Bye Ancona...Hello Milan

So the cool and exciting thing I want to tell you about this week is we Elder Texiera of the seventy come to our mission and do a mission tour, which meant he did like 3 or 4 conferences around the mission where the missionaries got to go and listen to him talk and teach us. It was a really cool experience! We had the biggest one here in Milan, there were about 130 missionaries which is like half the mission so it was super exciting to see everyone I haven’t seen in a while. There were a couple sisters from my district in the MTC that I had not seen since my first day in Italy so I was really excited to see them and just talk to them! But the conference was really great and really inspiring! He gave a great training on how we are set apart to be missionaries so we need to be missionaries not anything else. He compared it to this awesome Mormon message about this farmer who cut down this current bush when it was tall and healthy because it wasn’t growing any fruit. But the Gardner did it because he knew what the bush could and had the potential to be. And more important this bush was a current bush but had no fruit, so was not doing what he was supposed to. He compared that to us and how we need know who we are and what we are supposed to be. So for me that means I need to know the doctrine of Jesus Christ better! The gospel is really our message and our purpose as a missionary, I teach and preach it so I also have to learn and live it! It really inspired me to want to work harder and just be a missionary. We all have a responsibility in life, but it all depends on what we are going to do with that responsibility. I have a responsibility to teach this gospel to Italy, so I want to do that. He also said that every companionship should teach 21 lessons a week. In Ancona i could do that cause I had a lot of new converts and less actives and I knew the city well to keep me busy. So far here in Milan we have got around 6-8 a week. So me and my comp commit ourselves to strive to get it! Already this week we have 7! So we are on track to get it but it will still take a lot of work. I know that with through obedience and hard work we can do it! I love this gospel! i love this opportunity to be a missionary! I know that this work is important and am humbled to do my part! 

These are all of Elder Miller's new converts from Ancona. He is saying goodbye to them on his last day. 

If this is the "kinda bald guy" Ty tried to explain. This is the ward mission leader in Ancona, Fratello Guiglarelli. He is great!

This is a less active member Ty helped  come back in Ancona. 

This is Augustus. One of the brothers he baptized and his "favorite." They still talk a lot! 

A good friend of Ty's he met at the MTC, Anziano Osterergar. He's also from California!

Duomo in Milan

This is a statue in front of the stock market (wall street kind of) in Milan. Ty says it is "ironic"

(I hope I am getting these captions right) This is Ty in front of Big Porta in Milan

Ty and his companion at "como"??

Switzerland!

Quick Note from Elder Miller

Ciao Tutti

I think its been a while since i wrote the people who follow my blog, which is probably huge im sure! haha but if you didnt know im now living in Milano, Navigli. Navigli has one really famous pretty part that everyone knows about cause it has a canal. but really this part is know as the ghetto haha but i love it so its ok. The people in the ward are great and the people in this area are so open to the gosple and to listen i love it! Right now we are teaching two families that i have alot ot hope for. One is from the phillipines and the other is from napoli. we have baptismal dates with one of the families and we feel really solid about them but the other one we are still working for. We have good feelings about both of them. What else. last week i went to Como... It is beautiful!! like one of the prettiest places i have ever seen. and today i am in Switzerland!!! its realy really pretty also. dont worry both are in my mission so im not breaking any rules. Quick story, yesterday the president told the missionaries in milan that there was a special to buy tickets to the opera near christmas time and gave us all permission to go, but we had to go get the tickets really early. i was really excited because its at La scale which is a really famous and pretty opera house. so all the milan missionaries met at the Duomo at 630 in the morning to wait in a line, we waited for 4 hours and at the end they didnt have enough tickets for us... :( we were bummed. But we ate at a really good Panini place called Luini thats really famous! so not all was lost. We have alot fo exciting conferences and events coming up here that im excited for. Tomorrowsomeone important is coming to speak to all the missionaries, not sure who, but i will get to see alot of the people i havent seen from my district since the begining so im really excited about that. And we have a cultural activity coming up in our ward that everyone is preparing for alot. alot of cutlural dances and food so im really excited! they want the missionaries to cook turkey but noen of know how to, so if you know and easy good recipe let me know! well i love my mission! the gospel is true!! keep living the gospel! love you all 

ciao!

Conference Weekend

Ciao tutti!!

So this week has been good! Next week is the last transfer so I will be getting a new companion, and maybe moving cities??? but probably not because it doesn’t make sense with my companion going home. But I love it here in Ancona, and I really want to stay to help this branch and the members grow! I have a real love for everyone here and I am so blessed to share this time with them and grow in this gospel together! 

The other good thing about this week was conference! I LOVE CONFERENCE! To be honest before the mission I didn’t really understand or get excited about conference, but being out here on the mission, doing the lords work everyday, I have come to realize the amazing blessing we have in these days to have a prophet and 12 apostles to give us guidance in these extremely challenging days! I am so excited and blessed to know that we have a prophet today to give us the guidance we need. If you think about it, its awesome! I love it! (plus its in English so us missionaries love it) but I have not seen it all yet but what I have seen i would like to share some thoughts. First I loved what elder Hales told us in the very first talk about General Conference, he said "the greatest blessing that will come to us from General Conference, will come AFTER." meaning we have to act! as I have said it is an amazing blessing to have this opportunity to hear the message and the guidance from the prophet and apostles, but without action this guidance is just another good story or uplifting thought! In these days we need the guidance, and we have it if we listen and use the guidance we receive from our leaders! So with that, what did I get out of conference that I need to act on! well as Anziano Dube said, we should "never look back," but " look at what we still have to do." i personally can get content with what I do, or what I have done. But I need to remember that there is still so much more to do. The work of God here in Earth is to grow his kingdom, to every nation kindred and tongue. That’s a lot of people, but when we work in the service of God and always have "faith looking to the future" as Anziano Dube said, we can succeed! We will succeed! But we need to have faith and act, not just listen! I personally hope i can stay worthy enough in my life that I can continue to do the Lords work so that every people, kindred, and tongue can feel the lords love! I will have faith and look forward to the opportunities I receive to help others. 

The other message I received and I wanted to share is one of hope in this life. I feel many of the talks touched on the struggles people can go through! Life is hard.... in fact it sucks sometimes! For me personally I have seen many people that I love struggle, hurt, and fall; but as Uchtdorf said, " we can always rise up. We can do it!" Rise up and follow Jesus Christ" I know the reason we can do it and rise up over everything is because we have a Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! We have a literal Savior, that knows each one our struggles and pains personally! i love the quote from Anziano Holland " If the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and press on!" Our Savior, Jesus Christ, drank of that bitter cup. And he pressed on through every trial in this life, and he did it perfectly! So when we fall, rise up, and know that you can do it! Trust in Christ, Trust in the eternal atonement that he has finished for us! I know that through the guidance of our apostles and prophets we can come closer to our heavenly father and Jesus Christ! and I know that as we come closer we will find hope and we will find faith to look forward and press on, because that’s what they want for us! Through faith, prayer, and repentance we will overcome any and all trials, I know this! I have a testimony of the love Jesus Christ has for me! I am so grateful for what he has done for me! He is our savior! And the church that i am a missionary for, is his church! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! 

I hope you all enjoyed conference as much as I did! and I hope you take advantage of these blessings that can and will come after conference if you act in faith! i love this church! i love this mission! I love you all!

ciao! 

He did't caption these. I think they speak for themselves. Oh TYTY. 

Ty....this is a little...weird? We still love him!

Picture Perfect Missionary

Birthday dinner feast for Elder Miller

"Crab that Mommy and Felicitas made for me for my birthday feast" 

Elder Miller and Elder Warnick posting in their newly purchased Italian pants. Notice how tight they are. He is really trying to fit in, and loves it!

Elder Miller and Elder Warnick. This is not his companion but he is "a really awesome guy." They both got a "super sweet deal on these Italian pants," so they are posing in them. 

More posing with Elder Warnick

Baptism "Me and Elder Warnick thought it was funny...yeah"  (He is talking about the hand holding not the baptism.

This is everyone who came to the baptism "big turn out I know" (quote from Ty)

Rubik's Cube and Yoga

Ciao Tutti!!

To be honest this last week wasn’t to eventful, but it was still a good week and I am still having a lot of fun on this Mission. The first cool thing I learned this week, and i call it a miracle, is that i can now do a Rubiks Cube! its pretty great! some missionaries use it to give an object lesson about the loss of the church and authority on the earth after Christ died, and how through Joseph smith everything was restored and we now have the Authority and Church on the earth again today. Its actually a pretty cool object lesson, but I didn’t want to learn it for that reason i just wanted to learn it cause it seemed like a cool thing to learn on the mission. So Italian and Rubiks Cube, those are the two things I’m content with learning on the mission. To prove i can do it ill try to attach a video of me doing it, i hope it works!

(The Video did not come through yet...I'm excited to see him prove it)

 The other cool part is that we will have another baptism this coming Saturday! Her name is rose and she has a really strong testimony of this gospel and the Book of Mormon. It was weird how she even came to this point of baptism. It started with the last baptism we had of the young men, Augustus and Dennis (both are still awesome by the way). But when we gave both of them the Holy Ghost Rose, the person getting baptized was there. And i had never met or seen her so i thought she was family of the boys, but she wasnt!... so we got her number but I didn’t think much of it, then I tried to call another person in our phone that week named Ruth. But I called rose by accident and didn’t know it till she picked up and I didn’t recognize the voice. So we met with her that day and she told us how and why she came to church. She said that she just woke up that morning and said I’m going here, (our church) and I don’t think she had ever been to our church before, but anyways she just decided to show up that day! so that was a cool miracle, but the next really cool part was when we gave her a Book of Mormon, we told her to start from the beginning, so she did but she said she didn’t understand it. so she closed it and decided to pray, and after she prayed she just opened the book to a random page and started reading. She opened to Alma 7, which if you don’t know is all about the atonement of Jesus Christ. It pretty much is the most important thing! But she told us that she instantly started crying and instantly understood the purpose of this book and knew of its importance! And then the next Sunday was fast Sunday and as an investigator she decided to stand up and give her testimony on the Book of Mormon! so hat the short version of her conversion story. I feel like I haven’t done much during this whole process except watch the spirit and the power of this gospel work in her life! She is a great lady with an amazing testimony. So this Saturday I will baptize her, it will be exciting for her! I’m excited.

But anyways thats my mission life for now! write me so i can know what all of you are doing, i love you all and always pray for you! the gospel is true! the Book of Mormon is true!!

Ciao! Anziano Miller

“This is our yoga activity! our ward mission leader puts it on, (this is our second yoga activity) its pretty sweet! Us missionaries tend to suck and to not take it serious like our ward mission leader.”

“this is our primary and our one young women at cultural night. we played uno”