August 4, 2014

Dearest Family and Friends,

I love being a missionary!

Well, I guess I have a lot of time to write about this week! This transfer has just flown by! So crazy! I feel like I just here in Woodland. This is week five and every transfer has six weeks in it. Woodland kind of has the same feel as American Fork, in a way. Different, but not. It's grown to be home. I love all the members, and I love our investigators. They tug on my heartstrings, lemme tell you, but it's wonderful. I feel so free. I can't believe that there were moments where I wondered if a mission was the right thing for me or not. It's stressful, just like life, but ONLY IF YOU LET IT BE. That's the secret. That's what I learned in Rio Vista, and that's the choice I'm making here in Woodland everyday. I feel like I've really grown in strength of optimism, yet I'm not apathetic. It's so important to love your life where you are. I miss family and home, and I can't wait until I get to apply everything I've learned here back home, but for now, I can wait. My heart is deeply sorrowed everytime I think of the time slipping away, constantly. I feel like I just emailed, yet so much has happened. This transfer has been hard in some ways, but I feel like the Lord is helping me to choose to be happy where I am. Every moment is so beautiful. That's one thing I want all of you to know... If there is ever a moment that you feel you will break, just keep moving forward. Walk away. Literally. Just go find the beauty. If temptation is weighing heavy on you, if anger is threatening to boil over, if you feel like you are sinking into the depths of despair, paralyzed and helpless, then cry out to the Lord. He does hear you. Even in this moment, He knows you perfectly. All you have to do is ask for His help, and then take a step, and another. Whenever it is chokingly hot, or my heart is hurting, or a door has been closed, I try to simply look for the beauty. God created this world for us. I look at the colors (what working in a fabric shop did to my head) and I try to look at the clouds and look at the plants and sing "In Our Lovely Deseret." I just try to leave it there. I don't let those moments stick to my soul. Once I walk through them, I leave them. I don't linger. I have my eyes forward to the blessings I know are just a few doors down. God always has a plan for you, but it you aren't willing to leave the valley of the shadows of death, how will you ever reach His Kingdom?

As for the Valley of the Shadow of Death, who ever said you had to know the way out? Do you think that I as a missionary know how long it will be until I find someone who will listen? Do you think that I know how my life is going to turn out after the mission? Do you think I know which streets we are going to walk and who we are going to talk to? Mostly, the answer is no. I don't know. But I've come to the conclusion that I don't need to know. I just have faith, and that's good enough for me. And I'm happy in the moment that I'm in.

So keep walking.
I pray for each of you every night.

My heart hurts so bad sometimes when I think of my family and friends back home. I know that you are all wandering through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and I wasn't there for you when I was at home, and now that I'm here, I feel like my hands are tied in helping you. All I can do is work to help those that are here, and pray that someone else will do the same for you. I trust that the Lord has all of you in His Almighty Hand, and that in the end, we will all be together and not have to deal with these trials and tribulations.

So sometimes it's dark, and we stumble and trip and fall on those things placed in our path. It's alright. It doesn't mean that the Lord isn't there. It just means that you need to open your eyes a little more. Turn your flashlight on. Either than, or the Lord needed you to trip to avoid bumping your head on a deadly overhang. The point being, in this situation you have many choices, which really are two choices. You can choose to trust Him and ask for His help and possibly His forgiveness and have Him be your light and guide in the dark valley, or you can ignore Him there, keep your eyes closed, and choose to do it some other way.
In reality, all of our choices everyday can be narrowed down to these two choices. I'm learning to ask "Heavenly Father. I don't know if I can do this on my own, but I know that if you Help me learn how to do this, I can do it. I know it. And so I'm going to keep going, but you have to guide me, and tell me what to do."

It's never failed me yet. :) Nor will it ever. No doubt in my mind and heart about that one.

So this week has been a great one. I wish I could write it all, but I'm afraid I can't. So here goes.

Monday:
This random hispanic guy named Daniel that we have talked to before while he was blowing leaves and doing yardwork pulls over in his big oversized van. My first thought (because we didn't know it was him) was that I was going to get kidnapped. Naturally. Broad daylight, big van. Yup. Well... he pulls kind of off the road, kind of not, hops out of his truck and apologizes for not ever really being able to talk to us before because he was working. He stops midsentence, and asks us who we are. I look him straight in the eye, and tell him with everything in me that "We are servants of Jesus Christ, and we share a message about how.." and Daniel cuts me off and asks "I have to go, but will you please explain to me why, if there is only one Bible, how come there are so many churches?"
Wow. I'm blown away by his sincere question. We give him a restoration pamphlet and our number and he hops in his truck and goes on his way before we have a chance to get his telephone number.

This is what a mission is like. All the time. Those are the moments you live for, and I have a handful of other experiences that I want to share, but I'm almost out of time, so you'll just have to forgive me.

Tuesday:
Exchanges with Sister- Afoa from New Zealand.  we taught my first skype lesson ever to Vlad from Russia and we taught him the Restoration and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes, which is amazing because Sister Carter has been teaching him since Feb, and he's been wishy-washy. Great lesson. So perfect. If there could be a perfect Restoration lesson, that would have been it.

Later that day, we sit a girl sitting on the side of the road. Turns out to be Ana, a Less Active who had faint bruises on her face. Things are hard for her in her marriage, and she is the only one working and is pregnant, very pregnant and is having a hard time. She is so busy it is hard to meet with her, but we met with her then and there before her work, and I really think the prayer we said for her helped. Tender Mercy.

Then, we were on our way to Eli's first new member lesson, and I had the feeling to talk to this lady sitting on the cement parking thingy in front of his apartments. We told her that we were servants of Jesus Christ, sent to leave a blessing on her home, a blessing of the Savior's peace and comfort on her home. We ended up following her to her home right then and there and praying for everything she needed, and did a Harvest Blessing, and she committed to be baptized. We'll see her later this week. He name is Sonia, and she has a rough teenage son named Kevin, and a 7 year old sweetheart son named Cubby. so excited to teach her. She didn't want us to leave. Pray for Sonia, please.

Great lesson with Eli. He gets the priesthood this Sunday. SO cool. I'm so proud, and he is so ready. He keeps making the comment that he is excited for life after baptism, and he is already a missionary because now we are teaching his friend named Lynn whose husband died in June. She first came to a lesson where we taught Eli about baptisms for the dead and the temple. Lynn came to Ximena's baptism and to church yesterday and she told us with tears in her eyes that when she heard about ordinances for the dead and how her husband could be baptized, she really felt upset, but in a good way. She went on to say that she wants that. so cool.

Wednesday:
I totally left a house blessing in Spanish, from the little Spanish that I know. We had the son translate most of it. Invited them to read the Book of Mormon and now the Spanish elders have some new investigators. :) I talk to everyone, no matter what language they speak. :) So cool. The mother was crying the whole time, and she told me in broken English that she felt the spirit.

Thursday:
The zone leaders' awesome investigator moved into our area. His name is Aaron. Super solid for baptism. Getting married at the end of this month, going to be baptized in the beginning of September. So cool. He has so many questions and is hungry for gospel knowledge. so good. He is working toward baptism, and really understand the living prophet thing and is willing to live all the commandments, and is working towards that. So cool! More about him next time I suppose.

Friday:
Sister Carter went to MLC in Santa Rosa, which is an all day training meeting for STL's and zone leaders. I spent the day with a greenie named Sister Lesser in Dixon. I hope I get to train again. I realized that I've been too hard on myself, and that I was a pretty good trainer. I've always felt that I wasn't strong enough in that, but Sister Lesser taught me that I was. Love her. It's amazing what one day with a person can do. You learn to love them so much and you become so close. We had a miracle. We were at the gas station filling up and this guy named Brandon goes "look! it's the sisters!" We thought he was a member. Nope. He is an investigator in Fairfield, but he lives in Vacaville. Long story short, he hadn't met with missionaries in a while and he was having a bad day, and in general he is trying to become closer to God, but he feels like Satan is really trying to distract him. Long story short, we had a mini lesson and I invited him to be baptized. (I've been doing that in contacts a lot lately) and guess what.... HE SAID YES. :) So cool. Well, I then invited him again to be baptized on a specific date. :) Yup. In September, I can't remember which day. Yup. So cool.

Saturday:
Our lessons kept falling through, sadly, but we were able to teach a mini lesson. We also prepared the missionary moment at the elders in our ward's baptism. It went spectacular. There were a lot of non-members there.... the whole room was full, and so we invited all of them to be baptized. Ximena is going to be a great member. She is getting a lot of opposition from her catholic family, but she is standing strong. She knows that the Lord has been knocking on her door for 35 years. At the beginning of the transfer, she had called the elders and told them she wanted to be baptized. Apparently she had been taking the lessons earlier in the year, but then had stopped. Amazing. Miracles. Love her to death. Eli came, and he went up to her and congratulated her. I hope they become friend.

Woodland is on fire. Literally. It cooled down a few evenings ago, and I went to the car to see the temperature. I felt so great, but the thermometer said it was still 98 degrees. yup. Welcome to missionary work in Woodland. :) It's great. I give up.  We just sweat, and it's okay. :)

Well. That's that. Today is going to be great. Thank you for all your support. I feel your love everyday, and I'm not just saying this.

Press forward. I know it's worth it. :)

Keep going. Don't give up.
If you can just hang on, you'll make it. Cleave to the Lord. He won't forsake you. He is there for you. Trust that He is there. Have hope. It's required to make it to Heaven, hope is. It's right there with faith and with charity. It's important to have hope. The Savior had to have hope too.


Love you all!
Sister Darby Miller