No Grubby Man Paws on Cookies -- Use Napkins!

Querida Familia y Amigos,

This week was interesting. Meaning that there's not a ton that I remember, but what I do remember, half of it is exciting, and half of it is sad.

So, we have two people on date! Brandon will be baptized June 6th, and Lorena will be baptized June 20th. (: I'm so excited. (:(:

Brandon's, well, he's 9, and he's a UBC. We were talking to his mom about all the trials their family is going through, and she was just telling us, "You know, I know the church is true. It's just hard to get back going after stopping. But I know it's true. I've always known." Then, de repente, she was like, "Brandon has to go to church three times before he can be baptized, right?" and she walks over to the calendar, and we decided that the 6th of Junio is when he will be baptized. (: Yaay! (:

Lorena, that was super cool. We were talking to her about what she'd studied in Enos, and she was really into it, so we interrupted and we're like, "Lorena. We've been praying for you a lot lately, and we feel like you could be ready to be baptized on the 20th of June. So will you prepare to be baptized by someone that holds the priesthood power of God on June 20th?" She looked at us, surprised, looked down at her libro, and looked back up at us and said, "That's really soon. But I know that the Lord will help me. So, yes. Yes I will." The Spirit was so strong, and we just bore testimony, and she bore testimony, and it was awesome. (:

Then she said, "Next time you come over, I have some questions I want to ask. About a mission." We invited her to write them down so she wouldn't forget (we assumed they were about us; we get asked so much what we eat, what we do, when we wake up, ect). She nodded, then burst out, "Can I be a missionary?" Whaaattt? That was cool.

I had to go to the Trunky Conference this week. ): They gave us advice on how to be normal people, how to not go crazy when we go home, and (eww) even dating advice. They said that we should be 'eagerly engaged in trying to find a spouse.' Umm, no thanks. (: Plus, Kelton's going on his mission, and I would be the rudest sister ever if I got married while he was gone.

I just want to share my testimony that I know the church is true. I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, and that he received the priesthood from Peter, James, and John. I know that Joseph Smith, through revelation from God and Jesus Christ, restored the gospel of Jesus Christ in it's fullness on the earth again. I know the he translated the Book of Mormon, and that if we want to grow closer to our Heavenly Father, there is no better way to do it that to read the Book of Mormon and pray, offering Him our heart. I know that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today, and that we continue to receive revelation from God. I know that everything I have taught over the course of my mission is true, and I know that you can know, as well. All you have to do is search, ponder, and pray with real intent. That means study, think about what you've studied, and really ask God to know. I know as you do so, you will gain your own testimony of the fullness of the Gospel. Galatians 5:22-23 says: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness [and] temperance.   Through these feelings that we can know for ourselves the true.

Of these things I testify in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Mucho Trabajo, Poco Dinero. Cuidado May 4,2015

Oh my goodness. I believe you may have heard this before, but the longer you're out, the more tired you get. We try to bike as much as possibly, because when we travel by car (which we have to do a lot, because our area is huge) my head is bobbing like the hips on the hula girl on the trucker's dashboard. Seriously. And studies? Studies are a joke. I do what I can to stay awake, but it's so hard. Somehow, today I managed to read all six pages en El Libro de Mormon (for those who forgot, I have a goal to finish it the day I go home), read a chapter in the New Testament (because I'm working on inspired questions, so I'm studying the questions Jesus asked), and a few pages in Preach My Gospel. I feel accomplished.

This week was really good, though. We had a lot of lessons (don't worry, I stay awake during lessons). I crashed on my bike again (do you think seven times in one mission is enough, or will I crash again in these next few weeks? We'll see). We met some borrachos in the middle of no where. Sleep talking with Hermana Hubner. I think it's been a pretty good week.

So, when I crashed on my bike, it was just de repente. I don't really know what happened. My tire slipped off the sidewalk onto the grass, and I tried to get back on, and my bike was confused and I fell. I looked at my arm (the only place of injury) and my first thought was, "If that doesn't heal before the wedding, Krystal will kill me." But don't worry, it's healing fine. I'm mostly worried about my exit interview on Friday and what President will say. Remember how after the third time I crashed, he threatened to never let me bike again? I've kept quiet about my other three accidents, but this one, he'll see the proof. Oops.

We were going though the potentials list the other day, and we saw someone we wanted to visit. So we put him in our plans, and went to see him the next night. We'll call him Andres.

You know how, in the movies, the immigrants that work in the fields live in cabins nearby, and they drink, swear, and gamble all night? I didn't think they still existed. I thought they were a thing of the past, if not just from movies. I'd never seen them before. I have seen oversized chicken coops converted into apartments for the immigrant workers, but never these cabin communities. But, hey, they exist!

We pull up, in our silver 2014 Toyota Corolla (mission cars. Seriously. Why do they give such nice cars to Spanish missionaries? It makes no sense), and turn off the car. It's about 8pm, we were going to see this potential on the way back to Lynden. We see this circle of cabins, some with the lights on, others the lights off. Slurred voices and laughter are audible above As Sisters in Zion, playing quietly in the sound system of our fancypants car. A few people are visible, stumbling from one cabin to another, and couples sitting in cars here and there. Needless to say, we made sure the doors were locked before praying.

We look at our notes and are dismayed to see that the missionaries who met Andres weren't sure which cabin he lived in. So we leave the car and walk into the circle of cabins, ready, but a little scared, to knock each door in search for this man that was interested about a year about before the area shut down. A man approaches us, likely drunk, and asks who we're looking for. We tell him, and he directs us to cabin number 6. We thank him, and go to knock on the door of number six, but it's open, and a table full of staggering drunk hispanics are playing a game of poker. We asked for Andres, and everyone points to a skinny little leprechaun man who's falling off his chair. He invites us in, and we politely asked if we could talk outside. Even with a third female we wouldn't have entered that cabin.

The drunk leprechaun man comes outside, and he tells us about how nice the missionaries were, oh, so nice. He tells us that we're 'lindas,' then continues rambling about the elders. He asks us to return the next day, because they were in a very important poker game and would not be able to talk, so we set a return appointment (for in the day time when hopefully everyone would be sober) and left.

We came back the next day, and Andres wasn't home. Somehow, he had remembered that we would be returning, and asked his buddies to tell us that he got called into work. All his buddies, even though it was 2:30 in the afternoon, were slobbering drunk. They talked to us about how important God is, how much they love Him, about how missionaries don't wear pants because they wear dresses, asked if we were married or had kids, talked some more about how great God is, then they all kind of wandered away at the same time and we left.

I kind of feel like drunks are zombies that can talk. They'll just talk your ear off about God in Spanish, flirt a bit, then go back to talking about God, then wander away when they get distracted. Except that I know a zombie would have just eaten us.

Being companions with Hermana Hubner is really fun. We wake up in the morning, go about the morning activities in silence, trying to wake up, then we personal study, then it's time for companionship, and it's like we're fully awake. "Were you talking to me last night?" "No, I was asleep. Were you talking to me?" So fun. Last night, she was praying in her sleep, and at another point, I guess I de repente started talking to her, very matter of fact. She said I said, "Hermana, tienes que," and was telling her things that she needed to do, but it was all in Spanish, so she zoned out and fell asleep again.

So funny. (: Well, love you guys. See you in three years!

Hermana Miller

Como la Cola de un Chucho! April 27, 2015

Querida Familia y Amigos,

Well, this week. I don't think a lot happened. There were a lot of cows. A lot of doors knocked on. Not a lot of doors opened. This is what missions are often like.

And yet I still never want it to end. (:

We had a really cool experience this week, though. Love these moments. (: We had about half an hour before we had to be home, and we were only in Ferndale, so it wouldn't take that long to travel. We were unsure what to do, as we had already gone through all of our plans and backups, and nobody answered the door, so we were hesitantly heading back to Lynden, praying for inspiration. We passed a sneaky trailer park that I didn't see, and a few minutes later, Hermana Hubner mentioned it and asked if maybe we should have gone and knocked a few doors. We stopped in the middle of the road (in the middle of no where, don't worry, there were no other cars), and sat there for a moment, pondering and listening intently for the Spirit to tell us where to go. After a minute, we discussed what we felt. We didn't feel like we should go back to the trailer park. So we continued driving, a little worried now that we'd have to be disobedient and go in early, but we both strongly felt that it wouldn't be bad if we went to the park, but that it wasn't what we needed to do.

We drove past fields and fields or berries and cows in silence, praying for direction. We entered Lynden and were getting a little anxious, who on earth could we see? There aren't a lot of hispanics in Lynden. We're driving along Grover, and I was reviewing in my mind the roads we would take to get home. I recalled that there was a former I had visited once with Hermana LeBaron on the way, but I dismissed the thought; he was a Jehovah's Witness and just wanted to Bible bash. I reviewed someone the route we would take home, and I kept coming back to him, though I couldn't remember his name. I finally spoke up, saying I didn't know if it was the best thing to do, but I did know someone we could visit. I told Hermana Hubner relatively where he lived, because I couldn't remember exactly, and she smiled this cute little crooked smile she does sometimes, but didn't say anything, just asked questions to make sure she was going the right way.

We're going down the road, and I point out his house, and she gets really excited. She told me she'd never met the people that lived there, but she was reading about them in the area book recently, and she really felt like we needed to see them tonight. We say a prayer, then knock on the door. The woman that answered was really happy to see us. She said it was late, so we'd have to come by another day (which was fine, because it would be nine o'clock by the time we got home after talking to her), but she really wanted her daughter and granddaughter to learn, so she said she'd invite them over and we could come over another day and teach them, now that she was divorced and her husband couldn't keep her from really learning more.

I know that the Lord answers our prayers. I know that He is preparing His children, so that when the time is right for them, they will be ready to accept the gospel. I know that we really do have the gospel of Jesus Christ restored on the earth again, and that the fullness thereof can only be found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that the things I (try to) teach every day are true, without a doubt. I have taught a lot of people on my mission, helped build a lot of testimonies, but the most important one I worked on was mine.

I also know that missionaries are supes awkward when they return. I used to not understand and maybe laugh at them a bit. I swore I would not be return missionary awkward when I returned from my mission. Well, I saw a friend from home the other day. I gave her some boxes to take back to my house so I wouldn't have to send them, because she was going back to Utah anyway. We tried to talk for a while. What I mean by that is that she talked for a while, and I felt really awkward. I tried to keep up conversation enough so that it wouldn't feel like I was using her, but it was hard. Missionaries are really awkward. I could talk to you about the scriptures and what I learned in personal study all day long, or how important the Atonement is. You want to talk about Doctor Who and people that are married and plans for the future?  I will try my best, but I don't really know how anymore. So, moral of the story, when I return in three years (don't be confused or burst my bubble, that's what I have to tell myself lately to keep from crying), I will be super awkward. I am only sorry for you, that you have to suffer return missionary awkwardness, I am actually quite pleased with this growth I have achieved.

Pues, I love you all!

Hermana Miller

La Unica Nueva Foto

Hermana Hubner made this. Don't be jealous that I have the coolest companion ever. #10thCommandment

Serve the Lord with Love, April 20,2015

                                                                    
                                                                        

This week was super long. I don't remember a lot of it, and I need to type up my exit interview essays ): so this'll be short. Sorry!

Hermana Hubner and I had an awesome lesson with Miguel this week. (: His wife is a less active member, and she was married in the temple previously, but is now civilly (is that how you spell it? English is hard.) divorced, and civilly married to Miguel. We watched Finding Faith in Christ, and talked afterwards about Because He Lives, so much is possible, and even that we can live with our families after this life. Miguel really enjoyed it, and the next morning, his wife texted us and asked if it was possible to be sealed to someone else after having been divorced. (: I love the progression this family it making. It's wonderful.

We also had a lesson with Lorena this week. It was the first time I had met her, and she'd been in Mexico for two months, and so we kind of did some how to begin teaching and getting to know her. The Spirit was really strong, and we invited her to be baptized. She accepted without hesitation. We knew that we could have even invited her to be baptized on a specific date, and she would have accepted, the Spirit was so strong, but we felt like it wouldn't be okay, because we want her to fully understand what baptism is before she commits that seguramente. Maybe next time. (:

Also, we we had met with Miguel, he told us to go visit his sister and teach her, too, so we did that on Thursday night before exchanges. We parked our car in Everson, and took off on our bikes, sure we knew the road was, and knowing it was a little far, but not too bad. So we started our trek, and an hour later (the road being further that we thought; past Nooksack, I'm sure almost to Sumas), we hit the end of her street, not having seen her address, the numbers not even close to her house number. We take a deep breath, being careful not to inhale too many cow fumes, and stand with our bikes, trying to decide what to do while we let our pompis take a break from the super hard seats. We decide to try the next street up, and I sit down, try to

pedal, but the chain jumps, and I fall over. Jajajajaja. I have had so many bike problems on my mission.

These bikes are super awesome, in that they are not actually mission bikes, but they're old, rusty, worn out bikes a member gave us before he moved to California. They're also men's bikes, so getting on and off, we have to be supes careful because it's like climbing the Great Wall of China, and if you're not careful, however short or long your skirt is, you might end up showing off your testimony to those around (but usually they're just cows, so not too big of a deal) Mine is older and rustier that Hermana Hubner's, because hers is shorter, and she's shorter than I am.

We laugh, check to make sure the bike's okay, and take off toward's the next street. Miraculously, it was a continuation of the other street, so we biked it for a while, then when it got super steep, we got off and walked. When I was dismounting my Great Wall of China, Hermana Hubner got this concerned look on her face, so I looked down at my legs, and saw a stream of blood flowing calming down both of them. Guys, I am condemned to Maxi skirts the rest of my mission to hide these (awesome) bruises I have, and probably despues to Maxi's and jeans for the rest of my life to hide the all the scars. The number of times I have fallen off my bike of my mission is too high for me to remember, and my number of scars has increased dramatically, as well. Shame shame.

So, I shrug my shoulders, readjust my skirt to cover my pobrecitos legs, and we continue on for another mile or más before we reach Lucy's house, which has the longest driveway ever, because her home is behind all of her fields and greenhouses. Then she wasn't home, and we journeyed back to the car. Other than the ride to Paola's house, and the smell of cow that has seeped into my skin super bad I will never smell like a human again, that's probably one of my favorite bike rides. It's probably about a 15 miler. (:

Then exchanges. (: That was fun. I discovered that cute German little Sister Bartsch is friends with the only other person I know from Germany, Sister Menchien (or algo asi) who served where I lived in Virginia. Small world, big family.

So, that was our week. Nobody came to church (surprise!), but this was a good week. (:

Love you all!

Hermana Miller

P.S. I know I said this was going to be short, but I was stalling to not have to write my essays. Oops...

Sé que ustedes solomente quieren las fotos.

                                                                                     

The patch of mud is indeed where our tire was.

                                                                                      

                                                                         

 I was eating some Conversation Hearts, and I found one in Spanish. It made my day.

                                                                                 

 

                                                                               

Lynden: A town so Christian, they hate Mormons

Snowing on the mountains?

                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                  

                                                                         

Picture one: These are aguacates. Seriously. They're babies!! (sorry, I don't know how to say aguacate in English)

Las demas: Personal faves found on my camera. Yes, you've seen them before.

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"I'm from Utah." "Yeah? You didn't get overrun by the Mormons?" April 13,2015

This week was pretty fun. We had transfers, and I'm back in Bellingham. Hermana Hubner is my companion. She's seriously new-she just finished training.

Our first night together was fun. We were heading over to Blaine to teach Miguel, and we accidentally made a wrong turn. So, to save miles, we were just going to make a U-turn. First of all, Blaine (and every other part of our area) is super country. It's like the drive out to Mendon, that road with the cows, and, during the summer, the zonkey, camels, zebra... I don't remember. But yeah, it's like that, but with a few more houses. So we saw two driveways in a row, and decided that would be a perfect place to make a U-turn without having to reverse. But somehow neither of us saw the ditch between the driveways.

We drove slowly into the first driveway, we were turning into the second, but de repente, the front right wheel dropped. Hermana Hubner quickly put her foot on the brake, then tried to reverse (without a backer...) out, to no avail (because there was no backer?). So we put the car in park, and discussed what we should do ("Should we call the district leader?" ".... No, he won't be able to do anything." "Oh! Duh, let's call Elder Walkinghorse (the vehicle coordinator)!"), as it get colder the closer you get to Canada, and we weren't sure how far in we were, so we didn't really want to get out of the car.

Then some people pulled into the driveway that we hadn't quite made it into, and asked if we wanted them to push us out. We told them we had tried reversing to no avail, and they told us that made sense because the back end of the car was so high in the air. They told us they were going to call someone with a truck to pull us out, and that we shouldn't get out of the car or move around too much or we might flip, and we called Elder Walkinghorse.  He was very adamant that we did not have some guy with a truck pull us out, because that might damage the bumper even more that it might have been damaged, and apparently bumpers are really expensive to repair/replace. So he asked to speak with one of the men outside and have his suggest a good tow truck company. There was a lot of talking, and us waiting anxiously in the car, and finally the phone was returned to us, and we were told that someone would be there in 45 minutes to tow us out (because it's farmland up here, it takes forever to get anywhere). The men left, because there wasn't anything they could do, and we sat in the car and waited.

Thankfully, I had my emergency bubbles that my mom sent me for Easter, so we weren't totally bored. But we called Miguel and told them we wouldn't make it because we were in a ditch, and they decided they HAD to come see if they could help, even though we told them everything was under control. They got there about the same time as the tow truck. We got towed out, Miguel and his wife invited us over for pizza, and all was well. (:

We also had two confirmations yesterday! (: Elizabeth and Eduardo, Jr. were baptized last Sunday. Their parents and younger sister were baptized last month, so they're just this cute little recent convert family. (: Their testimonies are so cute and STRONG. Seriously. They are truly converted. I love it. (:

That's all. folks!

Hermana Miller

There will be pictures of the ditch next week, I forgot my camera in the car.

#GraciasaqueÉlvive March 30,2015

Querida Familia y Amigos,

This week was pretty good. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary, we tocared puertas, we taught some people, we found some members who had recently moved from Guatemala (recently like December) and didn't know where the Spanish congregation was, so we told them and they came to church on Sunday, even though (per usual) we did not have any investigators at church.

I really enjoyed the Woman's Conference, as well. It talked a lot about families, though, that was kind of hard because I love my family a lot, and I haven't seen them for a while, and I know I'll see them after a transfer.

Something really cool I want to tell you guys about is that we found a Chileana (a woman from Chile). During the course of my mission, I hadn't met anyone from Chile, in fact, I forgot it was a country where people spoke Spanish. Then Kelton got his call to Chile, then we find Laura. (: She's really cool. We haven't been able to teach her yet, but she's solid. We left her with the first pamphlet to read before we came back, then we unable to set a return appointment because she works crazy hours and doesn't even know her schedule. We thought it was a lost cause because she was like, "Yeah, just any time you're in the area, you can stop by and see if I'm here," because tampoco does she have a phone. But we stopped by again this week and she was heading out to work, but we asked if she'd read the pamphlet. She had, and she said she loved it. She said everything made sense, and she wished she had time to discuss it with us. Then we asked if there was another time we could stop by and got the same response as last time, but she asked if there was anything else she could read. So we left her with the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. We stopped by again later to invite her to womans conference, and again, she was leaving for work and not able to go, but she loved the pamphlet, so we shared with her a #BecauseHeLives card. She's progressing all on her own! She just needs to stop working long enough to meet with us and come to church. (:

#BecauseHeLives! That is the coolest new thing. Cooler than Justin Beiber or Frozen or some other worldly thing that I don't understand! Click it (if your clicker doesn't want to click it, typehelives.mormon.org into the search bar). Watch it. Share on facebook with your testimony and the hashtag #BecauseHeLives. Tell people you see on the street about this cool 2 minute video that's cooler than any Vine (even the one with the cute little kid yelling "MY PLAN IS TO GO TO AFRICA, MARRY A BLACK MAN, HAVE CHILDREN THAT LOOK LIKE CHOCOLATE"), any cat video on youtube, cooler that Charlie biting his brothers' finger, cooler than a unicorn also named Charlie, cooler than Kid History, cooler than Julian Smith (is that it? or is he Jillian Michaels? I don't remember) cooler than ANYTHING. And, added bonus, as soon as the music starts, WHOOSH. You can feel the Spirit. Wow.

Love you guys!

Hermana Miller

"Are you my new neighbors?" "Are you the servants?" March 23,2015

Querida Familia y Amigos,

This week was terribly normal. We tracted a lot. Dropped some people. No one came to church. It's a little discouraging, to be honest.

So, to make it not so bad, we decided to do some secret service. We went over to Paola's house. I don't know if you guys remember her, she's a former from Peru. Loooove her. Well, their yard esta bien feo. So many weeds and dead grass. They want to fix it, but Michael works all the time and Paola and Yudi are taking care of Micah and working in the house all day long, so they don't have time, either. So Hermana Webb and I went over and spent an hour picking weeds. (: There's still a lot to go, we didn't even make a dent. But we will return and work some more next week. The neighbors all came up and talked to us. It was crazy, who knew people actually communicated with their neighbors anymore? Usually, we're like, "Do you know anyone around here that speaks Spanish?" and they're like, "Honestly, I've been living here for x years, and I don't know anyone." But these neighbors were super nice. (: One of them, wow. When he returned to his car to bring in the groceries his wife had just bought, his neighbor pulled in and saw the carpet truck out front and all the carpet things in the driveway (it wasn't raining this day, surprise, I know), was like, "Hey (neighbor's name)! How are you? What's going on? Are you remodeling? Do you need any help?" Hermana Webb and I just turned to each other in shock. What? What is this? We decided the neighbor that just arrived was a member.

Another man greeted us as he walked past to take his dog on a walk. When he was returning, he saw us still working in the yard, and he called out to us, "Are you the servants?" It was so funny. But it was also a really good opportunity to introduce ourselves ("Yes, we are. Haha, no. (: We're actually the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ on Latter-day Saints, and when we're not sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we love to do service, so we just wanted to come and do yard work for some of our friends. Do you need any service?"). That was fun. (:

One of our STL's is sick. ): Like, super sick. They're not quite sure what it is, but she just got over pneumonia last transfer, so that might have something to do with it. So we've been on a lot of exchanges this week, as her companion still needs to work in their area. They're English, so their area is within our area, so it's actually been slightly beneficial for us. Their area is the part of our area that we haven't worked in a lot because it seems super white. So as we've visited with their members and investigators, we've been able to ask if they know anyone Spanish around there. The answer, after much thought, is usually no, an that's really helpful, because now we know that we don't have to tract those specific neighborhoods and waste our time. (:

I think that's about it...

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Miller