April 25, 2016 - Better and Better

Each week just keeps getting better, and it's hard to explain. I just keep growing and changing and learning how to become closer to the spirit. I'm definitely still learning all the time.

Just to start off I don't have a lot of time to email this week.  Our P-Day is actually on Wednesday because we're going to the temple, which is so exciting!! They gave us just a short time to email home this week so this is probably going to be shorter than normal, and I forgot my camera so, sadly, no pics. 

 

Elder Spackman and Elder Miles

Tuesday was Elder Spackman's B-Day and for dinner a member, Sister Wilson, had us over for dinner and some cake and ice cream. She's also the member that is coming with us to teach Refugio and Marisol (so they should be in that pic that she sent home). The lessons with Refugio and Marisol are going well. Marisol is really good about praying a lot and asking about what she needs to do next, about baptism and such. We're still trying to get Refugio going but he's willing to pray in front of us, which is definitely something good. They keep progressing but just slowly, it seems to be a two steps forward, one step back kinda thing. 

We also got to teach Ricardo a couple times this week. He's such an awesome guy and he's really consistent about coming to church (it helps his wife is one of the strongest members ever), but he just says he's not ready for baptism. His whole family is super catholic and that is a big change for a lot of Hispanics. Catholicism is more of a way of life for them. He'll get there, it's just going to take a lot of patience and taking things slowly. 

Elder Spackmans' birthday celebration.  Elder Miles says that Rufugio and Marisol
are in this picture - but not sure which ones they are.

Hinocencio just keeps plugging along. He's been to church like five times now but he's still struggling to get over his drinking problem. Our next lesson with him we're going to make a plan with him and set some goals. He could be a really strong member and he's been trying so hard to overcome his challenges but it's definitely going to take some time. 

Yesterday I had to give the closing prayer for Sacrament in Spanish. I was pretty nervous but I gave a pretty good prayer. It was the first time I'd prayed in front of that many people in Spanish and I also found out that on the 22nd of May I will get to give a talk in Spanish. I'm pretty excited for that opportunity but I am also going to be speaking last, so I could either have to talk for 5 minutes or twenty. We'll see how it goes but it should be good. 

One thing that I learned this week that I thought was really cool is something about desires. There's a talk titled "The Fourth Missionary" that is super good. There was a quote from this that I really liked.  It says "The good you do, will do you no good, if your heart is not right." I've been thinking a lot about how this pertains to missionary work, and to just life in general. There are a lot of missionaries and members that do the right thing but because their heart isn't in it they don't grow. So with missionary work and with life in general we need to learn how to change our desires and help them come in line with our Father's desires and as we do this, as we turn our life over to him, we will be able to grow so much more and do so much more good. 

Que tengan buen dia! (Have a good day!)
-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

April 18, 2016

This week was a really good week! It started out so awesome! On Monday we had scheduled to go by Jesus (I'm not sure if you remember him. He's the trucker that was absolutely golden that we met a few weeks ago). Anyways we had planned to go see him, and as it turned out he had gotten home a few hours before we got there, and that he had to leave again the next morning! What an amazing miracle! He was really excited to see us and he really opened up to us about some of the things he's been feeling. He told us that he knows his next step is baptism and that he is really amazed at how well the Bible and The Book of Mormon compare. He is so golden but with his job it's really difficult to teach him and for him to attend church. We'll keep working with him but it's definitely going to be slow.

We had some awesome lessons with Refugio and Marisol, and Hinocencio again this week. Hinocencio is really beginning to improve and the more we go over there, the more his desire to change grows. He's still struggling but he'll get there. His biggest problem is just being around bad influences. He knows he needs to move but it's hard for him to find somewhere to go to. 

Refugio and Marisol are both doing great but Refugio is having a hard time keeping his commitments and that has been holding them both back. They understand what they need to do but Refugio just hasn't had that desire yet. We were hoping to teach them several times this week but they canceled on us twice. We have another lesson planned for tomorrow where hopefully we can get a baptismal date for Marisol and help Refugio see that he needs to take the same steps Marisol has before he's gonna know the truth. 

I can't remember if I ever mentioned Ricardo in my past emails but he's the husband of a really strong member that moved into our branch a few weeks ago. I'm honestly shocked that he hasn't been baptized yet. There seems to be something that's holding him back and we're still trying to figure out what it is. He's definitely going to get baptized someday though. He understands so much and has recognized all the changes that came to his family from when his wife and kids joined the church. 

We had another Trainee thing this week with the APs and

President and Sister Lewis. It was called Doctrine of Christ which is basically faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It was all focused on how these things are kind of our main focuses as missionaries. We need to teach repentance and then baptize true converts. It was a super good meeting. President and Sister Lewis are both so cool and so smart. They really understand exactly what they're doing. It's really awesome listening to them teach. 

Something that I've been doing for the past few weeks is

 In our area someone had this in their
front yard.  Had like a bear, an eagle
and some other animal carved into it

trying to better prepare for the Sacrament each week. I've been trying to make that the focus of my Sunday mornings and as I sit in the chapel I focus on the Atonement and Christ. I've noticed that as I make a more conscious effort to prepare each week the Sacrament takes on a bigger meaning to me, and each Sunday during the Sacrament I can feel the presence of the Spirit so strong. The Sacrament is such an important part of our week and when we prepare for it, it can be huge way to strengthen our testimony. I've definitely seen it strengthen my testimony a lot. 

Every week I'm amazed at how much I've grown. It feels like every week something happens that helps me grow in ways I never thought possible. It truly does show that our Heavenly Father knows us all personally and if we ask Him, He will prepare a way for us to become exactly what he wants us to be.

Love you all!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

April 11, 2016

This week has been wonderful, yet sad. I am definitely beginning to understand what it means to feel sorrowful for others who do not have to Gospel, or who do not want to hear it. We spent a lot of time this week tracting and doing our best to find new people to teach. We are very consistently teaching Refugio and Marisol, and Hinocencio, but others just do not want to listen. We also have a lot of first lessons, but then trying to get back into their house to keep teaching them can be so difficult. 

We taught Hinocencio three times this week, but the first two were really strange. He hadn't read or prayed, and didn't really seem to have a desire to change anymore. Then he was drunk our second lesson and just didn't seem to care. It was super hard to see that change and Elder Spackman mentioned that we might have to drop him. So Saturday we planned to have a sit down lesson with him and just be really straightforward with him, and he bailed on us. I figured that was kinda the end and that we wouldn't be teaching him anymore, but Sunday morning he was at church! It shocked me when I saw him. He had called a member and asked for a ride, and when we talked to him he told us that he felt really bad for skipping our lesson, and for not keeping his commitments. He has that desire to better his life again! And at our lesson with him Sunday night he'd spent a good chunk of the day reading the Book of Mormon. It was so awesome to see the difference, and it really was a miracle. 

Refugio and Marisol are also doing super well, but they are just struggling to come to church. They understand everything super well, but they just can't seem to get to church. That's something that we talked a lot with them about on Sunday. They felt like if they were keeping all the commandments that it wasn't necessary for them to go to church, and we were able to explain to them that going to church is also a commandment, and that it's the place where we renew our covenants. An awesome miracle with them this week was we had planned a lesson with them and had planned for a member to come out with us. Well about twenty minutes before the lesson we got a text saying that they were going to be busy and not able to have the lesson. We didn't see this until we got in to car to go over there and just as were about to let our member know that it was canceled he texted us and said that they were already inside visiting with them. Apparently Refugio and Marisol had some friends coming over but when our members showed up they told their friends to wait. What an amazing miracle!

There isn't really too much else to report. I got to give two blessings this week which was really neat. Each time I give one my testimony on the power of the Priesthood grows so much.

We had our first transfer calls this last Saturday and it looks like I'll be in Moses Lake for another six weeks! Though we might be moving apartments. 

A fun little random story. We met a Jamaican guy the other night and he was almost as hard to understand as someone speaking Spanish. There were times during our lesson with him that I thought he had slipped into Jamaican.

It was an absolutely amazing week!
-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

April 4, 2016 - General Conference

Wow what a stellar conference weekend! I honestly can't even begin to describe how amazing conference was!! Everything that was said just rung true and it all had so much more of a deeper meaning for me. I think a lot of it has to do with me being a missionary, but I'm sure watching all sessions and staying awake helped a lot (haha). Each talk was so great, though I'm gonna have to print out Sunday Morning's talks. We watched it in Spanish because Hinocencio came! It was super awesome to have an investigator there but it sure did make it difficult to understand when it was in Spanish. I understood mostly what was going on but not enough specifics to feel comfortable with what was said. 

It was delicious!

It was super cool to have Hinocencio at Conference. We had visited him the night before and he was thinking about going to a party and just "enjoying" his night, but we talked to him and reminded him about how he has a goal to be baptized and if he misses church, keeps drinking, and other stuff, then he wouldn't be able to get baptized. He agreed and came to conference instead! Which was honestly so cool. Refugio and Marisol said that they were going to come to conference, but sadly they didn't show up. We're still unsure why, but they have been progressing a lot. 

We taught them on Wednesday this last week and had an absolutely amazing lesson with them. We got talking about how Marisol feels when she prays, and she kept saying things like "Oh I feel peace and comfort" that kinda thing, so what we did was help her to realize that was an answer to her prayers, and when she did realize this she was like "Oh that is an answer I know this church is true." It was so awesome to see that!!! Now we just have to work on getting Refugio more involved. That same night we also taught Hinocencio with a recent convert returned missionary who was able to share some amazing insight with Hinocencio, and really brought the spirit with him. That last Wednesday was probably one of my favorite days on the mission so far. It was so full of the spirit and teaching was so amazing. 

A birthday celebration for the Sister on the right.

We've been working with a part-member family that just moved into our area and on Monday we decided we'd stop by and get to know the husband more, the wife and kids are members. Well it was an awesome little lesson, but like all Hispanics they just love to feed people and we had just had a huge dinner with members. It's rude to not accept food, so we agreed to eat and the wife just kept loading up our plates. I left their house feeling like I had just had two Thanksgiving dinners I was so full. It was super awesome though. The food was amazing and the family is so cool!

We've spent a lot of time painting a trailer this week for service for a non-member. It's been super fun, but it's taking a long time. (Note: I don't have any pics of this but there might be some on the mission blog). It's starting to look really good, and it's been super fun doing that service. 

Elder Miles "thought this was pretty funny"

I loved Elder Eyring's first talk and Elder Holland's last one. They were both honestly so amazing and during both I was just stunned by what was shared. I loved how much they each talked about how we often struggle with our faith, but when we recognize that we are struggling and we are saddened by that, then we are given more faith. I wish I could just listen to the prophets speak all the time. 

Love you all! 

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

March 28, 2016 - Miracle Week

Elder Miles and Elder Spackman with investigators
at church on Easter Sunday

This week was super full of miracles and it was absolutely amazing!! We'd been trying so hard to find people lately and the blessings are starting to show. Its crazy how sometimes you just find people that are willing to listen, or others that have been prepared so well that you can't believe they aren't baptized. 

Haha I've had a few other awkward moments this week. We were tracting and I went up to the door and I think I asked her how her day was like four times. There are so many ways to say that in Spanish and I probably said them all. I just couldn't think about what to say. Haha. It was pretty funny.

Elder Miles with other missionaries at Zone Conference

On Tuesday I had my first Zone Conference of the mission. It was super awesome and it reminded me just how awesome President and Sister Lewis are. They are both just so amazing, so filled with the spirit, and so smart. We always joke that they are about as close to perfect as you can get. The message on Tuesday was about Easter. It was mostly centered on the Atonement and how through the Atonement we receive three amazing gifts. The first is Resurrection, the second Redemption, and the third is Relief. Resurrection being the chance to live forever in a perfect

Zone Conference Lunch

body, Redemption is the power to receive forgiveness, and Relief comes through the enabling power of the Atonement, which allows us to be healed of any pain, whether it's spiritual, physical, mental, or emotional. It was a super awesome Zone Conference and I can't wait until the next

one. 

Elder Miles attending sealing at
Columbia River Temple in Richland, WA

One of my favorite moments from this week is that Elder Spackman and I had the chance to go to a sealing for one of his converts fromthe beginning of his mission. It was super cool to watch the two of them get sealed, and as I was there I decided that this was going to be my goal for all those I teach. Getting them to the temple is the most important thing. I want to do everything I can to prepare them for that. I decided whenever I'm teaching someone to imagine them in the temple. As I've done that this week I have felt such an increased amount of love for those I teach, and I so desperately want them to receive those blessings. 

Columbia River

We also had the chance to teach Refugio and Marisol again this week! It was a super awesome lesson! We went over the Restoration again to see what their understanding was and they understood it so well and asked some amazing questions. They are so prepared and just need to get their answer. Teaching them has honestly been such a miracle. They were being taught before we came to Moses Lake, but when we got here they didn't really want anything to do with us, but one day Marisol let us in kinda out of nowhere, and they've been awesome ever since. I think the biggest thing is having a friend for Marisol. It makes her excited to listen and learn. Refugio is coming along a lot better as well. When we first them he seemed so bored and uninterested, but now he's making comments and asking questions. 

We taught a guy a few times this week about the Melchizedek Priesthood. He's getting ready to return to Mexico and wanted to get that priesthood before he left. He is so awesome and just soaks everything in. 

We also taught a young couple named Fabian and Marta. The week before Fabian was outside smoking and I felt prompted to go and talk with him. I didn't expect a whole ton I just thought it would be more of a Spanish practice, but he seemed pretty interested and was excited to speak with us. So we taught them and they seemed to be really interested in what we were talking about and when we invited them to baptism they said they needed to learn more, and that they wanted to learn more. My favorite part of this was that when I talked to Fabian it was my first OYM (Open Your Mouth) that I did completely by myself in Spanish. Elder Spackman would always help me a little bit or when I got lost he'd jump in, but this time was special, because I did it myself.

Elder Miles with the Zone Leaders -
Elders Jensen and Wilkey

Another really amazing miracle was we were tracting a street and found absolutely zero Hispanics and nobody interested at all. So we decided to go stop by an LA instead of finishing this street, but as we were walking to our car I saw a little Hispanic family eating dinner through their window, and I felt prompted that we should go talk with them. They let us in and offered us some carne asada, which is another miracle because I was starving (haha), but we sat down and started talking to Jesus, who is the father, and we quickly found that he was prepared forever ago. He was going through a really hard time, and was trying to figure out what to do with his life like 10 or so years ago, and as he was struggling with this he met a member who helped him with everything. If it wasn't for this member his family would have had nothing, and when Jesus finally got back on his feet, he told us that he wanted to find out why that member was so willing to help him. He said that he was willing to do absolutely anything for that member. I was shocked. I couldn't believe he hadn't been baptized before. Everything we taught him just made sense to him, and he is really excited to learn more.

The biggest and coolest miracle was that we had 4 investigators at church!!! And 2 Less Active families! It was super cool to see them all there. The 4 investigators were Yesena, Hinocencio, and Refugio and Marisol. It was so cool to see them all there. The miracle part is that it was the first time for all of them but Yesena. Refugio and Marisol were so unsure on whether or not they wanted to come to church, but they came and loved it. And Hinocencio has flaked on us before but this week he was all dressed up and was groomed really nicely. The best part was that he wasn't hung over. He is a big drinker and he tried so hard the night before to not drink so he could make it to church, he even came though he was sick. It was so awesome to see so many people there, the "fruit of labor" I guess. It makes me want to work even harder. 

We should have had 5 investigators but Jesus didn't wake up on time. We stopped by later that day and he apologized a lot, but we taught him the Restoration and invited him to be baptized and he said yes!! Also Hinocencio agreed to be baptized as well! He has a date for May that we are going to try really hard to work with him towards. He's really receptive to everything he just needs to stop drinking and he's set.

It was honestly such an amazing week! Love you all!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

Moses Lake Zone Conference
Elder Miles is on the 3rd row from the front, 8th from the right

March 21, 2160 - Having a Temple-like experience

I hope everyone is doing awesome! Moses Lake has been

Here's a picture of Elder Miles and his companion
that we received from a member that they
did a teaching appointment with.  She said "Your
 son is a great missionary."  She also mentioned
that both missionaries did "so well" in their
teaching.  She has a son on a mission as well.

really good to me lately. I'm starting to adjust really well, and really starting to love the people. Sorry I don't have any pics again this week. Oh I forgot to mention it. Hermana Fano is in my district here in Moses Lake. It's nice to have a familiar face.

There have definitely been more tests of faith this week, but each one has helped to strengthen my faith in ways that I never thought would be possible. We've been having a hard time finding people to teach, and after teaching them once, getting in contact with them again. On Monday we didn't find anyone new, Tuesday was the same. Everybody we talked to was either disinterested or unwilling to talk further. Well finally Tuesday night we were stopping by some less actives, and some old potentials in a small section of our area, and could not find anyone. We got back in our car and it was like 8:45, too early to go in for the night. So we headed to another part of our area and knocked 1 door. A single mom with seven kids answered!! Seven!! It was crazy. When we mentioned that the Gospel helps and blesses the family she seemed like a weight lifted from her. It was really cool to see, the hardest part has been getting back in contact with her. With seven kids she works all day. I can't wait to talk with her again.

On Wednesday we also got the chance to teach Refugio y Marisol again. They are super awesome and with this lesson we had a member come along that was also Marisol's supervisor at work. Marisol seems really interested and willing to try. Having her supervisor there helped a lot with getting someone to connect to and the member had some super great ideas about finding time to read and pray. It was a good lesson but Refugio is being difficult. He just seems disinterested and he's holding both of them back. They didn't come to church which was too bad, but we had some other investigators come. 

Those other investigators were Nicolasa's brother and daughter. We taught them again this week and invited the whole family to attend church. It was super to awesome to see them walk in. They were my first investigators to come to church. Javier, the brother, is a Catholic, and during the sacrament meeting seemed really interested in what was being said. The talk that really caught his attention was on the Plan of Salvation. He seemed extremely focused. It was awesome. We're going to talk to them again this week and see how they liked church. 

So on Saturday I got to go on my first exchange. I went with Elder Jensen, one of the Zone Leaders to his area while Elder Wilkey, the other ZL, went with my companion to speak Spanish. The Zone Leaders are English speaking. Anyways I went to Othello to do some potentials finding for the YSA ward. It was super awesome and I really love Elder Jensen. We sang Christmas songs the whole day and had an awesome time. While in Othello we taught one of their investigators named Brianna. She's been struggling a lot lately so we helped her to create a plan on how she is going to better her life. It was a really interesting lesson and an awesome teaching technique. That night we also helped a family create a family mission plan. We started with a prayer and then talked with each of them about a specific person. It was super fun and I got the chance to kinda lead it. It was super fun and awesome to see how a family can get excited for missionary work. 

So now for the reason for my email Subject. I read this awesome talk this week and it's definitely one everyone should and can read. It's called Lessons from Liberty Jail by Elder Holland. My favorite quote from it is "Indeed, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experiences with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced." I thought this was really cool. We often go through those hard times in our lives and we think that God has abandoned us or that we are no longer receiving help, but as Elder Holland said, and I can add my testimony to this those hard times are when God is the closest. Joseph Smith suffered so much while in Liberty Jail, yet he came to know God so much more personally, and for him this time was a temple-like experience. So I challenge everyone to that when a difficult moment arises or you find yourself unsure. Don't ever give up!! God is right there beside you. Pray, ask for strength, and it will come. Then you will look back on that experience with fondness, not because it was easy, but because you became so much closer to the Lord and had a temple-like experience. I know this to be true. The same happened to me when Terik died last year. I felt completely and utterly alone, abandoned and forgotten, but because instead of turning away I turned to God, I had an amazing experience. Is it still hard? Of course, but now I look back to that and I know that because of that experience I am so much stronger. Never give up.

I love you all.

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

March 14, 2016 - Slowly Learning

Well it's been a good week. Things are moving a little bit slower. Most of the people that we taught last week seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth. It's super weird. Especially really strong investigators like Elario and Roxanna. It's hard to see investigators lose interest or fall off, but it's amazing to see how the Gospel can help people in their lives. On Monday we tracted into this kid named Anthony who was going through a hard time in his life, and was looking for religion. We shared how the Gospel can bless his life and strengthen him in his trials, and he seemed

Elder Miles

interested and that it was giving him a lot to think about, but when we asked him if he wanted to meet with the English Elders he said no. It's like. What?!?! This is exactly what you need but you don't even want to listen. A bummer but everyone has their agency. 

We got to teach Nicolasa this week, the one whose daughter was killed, and she seems to be doing a lot better. She definitely believes the church is true and that the Atonement of Christ can help her in her life. We also stopped by last night and she had her brother there. He is a really cool guy, and seems like he could be a very good potential investigator. He's going to be in the country for a while as he helps his sister. 

We also taught Maria again. She was looking for food to help her kids, but every time we go over there she doesn't seem interested at all. She has no desire to come to church or read at all, which is super sad that she won't even try. 

We also ran into Jesus again. We taught him one of our first few days here and he seemed like he was super interested the first time, but when we taught him this week he seemed more interested in partying than anything else. 

We've thankfully been able to teach quite a few lessons this week, and a majority of them have been in Spanish, which is hard, but nice. The only way I'm gonna learn Spanish is if I speak it. The first half of the week was hard, we had a ton of lessons fall through, I felt like I wasn't learning Spanish at all, it was pretty tough, but thankfully when things are hard God always helps us. 

This week after having a particular tough couple days we had a kinda neat experience. We had stopped to go tracting and I said the prayer. As I was saying the prayer I felt prompted to ask that the first door we knocked on be opened, so we walked up to the door and knocked. We heard someone walk up and the bolt shift on the lock, but no one answered. They had locked the door on us! I was super confused. I had prayed in faith, and felt like I had done what I had been prompted, but it didn't work out. I was trying to figure out why God didn't have the door open as we knocked on other doors on the street. Now we had originally planned to knock just one street, but as we were going I again felt prompted that we should knock on a door that was on a different street than the one originally planned. I was unsure what to do and thought maybe I was just making up stuff, but I figured that if nothing happened we'd only miss about two minutes of tracting. So we knocked and at first nothing happened, the porch light had turned on, and I'm pretty sure he was looking through the peep hole. Then he opened the door and it was this cool Mexican guy named Antonio. He seemed interested and willing to talk and listen, sadly we haven't been able to contact him since, but definitely he is a good potential. I learned from this experience that God was testing me. He wouldn't have given me the second prompting had I not acted on the first. It was hard not getting an answer on the first door, but the witness only comes after the trial of our faith. 

We also had an awesome weekend. We got to see an awesome baptism for an English ward, it was super spiritual and a really cool experience. We also taught a couple named Refugio and Marisol. They had been taught by the other missionaries, but we had been unable to get in contact with them. We finally got to teach them and they seem very genuine and really interested. They have good desires and definitely could be a very strong family. We just need to get them to come to church. 

Bye. Love you all!!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission