Ola familia e amigos!
This week was pretty good with all the “Thanksgivingness” going on: turkey baking (well for me, eating), pie eating, more turkey eating, stuffing yourself until your buttons are popping off or you have to get stretchy pants like Joey from the TV show Friends just to tackle on your winged, feathered challenge. It sounds like something my friend Sam would do, and Garrison will totally agree with that haha Oh and of course Black Friday stories that always reminds me why we have holidays, to shop. Oh I mean, uhm, to celebrate what again? Kind of sad how people forget what Thanksgiving and Christmas are all about, and I again, caught a glimpse of that. It's to be with families, celebrate giving thanks for everything we have and to be grateful for all that has been given, and also Christmas being the birth of our savior into this world. I am totally cool with presents (mom, dad, listen up) but when you push people over for a snuggie, that's kind of, well, some self reflection is needed that's all I'm saying haha
So I had one Thanksgiving dinner wednesday night and 3 more Thursday so it was definitely worth it. I had the fried turkey at one member's house and it was amazing!! It was soo bad for my health but soo good for my soul. Later that night our branch mission leader (the guy who is kind of in charge of helping and working with the missionaries in the area, so us.) invited us over to his place way up in some hill, and have a bonfire with his family and he lit up the bonfire with a blow torch and I got to light the big grill, where we had burgers, with the torch also, it was pretty sweet. This guy is 70 by the way haha he acts like he is 25.
Other cool things that have happened this week is that we had our Mission President (guy who is head over all the missionaries in the Alabama mission) and he spoke to our branch yesterday at church so we went out to visit as many people as we can to get them out to church because he doens't come out to small branches like this very often. We had a older couple there and they ahdn't been out for years, fatehr is a non-member and the mom has been a member but inactive for pretty much all her life. Remember I talked about my first week here how I met a guy from fremont, CA. These are the same people. After he spoke, the mission president met with a lot of people, we handed out his book for everyone, and the guy from CA said he loved it and that they are coming back! He said thanks to us 3 (me, my companion, and our mission leader because we have met with him) they are coming back. This other non-member guy who is a veteran said he loved it too and would love to have the mission president over to talk with him as he, the veteran guy, is not a member as well. It was soo great! We had 123 people there which is above our average sacrament meeting attendance so that was a plus. You could see how much this touched people's lives. I'm pretty stoked to teach the two guys with our mission president.
We are still meeting with the family from Panama. We haven't been able to reach them a whole lot, only short visits for 15 minutes, because of Thanksgiving and they were out of town. Anywayyss, we saw them last night but only talked to the mom for 5 minutes, then she had to go, then we actually talked with the grandpa (the minister) for a good 15 minutes and got to know him more. He is actually a really awesome guy! He teaches the Spanish congregation at his church so his is very important tot hose people, and he translates sometimes and yeah. He has been here in the U.S. for 11 years but grew up and lived in Panama. We talked about Panama and how I am going to brazil, we talked about missionary work and a little bit about the gospel but went back and forth between the two. He is a really neat guy and said "I will chill with you guys soon because I want to talk" and we said yeah sure, anytime. We gave him a book from church because they weren't able to come so we saved some for them. He said he would like to read it before we invite the mission president out first and we said that's perfectly ok. It was really neat.
Alright, last thing haha I was able to have the wonderful opportunity to give the Aaronic Priesthood to the guy that we baptized earlier this month., I was kind of nervous but once we laid our hands on his head it was an amazing feeling and you could really feel the Spirit being poured in that room. After church as we said goodbye to hium and his family (his wife being a recent convert about 2 months ago) he was out he door and said "thanks elder miller", I replied back, "no problem" and just the smile on his face said it all. He is such a humble guy and so willing to make changes in his life for the better and for his family. He was really excited to recieve this priesthood so then he can bless him and his family's life forever. It's another one of those moments I like to phrase with "o evangelho 'e uma coisa bonita". The gospel is a beautiful thing.
Eu amo esta igreja, voces devem ja saber isto haha mas eu sou muito grato por esta opportunidade para servir uma missao. As vezes 'e dificil mas eu posso ver como eu posso apprender de essas experiencias. Nos podemos apprender de nossa experiencias, mal ou bom. Eu amo voces e esparo que voces estao tendo um bom tempo com sas familias por os feriados. Eu espero voces comeram muito pero haha eu amo comida! Mas, continue com fazendo as coisas que sao de nosso Salvador e voces vao receber muitas bencoes. Eu amo voces. Tchau!
Elder Spencer Miller
college basketball!! I can not wait for Bracketology, college gamedays, rivalry weekends, it's gonna be sweet, well more for you guys then me haha but still! Tchau!
This week was pretty good with all the “Thanksgivingness” going on: turkey baking (well for me, eating), pie eating, more turkey eating, stuffing yourself until your buttons are popping off or you have to get stretchy pants like Joey from the TV show Friends just to tackle on your winged, feathered challenge. It sounds like something my friend Sam would do, and Garrison will totally agree with that haha Oh and of course Black Friday stories that always reminds me why we have holidays, to shop. Oh I mean, uhm, to celebrate what again? Kind of sad how people forget what Thanksgiving and Christmas are all about, and I again, caught a glimpse of that. It's to be with families, celebrate giving thanks for everything we have and to be grateful for all that has been given, and also Christmas being the birth of our savior into this world. I am totally cool with presents (mom, dad, listen up) but when you push people over for a snuggie, that's kind of, well, some self reflection is needed that's all I'm saying haha
So I had one Thanksgiving dinner wednesday night and 3 more Thursday so it was definitely worth it. I had the fried turkey at one member's house and it was amazing!! It was soo bad for my health but soo good for my soul. Later that night our branch mission leader (the guy who is kind of in charge of helping and working with the missionaries in the area, so us.) invited us over to his place way up in some hill, and have a bonfire with his family and he lit up the bonfire with a blow torch and I got to light the big grill, where we had burgers, with the torch also, it was pretty sweet. This guy is 70 by the way haha he acts like he is 25.
Other cool things that have happened this week is that we had our Mission President (guy who is head over all the missionaries in the Alabama mission) and he spoke to our branch yesterday at church so we went out to visit as many people as we can to get them out to church because he doens't come out to small branches like this very often. We had a older couple there and they ahdn't been out for years, fatehr is a non-member and the mom has been a member but inactive for pretty much all her life. Remember I talked about my first week here how I met a guy from fremont, CA. These are the same people. After he spoke, the mission president met with a lot of people, we handed out his book for everyone, and the guy from CA said he loved it and that they are coming back! He said thanks to us 3 (me, my companion, and our mission leader because we have met with him) they are coming back. This other non-member guy who is a veteran said he loved it too and would love to have the mission president over to talk with him as he, the veteran guy, is not a member as well. It was soo great! We had 123 people there which is above our average sacrament meeting attendance so that was a plus. You could see how much this touched people's lives. I'm pretty stoked to teach the two guys with our mission president.
We are still meeting with the family from Panama. We haven't been able to reach them a whole lot, only short visits for 15 minutes, because of Thanksgiving and they were out of town. Anywayyss, we saw them last night but only talked to the mom for 5 minutes, then she had to go, then we actually talked with the grandpa (the minister) for a good 15 minutes and got to know him more. He is actually a really awesome guy! He teaches the Spanish congregation at his church so his is very important tot hose people, and he translates sometimes and yeah. He has been here in the U.S. for 11 years but grew up and lived in Panama. We talked about Panama and how I am going to brazil, we talked about missionary work and a little bit about the gospel but went back and forth between the two. He is a really neat guy and said "I will chill with you guys soon because I want to talk" and we said yeah sure, anytime. We gave him a book from church because they weren't able to come so we saved some for them. He said he would like to read it before we invite the mission president out first and we said that's perfectly ok. It was really neat.
Alright, last thing haha I was able to have the wonderful opportunity to give the Aaronic Priesthood to the guy that we baptized earlier this month., I was kind of nervous but once we laid our hands on his head it was an amazing feeling and you could really feel the Spirit being poured in that room. After church as we said goodbye to hium and his family (his wife being a recent convert about 2 months ago) he was out he door and said "thanks elder miller", I replied back, "no problem" and just the smile on his face said it all. He is such a humble guy and so willing to make changes in his life for the better and for his family. He was really excited to recieve this priesthood so then he can bless him and his family's life forever. It's another one of those moments I like to phrase with "o evangelho 'e uma coisa bonita". The gospel is a beautiful thing.
Eu amo esta igreja, voces devem ja saber isto haha mas eu sou muito grato por esta opportunidade para servir uma missao. As vezes 'e dificil mas eu posso ver como eu posso apprender de essas experiencias. Nos podemos apprender de nossa experiencias, mal ou bom. Eu amo voces e esparo que voces estao tendo um bom tempo com sas familias por os feriados. Eu espero voces comeram muito pero haha eu amo comida! Mas, continue com fazendo as coisas que sao de nosso Salvador e voces vao receber muitas bencoes. Eu amo voces. Tchau!
Elder Spencer Miller
college basketball!! I can not wait for Bracketology, college gamedays, rivalry weekends, it's gonna be sweet, well more for you guys then me haha but still! Tchau!
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