I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. I am
soooo tired all the time but sooo happy all the time too! (I think it is church
doctrine that you have to be exhausted as a missionary. If you are not, that
means you are doing something wrong and not working hard enough.) I feel like I
was born to be out here serving the Lord-it is just a testament to me that my
Heavenly Father is aware of me and has been preparing me my whole life for
this-even through all my challenges and struggles. I sure love my Heavenly
Father for never giving up on me. Because seriously, there is nowhere else in
the world that I would rather be right now.
This week has been a week of growth
for sure. I am being tested like crazy. It is not that anything that we are
studying is specifically hard, but I am being refined right now because I need
to develop more Christlike attributes to replace some of the less desirable
characteristics I have. I am learning patience to replace impatience. I am
learning compassion to replace callousness. I am learning the wisdom to know
when to hold my tongue in place of speaking without thinking. I am learning
confidence and boldness in place of being shy and timid. I am learning to trust
people and open up in place of being closed off. I am learning to see people
for who they can become in place of being judgmental. I am learning to
encourage in place of criticizing. And I am learning to trust the Lord and
listen to every single tiny suggestion of the Spirit...because you never know
why it is important...and maybe you never will...but it is. Stop worrying about
if it is a prompting of the Spirit or not, if it is a good and Christlike
thought, JUST DO IT. It may seem weird or awkward at first but you bet your
bottom dollar that the Lord and the Spirit know more about life and what people
and you need so just set aside your pride and DO IT. You never know what
miracles you can work if you simply listen. I promise you that.
So I got my itinerary, I leave to
Nebraska on November 27th, so the day before Thanksgiving I think. (I have no
idea what is going on in the real world anymore or when anything even is. And
honestly, I don't care one bit. I love getting lost in the work.) Also, my
branch here got dissolved because everyone but our district left to the field
so we are getting reassigned this week. (I will still be in the same district,
I will just attend Sunday services with a different branch.) I am a little sad
about it because the first counselor in my Branch Presidency brought his little
son to our sacrament last week and man, that kid was ROUND. Cutest thing I have
ever seen. Not even kidding, he is the real-life version of Chancho from Nacho
Libre. I kept being nice to him and letting him use my himnario and
complimenting his tie in hopes that he would let me borrow some sweats and give
me his mother's lucky machete. I guess I should have been nicer though because
he didn't. Boo.
I feel like I am really starting to
hit my stride here, both as an individual and as a team with Hermana Buhler and
the Spirit. Personally, I am just getting more and more comfortable with both
my mission languages: the language of Spanish and "the language of
angels," which is the Spirit. I know I can't do anything that I am without
the help from Christ, Heavenly Father, and the Spirit. We do this activity in
class to help us preach simply where we go through the lessons and teach each
principle in one minute to our teachers, and if it is simple and clear we get
to move on to the next principle, and if not, we have to keep repeating it. Well
I did a couple rounds of that and it was going really well so Hermana Olmos
(one of my teachers,) decided to have me do the judging and coaching with
everyone while she took a companionship in another room to talk to them for
thirty minutes about how they are doing. It was so fun. The more I teach people
here (like helping my district with the language or stuff like that,) the more
I think I might like to be some sort of a teacher. I don't know. I just love to
learn and I love to help others learn.Hermana Buhler and I really do make a
very good team. This week our lessons have been sooo much better because we
have been letting the Spirit teach, not us. We committed Rodrigo to baptism
this week-after a looong struggle. He struggles to believe in things he can't
see or touch-he has a very logical mind. We were teaching him the doctrine of
Christ and he could not get around the concept of faith, when all of the sudden
I just had a scripture pop into my head that was PERFECT. A man had randomly
shown Hna Buhler and I the scripture earlier and at the time it was like
"Okay, that's nice....but why?" And all of the sudden in that moment
I knew that man was inspired to share that with us because we would need it
later. The scripture was Alma 32:16-18. Go check it out. It was definitely the
Spirit that told me to share that and brought it to my memory because normally
I can't remember where scriptures are for the life of me. But I found it
without a struggle and had him read it out loud and the Spirit was so strong it
was like a tank just slammed into all of us. So amazing. That lesson was hard
because he had so many tough questions, but afterwards when we talked to
Hermano Ramirez (who plays Rodrigo, who is a real person in his life,) he told
us how proud he was of because we were truly preaching DOCTRINE. Not just
fluff. Doctrine is when you take the principles and apply them to the person.
The application is the most important (and hardest) part of teaching, because
that is how Christ taught. He taught people, not lessons. I dare you to find a
single lesson where he did not cater it to the people he was teaching. That was
an amazing experience. I love having the Spirit with me all the time, and I
will do anything to keep it with me for forever.
I feel like each email is so full of
funny things, and I feel bad for making everyone read all of them. But I make a
point to write them in my notebook as they happen every day because I think you
guys would all laugh at them too. Here are some of the tops from this week:
1.) I challenged my district to use
a Nacho Libre quote in a lesson some time. (Appropriately.) Turns out it is
surprisingly easy! "Why have you not been baptized?? I'm just concerned
about your salvation and stufffff."
2.) The moths here are HUGE. Like
the size of my hand; and for those of you that know me and my fear of moths, I
bet you can imagine exactly what happened when one flapped all over my foot. If
you guessed that I ran about fifty feet all while screaming, you would be
right.
3.) The other night at dinner Hermana
Buhler went to refill her drink and Hermana Field walked over to Buhler's plate
and got so mad and was like "WHAT THE HECK. WHO ATE MY.....oh wait...this
is not even my plate..." and walked off. I just died laughing. (I love
Sister Field, we want to travel the world together.) Oh, speaking of sisters I
love, my best friend here (Hermana Bullough) has a 17 year old brother who is
6'6"....and still growing. We made a genius plan to have him marry Erika
so we can be sisters. I think it is a golden idea.
4.) I have been craving Ophelia's
sandwiches ALL WEEK. But I got both my favorite foods-flan and tamales, so that
was a pretty good
6.) All my Latinos and my best buddy
Elder Dunyon left this week. I am so sad. But we got a lot of good pictures
they should be emailing me! I am going to miss hearing all my latinos shouting
"Seester Meeluhr!!!" everywhere I go! I love them all so much. And I
already miss them.
7.) I am terrifically bad at soccer.
My district always plays and I am simply rotten. But I am very good at sending
controlled passes...to the other team.
8.) The desks here are the kind that
are shaped like trapezoids so you can make them whatever shape you want. One
day this week we set a ton up in a big long rectangle conference table thing
and all sat in the middle of the room at the massive table and decided we are
the LDS- Legion of Dastardly Supervillains. Every time one of our maestros
walked in we would say "So we assume you know why we called you here
today..." and we would laugh maniacally. We also came up with super
villain names. I don't remember everyone´s but here are the ones I do:
Me and Hna Buhler: The Vice and The
Variant
Bernhard: Dr. Indecisive
Jensen: SupaStrat
Bown: Director Destructive (he
wanted Bown Chicka Bow Bow but we vetoed that.)
Robinson: The Shrug (because he
always shrugs. But he wanted to be D Rob.)
And my favorite, Whitehouse was
Darth Poopy Pants because he wouldn't sit at the table with us. Classic.
Anyways, I have a lot to do and my
hands are going to fall off so I better go. I love you all! Pray hard and do
your best and let God take care of the rest!
Love, Hermana Alyssa Miller
PS-I got my first second of homesickness
today when I walked into the little store and they were playing Christmas
music. But I got over it.
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