"Oh, y ven a mi casa manana a las 6 para una fiesta para la cumpliano de la Hermana Miller!" "... What?!"

This week has been good!

Last Monday was awesome. Hermana LeBaron, Alyssa Carey, her friend Brynnan (en? No recuerdo...), y yo fuimos al Peace Arch. ... I'm pretty sure we accidentally left the mission/country. Oh well. We got some cool pictures. (: Oh my goodness, I missed Alyssa a ton. I'm so excited to have her come tracting with us. (:

I have the worst memory, I'm sorry. I feel like cool stuffs happened this week, but I can't remember much.

We went to Blaine on Friday, not really expecting to find any Hispanics, but it's part of our area, and we've been neglecting it, so we had to go work on it. We have two return appointments and a few referrals we didn't have time to get to. Yay! (:

Saturday was my birthday, and we did some awesome service, like, all day. There's this project called.... Skagit Community Housing, or something? No se. But how it works is these families all qualify for Skagit/Whatcom county to build them a new house, except they and their friends have to do all the labor. 40 hours a week has to be put in. The lease holders have to put in 17 hours a week themselves, and the family and friends can come help put in the rest. Elizabeth, a RC, has been helping her brother build his house, but they're not getting a lot of help, and he has a job, and she's trying to get a job, so we came and we helped them get more hours in. (: I helped build a house! It's not done yet, but it kind of reminded me of when we helped with Habitat for Humanity in Virginia. (: That was fun.

But somehow, everyone and their dog knew it was my birthday. I felt so awkward and kind of irritated all day like, "No, I can help even though it's my birthday. Just let me help!" Plus I don't like, like, a lot of attention.

We went to dinner with the bishop from one of the English wards, and they had a super fancy Sunday dinner in 'celebration.' Then, she (the wife) pulls out this chocolate cake with oreo filling and a turtleshell-like chocolate on the outside, and she's like, "I didn't know what a cookie cake was, so I hope this is good enough!" And it goes quiet. The English Elders, the Bishop and his wife, their daughter; everyone is looking at Hermana LeBaron and I. I was looking at her like, "It was you! You're the one that's been telling everyone!" and she was looking at me like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to die tonight."

But I got the coolest birthday card ever!! So cool. It's a caricature of me as a missionary. Super cool. (:

Church on Sunday, oh my gosh. "Hermana Miller, feliz cumpliano!" "Hermana Miller, feliz cumplianos! Cuantos anos tienes?"

Then, after Relief Society, the all men (haha, 'all the men.' there's like 3) came back in so we could all talk about emergency preparedness, and after the prayer, the group leader, Hermano Quintanilla, was announcing last minute things, and he said (this is translated), "Oh, and come to my house tomorrow night! We're have a party for Hermana Miller's birthday!" Everyone looked at me excitedly like, "Yeah! Another party! We haven't had a party for a week! Man, I can't believe it's been so long! Yeah, fiesta!" and I was like, "What!?" So, apparently, I'm having a birthday party tonight. Alrighty.

Hahaha, kay. Love you all!

Hasta la semana proxima.

                                                            I love decorating my study wall. (:

Cows, Baptisms, Mother's Day, and ALL of that fun stuffs. May 12,2014

Querida Familia y Amigos,

So, I'm in Bellingham now! Pues, vivo en Ferndale, where you walk outside, and all you can smell is cows and cow poop.

My companion is Hermana LeBaron. She is super awesome!! She's from San Diego and... That town in Mexico right next to it. So, yeah. My companion is a Mexican. If you're jealous that your companion isn't fluent in your mission language and mine is, you're ridiculous. Unless you're English speaking, or not a missionary. (:

Guys, my birthday is like, here! On Saturday, I'll be veinte! How lo-lo is that?? (Lo-lo is a word Hermana Andersen used a lot. It's like cray-cray, you know, shortish for crazy, and so lo-lo is shortish for loco.) So lo-lo. No lo puedo creer. Wow.

This week was an adventure. On the way up (very much up. The border to Canada is in my area) to Bellingham from tranfsers, we were talking about cows, and how I don't remember ever having petted a cow before, and that was something I want to do in my life. Well, we had a lesson with Salvador that night, and right before he was going to pray to end the lesson, a cow mooed. Hermana LeBaron was like, "Una vaca!" I'd forgotten already our conversation on the way up, so Salvador and I just looked at her like, ummm, yeah? And she was like, "No, una vaca! Hermana Miller nunca ha tocado una vaca, y quisiera!" So we went, and we touched a cow. (: Don't worry, we took a picture. But we couldn't touch the cow that mooed, because Salvador's neighbors wouldn't have liked that, so we followed Salvador to a dairy farm, and I touched a cow being milked, and a new born (like, 20 minutes before we got there new born) calf and thought the mama was going to kill me.

Salvador was baptized on Saturday! Yaaay! He's supes great. It's so exciting to be a part of this work. (:

Sunday, I went to church barefoot! After the baptism, we played soccer and volleyball, and so I banished my shoes to the trunk of our car, and didn't have the hands to bring them in that night went we got home late, so before church, we were flustered because we were running late, so I grabbed my shoes out of the back of the car, was holding them and the area book as I was backing Hermana LeBaron, and as I went to get in the car, I felt one of my shoes fall, but I thought it fell into the car. It didn't. So, I just wore no-show socks during church.

Alyssa Carey lives in my area! After sacrament, this elderly man came up and gave us cards that complimented our smiles, and I was like, "Hey! I have a friend from Utah that told me her grandpa that lives in Bellingham does this, too! Her name is Alyssa Carey, do you know her?" And he's like, "Yeah, she's my granddaughter, and she's living with us right now!" Yay for future member presents!

I skyped my family yesterday! It was super awesome! I love them!

I love you all, too! Write me!

Love,

Hermana Miller

 Eva and I. She's a member (we think) in Mount Vernon. Someday, we're going to Mexico together.

                                                            This is church! What!?

                                                                 Touchin' a cow.

                                                        Need some spring cleaning done?

                                               All the rest: Bautismo de Salvador Rios.

                                   

"In His plan there are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings." Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Querido Amigos y Familia,

Wow, conference was so awesome!! Soo awesome! If you did not have the chance to watch it, I invite you to, even before finishing reading this email, watch it now. Or, verlo en espanol. It was so good! There was not a dull talk!

There were so many awesome things I learned that I would love to share with you, but I forgot my notebook at the casa. ):

This week was better, sorry to concern you. I found 77 cents in one day, that was pretty legit.

I don't know what else. Just this week was better. We did lots of missionary things, like knocking on doors, teaching lessons, getting rejected, or, more common in this cultural, being told we could come back the next day or so, and when we come back, they're not home because they're not interested and they didn't want to say it to our faces.

I love Hermana Lyman, my companion, and I love the hermanas we live with. Hermana Brunsdale is a hoot. She is so hilarious. And Hermana Bain is more quiet, but she is super nice.

Man, conference was so great. I loved it so much. I really did. It seemed so short this year! ):

Oh, between sessions yesterday, we had a Correlation Meeting at Hermano Reed's house, up on this mountain. There's this huge army truck outside, and this huge Beethoven dog barking at us as we pulled up (the hermanas we live with have a car, they're our transportation to stuff that's too far away to bike to). We were really scared, like, "For really? Is this his house?" But sure enough, Hermano Reed the Younger (a cop) walks out to greet us. We told him it would have seemed more legit if he came out shouldering a rifle, and he just laughed.

The house itself is gorgeous! It's the typical grandparents house from the movies, wood floors, old huge grand piano, huge antique kitchen, wow. It was so gorgeous. For real. And they'd made us this huge Sunday morning breakfast, waffles, cut strawberries and bananas, whipped cream, sausage, bacon, eggs. Man, it was so good to have a homecooked breakfast. Mmmm, yeah.

So after we ate, and we still had time for talking before the next session, so they were laughing and telling stories (the Reeds and the other missionaries), and I was sitting there, listening, like I do, then all of a sudden Hermano Reed the Elder, sat up straight, turned to me, and said "How long have you been out?" I told him, and he's like, "How's your Spanish?" I told him it was alright, but not as good as I wanted it to be, and what he said gave me chills and the Spirit was so strong. Well, first of all, you should know that he's been a stake president a few times, and he's friends with a lot of the apostles, and maybe even the profeta, no se. He said:

"Hermana Miller, I promise you, in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that your Spanish will improve and you speak with the people, and that you are here for a reason, so your Spanish will get better as you exercise faith."

Then as we were all soaking up the Spirit, he relaxed and said, "I was prompted to say that." and moved on to a story from his mission like nothing happened.

Holy cow, guys. Like, the Spirit is so strong right now just thinking about it.

The next session was great, and the Spirit was strong as we watched it, but it was no where near as strong as it was when he said that to me. 

Something we tell the investigators a lot, because they have a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon because they're 'super' Catholic and believe in the Bible, is that, to know if this church is true, the only way to know is to pray about the Book of Mormon, and ask God if it is true. Because if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God, and everything we teach is true. And as Joseph Smith said in the introduction, the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion.

And if it's not true, no harm, no foul, they can go back to being 'very religious,' safeguarding their Bibles on the top of their book shelf and going to mass once a year.

But if they get the answer that it is true, that changes everything, and they need to act of their answer, and live the Doctrine of Christ (that's the short way of saying it).

I just want you to know that I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know that Joseph Smith translated it with the power of God, and I know that he was truly a prophet of God. I am so grateful for him and the sacrifices he made to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. I know without a doubt that this is the true church of God on the earth. I know that God has a plan for each and every one of us, and the He loves us individually. I know the Christ suffered for us in the Garden of Gethsemane because He loves us and He wanted to make it possible for us, sinners, to repent and return to the presence of our Heavenly Father someday. I know that that Jesucristo felt everything that we feel so that He can always be there to help us through our bad times and rejoice with us through our good times. I know that we can always pray to our Father in the name of Christ and get answers to our prayers. I love them and each one of you so much, and y comparto este en el nombre de Jesucristo. Amen.

Love,

Hermana Miller

I forgot the pictures. Here you go! (:

1. April Fools Day got out of hand.

Everything else is just pictures of stuffs.

Having issues with loading other images they will be updated later.

Sabreak... No, saber... Tenga un bren dia! ... Close enough...

Querida Familia y Amigos,

Wow. Okay. So, this week was normal (yeah. normal), then everything exploded this weekend. After companionship inventory on Friday, there was calling of STLs and zone leaders, and the next day, there was a call from President Bonham... Man, the craziness (is that how you spell it? That English looks wrong).

We had three exchanges this past week. That's a lot. Wednesday, we found out we could an exchange a transfer with the hermanas we live with, so Thursday we exchanged. I stay in our area with Hermana Bain, and Hermana Lyman went to Sedro Woolley with Hermana Brunsdale. That was all good, we got a new investigator that day. She's getting there, age-wise, and she's constantly in pain. ): Her son is the only member in her family, and he invited us to meet with her. She told us she's taken the lessons before, and she went to church a lot, and she's basically a member, she just doesn't see the need to be baptized again, as she was baptized Catholic as a baby, then in her 30's, she was baptized Evangelist.

Saturday, we had an exchange with the STLs, kind of. They had just started an exchange when we called them the night before, so Sister Holt (an STL) was still in her area, and Sister Ma'ake was in another area, so when we exchanged within their exchange, Sister Fishburn came to our area and was Spanish speaking for the day. I bet she never thought that would happen, haha.

Yesterday, we (with permission from the zone leaders, who had come by Saturday morning to give a blessing) had another exchange with the hermanas we live with. I went to Sedro Woolley with Hermana Brunsdale, and Hermana Lyman stayed in our area with Hermana Bain.

Sedro Woolley is so pretty! So pretty! It reminded me a lot of Virginia. (: Haha, at one house, Hermana Brunsdale was like, "So, we haven't met this potential yet, last time we tried, they saw us through the window and didn't answer." So we were walking up, and this man peeked through the window. We were like, "Dang it! Now they won't answer!" But we knocked anyway, and we heard him say, "They've already seen me! What do we do?" Hermana Brunsdale and I look at each other, like, what?? Why does he sound so scared?

So he answers, and he just looks terrified, then he sees our name tags, and gives this great sigh of relief. As he runs up the stairs, he's like, "Man, I really thought they were the cops!" We were super confused, then this woman said, "We just accidentally called the cops, and so we were worried."

Then they had to go. At the next potential we went to go visit, we knocked, and we just hear people inside scream. A girl about 12 answers the door, and she's like, "Oh, good. You're not a zombie. My dad's not home, can you come by later?" It was so funny. (:

So that was our week. We're going to play sand volleyball with our district today! I love volleyball. We played last week, and it was so fun. (:

We have interviews with President tomorrow. That'll be fun. We have to be there half an hour earlier than everyone else in the zone was told, so yeah. Fun fun.

Les quiero mucho! I hope everything is well with you guys! Write me!

Hermana Miller