The Pursuit of Happiness

Hello all!  I hope you had a wonderful Easter.  I know that the Atonement is the most wonderful gift we have ever received!  It is the only way we can return to our Heavenly Father and escape from our own sins.

We had a simple sacrament meeting with talks about the Atonement, and a beautiful piano number that gave me the chills!  ¨Tengo gozo en mi alma hoy¨ but completely improv.  It was so great.

My companion and the other hermanas here had a big lunch with some members yesterday and they gave us two huge chocolate eggs that the mom made!  There is something so great about immediately feeling at home with people you just barely meet.  The mother told me her family´s story of how they found the Church two years ago, her son first got baptized and he then baptized his parents and sisters, and last October they got sealed in the temple and now he is on a mission.  I couldn´t believe that all of this had happened in two years, and their home has such a feel of a life long member family.  I told the mother that and she got pretty teary eyed and said there was a lot of work that had to be done to get to this point, and she couldn´t be happier.

This ¨pursuit of happiness¨´ (love that I found this poster here in venado!)  is something everyone is trying to find.  Some believe that the true happiness lies in riches, in fame, or in worldly knowledge.  A lot of those things that bring great success and great experiences, but living in a place and in this spiritual state as a missionary where all of that is stripped away, you really get to watch people with different eyes as they take on their pursuit through life.  Sometimes it pains me to watch people who really think they know what true happiness is, when they are not following commandments, they are only meagerly believing in the gospel that they have been introduced to.

Yesterday while listening to different Easter messages, I kept hearing ¨Christ suffered so that we don´t have to¨.  He already went through all of the pain so that we don´t have to suffer during this journey we call life!  I will be hones, the mission is not easy and there are moments when the adversary tries to taint our minds and convince us missionaries into thinking that we are doing is not very successful.  He wants us to think that every little effort is a lost cause, and I remind myself that h e is wrong, oh he is SO wrong!  We have to write down all the good little things we see and do and remind ourselves that we are planting seeds ,we are helping people let the Savior change their lives, and the results come, slowly but surely.   It is the same for our lives outside of the mission.  Because the Lord suffered for us, we don´t have to feel down when a struggle comes.  We don´t have to think that there is no way out, because that is what the adversary wants!  We have more strength than we realize.  We have angels on our side cheering us on, and we have the Savior walking every footstep with us, sometimes he is even carrying us through our trials.

I know that Christ lives, and that the Atonement is real!  I love that I know the real pursuit of happiness is leading me back to my Heavenly Father.  Life is great!!  Love you all!

Hermana Hill Mill

PS thank you for the letters!  Congrats AE JONES on your wedding!  Your letter made my day.  G7, thank you for the fun photo for my birthday!  I show all the hermanas the photo to explain what the best looking singles ward in the states looks like.

I am blessed with such wonderful friends and family.  Thank you for your support, prayers and words!  You are also in my prayers!

xoxo 


my district in arroyo seco when I was waiting for hermana green.  I served with hermana rentfro for a week and a half, she was so great!!  These elders are really fun, we had great district meetings together. 

Back In Venado Tuerto

Hello!!  Hope you all had a wonderful conference weekend.  I loved so many of the messages!! 

 

Sorry, this is going to be a quick note today.  I am with my new companion Hermana Green from Sandy Utah.  She is fresh out of the MTC and it is SO cool to see how well they prepared her!  She has a lot of spunk, I know her enthusiasm is going to help us have a lot of success here!  We are busy getting to know all of the people and have already seen a bunch of miracles.  It was pretty funny when we were walking around in the neighborhoods inviting people on the street to conference and people were stopping us! ¨Hermanas!  Are you new??¨  and we thought, are you serious??  How small is this town??  Apparently we were really inspired in choosing where we wanted to contact because we found old investigators, recent converts who are inactive, and even some members who didn´t know the schedule for conference.  I love being guided by the Lord.  Looking for His hand in all things really keeps me excited in this work!  And I love how the mission constantly gives me life analogies.  The mission really is like our lives, but it´s all accelerated.  We struggle, we learn, we start to build confidence, and before we know it we are showing someone else the ropes!  We can find the Lord´s hand in everyday of our lives, not just as missionaries.  It´s pretty breathtaking if you take the time to look carefully.  I wish I had more time to expound on that analogy... but take it and make it your own.  Life is beautiful!    ¨Give me my mountain.¨ 

 

xoxo hermana miller

Conference Is Coming

Life is great here in Arroyo Seco!  The weather has been extremely pleasant: absolutely no humidity and a perfect fall chill.  My comp and have been singing Christmas hymns de vez en cuando (every once in a while) because the weather makes us feel like it´s the holidays.  I´ve been wearing a cardigan and tights every day this week and I love it.  We have been teaching a lot and finding some great people who were quite excited when we gave them a Book of Mormon during our first contact.  I will never tire of seeing someone so genuinely grateful and excited to read that precious book!  

Conference is coming up!!  If you haven´t heard of General Conference, take a look at The Church´s website at lds.org and you can watch the Prophet Thomas S. Monson, his counselors, and the Twelve Apostles speak inspired words to all the world every six months. We believe that the same Church that Christ organized on the Earth during His ministry is here today.  We have prophets who are called of God to give us, His children, the specific guidance we need in these latter days.  Take a look!  I know you will be lifted and edified.  There is a promise that if we have a certain struggle, or a need for certain guidance or advice, we can pray to find an answer and if we listen attentively to the conference talks we will hear the answer! 

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Love you all! ! !   Hermana Miller 

The Mission Is Full Of Surprises!

This week was crazy!   Let me fill you in..

After going to the ciber to email, I received a phone call from the Assistants that I would not be going to the mission home on Thursday to pick up my new companion because she has Visa problems.  Sound familiar?  Now I know what it is like on the flip side!!  The Elders said that I needed to go straight to my new area. On Wednesday, the crazy day called Transfers, I traveled to Rosario from Cañada de Gomez.  From the Terminal I traveled with another Elder 3 hours south on a bus to Venado Tuerto, where Hermana Collins picked me up. There are two areas for hermanas in Venado right next to each other, and our apts are two houses down!  I was pretty pumped to hear about all the fun things the missionaries do here in the zone.  They get together often in the morning to play basket and have asados (bbq´s) and activities every PDay, which is so different from being alone in Cañada! So the plan was for me to be in a trio with Collins and her comp Velasco for a week or so until my new companion came.  On Thursday I got a call from the assistants again, telling me ¨Hermana, you are going to Arroyo Seco to serve with Hermana Rentfro.  Pack all of your things and take the next bus out!¨  What?!  Hermana Rentfro had a ¨visa-waiter¨ who got her visa for her mission in Spain, and was without a companion!  So I quickly packed up everything again (they are definitely putting my speedy packing skills to the test!) and took a bus on Friday to the terminal in Rosario, and I was told that from there I would take a taxi to the mission home and find Rentfro there, but to my surprise I found President Giuliani and one of the Assistants right at my side once I hopped down from the bus.  It was a pleasant surprise and a nice treat to have them chauffeur me down to Arroyo Seco.

So here I am!  In the middle of all the chaos Hermana Rentfro called a member from Rosario who had served a mini mission (one transfer to help out the mission when we are short an hermana) to fill in as her comp for a bit.  Her name is Hermana Machuca and she is great!  She stuck around this weekend because we had a baptism!  That was another big surprise for me.  Hermana Rentfro didn´t tell me a thing about it until we started planning for the weekend.  No wonder she needed more help!

I love Antonio, he is in his 70´s, a bit deaf, and reminds me of Bill Cosby.  We arrived at his house to tell him the details the day before his baptism and there was music playing from his house.  I smiled and introduced myself and told him I loved his music, and this HUGE grin appeared on his face and he said ¨Quiere bailar?¨ and threw back his head and leaned back just like Bill Cosby does his little dance, the arms and everything!  I was sold.  He shared alfajores with us after the lesson too... such a sweetheart.  The baptism was perfect, and we invited our neighbors... that´s another story for another week, but to make it short we are teaching them tonight and the daughter wants to be baptized!!

I love this work. No matter where we are the work keeps going.  It´s in Arcadia, Glendale, La Cañada, Pasadena, LA, Anaheim, New York, Provo, Paris, Florence, it´s everywhere!  The Lord needs his servants, and that includes those who don´t wear a name tag ; )

I love you all.  Thank you for your letters and emails.  They mean the world to me.  (dearelder.com is the best!! Thank you!) YOU mean the world to me!!

xoxo hermana miller


Baptism of Antonio in Arroyo Seco with my companion Hermana Rentfro and our mini misionera Hermana Machuca who helped out Hermana Rentfro when she didn´t have a companion for a few days. It´s a bit complicated but I will explain everything!  : ) 

I'm going to Venado Tuerto!

I just found out a little while ago that I am leaving Cañada de Gomez and going to an area further south called Venado Tuerto = one eyed deer.  Interesting name, don´t you think?  It has been hard saying goodbye to people, but I know it is my time and there are great things ahead for me.  I am really curious to meet my new companion, and I am very excited to be in this new area because we have other sister missionaries in the branch with us, and other elders in the zone meet up with us every Monday to play sports and cook.  It will be a nice change, because here in Cañada we are at least half an hour away from the other elders in our zone. 

Hermana Miranda and I had something really amazing happen to us the other night.  On Wednesday we attended a training meeting and did a practice/ role play, which I have not been a big fan of in the past.  It was actually really successful and it felt real to me, which is usually rare.  We need a pretend contact, lesson, and invitation to baptism.  On Thursday all of our planned appointments fell through in the evening, which frustrated me for a bit because I really felt right about being in that area that day.  I said aloud ¨What am I doing wrong?! What does the Lord want... there must be a reason why we are here right now!¨  Miranda asked me if I had contacted this certain street before with Gerratt, I said no, and so we started contacting.  At the second door we met a girl my age who was Evangelista and not interested, but when Miranda was persistent (love her!) the girl asked if we wanted to come in.  That is music to a missionary´s ears, folks.  We ended up asking her a lot of questions, said a prayer, and taught her about faith, repentance, and baptism.  Then we ended up inviting her to baptism, which at first she rejected, but once again we were persistent and when we told her that Heavenly Father answers all prayers and asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ after having received an answer that these things are true, she said simply ¨If God says so, then yes!¨  

 As Miranda and I walked down the street we held our excitement in for a few blocks until we were far enough away when we could finally jump for joy and skip down the street with delight. I now have a testimony of role plays!  I know the Lord prepared us the day before in that training meeting so we could help out this young mother. Miranda and her new comp are going to continue teaching her, and I am crossing my fingers that she will be baptized the 7th of April!! 

This work is full of surprises, and full of ¨pruebas de fe¨  and ¨pruebas de paciencia.¨  If we are patient and faithful, we can be content with the Lord´s timeline.  I know that he answers prayers, and it is even better knowing that I can be happy while I am waiting for an answer.  That´s the trick! 

I love you all, and I hope you are happy and well.  

Love Hermana Miller 

Dominga and Familia Bustamante.

little victories

The sunrise this morning was crazy orange... (it shows up more red on the camera)  and we keep hearing that some big storms are coming our way.

A lot is different in the area right now.  We are focusing on gaining help from the branch members to attend lessons with us and become more excited about missionary work.  We  are receiving more references and teaching families to sincerely pray to know who is ready to hear the gospel.  A lot of times we hear ¨We´ve tried already, none of our friends are interested!¨  A member who was inactive for six years and then returned said the very same thing.  I told her ¨You had a change of heart and came back to the Church, right?  So maybe these people will have a change of heart too and are now interested in the gospel, when years ago they weren´t ready yet!¨  I think that got her thinking : )  My companion told her to write a list of every single person she knows and when we next see her we are going to have her pray to know which people are ready to hear the gospel. 

Saturday night we had a lesson with a less active member and invited a member of the Branch Presidency.  The less active member has been telling us how lucky we are as missionaries to have the Spirit constantly and have such a strong relationship so close to God.  We kindly reminding him that he too can have the companionship of the Spirit, and although he is not called to be a missionary, he is still able to share the gospel with others and is in the most important mission of his life, the strengthening of his home and family.  I loved listening to the counselor´s testimony of the importance of attending Church and the gift of the Holy Ghost.   The next day at Church the less active man came and bore his testimony,  Let me tell you, little victories like that make me want to jump and do bell kicks down the aisle in the chapel.  But I refrain and resort to dance moves in my head.  YES!

Little victories happen everyday, and each one of us can be part of it.  I love this work!! And the greatest thing about this work is that there is no separation between missionary work and the gospel.  When we are members and not full time missionaries, we are ¨full time finders and missionaries are ¨full time teachers¨.  It´s a beautiful thing, my friends.

Thanks for the birthday messages!   6 years and going strong!  : ) 

Love you all.  xoxo hermana miller 

Hello everyone!  Today was a really great day, and it was a really great week too!  Today we met up with our zone in Rosario.  We played some sports and had a water balloon fight.  I felt like a little kid for a few hours... it´s nice to have something different in our schedule every once in a while to shake things up and recharge.

My poor Hermana Miranda has been fighting some major migranes lately, so we had to travel a bit, see some doctors, and rearrange our normal work so we could figure out how to help her feel better.  Amidst the hiccup in our schedule, we still saw lots of miracles happen!  The nurses that attended to her in Rosario were extremely curious about our nametags, and after a good twenty minutes of explaining The Church, we got their contact info and sent it to the mission office so the elders in their area can go teach them!  I love that the Lord helps us find people even during a doctor´s appointment!

We also found some people while contacting that sound sincerely interested in hearing our message, which is great because sometimes Argentines are too nice to say NO and will let us come by again, but will only want to chat about other things.

On Thursday we had a very inspiring Zone Conference where we heard from President and Hermana Giuliani along with the Assistants to the President.  They talked about the importance of seeking the Spirit in this work and recognizing answers to our prayers.  This is definitely something I have been working harder on, because without it missionaries cannot know exactly where the Lord wants them to go or what to say!  Read D&C 50, it has become our theme in this mission.. and I absolutely love it and am a witness of how vital our connection is with the Spirit.  Prayer is the way that we can form this connection, and this is not smoething exclusive to missionaries!  All of us, Heavenly Father´s children, have been given this hermosa opportunity to converse with Almighty God who is the Supreme Being of all things... which sounds a bit intimidating, no? But He loves us like a father, because He is our Father. We can speak to Him at any moment at any time, aloud or silently in our hearts.  The tricky part that we make harder on ourselves is when we miss His answers.  He  always answers our prayers.. it is our duty to be observant to what is around us, and sensitive to how we feel, because that is how we can recognize His answers and receive revelation.  It definitely takes practice, and it has slowly but surely become easier for me.  I love it!  I love being a missionary.  I love seeing right in front of my eyes when my companion and I are being used as instruments in the Lord´s hands.

I hope you are all well!  I am sorry I dont have many photos as of late.. the connection is a bit slow here.

Besos

Hermana Miller