Love from Port St. Lucie April 12, 2010

Dear Family,

I really enjoyed your e-mail. It was fun to hear about your fun-filled week with family, friends, Disney, beach, and swimming! [Aunt Wanda and cousin Zach came from Illinois AND we got to see our dear friends from Michigan, too!] Time is flying by, much to fast, but like you said I am just making the most of it while I still have time left.

Congratulations, Reece, on preparing to be ordained an Elder! That's way exciting. I am happy for you! I will definitely keep Grandpa, Lana, and Randy in my prayers.

My week was awesome! My last full day in Viera (Monday) was fun-filled, too, with the shuttle launch, playing Frisbee golf at Wickham park, and visiting a lot of my favorite families in the ward before I left. Brother W., a really nice member from the Viera ward, drove me to my new area Tuesday morning, which covers the city of Port St. Lucie. He also signed my member journal and with his entry my journal is now completely full! I will have to add in some pages for the members of my last area.

I am really enjoying my new assignment here in Port St. Lucie. Elder Engemann is an amazing missionary and is not limited in doing the work by only having been out for one transfer. He is a hard worker and has a strong testimony. I am happy to be serving with him!

We taught 35 other lessons together this week, most of them sitting down in the person's home and beginning and ending with a prayer. We also were blessed with 7 new investigators. Some of the lessons were lessons we taught at the door step but each one was a great experience for us and we felt the spirit teaching through us. As quoted from Preach my Gospel in general conference, (paraphrasing) "We are successful and know the Lord is pleased when we feel the spirit working through us." I am grateful for that knowledge and the blessing of the Holy Ghost speaking through my companion and me. This area has proven really good for tracting -- lots of positive people who will listen to us.

One focus we have this week is helping the ward get involved in the missionary work here. They are really nice members, they just need some ideas as to how to go about doing the work. Thankfully I have been in some amazing wards where member referrals are the source of most of the baptisms (like Viera), so I can apply what I have learned from previous areas and with the Lord's help we will have success in working with the members here. I had the opportunity to get to know a lot of the nice members here on Sunday: Brother H., who gave us a ride to and from church in his large RV, The H. family who had us into their home while we were in their area last night and then gave us and our bikes a ride home after we finished tracting so we wouldn't get rained on, and the L. family who makes up over half the ward choir. I took the opportunity to jump right into the ward as I have in past areas by singing with the choir for sacrament meeting yesterday. It was our ward conference and we sang an arrangement of "There is a Green Hill Far Away" and another sacrament hymn. Music has been a great missionary opportunity for me!

Before I forget here is my new apartment address:

Elder Ryan J.J. Miller
231 SW Palm Drive #102
Port St. Lucie, FL 34986

[I left this in -- It's Elder Miller's very last missionary address, so write away!!! He is scheduled to come home on August 11th. We'll be letting friends know where exactly he'll be coming "home" to, soon. We hope to have "homecoming talks" in both California and Florida.]

Another cool experience we had this week was doing service for Christie. She is in her 20's and needed help with weeding, mulching, and planting flowers in her garden. We brought the other Elders with us to help (Elders Bennett and Stolle) and we had a lot of fun. Christie also came to Church this weekend and she said she enjoyed it. We are meeting with her again on Tuesday and hopefully she will come to Church again this coming Sunday!

Thank you for your letters I received this past week. I appreciate the love and prayers you constantly bless me with. I look forward to hearing from all of you again soon. I love you.

Love,

Elder Miller