Re: Hey, Elder! March 29, 2010

Hello Mom, Dad, Remi, and Reece!

I had a very eventful week so I have a lot of news to tell you about! Today we are going to the spring training baseball game for the Nationals and the Mets-- hopefully it won't get rained out! This week the whole mission had President's interviews in our apartments. It was really nice to have President and Sister Darrington in our home and thank goodness we had a new and clean apartment to have them in! That is always a special experience and helps everyone in the mission to be more unified with their mission President. I thanked President in my email to him for taking the time, effort, and miles to do that for the mission! During my interview I asked President what I would be doing for the rest of my mission. I will be getting transferred to a new area (I'll find out where on Saturday during transfer calls) for this upcoming transfer (6 weeks). I will be learning the area with a missionary who is already in the area and then I will be training again for my last two transfers! (My third "mission son!") I am really looking forward to that and I will let you know in my next email where I am going. Some of the happiest and most successful times on my mission were when I was training Elder Nelson in Kissimmee so I am excited!

We went on exchanges this week with the Assistants and the Cocoa elders. Both exchanges were successful and I really enjoyed my exchange with Elder Steinman. Do you remember me talking about Elder Steinman who was in the MTC with me? He is an awesome missionary and he taught me a lot through his example about being sweetly bold. I saw the difference it makes when we are sweetly bold with love as our motivator in every contact we make. We had a lot of success together as we were involved in every aspect of the work and the couple who we invited to church for the first time came yesterday!

This week has been successful for the Cocoa zone! Everyone [district] in our zone had someone at church except one. We had a total of 18 investigators at church! Melbourne had their baptism for Brother R. this weekend and that was a special experience for all who attended. Like President said in his email, though, we really need to set dates with those who are coming to Church. That seems to continually be a struggle throughout the mission, but I know as we pray for the Lord's help with this and make it a focus we will be successful in bringing the Lord's lost sheep into His fold.

This week we had some crazy car troubles again but as always the Lord was watching out for us and protected us. Our engine computer malfunctioned and caused our car to shut off while we were coming to a stop light. Luckily it would turn on and stay on long enough for us to get into a parking lot where we could try to figure out what was wrong. I kind member from the Melbourne ward saw us and stopped to help. He used his pocket car computer to figure out the problem and then he gave us a ride to our dinner appointment on the other side of town. The next day we were able to take it into the dealership to get the computer replaced under warranty so everything worked out for the best!

Dad, I really appreciate you ordering those books for me and I will definitely use them when I finish my mission. Thank you very much for your great advice on career choices. The reason I didn't mention much about it last Monday is because I printed it out to take with me that day so i hadn't read it until after leaving the Library. I really enjoyed reading it though and I appreciate all of your help and advice!

Reece, I hope you have a great and SAFE trip to California while you are snowboarding and visiting friends. Hopefully you took my helmet or have one to use! :) I am excited for you and I bet you will have a great time! Catch some air for me, OK?

Remi, sounds like you have had some fun lately, too with your friends! I am glad to hear that you have good friends to do stuff with and that you are having fun!

Mom, all of our investigators are doing well, we just need to help them receive baptismal dates! We are planning on teaching Lille and Laura in the G's home tonight and also another lesson with one of the C's friends in their home tonight. I will let you know how it goes. I am so happy for the members who are able to have friends and investigators taught in their home because I can really see the difference it makes for those learning about the gospel when they feel the strong spirit in a member's home. I hope you are able to have the missionaries teach someone in your home soon and have that amazing experience! I just ran into a few members from the ward in our library and it made me think of you working there. I hope your job is still going well for you! and by the way, the missionary who thought that [BYU-I] class sign ups were earlier was wrong, so you're right about July. Thanks for checking, though.

It sounds like the house is coming along and that you have fun spring break plans! I hope everything goes well for you this week and I look forward to hearing from you about it. I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Miller

Yee Hah! from Melbourne March 22, 2010

Dear Dad, Mom, Reece, and Remi,

Thank you very much for your e-mails! Hope you got my e-mail with my new address. I have a question for you before I tell you about my week. I just wanted to double check with you to see when I need to sign up for classes again and also how I should go about doing it? Some of the other missionaries going to BYU-Idaho thought that class sign-ups were earlier so I just wanted to make sure, did you say they were in July?

My week was great! Very eventful! Guess who I finally got to meet? The Saxon Family! They are really nice. I got to go over to their home on exchanges with Elder Mansfield and their whole family, including all of their grown and married children who were there visiting. They shared with me some really cool experiences from Brother and Sister Fullmer's mission. Wow! India seems like a very exotic and crazy place. I am so glad they had such great experiences there. Who knows, maybe I will get to see them if they come out to visit here. Tell Sister Fullmer that I finally got to meet her sister and sister's family. :)

On Friday we got to go to the Rodeo (thus my subject for this email). :) Bishop drove us out to the Deseret Ranch in his 07 Mustang and we had a lot of fun with him. My favorite parts of the rodeo were the Bronco riding and also getting to see a lot of friends from the Daytona ward. I even got to see Dylan E., a young man that I taught in Daytona. He got baptized in January and his brothers are being baptized this weekend! It was really nice to be able to congratulate him. That was definitely a tender mercy of the Lord. I am glad we got to go because we had a lot of things happen that almost kept us from going. That morning I woke up with really bad allergies and my right eye was swollen from it. Must be all the pollen. I am doing better now, though. And right before we were leaving for the rodeo we got a flat tire and had to put on the donut in the church parking lot and then had a kind member, Brother C., help us fix the flat so we could drive down to meet the bishop. Thanks, Dad, for teaching me how to rotate the tires because that definitely helped us change the tire fast!

Our zone had a lot of people preparing towards baptism in March and all but three have now either had to be moved to April or dropped due to struggles or concerns. We had a couple, the T's, preparing towards the 27th that we are overcoming some struggles with so we will be resetting the date for those two as well as four others we are working with towards April 10th. This has happened with a lot of the investigators in the zone and sadly this doesn't help us reach our baptismal goal this month. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on how to help our zone be successful. :)

We had a very positive exchange with the Melbourne Elders this week. Elder Mansfield and I set a date with an older gentleman named Brother R, for the 27th of this month. His wife is a member and he has learned about the church from her and others for many years. We shared with him the message of the Restoration and after we had finished he said, "You know, there is not a lot that you could teach me that I haven't already learned before, but I feel it is time now that I move forward with this." He beat us to his own baptismal invitation! He is excited to be baptized this Saturday and I am glad that Elder Mansfield and I had such a good exchange!

We are working with the T. family still. We met with them last night and really did all we could to help them feel the spirit. We invited them to pray very specifically to ask God about baptism and joining His true Church and they both agreed. They are so nice and the gospel is exactly what they need in their lives. They really enjoyed Church when they came so that should be a good sign for them to help them know what they need to do. I know God will help them find their answer.

We also recently had an amazing Saints Unified Voices referral experience: Two days after the Gladys Knight Fireside we contacted Lillie and Laura, two close friends who are also friends with their dentist, Brother G., our ward's High Priest Group Leader. Brother G. brought them along with many others to the fireside and they really enjoyed their experience there. Lillie said, " I had heard a lot of things about this church before I came to see the choir and now I realize that none of those things were true." She and Laura are now taking the missionary lessons and are soaking up everything they are taught about Christ's restored gospel on the earth today. When we taught them the Plan of Salvation they were so anxious to hear the answers to the questions: Where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going, that they said, "just skip the intro, we want to hear the answers!" They came to church for the first time yesterday and really enjoyed it. They were very welcomed and afterwards many ward members took the time to explain to them the different parts of sacrament meeting. They are coming again next Sunday and really look forward to it. Tonight we are teaching them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and inviting them with the Lord's invitation for baptism in April.

I pray that our zone will continue to have these amazing experiences with referrals from the Saints Unified Voices choir and that we will soon see the fruit of our labors. Thank you for your support and your letters. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Miller

A Good Week March 15, 2010

Dear Family,

I am doing great! I love the missionary work I am doing and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Sounds like you all had great weeks! Dad and Mom, I am glad your trip to St. Augustine went so well and that you had fun. Reece, congratulations on your art award. [Third place in the Congressional Art Competition!] The missionaries here probably think you're famous because of all the things I have told them lately: MTV cribs, prestigious art awards with art hanging in the capital, leisure trips to California. Yep, definitely famous, ha ha. Don't let it go to your head, I am just proud of my brother and his accomplishments! Remi, I hope you have a fun time with your cousin Zach!

The Gladys Knight concert has been a huge success. The people we received as referrals from the fireside all were very positive about the music and messages shared that evening and were open for being taught the gospel. Just to share a few of the teaching experiences we had this week: We taught the R's, who also came to the concert, about the Book of Mormon in the F's home. The Book of Mormon was just part of the gift from Gladys to everyone that came. The gift also included a copy of the restoration DVD and a sampler CD of the SUV choir. Although they do not currently have a date we re-committed them to read and pray about it's truthfulness and I feel that they will continue to do so to search for their answer. We will re-extend the Lord's invitation for baptism after they gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Some other referral friends that we taught, Laurie and Lillie, are friends with the G. family, the family who referred Brother C. and many others. We taught them the restoration and gave them their gift. They were not able to make it to church this past weekend, but we are teaching them again on Tuesday and will recommit them. There are many others and I will share with you their experiences as we have more success. Our week has been a good one with the follow-up of the SUV referrals. We are excited for the progression of all of those who have been contacted and almost all of our zones referrals have been contacted--all of them have at least been attempted to be contacted. Rockledge received 26 referrals and they were able to get a good number of those taught and at Church this past week. Their plans are to set baptismal dates this week with the most positive progressing referrals for the 27th of this month. Our plans are to continue to teach these families and help them prepare towards baptism in March and April.

Right now I am enjoying my morning work out program. I am up to 120 perfect push ups (3 different kinds in three different sets) in the morning as well as 135 perfect pull ups (also 3 different types and 3 different sets) alternating every other morning. It feels good to be healthy and in shape and it helps me to go about the work with more energy.

Today is zone p-day and we will be playing ultimate dodge ball and watching some inspirational approved movies like Remember the Titans. On our P-Day for the 29th the other missionaries (Elders Devine, Shepherd, and Mansfield) and I got permission to buy tickets for a Washington DC Nationals and New York Mets spring training baseball game in Viera. That will be a fun p-day!

This past week we moved into our new apartment along with the Melbourne missionaries which was a successful move, but took time out of our missionary schedule. This week we are happy to have more time to proselyte and move the work of the Lord forward with His help. We are excited for all the work ahead of us and I will let you know has we have success with the SUV referrals.

I want each of you to know that I love you. Thank you for all you do! I hope you got my package already or that you get it before Wednesday! Let me know when you do. :) Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Miller

Great Choir Performance March 6, 2010

Dear Dad, Mom, Reece and Remi,

I thoroughly enjoyed each of your emails! I am happy that you received my letters in the mail. There is more stuff that I am sending soon, too. Thank you for sending more letters, too. I haven't received them yet but I'll look for them in the mail today. :)

Reece, that has to be the most beautiful painting I have ever seen in my life! [Reece has about finished the huge painting we commissioned him to do for our family room!] Where did you learn to paint like that? Did Dad give you some pointers and did you read some art books? However you did it, you did an amazing job. You could sell similar paintings for a high price one day! (just a thought). To answer your question we are actually moving to the new apartment on Wednesday morning. We began our packing and cleaning at our current house today. It is quite the undertaking due to the age of the house- 35 years old! But we have help from the B's, a kind senior missionary couple that lives in Palm Bay. Today they helped us in packing dishes and apartment supplies as well as cleaning. The reason you though we would have moved by now is because originally we were going to move in February, but the mission office had to push it back due to difficulties with the current landlord. Hopefully all will go smoothly. :) Your trip to Cali sounds way fun! Please say hi to Jeff and our other mutual friends for me. Love you bro and look forward to hearing about your adventure.

Remi, Everything is going well for me here in Melbourne. Simply continuing to preach the gospel and serve the good people here. What is the science project you are working on? I am glad you are enjoying it. Send a picture when you finish it, I would love to see you finished product. :) I love you Remi!

Dad, I look forward to reading your answers to my career questions. Thank you for doing that for me. I loved hearing about your missionary experience! That's a great example of simply recognizing missionary opportunities when they come and having the courage and faith to open their mouths. Thank you for the example you set. It sounds like the house is coming along but I can tell there is always another project to work on. I have learned that it is just a part of life, though, and I am grateful for that because with each challenge or obstacle overcome we feel accomplished and strengthen our relationship with the Lord as we rely on him through the journey. Thank you for your hard work and sacrifice for our family! You're a great Dad! I Love you and look forward to your letter.

Mom, I loved hearing about your missionary experience, too! Both you and Dad did great in courageously opening your mouths to share the gospel. One thing I love about missionary experiences is each new experience builds upon the last one and strengthens your faith and abilities as a servant of the Lord. Glad to hear the house is coming along. After all is said and done you and Dad could host your own flipping houses show on HGTV. Seriously! you do great work. :) I hope you and Dad enjoy your trip to Saint Augustine! The city is just north of my old area (Daytona Beach), but it's outside our mission so I have never been there before. I am sure you will have a great time. :) If you ever want a free sailboat trip up there or anywhere, especially for our whole family after my mission, I am good friends with a recent convert in Ormond Beach (Daytona area) who wants to take us sometime and has a beautiful huge sailboat. Just so you know! I'm glad that it looks like Grandpa will be getting to live at home again. I will pray for him. That would be wonderful if he flies down! If it's in 5 months I will see him, too! I love you mom and appreciate your hard work and dedication in our family's behalf.

My weekend was awesome with the Gladys Knight Saints Unified Voices choir! Everyone I know who went to one of the four performances, including myself, really enjoyed it. Elder Devine and I got to ride there with a really nice couple we tracted into. They are both into jazz and are musicians themselves so we had a lot to talk about during our trip. They both really enjoyed the concert and we will be bringing them by their free materials this week (the sampler CD of the choir, a book of Mormon, and a restoration DVD). I am excited to teach all of the people who were there from our area this week because we have had such a powerful spiritual experience to start with. It was a great multi-cultural tool for missionary work, especially since this is Florida. Gladys Knight is quite the entertainer and her husband, Brother McDowell was great as well. He had everyone laughing with his stories and my favorite part was hearing his conversion story. I can guarantee it touched the hearts of every non-member there! I am looking forward to all the referrals that are coming our way as a result of this missionary experience and I know they are coming because so many members brought non-member friends. I love being a part of Christ's restored Church and participating in His worldwide missionary efforts!

I am grateful for President Darrington's recent challenge to the mission to extend the baptismal invitation to those who are at church without a date. I have personally committed to doing that and I have hope that the whole Cocoa zone will, too. It was amazing to hear about the opportunities coming our way this week and in the upcoming months as a result of the SUV fireside and I pray that we can see many baptisms from it's success. I am pleased with the exchange Elder Hyer and I had this past week. We set two baptismal dates together with an older couple that we tracted into and we were able to be involved in all aspects of the work together. Elder Lussier, Cocoa district leader, is a great help to his district's missionaries. We will be triple teaming it next week with the Elders from his district and ourselves during the day. We hope that his will show the Lord our desire for success as a zone and strengthen the Cocoa Elders.

I want each of you to know that I love you and I hope you have an amazing week. I love the work I am involved in here. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's Church restored on the earth through His servant Joseph Smith. I love sharing the gospel message with everyone I talk to and it has greatly strengthened my own testimony. I hope to hear about more of your missionary experiences next week. Stay Strong and keep up the great work!

Love,

Elder Miller

P.S. The picture is me on Brother G's golf cart. He is a huge Chargers fam and a huge golf fan!

Re: Hi Elder! March 1, 2010

Dear Family,

My week was great! I enjoy serving in the Viera ward! Overall things are going well with the work here. Sorry the letters took me so long to finish but I finally finished them. You should get them on Wednesday this week.

Elder Devine is doing well. He is a hard working missionary and already loves the area. (Of course, it's Viera! :)). We were in different districts in the MTC so we didn't know each other there, just from the plane ride and then serving around each other during our missions. He was one of our district leaders when I was zone leader in Deland, so we knew each other pretty well from our interactions then. We look forward to helping the Cocoa Zone reach new levels together.

The lesson with the R. family went really well. The spirit was strong and we had a recently reactivated member with us on exchange who bore his testimony to the family and really brought the spirit in their home. The name of the member that came with us is Spencer and he is the 18 year old we recently taught him all the lessons and have been helping him prepare for his mission. The R's accepted their baptismal date for the 13th of March and we have been helping them along the way. They were very honest with us; that it was a difficult change for them to be making in their lives but they are willing to work their best towards baptism and I know the Lord will help them because of that. I told you more about their family in my letter to Dad.

It has been really cold lately but at least I haven't been sweating when I go running in the mornings. For my work outs now I stretch and run over a mile in the morning and then alternate every other day with perfect push-ups & abs and perfect pull-ups and bicep curls ("perfect" is the name of the equipment). It's been working pretty well for me and without trying to I have gotten down to the weight I came out at: 145-147lbs. I'm glad that I have been able to work out every day recently since two weeks ago I was too sick to work out. Being sick every once in a while helps you appreciate the times when you are healthy. It feels good to be healthy! :)

I recently had a neat opportunity with a friend who emailed me to share my feelings on the restored Church of Jesus Christ. I was happy to find out that they accepted my invitation to learn more! I am excited to continue to share the gospel with friends that I have had for a long time but maybe never took the opportunity to share my feelings about the church with them.

It was crazy to hear that another earthquake hit, this time in Chile. I hope everyone over there is getting the help that they need and that all the Church members and missionaries are okay there. I have friends serving there and I hope to find out how they are doing. It was great to hear about Kyle bird getting his mission call to Cali! There are a lot of missionaries who used to live there that get called there. Caleb, too! I can't believe that they are already on their missions. I still remember them when they were 14 or 15. Time flies, though. I'm not sure where I think Reece will get called, but I am pretty sure he won't get called to Florida like me, haha. Where do you think it would be cool to go on your mission, Reece?

The work is going well in the Cocoa Zone, but we will need to double our efforts as a zone and a mission to reach the goals we have set of 100 baptisms every month. I feel that if every missionary will grasp the concept of urgency and the importance of the work we are engaged in then the work will advance in a way pleasing to the Lord. Our zone has struggled in the past many months to reach our baptismal goals. We shared an analogy at our zdm [Zone District Meeting?] that related all the work that goes into making a shuttle launch happen to the work it takes for us to reach our baptismal goals as a zone. I hope our missionaries understand that in order to reach our goal we will need to make personal sacrifices and double our efforts to reach the goal. I know it is essential for every missionary to be committed to reaching our goal so we made sure that it was everyone setting the goal together and not just a few of us. Everyone is committed to our goal of 9 baptisms in the month of March and the Lord is holding us accountable to reach the goal He helped us set. I pray that March will be the month that this mission hits 100 baptisms!

It was great to hear about your week and I hope my letters get there soon. I love all of you and want you know that I know that this is the Lord's work. I know that this church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church restored on the earth today. I know that Christ leads and directs this church through our living prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. I would love to hear any missionary experiences you have had lately so please tell me about them in your next email. Have another great and productive week!

Love,

Elder Miller