Howdy, Y'all!

It's spring time in Cedar City! The weather has taken a drastic upturn in the past week. It is time for short sleeves and.... well, that's about as casual as we get. Anyway, its better that the slush that we were in for a couple of weeks. And, this weather means that we have started running in the mornings. :) emoticons are great. people have no idea what your actual expression is.

This scripture has been bouncing around in my head for the past few days. "ponder the path of thy feet". How often do we take time to wonder where our feet are taking us? I am reminded of a talk that Elder Uchtdorf gave, about the measure of a few degrees. If a plane gets off course by even 1 degree, the destination changes drastically. Are our feet taking us where we want to be? More importantly, are they taking us where the Lord wants us to be?

It is easy to get off course. It is easy, when we notice that we are off course, to say "Oh, I'm not that off course. It's no big deal, right?" One degree. That's all it takes. And when we notice that we are way off course, we will (not may. will) be tempted to say, "Why bother? its too late". Brothers and Sisters, Children of a Heavenly Father, it is NEVER too late to correct course. There are legions of angels waiting to help us walk that path that leads to God. We have a Savior, who loves us enough to conquer death and pain for us. 

May the path of our feet follow the path that His feet trod. The path that leads over the mountains of our tribulations, and to the throne of our Father.

I love you all

Elder Miller

Hello, The rest of the world!

Still in Cedar. Really, there wasnt much movement in this district for this transfer. I am still with my trainer. Most of the snow is gone, and I am starting to remember that I am in fact in the desert. :) Oh well, I still love it here.

WE HAVE iPADS! So, yeah, I actually have no idea how to use them as a missionary, but who cares? we have ipads! Seriously, though, they are a great tool. And we will learn more about how to use them as we go. As you can probably tell, I am pretty stoked. I wish you all could hear my mad scientist laugh. It's pretty great.

I have some exciting news. One of our investigators is on day 10 without smoking! This is something that she has been struggling with for years, and now she is beating it. This has been the highlight of my first month. I am seeing the cleansing power of the Atonement in her life, and the change is so drastic.

The rest of the past 2 weeks have been good. The work has slowed down a little bit, but it goes on. I still cant believe that an entire transfer has gone by. I was told that the days would feel like weeks, and the weeks would feel like days. Heh. Everything is just flying by, and I found myself worrying about being transferred. I was actually pretty stressed out. I wasnt ready. I was untrained. I was unqualified. Do you know what I discovered? So what. There is no such thing as a perfect missionary. There is no such thing as a perfect disciple of Christ. But I heard something in sacrament meeting yesterday that struck me. The Lord does not call the qualified; He qualifies those He calls.

So I will happily go wherever I am called, and all of us should. The Lord has a work for each of us to do, but He cant steer us if we aren't moving. Faith is an action, a step. And as we take that step, we can trust that the Lord will guide us in the right direction. Because He will. He always will.

Love you all.Take care

Elder Miller  

This week has been awesome. We are continuing to find so many people to teach, and we will be seeing some baptisms in the very near future. The Lord is blessing His missionaries very richly in this area. My first transfer is almost up, and I cant believe how fast the time has gone. I will send more next week, and I might be in a new area! you never know.

Elder Miller

From the desert city currently buried under a foot of snow, HELLO! Seriously, just when we had gotten rid of the last snow, more came in. According to a reputable source (that lady on the street) traffic has been worse in the past 2 weeks than it has been in years. Surprise, surprise. I actually feel sorry for the Sister missionaries in our district. One is from Texas, and the other has been in St. George for the past 16 months. They don't like the snow, lets leave it at that. Anyway, enough about the weather. This week has been soooo busy! I went on my first transfer this week. I went over to the North stake, and the district leader, Elder Henderson, came to our area. The Elder I was with, Elder Baker, is awesome. He is 18, but he looks like he is in his 20's. He is also a big joker, and for a while I was honestly afraid that he was going to start contacting people while speaking with a Spanish accent. But he does take the work seriously, he just has fun doing it. 

 Elder Gordy and I now have several more people to teach. I almost wrote that we had found more people, but in reality, the Lord led them to us. I have seen amazing things this week. I have seen hearts softened, even transformed. We now have three siblings who are preparing for baptism, and they are a great example to their less active parents. A young girl is hearing the lessons, in spite of the lack of support from her family. Actually, scratch that. There are two girls in that same situation. I thought I knew what faith was, until I came out here. I have seen acts of faith from complete strangers that have left me in awe.

I had an interesting experience this week. In the past little while, I have struggled at times to find the courage to open my mouth, and declare the gospel. There has been sickness going around, and several missionaries have caught it. I also caught it, but unlike the others, I completely lost my voice for 2 days. Let me tell you, not speaking  is completely different from not having the option to speak. It reminded me of the parable of the talents. We may at times feel like the man with one talent. And maybe we are. If we are, then we need to show the Lord what we can do with that one talent. And when we show the Lord that we can be trusted, then He will bestow more talents upon us. I have gained a great appreciation for, not only the opportunity, but the ability that I have to raise my voice and declare that I know that the Lord lives, that His Priesthood authority exists on the earth, and that His church has been restored to the earth in it's fullness. To all those that read this, I invite you: identify the talents, the gifts, the blessings that you have received from our Father in Heaven. We all have them. Find them. And then do something. Share what you have, use what you have been given to bless someone else's life. I promise that as you do this, that our Heavenly Father will shower you with blessings. This is my testimony. My talent. And I share it in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

Elder Miller 

P.S. Yes, Mom. I am better now. :)