April 24, 2017 - Jose Spoke in Church!!!!!!

First off I'm getting transferred up to the Omak zone with

Hna Gita, me, and Hna Mendez two of the
coolest sisters in the ward. Hna Mendez is
probably the nicest lady I have ever met

Elder Allsop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm getting to be reunited with my MTC companion! It's going to be absolutely crazy and so much fun! I've been waiting for this since I left the MTC and I'm super stoked. Elder Cannon is getting Elder Harman, who was my companion when I first got to Yakima. It's gonna be so fun! Omak is in the middle of the mountains and is pretty close to Canada. I'll get a chance to get pretty close to the border potentially. 

Okay so this week wasn't the craziest week. We had some good stuff happen, but there wasn't a whole lot of new things. We did a couple of exchanges and I left my area both times. Honestly everything exciting happened this weekend. 

​This is Lester. He was baptized at age 11, and is the
only member of his family. He's so cool. Super solid.

On Sunday Nancy came to church and really liked it again. She had some members invite her over for family home evening tonight, so we'll be going over there. She officially has a baptismal date for May 20th, and that's a pretty solid baptismal date. She doesn't understand much but little by little she is learning, but the most important thing is that she is feeling the spirit, and she really likes it. She recognizes that as she has learned more about this stuff, her life has improved and she's a lot happier. It's been really cool. I'm excited to see how she continues to progress. 

Now my favorite part of the week was that Jose Rios gave a

The Martinez family. Me, Alana, Hno Martinez,
baby Mila, Hna Martinez, and Mathias.
One of the coolest families in the branch.
Hno Martinez was Jose's biggest
fellowshipper. They're from Ecuador

talk!! Three weeks after getting baptized and two weeks after becoming a member Jose gave a talk! He talked about the Holy Ghost and shared some of his experiences. It was so cool. It was a fairly short talk but he looked like a member up there. At first he was super nervous but after a few minutes he warmed up and did such a good job. He mentioned that when we first knocked at his door he felt something different, something new, and he liked it, so he let us in. He said that before that moment he never would have opened the door but something led him to open it. It was honestly so amazing!! He also got called to be a ward missionary and is already diving into his new calling. I am so grateful to have been able to be with him during this whole journey, it's been a really special and neat experience. 

Hno Cortez. Probably has one of the coolest
conversion stories ever

I don't have any more time. I've got a lot to deal with because it's transfer week. Love you all!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

April 17, 2017 - La Casa Del Senor

This week has been awesome! Probably because we got to go to the

Zone selfie at the temple

temple on Wednesday. It was super spiritual as usual and I received some good personal revelation. 

As we sat in the temple I found myself thinking a lot about faith, and what exactly it is, and what it can do for us. I was reminded that faith is the first principle, it is the governing principle in all things, and through our faith we are saved. Yet faith is more than just a belief, it is action. We have to act in accordance to God's commandments and only then are we able to partake of the Savior's Atonement and receive salvation and exaltation. All of this has been on my mind since the temple and has been impressed upon me even more as we have enjoyed this Easter weekend. 

This week we also found this awesome investigator named Nancy. She's 18 and is looking to learn a lot more about God. She doesn't know much, but she recognizes that something is missing in her life, so we have taught her nearly every day this week and she came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it. She is catching on slowly but the coolest thing is that she really feels it. She has been reading and praying and she says that it has made her happier.

Me gustan las flores

Jose is still doing so well. He went to a lesson this week with another set of elders and he really enjoyed it. He said that he's not super comfortable doing that but it helped him grow his testimony a ton. The other elders told us that he bore a super strong testimony about the church, the Book of Mormon, and the changes he has seen in his life. He is doing so well. 

I also got to do another baptismal interview this week. It was for a girl named Tsunami who I actually got the chance to teach once on exchanges. She was super ready, and it was really cool to see the strength of the testimony of a 13 year old. She really wanted to get closer to God and she's the first one in her family to get baptized. Her older brother, who is also her legal guardian, is scheduled to get baptized this coming week. 

Easter was pretty awesome. I studied all about the Passover and

Easter egg hunt

how it symbolized Christ's sacrifice and what it would allow us to do. This helped the day start off super well, and throughout the whole day I thought a lot about the Resurrection and the hope and peace that it gives us. Thinking about that all day just made me realize how grateful I am for the Savior and his sacrifice. Then Sunday night we went over to the house of our ward mission leader for dinner and afterwards we had an Easter egg hunt. I got 4th place out of 8, but hey it could've been worse. 

 

We hiked Saddlerock again and got some more cool pics

Love you all! Hope you have a great week!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

April 10, 2017 – El Espiritu Santo y el Sacerdocio!!!!

Jose got confirmed yesterday!!! And was given the Aaronic Priesthood!!! Yesterday was such an awesome day. This whole week I have been just so excited for yesterday and it was such a neat experience. As I stood in the circle during sacrament I couldn't help but think about the journey Jose has gone through. It all kinda went through my mind from start to finish and it was really neat. He has come so far and has changed so much yet he is still the same Jose Rios. It's interesting how the Gospel works like that. If we are willing to let it take root in our hearts it changes us completely, yet is does not destroy our personalities. 

Then during his ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood I couldn't help but think about his future. How much of a blessing he is going to be to the lives of others and how much he will continue to change. He has so much ahead of him and I am so excited to see how his life in the Gospel continues to shape and grow him. 

This week we also had the chance to go to Yakima for a Mission

This is Dot. She's some lady's pet pig that we met.
She was eating nerds. The lady told us that the
pigs favorite food was mike and ikes
and hot tomales. Kinda weird. 

Leadership Conference. It was pretty awesome. We talked a lot about how we can better extend commits to our investigators, how to have better studies, and how to better implement the new daily schedule. Then we took what we learned and brought it back to our zones. I always love these weeks where we get to go spend some time with President and Sister Lewis and the other mission leaders. It's always something super spiritual. 

Oh, also we got to demolish a part of a house this week. It was super fun. A member family is remodeling a good chunk of their house and the zone was asked to come help. So I gotta use a sledgehammer and knock down a bunch of walls. Bucket list item was checked off. I'll send a video. 

We made a human chair in the house we demolished

I wish I had more for you all. The zone this weekend had 5 baptisms and 6 confirmations. Our zone is going crazy, there has been so many miracles and it's been super fun to be a part of. 

On Wednesday we get to go to the temple so I'll have some temple pics for you next week. 

Love you all!!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

April 2, 2017 - When you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes

Elder Cannon, Jose Rios!!!!!, Hermano Martinez, Me!!

Look at Jose's huge grin! He was soooo excited!!

The title was the license plate holder for the car in front of us on the way to the stake center to email and I thought it was pretty funny, but accurate. 

Anyway this week was soooooooooo good!!!! We spent most of the week helping Jose prepare for his baptism. We got everything organized and taught him a few more things this week, mostly just to help him keep his excitement about getting baptized. He honestly knew everything like 2 weeks ago but I think this added time helped him to become truly converted to the Gospel. 

When Elder Uceda came to the mission a few weeks ago he showed us Matthew 28:19. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Then he explained to us that in Spanish and the original Greek version of the bible where it says "teach all nations" it actually means to "make disciples." Which he then explained to us as someone who has truly been converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so instead of just teaching, we are called to make sure people are converted. Which is exactly what happened with Jose.

Elder Aguirre came back up for the baptism!
It was good to see him again.

He is so converted I am just amazed. He was so excited for his baptism and was so ready for it. The experience was so special for him. He had a big huge grin on his face the whole time. He told us later that he felt really good, a lot calmer, he said. It was honestly so amazing! 

He was baptized in between the second session on Saturday and the Priesthood session by Hermano Oswaldo Martinez, who has been his biggest fellowshipper. After the baptism he went and picked up his kids and then went home and watched conference on his phone. He loved President Monson's talk in Priesthood session. He also watched bits and pieces of it all Sunday, but his kids were making things difficult for him he said. 

We went by last night to talk with him about his whole experience and he honestly bore us the most sincere and heartfelt testimony. It was so cool! We asked him how his Book of Mormon reading had gone and he told us that he had finished it the day before his baptism! He had read the whole thing in nearly 2 months and understood a lot of it, and learned a lot from it as well. We then asked him what was the favorite thing he had learned from the Book of Mormon and he told us "Que Dios es misericordioso." Which being translated is "that God is merciful." He bore us his testimony about how much he had learned about God's love as he read it, how much he had learned that God's plan was perfect, and how much he had learned about God's mercy. 

I could feel the spirit so strong as I listened to him bear his

All the missionaries at the baptism.

testimony, and honestly it strengthened my testimony so much of the Book of Mormon. Then he said something that was so simple but it felt like I had been sucker punched by the spirit in a good way. He said "Thanks for knocking." So simple! But when he said that I just wanted to cry. 

I can remember that night so visibly. Elder Aguirre and I had been working so hard for nearly 2 whole transfers, and we were knocking this one set of apartments when at the same time we felt like we were in the wrong place. It was weird, but things just didn't feel right, so we decided to try somewhere else. So we left and went to a street where we had knocked on nearly all of the doors. The first door we knocked was the one that counted. Jose opened for us and let us right in. Looking back on that night now I realize that he had been so prepared to receive us, and as we taught him the first time there was just something different about him. Something I had never felt when teaching another investigator and now here we are and he is so prepared. 

As we were preparing to leave after the lesson last night we asked him if he had any questions for us. He told that he did, and then asked us how he was to get an envelope to pay his tithing! Took me off guard, but it was so cool! Because it showed again just how much he desired to keep the commandments. 

Umm, so basically that was the highlight of the week, but Conference was soooo good!! It was so spiritual and honestly amazing. To me it stood out a ton how much they talked about the Godhead. They talked a ton about the Holy Ghost and Christ, and quite a bit about the Father. Also I loved all the talks about doing the simple things. Like reading, praying, and doing service. My plan was originally to email you a bunch of the cool things I liked but I forgot my notes...oh well. It was super spiritual though. 

Oh quick story with this one. If you have seen Nacho Libre you will recognize these things. They're called Elote's. Pronounced L-O-tay (for the L and O say the letters name, and for tay it's like the beginning of Taylor). Anyway Elder Cannon and I have never had one and one day we were in a trailer park that had a Palatero, which is basically an ice cream truck. We're were talking to this lady when we noticed a bunch of these kids had elotes. So of course we asked where they got them and they told us they were only 2 bucks at the ice cream truck. Then Reymundo, the one with his arm around me, he's also a member, said "we'll go get you some!!" So we handed him some money and he left on a dead sprint probably about 200 yards down the road to get us our first elotes. 

About ten minutes later he was back with our elotes, and to be honest they may be against the Word of Wisdom, they were so good. It's corn on the cob, with Mexican style sour cream, fresh cheese, and then chili powder stuff. It was sooo good!! Definitely exceeded my expectations. Then on Friday we saw the Palatero again, so of course we had to stop.

I think that's all for the week. Love you all! 

-- Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

March 27, 2017 – JOSE IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!

This week was sooooo awesome! We spent so much time working

Add caption

with Jose and preparing him for his baptism!!! On Monday last week he was a little nervous about the first of April, he said he wasn't sure if that was the day he wanted, but as we talked he eventually told us that the day didn't matter as long as he was able to make that baptismal covenant with God. When he said that it blew my mind. He is probably one of the most converted people to the Gospel I have ever seen. He's not converted to us or the ward but he is converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He understands what faith is, how to repent, and he told us Saturday night that he super is excited to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. He'll be baptized this Saturday, the first of April, at 4 in the afternoon, just before the Priesthood session. 

It's been super cool to watch him progress and I am so grateful for this opportunity and I have learned so much from it as well. One of the biggest things I have learned from Jose is how we ought to honor the commandments. He treats them very sacredly and understands that they come directly from God. As soon as he learns a new commandment he doesn't hesitate to keep it. He just says "okay" and dives in, even before he knows what the blessings are. Like with the Word of Wisdom and Tithing. With both of those commandments he was like "alrighty I'll do it. If it's a commandment then I need to do it." It has helped me to realize just how I should treat and honor the commandments. They are not suggestions or things that are good to do. They are given to us from God and we need to keep them and as we do, God promises to bless us. 

This has been a theme for me throughout the week. I have pondered and thought a lot about the scripture in Mosiah 2:22. It says "And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you." It's so simple! Yet such a powerful promise. All he requires is that we keep His commandments, and when we do that he promises to give us success, and as we know, God is bound to His promises. 

Jose is honestly doing so well. I wish that I could just record every lesson we have with him and send them home to you. He just has so much desire to be better. It is really cool. On Saturday we had an awesome lesson with him about the Atonement and Baptism and he told us about some of the changes he had seen in his life since he started reading in the Book of Mormon and going to church. He feels like he has changed a lot and we have recognized it as well. 

One of the coolest changes I have seen in him is how personal his prayers have become. He just empties his soul to God, and the Spirit is so strong every time he does it. Another is just his countenance. He just looks different. When I first knocked into him when I was with Elder Aguirre he just looked sad (for lack of a better word), but now he has this light about him, and it's sooo cool to see!

 A neat experience with him was on Sunday in Priesthood. Bro Clive (our Ward Mission Leader) stood up and announced his baptism on Saturday and Jose's biggest fellowship, Hno Martinez, was so shocked. I didn't see his face but Elder Cannon told me that is was first like pure shock, and then pure happiness. He then turned to Jose and gave him a huge smile and a big fist bump and then after church Hno Martinez spent like 15-20 minutes just talking with him and sharing scriptures. 

Man I wish I could keep going but I'm running out of time. Jorge is still doing well. We had several nice lessons with him and he's progressing very slowly. He is now praying twice a day and reading 2 verses a day, which is a lot for him. His biggest thing is that a lot of what he learns just doesn't stick, however he has seen some awesome progress and looks a lot happier lately. 

We also had interviews with President again this week and as usual it was an amazing experience. They're always so spiritual. 

Anyway love ya all!! 

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

March 20, 2017 - What a good week!

Honestly this week has been so good! I honestly am not quite sure where to begin. It's just been so full of miracles and spiritual experiences and I am blown away by how cool the week was.

So this week was transfer week and Elder Cannon and I got asked to be site coordinators down in Quincy. Just about everyone has to go through Quincy to get to the rest of the mission, and it was super cool because we got a chance to see a bunch of missionaries. 

That was fun but not that cool. Then on Friday we had Zone Conference with Elder Juan A Uceda from the Seventy. I don't know if you all remember him but he gave an awesome conference talk last conference about a story on his mission when he was a Zone Leader and his zone went to visit Machu Pichu I believe. Then he nearly ended up falling off a cliff. Any way he came to the mission and gave us some amazing insights. I wish I could have recorded it and sent it home but that's against church policy. It was honestly so good and so spirit filled. I can't really describe it. He just had this presence and power to him, and it was so good. 

Elder Klossner, Elder Allsop and I with Elder Uceda.
His wife is on the back left. He was soooo cool!!!!

One of my favorite quotes from his talk/discussion thing was "I cannot follow a stranger." He was talking about our relationship with Christ and how we have to know him before we can follow him. 

It was also really fun to talk to his wife and him in Spanish. He speaks really good English but she doesn't know much so it was super cool to practice a little Spanish with them. 

Then after Zone Conference we stuck around and had a special Mission Leadership Council with Elder Uceda. It was another super spiritual experience with him. He taught a lot of things, but one of the biggest things that stuck out to me as I sat in MLC was about the power of a simple and sincere testimony. It made me realize that I spend too long trying to convince people to read in the Book of Mormon, pray, or go to church, and instead I need to just bear my testimony. 

That Friday was super powerful and I have a lot of things that I want to work on this coming week. 

Friday night we also had another lesson with Jose! Basically what we did was teach him what we learned from Elder Uceda that day. During Zone Conference Elder Uceda went over Moroni 10:3-5 with us and just pulled it apart. Especially verse 3. He talked a lot about how in verse 3 are the things that Moroni tells us to do in order to prepare to ask and receive an answer. Basically that you can't have verses 4 and 5 if you don't have 3. It was so cool. In verse 3 Moroni invites us to remember how merciful the Lord has been and then to ponder on those things. So he told us that remembering means to remember all of the blessings that he has given us so he told us to write down our blessings. Which is what we did with Jose. We read Moroni 10:3-5 and told him to write down his blessings in preparation to get his answer about baptism. 

We were driving and I thought this was funny.

Then on Saturday we had another lesson with him in which we read a bunch of stories from the Book of Mormon about how different people got their prayers answered in different ways and in different amounts of time. The last story we read was about the brother of Jared and how when he took his question to God, God basically said "What do you want me to do about it?" Then he went and made his rocks and went back to the Lord. We told Jose that this was very much the position he was in. He has been praying and not yet had an answer about when. So we told him, basically God is looking for you to make the first step and so we set a date with him! He's currently working towards April 1!!

When we asked him if he would prepare for that day, he told us that he wasn't sure what it would take. When we told him that he had learned everything and basically just needed the interview he was surprised. He then told us that it didn't matter how many questions he was asked he was going to answer them. It was so cool! He is so ready and is doing soooo well!!! This lesson was probably one of the most spirit led in my whole mission. I literally didn't feel like I had to do a single thing. I just opened my mouth and the words came out. 

Jorge is also doing really well he's just progressing a lot slower. This week our big focus with him was just getting him to read. So our commitment was to read one verse a day, which he has kept all week! He came to church and enjoys it every time, he just doesn't really understand much of anything about God and doesn't catch on to things very well. 

Honestly this week was so powerful, so spiritual I honestly cannot describe it with words, but I feel so motivated to work just that much harder. My testimony has grown so much this week, and I am super excited to share it!

Love you all!

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission

March 13, 2017 – Wow

So this week as usual we had some awesome lessons with Jose and saw some amazing faith from him. Also we taught Jorge a couple times and he is doing super well. 

We taught Jose 3 times this week and each one was super

Elder Cannon and Elder Miles

cool. We have started teaching him some of the commandments and each time we have taught one he's just like "okay I'll do it." We taught him the 10 Commandments, Keep the Sabbath Day Holy, and the Word of Wisdom. The Word of Wisdom lesson with him was especially cool. We were a little nervous about what he would think of the Word of Wisdom because he had told us several times that he drinks a lot of coffee. Well we started to teach him and he was a little surprised. He told us " I had never known that God asked us not to drink coffee but that won't be a problem. I can give that up in a day." He went on to tell us that he had given up smoking so coffee shouldn't even be difficult. That was on Saturday. I thought this was so cool. It showed so much faith on his part. As soon as he learned that God commanded us to not drink coffee he was willing to do it in an instant. In the same lesson Jose told us that he has been working late recently so that way he can come to church on Sunday. #SabbathDayHoly

Then on Sunday his biggest fellowship, Hno Martinez, invited him and us over for dinner with his family. It was probably the most perfect dinner/lesson that we could have had with Jose. Hno Martinez had invited some other of his family over and so it was a full house and the spirit in the house was so cool. We spent like 35 minutes during dinner talking about different types of bananas. The Martinez family is from Ecuador and that's where most of the bananas are grown. We also ate this cool food called seco do pollo. It was this chicken boiled in this really tasty broth then put over some rice with fried bananas on top of it (that's how we started talking about bananas). Then as dinner was wrapping up all of the relatives left and it was just us with Jose and the Martinez family. 

For the message we shared President Monson's talk on the Word of Wisdom from the Priesthood session in October. Church that day had been all about prophets so we thought it would be cool to show Jose a video of the prophet. After we watched the video we talked a little about General Conference and Hno Martinez invited to take Jose to Utah for the October Conference!! It was so cool! Jose is basically a member he just hasn't been baptized yet. He's been to church 5 times now and has learned so much! He told us again this week that he was going to be baptized he just kinda hoped to have some of his family here. 

The Elders with the Wenatchee Stake Presidency
Mission President Lewis is on the far left

Also this week Jose has read from 2 Nephi 29 to Alma 11. That's like 50 chapters! He is loving reading the Book of Mormon. He said that along with his reading that he will listen to it as he works! He puts in headphones and listens to it and then he goes back and reads it. He also takes notes in a little journal as he reads. He has definitely figured out how to study. 

Jorge also came to church on Sunday. He's been doing well. He doesn't have a whole lot of knowledge about anything religious so we've been working really slowly with him. This week we focused a lot on just making sure he knew how to pray. This week somehow we ended up talking about the resurrection and how we will have perfect bodies that are without sickness, and since he has to go get dialysis 3 times a week this gave him a lot of hope. I could see it in his eyes and it was so cool. He had a big smile on Sunday, which was super awesome.

Also this weekend was transfers but I get to stay another transfer in Wenatchee with Elder Cannon!!!!!!!!! By the end of this transfer I will have spent 7ish months here in Wenatchee, which I ain't even mad about. The ward here is so cool and they have done a fantastic job at welcoming all of the people that have come to church. I love it here in Wenatchee and I'm excited to stay here!

This week also we ran this trail for workout one morning. It's called Saddle Rock. It was pretty short but it was fairly steep. The top gave a really cool view of the Wenatchee Valley. 

-- 

Elder Miles

Washington Yakima Mission