Week 23

 

How is everyone doing? Today is going to be a short email just because nothing crazy happened this week...just the usual. We went to cafe rio twice because sister cannon LOVES it. Yesterday I ate frog legs and it wasn't too bad. I just couldn't get passed the thought of eating a frog leg haha. Greg our amazing investigator is making huge progress! He's praying about July 8th for his baptism date! Shanelle is on date for July 4th and Bonnie on date for July 5th so a lot of exciting things are happening! I'll be sad once I leave great falls. I have seen so much progress in this area since the time I got here. The blatters are getting sealed on July 1st so that's even more exciting! Kirby also said he will go to the temple for baptisms if we go with him so we are pumped! Can't believe that July 4th is officially my six month mark...time is starting to fly by. Hope everyone had a great fathers day! Love you all! Keep the faith.

Love,

Sister Miles ♡

107 19th Street N
Great Falls, MT 59401

Week 22

Good morning! Hope everyone had a great time last week! How are we all doing? This transfer is off to a rough start but I am keeping as positive as possible! Sister Cannon has been sick most of the week so we haven't been as busy as usual but the work cannot go on if us as missionaries aren't well! 

what...I'VE GAINED 15 POUNDS since being on my mission. I hate Montana(jk ). So in the mornings we are going more hardcore and eating less snacks which is smart haha. What was not smart or us last week was eating a almost two pound burger. Yes about two pounds...why? Well Brother Bailey said that the elders weren't able to finish the burger and gave up so we accepted the challenge to beat them. It took us an hour to eat it and we were force feeding ourselves to a point of almost vomiting. The rest of the day was downhill. We were bloated all day and I couldn't even eat dinner. Have you ever seen the movie whitechicks? Well we were having our own whitechicks moment with the bathroom scene. Tmi sorry but you know me! Honest! Last Monday we played chair soccer and wrecked the elders. I have bruises all over my body but it's cool. WE'RE BEASTS. Sister Cannon and I are so much alike it's kinda scary. She's interested in law enforcement because her dad is a sheriff so we share interests in some things! She's a lot of fun and very down to earth, I love it. I gave my discussion last week on accountability and it wasn't bad! Responsibility is so important. Last week was pretty hard. We had the sister training leaders show up Saturday unexpectedly. Sister Wadsworth has been worried about me so the sisters drove down for a day exchange. I had sister Keezlee and she's amazing. I admire her a lot. It was nice to have someone to talk to. I get to have exchanges with her at the end of June so I'm excited! 

Last week we saw a less active that Sister Decker and I had visited twice or so and it was very touching. The first time I met her she looked much healthier and was so much more mobile. Now she is completely immobile and has lost a lot of weight. She had open heart surgery recently to help with her cancer. The doctors finally told her that there was no more that they could do and that her time was coming. When we showed up we had asked her how she was doing because I hadn't seen her in two months. She looked me in the eyes and said "I'm dying and I'm scared". Tears filled both her eyes and mine. I immediately grabbed her hand and hugged her. In that moment my testimony of the plan of salvation has never been stronger. In that moment I was also angry at myself that I had lacked the visits with her when she could have needed me most. I then thought I can't look back, I can only look forward. We brought her flowers, cookies and a card the next day and she loved it. Though I wasn't there then I'm here now and I hope I can have her leave this world with knowing that someone loved her and knew of her worries. I bore testimony to her that the Lord loves her and that we have somewhere to go and that everything will be okay. I cried the whole day after that experience. Don't ever deny a prompting you receive. If the spirit is telling you that you need to go and see someone...go. I bare testimony that you all have a purpose in this life. Serve others. Love them. You are all leaders. I have seen so much joy in those that have found the gospel and have an opportunity to change. Share that great news to people. In the adjusting to missionary life book it reads:" Remember, Heavenly Father loves you. Trust in Him and in the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to heal and redeem you. God has a perfect plan for His imperfect children; this is the good news you carry to the world." 

I have a testimony of this gospel. It has changed my life. Though I may struggle, I am the happiest I have ever been. I promise you that as you give your whole heart into this great work and this amazing gospel, you will never be led astray. Keep on keeping on. I love you all! Keep the faith.

Love,
Sister Miles ♡

107 19th Street N
Great Falls, MT 59401

Week 21

Hi! 
Well last week was transfers. Sister Decker left to Wyoming and I got Sister Cannon as my new companion! She's been out for about 8 months! Last week was crazy busy and stressful now that I'm in charge of this area. Driving wears me out! It's getting really hot down here so we are always sweating. We have quite a few people we are teaching so the work is moving along! We are planning to get three people on data for baptism this week so we are praying real hard! Last week was extremely hard for sure. We were in the middle of a lesson with Kirby and I had to run outside because I was about to throw up due to all of the stress. Yesterday I asked brother bailey to give me a blessing because I had cried every single day last week and was just struggling. I have a testimony of the power of the priesthood. It lifts you up and strengthens you. I feel a much better than I did last week and that's all because of the power of the priesthood. Brother bailey and Kirby said they each got two hours of sleep Saturday night after they had seen the shape that I was in. Sister Cannon said I looked extremely pale and not well. Brother bailey was so worried he called my mission presidents. Sister Wadsworth talked with me yesterday and said "You can do this." I immediately felt motivated. It's nice having a ward family that cares so much about you. Since I don't have my family here to hug me, they do. I am doing a lot better so don't worry! Yesterday being fast and testimony meeting I went up and bore my testimony. I bore my testimony on the importance of studying the scriptures daily and praying as a family. It is so important, do not take it lightly. I promise you more blessings and happiness will come to you as you obey God's commandments. I have seen many miracles since being on my mission. I know that the reason those miracles have happened is because I have been striving to be the most obedient I can be. Salvation does not come easy, it is earned. If Jesus was to come to earth tomorrow would you be ready? Ponder on that...don't wait tomorrow, or next week, or next month to change something. Do it today. I love you all and I miss you so much. You have so much to offer to the world. Go out and share it. Keep the faith. Have the best week! 

Love,

Sister Miles ♡

107 19th Street N
Great Falls, MT 59401

Week 20

She hasn't lost her goofiness!

Hello,

Today's email is going to be short since my new tablet is not set up and I'm using sister Decker's iPad for now! Well its transfer week! I'm staying and leading out the area! Whoop whoop! Sister Decker is sadly leaving me but she is going to Wyoming and is becoming a sister training leader! Exciting news for me....we had interviews last week and I told my mission President that I wanted to train so he is considering me! As well as other crazy news...talk is that I may be becoming a sister training leader sometime down the road. What!!! My new companion is Sister Cannon. I've met her once and she seems super awesome! I'm excited! I am now the designated driver so sweet! "I'm the captain now". Well there was a murder across the street from our place so we had to stay the night at the other sisters place for safety. All is well now. They have the guy in custody. Anyways...we had exchanges last week and I stayed with Sister Wagstaff and she's awesome! I learned a lot from her! I was stressed about the whole driving thing but I survived! Well a really good lesson from the week was Greg. He said that he knows this church is true and he's praying to pick a baptismal date! I'm so excited! Last week was busy and stressful but I learned a lot. I can't believe that by the end of this next transfer I will be at 6 months. Crazy! I love you all so much and I'm sorry I don't have all the time in the world today but my tablet will be all worked out by next Monday so then I'll actually be able to talk more! I hope you all had fantastic weeks! Keep the faith. 

Love you! 

Sister Miles ️

Pictures:

1. Naomi's birthday party(investigators daughter) 

2. Katie a less active we are teaching 

3. The Mathews! 

The rest is random! 

week 19

Hello again! Well not much to report on since I just saw your lovely faces yesterday! I hope you all had a wonderful week! It was so amazing to be able to see all of you yesterday and to talk with each of you. I really needed that. Shout out to my amazing mom who was so willing to give up her mother's day Skype time to have everyone else see me. Thank you all for all of your support. Next time I Skype I'll be just about at my year mark! It's gonna fly by! I love you all so much and I hope you have the most amazing week! Keep growing! Keep progressing! God and I are cheering you on! 

I leave you with my testimony that there is no greater joy than having and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I gave up 18 months of my life to serve others and to help others find the joy that I have with the Gospel. I hope each and every one of you can find that in your lives. Life is tough but it is possible with Jesus Christ. I bear witness of that because I have experienced that for myself. God loves you, remember that. 

My heart is aching today. I miss you all so much. I think I'm still in shock that I saw you yesterday and was able to have conversations with you. Don't change too much while I'm gone! You are all amazing and I think of you everyday. Something that I would love is if you sent old pictures. I love looking back on the good ol times. I'll probably be crying for the next week but it's because I have the most amazing family. You make life worth it. 

In honor of Mothers Day here's a quote: "Life doesn't come with a manual, it comes with a mother" -Unknown

I invite you all to keep reading your scriptures and praying as a family! I promise you that God will bless you as you make time for Him in your lives! Go to church! Haha 

Keep the faith. I love you. 

Below one of the pictures is with Alyssa! It was her birthday and Sister Decker and I stopped by and gave her her card! We are teaching her and her family! 

Love,

Sister Miles ♡

What you do on Pday

I Love my Mom

Week 18

Good morning!
Wow....this week so many great things happened!

Well, May 2nd was one of the best days I've had on my mission so far. We had two great lessons that day! We have two new investigators! One of the lessons we taught that day was to a less active couple. One was a return missionary and the other was not. He has been off of his mission for about six years. They are a new couple in our ward so we set up a time to get to know them and share a message. After an hour of talking with them we finally shared the "Prince of Peace" video. There were tears...The return missionary talked with us and said he has never connected with a set of sisters. When him and his wife were new the first people that talked to him were the missionaries. He began to cry and said that he considers himself less active and that he would like for us to come and to teach the lessons to him and his wife. He said to us "I can tell you're prepared". He said "I haven't felt this way in a long time". Of course I cried! In that moment I felt purpose. That was the first time since I've been on my mission that I felt purpose. Purpose being in Montana. Purpose being a missionary. Purpose that I was sent here to help them. I instantly loved them. I had been praying to find my purpose on my mission and the Mathews family gave me that.  That same day we had a lesson with our new investigator Jason. For a whole hour he told us about himself and his story. My heart hurt for him. He asked the questions "What is my purpose?" "I'm doing everything right why is God punishing me?" Jason has had struggles with family his whole life. He has never been married nor does he have kids. He is the sweetest most loyal person I have ever met. He said when he was in the military out serving; he said if another man needed to be saved, I would give my life for him because someone will miss him. He said everyone else had a family to go home too so no one would care if I was dead or not. After we left that lesson I cried for 20 minutes. I know that I was sent here to help Jason feel of his purpose and that God does love him. May 2nd was just an emotional day! It doesn't stop there....as I was pondering on that day, all of a sudden I thought back to the first person I ever asked to be baptized. Kelvin. The feeling of failure and rejection terrified me. My heart was pounding and I was asking a question that could change some one's salvation. I believe it's the most sincere question ever to be asked "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds that priesthood authority of God?" I asked Kelvin to enter into the waters of baptism, into a new life. Though in that moment he said he wasn't ready I knew I could overcome something that I thought was terrifying. This goes for life. Getting outside of our comfort zone can be terrifying. "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." Well what am I getting into? MISSIONARY WORK! "Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor." -D&C 88:81. A ward and a family who centers their lives around missionary work has a strong foundation in the gospel. I promise you so many blessings will come of it. A crazy miracle that happened last week was Gregory. At 8:55 at night we decided to knock on one more house. The best thing is when Gregory opened the door he was in boxers and I couldn't help but laugh. Cracks me up. Well it was late so he said it wasn't a good time but that we could come back that next morning. So we came back and brought Sister Marshall with us and the lesson was amazing. Gregory's hold up is coffee. When we explained to him why we don't drink coffee he began to cry. I know in that moment he felt the spirit testifying to him. I felt the prompting to be brave and invite him to church the next day and guess what...he came! When he walked into the church I could feel my face light up and his did too. He is the most happy person ever and so humble. He sat right next to me and it was a perfect Sunday because testimony meeting! During one of the testimonies Gregory looked over at me with tears in his eyes and said, "There are still are good people on this earth ." Welp duh I cried! It really touched me because he saw a different world and it gave him such hope. 

The rest of the week went like this...

Both set of elders in our zone got sick. One with salmonella poisoning and another has an pneumonia . We brought "sicky sacks" to both of them and had to break into one of the elders apartments to get stuff for them. Then we had to go to the ER to visit them and give them the things they needed. The sisters are still going strong! 

Well last week got hot. Up in the 80's and it was the worst! Summer is beginning...The weather in Montana is so random. One day it was 80 degrees then we had a crazy thunder/hail storm. There was so much water coming down that the sewers were overflowing and spraying out. Yeah...nasty. It was pretty entertaining though. We were super busy all week! I'm definitely exhausted!

 Sister Darnell is the cutest. She was like "You look like a cute Mother Theresa!" Haha at least Sister Darnell thinks I'm cute. Yesterday we had our first lesson with two girls 8 and 10. We are teaching them the lessons and preparing them for baptism. They were adopted not too long ago and their family is part of the church. One of the girls is deaf so we had to have someone come that knows sign language and I guess this is a good opportunity for me to pick up on my sign language again! Sister Decker and I fasted 24 hours again and let me tell ya...way harder this time! I was seriously struggling! I was hangry haha. Yesterday was an emotional day for me. I stormed out of Sunday school because I just needed to cry. A mission is hard and people will let you down. We were supposed to have six investigators at church yesterday and two showed up. I was grateful for those two but I was just so disappointed. Devoting all of your time into those who say they will come to church and commit and don't show is so dang frustrating! In that moment I took a step back and tried to think of their reasons and their perspective. The Savior is patient with us so why can't I be with these people? Something to think about. We had another great lesson with the Mathews family yesterday and I shared my story with them. I bore my testimony on the love that God has for us. Everyone was crying and it was such a powerful moment. Back when I was 12 and greatly battling depression and suicidal thoughts, I thought God had abandoned me. I felt so alone but realized it was me that was blocking out God. I related my story to Joseph Smith and when he knelt down in humble prayer in a grove of trees. And this is his account of his experience-"After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light"-Joseph Smith history 15-16. At the time Joseph Smith was ready to sink into despair and give up...God and Jesus Christ appeared. In the moment and even now when I am just ready to give up, God hears me. He does answer prayers and He does hear you. I bare witness of that. 

I would just like to bare my testimony on God's love for us. He loves you, never doubt that. Look to God. When you pray, if it's really sincere, God will send an answer. I owe it all to the gospel. I love my Savior and I love this church. I would like to bare my testimony on the Atonement that it is there for us. The Savior already suffered so that you may have eternal life. "And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words. For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." -Moses 1:38-39 I love you all and I pray for you. Look up. 

"Most of us clearly understand that the Atonement is for sinners. I am not sure, however, that we know and understand that the Atonement is also for saints...." -Elder Bednar

"Even if I need to stand alone God expects me to stand" - Hank Smith

I hope you all have a great week! You're amazing! Less than a week until I get to talk to you! Keep the faith. 

Love,

Sister Miles

Week 17

Well hello and good morning! Hope everyone had a good week! Mine was crazy busy but so many miracles happened this week! I just love Great Falls! This is my place! I can't believe it's already May! Where has the time gone...

Below I will attach some screenshots of what our weeks are like...notice you won't see any blank spots...always busy! So last week we were told they are putting tiwi boxes in the cars. Not cool! So a little about these boxes, they monitor our driving. It has our location, speed, how long we were in the car..everything! We were all pretty devastated when we heard those were coming into the mission in a few weeks. Yikes! Speaking of driving, I might have to drive within the next couple of weeks so I'm freaking out! I haven't driven for four months! 

Well last week I gave another discussion and it went pretty well! We did a lot of finding and tracting. We got about six return appointments with investigators so we are pumped!  There really have been so many miracles this week and I am so grateful for the blessings that come from being obedient. God truly has people prepared here and we have been out looking for them! Everyone here is so nice, even the ones who aren't interested. We met an atheist and he said we could come back and teach him! We were totally shocked but I truly believe the spirit was softening his heart. The gospel is for everyone! Never judge a book by its cover! The ward here is so on top of missionary work I love it! We have a busy week this week with lots of lessons! So excited. Now that I'm used to being on the go I can't stand not doing something! Shocking I know since I used to nap all the time and was super lazy haha. Missions change you! 

I encourage you this week to look for every opportunity given to serve. I know that true happiness comes from serving those around you and being in the service of your God. One night we saw this man walking and he looked pretty down. We kept driving but then I felt this prompting to turn around and to go talk to him. I definitely fought the prompting because I just wanted to keep going and to be honest he looked a little scary to talk to. We turned around and got out of the car. We walked up to him and were just chatting with him and he said that we had contacted him about a month ago. I was wondering why he looked so familiar! He was super nice and we got to talk with him a little and we invited him to learn. Turns out he has been taking care of his sick grandma who has cancer. At first when I received that prompting I had no idea why we had to go talk to this man but after meeting with him, I knew why. We have no idea what goes on in other people's lives at times but I promise you as you stay worthy to have the holy ghost dwell within you, you will hear those promptings. My testimony grew after this experience as I sat and pondered about this life and those around us. Serve. Love. Give. I testify that this is the true church that Jesus Christ himself once established on the earth. I have studied, I have prayed and I know. If you doubt, pray. We all have doubts in this life and I sure had mine but once I prayed and asked Heavenly Father....he give me surety. Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and loves you. It is hard to comprehend how much love Heavenly Father and the Son of God have for us because it is so much. I love hearing those words...the Son of God. They don't care about your past and who you were. They care about who you are becoming and what you will be. Forgive yourself because they already have. Forgive others. Bless those that curse you and do wrong against you. 

I would just like to share some words from my favorite talk from this last conference:

"One day, a few months after my baptism, I heard some members criticizing each other in church. I was very disappointed. I went home and told my father that maybe I should not go to church anymore. It was difficult to see members criticize others like that. After listening, my father taught me that the gospel had been restored and it is perfect but members are not yet, neither himself nor me. He firmly said, “Do not lose your faith because of the people around you, but build a strong relationship with Jesus Christ. Don’t look around, look up! Look up to Jesus Christ—the wise advice of my father—strengthens my faith whenever I face challenges in life. He taught me how to apply the teachings of Christ, as in these words: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” -Elder Yoon Hwan Choi 

President Thomas S. Monson encouraged us, “May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.” It is never too late to look up to Jesus Christ. 

Thought of the day: What is my purpose in this life? (Hints of how you can find out and learn a little more...The Restoration Pamphlet in the gospel library app) 

Keep reading! Keep attending church! Keep growing! Look up and keep the faith. 

Love,

Sister Miles