I love being a MISSIONARY!!

I love being a missionary for a plethora of different reasons. First off, I love seeing all the miracles that happen. Second, you have to expect the unexpected. Third, things that would normally surprise someone, don’t surprise us in the slightest. Fourth, WE ARE SO AWKWARD! Okay the last one… I’m not sure that I really love that as a missionary, but it brings a lot of good laughs.

 

Lots of wonderful things have happened this past week. To start off, we got a call last Monday from President Brennan. This took us a bit by surprise as it was early P-day morning. He said, “Sisters, I have a favor to ask. I am wondering if it would be okay if I gave you a third companion? Her name is Sister Larsen and I think WMU would do great things for her.” We told him “of course we would love to have her as a new companion”. He asked us what we would need in order to make this possible. We told him “Honestly, nothing. We have four beds and two blow up beds at our apartment and we have something that would work as a desk etc.” He said, “Perfect, I will let you know when she will be coming your way.”

 

So we continued on with our day preparing her to come. The week started off great. We had a fantastic lesson with Jaylen. Michael came with us again. I love when he comes because he shares so many wonderful personal stories. Jaylen is still improving but it is slow. The best part of the lesson was near the end. He asked a question about why bad things happened to good people. I had the perfect answer. I told him I had a little story to share with him. That morning while I was in my studies a talk came to mind. It is called the Grandeur of God, by Elder Bednar. I hadn’t read the talk for a really long time. I opened it up and read it. It is a very good talk but it is kind of hard to understand for someone who isn’t very well versed in the scriptures. But I kept it in mind. That day we had to print a couple of things off so I decided to just print an extra copy of the talk just in case. That night when he asked the question I knew why I printed off the talk. It answered his question perfectly. I told him this and handed him the talk and invited him to read it. After that I look over and Michael is just chuckling to himself. Jaylen said what’s so funny and Michael said. Don’t you feel that? That’s the spirit and it just makes me laugh because here is God’s proof to you right now that he is real and the gospel is true. I love when Michael comes because you can truly see how much it helps his testimony to grow. To realize that this kid didn’t know God about 6 months ago would just blow your mind.

 

Wednesday, we went on trade-offs’ after district meeting. I was Sister Rhead. I love her, we were in the MTC together. She is training Sister Ott right now. We had a wonderful trade-off. That is when the first miracle happened. We were sitting and teaching our investigator Wiley, when the girl came over and sat down kind of close to us. Sister Rhead and I both noticed her listening in. Then as we kept talking to Wiley, she leaned over and said, “I am so sorry to interrupt, but is this a religion on campus here.” I went over to talk to her and left Sister Rhead to teach for a minute.  Thank goodness she knows how to teach!! I talked to her for a few minutes. Her name is Justice, and she loved what she was hearing. I set up an appointment for the next day with her. Such a wonderful blessing.

 

The day continued and that night at 10:00 we got a phone call from a 989 number, which only meant one thing. Someone from Midland area! I answered the phone and Sister Bair answered! She called because we were getting one of her companions, Sister Larsen, as a companion. I talked to them for a while and we figured out that Sister Larsen was coming in the morning from Saginaw.

 

Sister Larsen got here and we ran to lesson after lesson. Poor sister didn’t even have time to settle in for the first couple of days. We were just so busy. That night, Sister Eisert and I, while on trade-offs’ accidently double booked appointments, so we went on blitz’s with a girl named Nicole in the branch and Sister Larsen and I went to the lesson with Justice.  Justice brought her friend Donnea (say it like da nay a) we had a wonderful lesson with them and I am so excited to meet with them again.

 

Friday continued to bring miracles. We had a lesson with a girl named Emily. Emily is from Michigan and we ran into her a couple of days ago. We asked her why she wanted to meet with us and her reason was, you seemed nice and I think I could learn a lot more about God. We taught her about Joseph Smith and how we can receive personal revelation for ourselves. Then we invited her to come to Frisbee night and she said YES! We were so excited, the best part was she actually came and LOVED IT! We had tons of fun. She got along great with everyone. We are excited to see where the gospel takes her in life.

 

Sunday I realized something. I AM SO AWKWARD! Ha I just can’t help it. I talk like a missionary and it is kind of hilarious. I use words that “normal” people don’t use. Like unto or behold haha I realized that I truly have immersed myself if the gospel. Literally.

 

Also some exciting news. WE found out about a month ago that someone was coming to our mission. We just had a visit from Elder Snow. We knew that this new someone wasn't just any ole apostle but someone big. A few weeks back President Brennan at MLC told all the leadership to make sure to keep President Monson in our prayers because it will greatly affect our full mission conference if he were to pass. Well today we got notification that President. Russell M. Nelson will be coming to Michigan on November 11th. We will have a special meeting with him that morning for a couple of hours. Then the state of Michigan will all hear from him and his wife for 3 hours and 4 hours. He will be accompanied by a few other individuals as well. What a privilege this is. I am so excited to hear from him. :)

 

A quote I would like each of you to think about this week was given in a talk by Carole M. Stephens. I love this quote so much, it helps me see a larger perspective. She says, “God NEVER loses sight of our eternal potential, even when we do.” There is an analogy that I really enjoy. Picture a string, it goes on forever in both directions. Then you get a separate string and tie it in a knot around the forever string. If you look at the knot on the forever string it is minuscule. It is so small in comparison with everything else.

 

That small string that is tied in a knot is our perspective here in life. The forever string is God’s perspective. We truly have to turn to God in order to see the larger picture or as Sister Stephens says, “Our eternal potential.” I know this to be true. As I have served I have learned that I truly know nothing and in order to succeed in life I have to turn to God for everything.  He truly is our light house that guides us through the night. He is constant and never changing. Remember never lose sight of God, because he knows what YOU are capable of.

 

I love you all so much. I hope that you know how much each of you mean to me. Keep being wonderful examples. Thank you for the time you take to write me and to reach out to me. I truly appreciate it. I LOVE YOU!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND EAT LOTS OF CANDY FOR MEE!!!! 

Love Always,
Sister Milar

 

Hacked...

Hello!

I hope all have had a wonderful week. I know I have been J

 

My outfit may have been a little bit ridiculous but we were literally going to campus for 30 minutes and my boots were wet from the rain and my toes were sooo cold!! 

 

So random story... this week I went to McDonalds at 9 in the morning with some of our zone as we just left the transfer van. Well I wanted ice cream as everyone else was getting breakfast. So I went to pay with my mission card and it kept getting declined. Well Elder Merritts did the same thing. He decided to call Sister Fredline who watches over our cards etc. Well long story short. She calls me and says, your card has been hacked!! Many of the missionaries cards have been hacked. So don't use your card because it wont work! haha well good thing I have other means of money for the next 3 weeks :)
 

This week we had a couple of great lessons with Jaylen. He just cracks me up. Every week he tells us that he has two sides to his mind. He has his analytical side and his feelings side. His feelings side loves the gospel, but his analytical side doesn’t quite understand. The first lesson we had with him we talked about the plan of salvation. We talked about his questions and he said that he was receiving so many answers to his questions. He told us that earlier that day he was on campus and someone stopped him and handed him a little pamphlet (with a picture of O Jerusalem on the front) that talks about Christ. He said I think that God is trying to tell me that he is really there. We had him read 2Nephi 31 at the end of that lesson to help him find the faith that he is looking for. The next lesson we talked about what he read. We talked about faith and how we need to experiment upon the word of God in order to really gain a testimony of it. As we went over this with him, he started talking and it was so great to hear him analyzing, because he made the connection that if he finds truth in  this message than he will have to be baptized because that would be the next step. I love helping people find the light that the restored gospel brings. Nothing makes me happier. He still is on the path to find eternal happiness but I know that one day he will.
 

Allie: Over the past couple of weeks we have been trying to see what Allie is really truly understanding. When we met with her this week we decided that we better check. So we started from the beginning and talked to her about the Godhead. As we were teaching her we helped her find who God is to her. We invited her to come to institute that night. Later that night we were eating dinner with the Branch and she showed up and to join us. She was able to stay for institute as well! She loved it and is so grateful to continue to learn about God.
 

Wiley: Oh Wiley! How I just love him. He is so great. We met with him this past week and talked to him about the Plan of Salvation. He was raised Catholic and doesn’t understand why there is only a Heaven and a Hell. He feels that there should be more after this life. What a true miracle, because there is more!  We taught him about the spirit world and about the three heavens and degrees. You truly could see his face light up and true joy come over him. As we asked him how he felt about the plan he said, good. I know it is true. One thing I love about Wiley is he is always happy.  He is very quiet and has a very strong spiritual connection with Heavenly Father. He not only came to Dinner and Institute Wednesday night but he came to the corn maze on Friday night too. He is planning on getting baptized on December 3. Please keep him in your prayers as he continues on this journey!
 

Kollin: OH Kollin with a K. That is what I call him because when we first said hi to him he replied, “Hi, I’m Kollin with a K.” He is also a great kid.  We have been meeting with him and as we meet with him he loves to absorb everything. He is looking for as much light as possible. This week we were able to invite him to be baptized on Dec. 9. We are praying extra hard for him because he isn’t able to come to church right now because of work.  We know that he needs to experience the sacrament and that it will truly help with his conversion. I ask for each of you to keep him in your prayers and pray that he can find a new job that pays better or get different hours for work. We know that miracles really do happen!
 

Friday night was great, we got to go with the branch to a corn maze! We also had Wiley come. He was so excited to go and enjoyed it completely.
 

Sunday I got to give a talk at church. I was asked to give one by Brother Griswald a couple of weeks ago. He told me that he wanted me to see about the restoration of the gospel.  Immediately the Talk by Tad R. Callister came to mind. As I read that I was able to receive some insights. I want to share some of my talk with each of you.
 

Since the beginning of time inspired men have been called to speak for the Lord, testify of him and to make known God's will. Each of these men were ordinary people. They all had their own struggles, temptations, joys and sorrows, but through faith in the Lord, they each were able to overcome their weakness and become advocates of the Father. 
 

These men are known as prophets. Like prophets of old, prophets today teach and testify of Jesus Christ. They speak boldly, clearly warning each of us of dangers. How do you know that each of these men have been called of God? Do they really have the authority to receive Revelation from God for the World? In the scriptures we read about how we can know if a prophet is truly called of God. It talks about and by the fruits ye shall know them. IT warns us of being aware of false prophets. I want to testify to each of you that I know that President Thomas S. Monson has been called of god and is here to lead and teach and testify to each one of us. I encourage you all to follow and heed to the counsel given by each of the apostles this conference. I can promise you all in the name of Jesus Christ that as you do that, you will see miracles happen more abundantly in your lives. 
 

I love you all so very much. I want you to know that I pray for each and every one of you every single day. I know that you are all so loved by your Father in Heaven, because I can feel his love for you.  You are all such an inspiration to me. Never forget that you are choice sons and daughters of Heavenly Father and because of his son Jesus Christ we are all able to return to live with him again someday. Keep working hard. Don’t worry, one day it will all pay off J
 

Love Always and Forever,

Sister Milar  

Corn Maze with the Branch and Investigators!!

 

Rainy Day!! Transfers...

Good Morning!

Today is such a rainy day and I absolutely love it. It is honestly down pouring so hard as well as thunder and lightening. It has rained a few times this week actually. Most of the time we try to stay pretty dry but... then again it doesn't work out too well. The worst part about this week. I pulled out the tights and... the coat. How awful is that! I just pray that it will be a bit warmer here in a couple of days.

This week has been a pretty great week. We had a zone P-day on Monday. We were going to do a Sister P-day and have all the sisters come to K-Zoo but then the Elders got really jealous and called us and said well what if we could get a zone P-day approved? We told them go for it and ask! So as it turned out President approved it. So we carved pumpkins and played games. In the middle of the pumpkin carving, Elder Morris and Merritt decided that instead we were going to have a fight... They picked up the pumpkin guts and started throwing them. I did really good about staying out of this messy nasty fight until Elder Morris snuck up and nailed me in the shoulder. I get way to competitive sometimes sooooo I had to get him back. We just laughed and laughed and had a jolly good time.

We have also picked up a couple of great investigators.

The first one is Jaylen. I think I have talked about him before but he is so awesome. We met him a few weeks ago. He really hasn't believed in God. Well we had a great lesson with him this past week. He finally was able to open up to us. He is so scared that because he has never really learned about God and if there is a God and he doesn't believe in him, then he is going to go to Hell. Well he doesn't want that to happen. He truly is a great kid.  So in the lesson we decided to talk to him about the Plan of Salvation. The biggest problem with him is that he has thousands of questions. This week those questions started to change from what if there is a God, to well how can God help we accomplish things. He absorbed the plan of salvation like a sponge. He is moving along and I am excited to see where things go with him.

The next is Wiley. Wiley is very, very shy and awkward. I just love him though. He is 18 and isn't even sure what in the world is going on here at college. He kind of just goes with the flow of things. He loves movies. He is going in to graphic design and just is so great. He learns by feelings. We have taught him a few different times. This last time we invited him to be baptized on Dec. 1st! We hope and pray that he keeps progressing and that it will all turn out.

Tom Nelson. Okay so the funny thing about K-zoo, you would think that you were in Chicago or Detroit. There are so, so many black people here. In fact Jaylen is black too. I love black people though. They are so happy and just fun, fun, fun :) Well Tom Nelson has the whitest name but is so black. He is 17 and loves hearing about the gospel. We have taught him a couple of times and he wants to know the truth and has been praying a lot.

The hardest thing about campus is that you have so many great investigators, and then no where out of the blue they just drop off the face of the earth. We hope that we can keep meeting with all of them though as at this time in life they are really searching for the light.

My thought this week comes from an article that my friend Nicole printed off for me. In the talk it talks about how we need to 'Doubt your doubts, before you doubt your faith'. When questions of faith arise and doubts begin to plague you go back to the basics. You can get caught up in the superfluous stuff. You can absolutely get caught around the axle about some of the things church leaders have said or members have said. Yes those things can affect you, but they shouldn't. We all make mistakes. Those weaknesses that we all have don't lessen God's works. "Moses disobeyed, Jonah disobeyed, Peter disobeyed. Disobeying does not make you less of what you are called to be. It means you need to repent. We shouldn't hold people up to higher expectations than we hold ourselves." 

Mark 2:17 "When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Let us all turn to Jesus Christ who is the master physician. He will heal our wounded hearts. He can be our friend, he can guide, lead, and direct us. He is the reason that I am out sharing the message of the Restored gospel. He lives. He has prepared the way for us. Doubt our Doubts before we doubt our faith. Search for God. He is the way the truth and the light. If we have doubted our faith, which I know that we all will sometime in our lives, I encourage you to pour your heart out in prayer and ask for guidance. Seek the answers.  They will come. It takes time. God truly does have a plan for each and everyone of us. None of our plans are the same. This time we have on earth is a preparatory state and very short. A time that we are ALL preparing to meet our maker. We need to be doing our best to put God first, to turn to him ALWAYS and seek his divine guidance.

I love you all so very much. I hope that as you go through out this week that you truly turn to God and ask, "What more can I do.". He is there as a friend, a listening ear, but most of all a loving Father in Heaven.
Have a wonderful week.

Love,
Sister Milar

P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures. The SD card I had in my camera is not any good... So.. it deleted all my pictures. Good thing most of them were backed up.

Miracles!

Well I am sorry to say I am the worst person in the whole world and have come short of time once again. A couple of amazing things happened this week though.

To start off. Campus is a hoping place. There are students every where and you never know who is really truly prepared and who is just wanting to ignore you. Actually the ignoring part isn't very hard to figure out. It is just trying to figure out where the Lord needs you and who he is wanting you to talk to. Well this past week we are walking onto campus. We decide to stop this girl who. Looked at us and saw we were trying to talk to her but then she signs to us. Well this took me by surprise and I signed that I know a little bit of sign language. Which is truth but not very much at all! So She told me that she has met with missionaries before and her name. I said would you like to meet again and she said yes. So we got her number and picked her up as a potential. This truly was a miracle because Heavenly Father blessed me with the gift of tongues and was able to help us communicate with her.

The second miracle is Allie Ross. I have met Allie a couple of times and we have taught her a couple of lessons. She is really cute. 26 years old and has been through a lot in her life. We texted her on Wednesday to see if we were still planning on meeting, she didn't reply so we showed up to where we were supposed to meet at. Well she didn't come. We texted her another time and hadn't heard back from her. So we decided to just stop trying because we don't want to push her too much. Well Saturday night we had a thought that we should text her and invite her to come to church on Sunday. We asked if she thinks she would be able to make it. She said yes I think so. We get told that all the time and usually they don't show up or something happened. Here we are sitting in the cute chapel at church and I look up and here comes Allie! OH I jumped right up and said hello. We sat by a girl named Paige who just reached out to her and everything. She stayed for all three hours and is planning on coming to FHE tonight.

Conference was so wonderful last week and I want to encourage all of you to listen to this talk and to tell me what you think of it. I truly was so inspired by it and know that this is what the Lord needs and wants us to hear. I encourage all of you to go back and listen to conference again. There are so many blessings that come from it.  (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/10/gods-compelling-witness-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng)

I just love the work and I am so grateful that I am able to be out here. Thank you for all that you do for me.  Keep being strong and of good courage. Happy Birthday to one and all!! I LOVE YOU!!

Love Sister Milar
P.S P-day is on Saturday so It is a quick week!! I will talk to you in a couple of days!!

 

Conference!!

Oh my lanta! Wasn't conference just absolutely amazing! I loved everything about it and I hope that you all got some things out of it. Heavenly Father truly has a plan for each of us and one way that we can just feel that love of the gospel even more was through conference this week.

This week here in the Zoo has been pretty fantastic. It has cooled down a lot. The weather here is just kind of ridiculous because it is always all over the place. It honestly just blows my mind. One day it is sweltering hot and the next is freezing cold. I love the heat and am not looking forward to winter so much.. But think. It is October so we just need to keep this weather the way it is and life will be good.

 

We picked up this new investigator named Jaylen. He is from Detroit and is here and WMU. He is 19 and agnostic. We have had a few lessons with him. WE have been talking to him just about the basics. He really has never learned anything about God but believes that there is more out there. It is actually very incredible as he keeps all the commitments we leave with them. So this last lesson we were going to recap the 1st vision and share the rest of the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had just got through the great apostasy and we mentioned that after all this time of people searching to and fro for the gospel as it states in Amos, then we get to Joseph Smith but all I say was in the 1920's there was a boy who was looking for truth. He looks at us and says, "Joseph Smith Right" we smiled and said yes... He has a true desire to learn and is coming a long the path. He just has so so many questions. Hopefully he can receive his answers by the spirit. We are meeting with him again tonight and I am excited for it.

 

On  Friday we had interviews with President Brennan. The Brennan's are just so great. I love them so much. We had a wonderful conversation and asked for a whole bunch of opinions from Sister Eisert and I. We most likely will be staying together or I might be taking over the area. We will see what actually ends up happening.

 

Today's thought comes from conference. I loved every bit of conference but one thing I wanted to share was from President Uchtdorf: he talked about How do we know where to go? Are we able to feel the call of Heaven in our lives? God truly knows all, he knows when we weep, he knows us by name, he teaches us to harken to the voice of the Lord. As we do this 1. Our life will be better. 2 God will be able to use us to help other's lives be better. Remember though thtat the gospel wil not remove all of our trials. As it says in the scriptures in Ether 12 We are given weakness to make us humble which in the end will strengthen us. Don't compare ourselves to others. Be the best you that you can be.

 

I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love Sister Milar

 

P.S. story of the week. So on Friday night it is Sports night at the KUB. We invite our investigators and nonmember friends to come and play ultimate Frisbee. This is great for a few different reasons. One it is a very happy environment and everyone feels welcome, two people invite all their friends, three it is fun!. So we kill three birds with one stone.  This week we were playing. We had broken up into smaller groups. My team was 4 girls and 1 boy. We were killing it. (yes the girls were killing all the guy teams) Well Elder Merritt, one of the zone leaders, loves Frisbee and is pretty good at it. We were playing against his team and keeping up really well, they always win. The score got to a tie at 10's, next point wins. So here we go we are playing and the other teams are just waiting for us to finish. Well the Frisbee starts coming towards me... except it is over my head and it is for the other team. I know I need to block it  or Elder Merritt will come out of no where and catch it. So I take a good jump up and barely reach it and swat it down as he tries to catch it and misses. I BLOCKED IT! VICTORY!! We won that game and we were all so happy haha The end! I hope you have a great day :)

Purple Sunday!!