Tuesday, October 4, 2016

10.3.16

Hey guys!

What an awesome weekend with conference! There were some great talks.
Not really sure what my favorite was so many good ones. Rosa came and
listened with us on saturday and brought a friend. It was really cool
and the friend said she really liked it. We invited them back for
sunday, but the friend works on sunday and says thats the only reason
she doesn't always come to our church sundays. We are going to try and
find her this week and see if we can change that haha.

This last Wednesday was transfers and elder clough went to Peoria, and
i got elder waters! He's awesome. Elder waters is from portland
oregon. He's a really smart super nice guy. I was with him when I was
down in peoria. We had a ton of fun doing the Heroes of salvation
thing down there. He's pumped to be up here, a change from the valley,
and im super excited to be with him. He the best.

We are not really sure what happened to Stephanie. She has sorta
disappeared. She doesn't answer our texts or calls, doesn't come to
church, and we dont know where she lives because she always meets us
at a members house. I really hope she's just out of town or
something😕

We had a cool little thing happen this week. We received a referral
from the mission president. He send us an email to go find someone for
him up in sedona. We stopped by yesterday and met Angelique. She was
super nice, and really just wanted to know more bout us. She had a
nephew who just left on his mission this last month, and so she said
it sorta perked her interest. We talked about some of her questions
and set up another time to come back. She seemed genuinely interested
so we are pretty excited about that. We haven't had anyone in Sedona
to teach, so it'll be fun getting to be up there more.

Sister graham is the best member ever. She is down in spring valley
and is brining us people left and right.She is the one that introduced
to denise, and elyssa, and now Alyssa. We havnt been able to teach
alyssa yet, but she listened to conference with the grahams to and
really liked it. We get to go meet her tomorrow.
I love the grahams. they are so awesome and really remind me like im
home. Sister graham acts very similar to mom, and brother graham s
very similar to dad as well, even in build he's about 6' 5'' as well
and loves basketball and all that stuff haha. So it kinda feels weird
being over there sometimes but they are super cool and i love them.

President griffin has been getting everyone ready for october for a
while now, because he wants this to be a huge month. He has set a goal
for 80 baptisms this month, and we average about 60 so it'll be quite
the jump, but a district we have the goal to have 13 this month
between 4 companionships which would be awesome! The best month this
area has seen a while. And then i guess if we hit 80 there will be a
day where the whole mission gets together and has like a huge party
all day. I think it'll be sweet. We have 2 on date for october and
hoping to get 1 more tonight!

So that's what's going on in cottonwood 😄

Hope everyone's doing good

Elder Miller

Monday, October 3, 2016

9.26.16

Well today's transfers and I'm staying! Elder clough is going back
down to Phoenix. He's actually going to my last area in Peoria. My new
companion is elder Waters! He's awesome, he was in Peoria when I was
down there. He's a good guy. He's been out about a yr. I'm excited.

I got the MRI yesterday, but they said they won't have the results for
a bit, so we'll see how it goes.
So not a whole ton of time because elder clough has to pack and say
goodbye, but I'll kinda go over that other week.

We had a branch party on monday and that was fun. There were a bunch of innactives, and some investigators as well. Its funny how everyone always wants to come to the fun stuff haha. but it was good and the following sunday a few of the inactives came to church so that was cool.

On tuesday we had 2 awesome lessons. The first one was with a lady named providence. shes 50ish and speaks spanish and english so we sorta go back and forth.She is down in spring valley. I cant remember if ive talked about her before. She is a lady who has been jehovas witness but doesnt feel its right for her and has been super excited to learn more. She had so many perfect questions and was just so ready to soak everything up. It was super fun to teach, because she knows the bible, and wants to learn and just loved it all. To make it even better, even though she likes what we teach, she said that she wants to pray about it and see what god thinks, because she wants to start truly doing what the lord wants. So its been super fun.

We also got to teach Denise that day and it was incredible. It was the strongest ive felt the spirit during a lesson ever. it was so cool, and he helped me say everything perfectly for her. She is such a special girl, thats gone through so much, she loves the church and loves the spirit. Shes been having to go down to phoenix on sundays, and hasnt been able to come to church, and with conference this week we wont be able to go down on saturday, so we are pushing her baptism just a little back and she was kinda sad. but thats cool that she cares about it like that. Its really cool teaching her.

On wednesday we had exchanges with the elders we live with and i went with elder gray. Hes a funny kid. hes been out 6 weeks now, and hes rocking it. haha its fun to see his energy and "greeny spirit" as they say haha.

Friday we had another exchange with the zone leaders from flagstaff. Becasue they have to drive so far we did one that was from mid fri to saturday night, and we did a ton of stuff haha. we were up in sedona, (half hr north) and then came back to cottonwood and did some spanish stuff, then went down to spring valley ( an hr south) and did back to english stuff, then went up to cortis lakes (20 min north of spring valley) and did more spanish stuff haha. its was a lot of lessons lots of language change, and tons of driving. We also met elysa and have been able to teach her a few times now as she is so sweet. She has been coming to church for almost a y ear now with her 14 yr old sister who is a member. Her goal is to get baptized on oct 15! shes super excited, and just likes learning about jesus :)

Then that sunday I was asked to give a talk up in the sedona ward, and that was interesting. It is a english ward with not many people in it, but i guess there are just tons of visitors each week, and thats how they are still a ward haha. It was weird giving a talk in english but i think it went pretty good. I talked on the atonement, and at one point read the story from elder hollands talk about the boys that went climbing and got stuck and the older brother tried to jump and didnt quite make it but the little brother saved him. I dont know if you remember that one, but i liked it and how it compared christ to the brother and how he literally saves us. but like the story we have to jump and do our part first.
And then to wrap up an awesome week, we went hiking up in sedona and it was beautiful. i about cried the whole way with my knee haha, but it was super fun.
This week was a bit slower, just sorta an off week, but im excited to have elder waters as my companion. we should have fun and we should have some awesome baptisms!

love you guys! have a good one

elder miller