for the Daytona Coca-Cola 400 race. Did you watch that race at all on TV? If you did and the camera ever zoomed out you probably could see us driving or our apartment because of how close we live to the Daytona speedway. We worked hard during our proselyting hours until dark and then President Darrington gave our zones permission to watch the fire works and be in by 10:00pm. It was a lot of fun and the fireworks were spectacular! I took some great pictures that you will be receiving in the next couple of weeks.

I want to share with you some spiritual experiences that we have had this week: Zone Conference was a spiritual feast! I learned a ton and we mainly focused on working with members. I want to send you a cool pamphlet we found in the church about doing missionary work as members. I’ll send it this week probably. Please continue to do missionary work and give the Elders in your ward referrals so that the work can progress. Daytona ward as a whole is really struggling with missionary work and home teaching and we are doing our best to help change that. For Wednesday’s conference I was actually asked to conduct the meeting for my first time. (They always ask one of the zone leaders to conduct zone conference.) I really enjoyed it even though I was nervous at first.

Another experience I had this week involved teaching an investigator we call Sister T. She is a nice lady who has a lot of faith. She really enjoyed hearing Joseph Smith’s first vision experience and I could see in her eyes that she felt the spirit. I look forward to meeting with her again.Well, I will tell you more about the work here in my letters. Today is my 11-month mark, wow! I can’t believe how fast it is going by.

I love you lots and I look forward to hearing from you later.