Hello everyone :)

   Thank you for all the birthday wishes, you are all so GREAT! I just love you! I really do appreciate all the support and love that you show me... it's so nice to know that I have such loving friends and family members back home cheering me on :) Missionary work is the best thing in the world.

   This week has been a bit of an emotional week... solid investigators are all of a sudden buffing us. Satan has a strong hold on our investigators with the word of wisdom being the biggest battle we are facing right now. However, although there are rough things going on, there are GREAT things going on too! We had General Relief Society broadcast, and that was amazing! Sister Stott and I aren't letting ourselves get down at all, we laugh and keep on going! It was my birthday and it was probably one of the best ones I've ever had, so that was cool :) and besides all of these trivial things I'm naming off, our area really is receiving a lot of blessings as well. Veronica is getting baptized on Monday before FHE, and she is just so awesome! So things are great :) and I couldn't be more happy to be honest. I haven't felt this happy in a long time (well since yesterday maybe? Haha every day is a GOOD day and I am just so happy every single day)

   So I really don't have much time to email today (I know what you're thinking, "what! You promised to fill us in on the stories from last week that I missed in the last email" and yes, sorry I'm going to have to ask you to wait ANOTHER week.. sorry!) Missionary work is just keeping me soo busy, and then on pday's we just have so many things to do :) I love you though and I haven't forgotten about any of you, thank you for ALL you do. I hope and pray that you have a fabulous week!!

Love,

Sister Kimaree Miller

Hello from sunny (actually it's not sunny out, its overcast.. but as the saying goes)- sunny California!!

   Things are going GREAT... it's been a bit of a roller coaster, a fun and exciting one- and an emotional one too!

   Gilberto officially moved to school at UC-Riverside and he was supposed to start institute today actually! He should be calling us soon to let us know how everything is going and so we can get his address to send missionaries over to him. For our last appointment he met us up at the temple grounds (he hadn't been up there yet). As we were walking along the temple, he couldn't take his eyes off it- he said, "Someday... I'll get married in there". We had a short lesson in the waiting room inside the temple and he was expressing some challenges he's having, apparently his mom is making him still go to mass and a catholic class- he said he just feels like he's lying to himself because he's truly mormon at heart now. He's going to general conference and he's way excited for that, and I'm waay excited for him!

   Cassidy... oh boy, where do I start? Well to be honest, it's a REALLY long story and the story will be at an ok spot to tell next Sunday, so I'll give you the down low next Tuesday! But... keep in your prayers.. oh boy.. please!

   Aaron well.. so he told us over the phone he was just going to go to his grandmas church. But he agreed to meet with us one last time to say good-bye. So we met him Friday night and he was telling us about his Grandmas church and basically we just bore testimony of the one true church of Jesus Christ and of Gods love for him, and our love for him and his response was.."Oh man, I love you guys too.. yeah.. can I come to church with you this Sunday? And can I go listen to the prophet?" UH YEAH! It was incredible, seriously such a miracle! He was sitting there dropping us and then BAM all the sudden he's back on and wants to keep learning. So we were all excited for church and we had a ride for him and everything... and then he doesn't come. He went to his grandmas church instead. What the heck. (Hence the rollarcoaster week).

   We added a new investigator this last week. We had our first visit on these stairs next to the sidewalk of a busy street. We first just talked with him and got to know him for awhile. We were teaching him about prayer (he's not religious at all) and we asked if it would be ok to start with the prayer. As Sister Stott was praying there was this lady walking down the road approaching us. She slowed down and stopped and waited until we were done with the prayer. After the prayer, this lady comes over and starts bearing her testimony about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and told him how much happier she's been since she's been a member and it was just incredible... a little angel straight from heaven. She bore a powerful testimony and then said her goodbyes and continued down the sidewalk. I LOVE IT!

  Well so as you can kind of see (sorry there's not a whole lot of time today!) it was a pretty good week! I'll tell you a lot more next week, I've kind of skipped some things... I'll fill you in next week. I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week :)

I love you!

Sister Kimaree Miller

  Hello my wonderful friends and family.. you all are just SO GREAT! I love you!

    Alright so we had a pretty amazing week! Oh boy where do I start...

    Ok well to catch you up with Gilberto, he's doing really good. We had an appointment with him and President Donaldson... 2 seconds into the appointment (literally) President asked us (Sister Stott and I) to leave. About 15 minutes later he came out and invited us back in. Apparently he just wanted some alone time with Gilberto to get to know him and help him with this battle between getting baptized and disowned vs. honoring his parents and waiting a year. When we came back into the room we visited for about 10 minutes and then had a closing prayer... Sister Stott and I had no idea what to think! But apparently President knows the institute director up where he'll be going to school so he gave him all the contact information. He leave this Sunday :( bummer. But our ward is planning this big group trip up to General Conference and Gilberto will be going with them to that, so that will be GREAT! I'm sooo excited for him! We also have a couple of other investigators going too :)

    Cassidy is doing really well. He's preparing to be baptized this coming Sunday :) However :( he's still struggling with the Word of Wisdom adlkfhakdfh -- that's how I feel about that, it just breaks my heart. He mentioned putting off the baptism a few weeks because he's just so scared and nervous, but we told him that's just giving Satan a few more weeks to work on him and bring him down and he totally understood that. He said he was also nervous to come to church, so we asked him to prayer for strength and courage to be able to come to church-- and he did! He said when he woke up, he wasn't nervous at all! He has so much GREAT faith, and he is getting answers to his prayers because of that. He said things are slowly getting better... when he's offered a drink, it doesn't look appealing, just still caves in every now and then. We invited him to receive a priesthood blessing in our next appointment so that he can have additional strength for everything he is going through and he gladly accepted the invitation.  So I am definitely excited for that! Keep him in your prayers, PLEASE! (Gilberto too of course!)

    Aaron is doing good. We randomly stopped by his place on Friday and invited him to come to church with us on Sunday and he was excited to go back! He said he's been noticing a lot of blessings in his life recently and he knows it's because he's going back to church and getting closer to God again. Which is GREAT! His only hang up is that "he's been baptized before and doesn't want to make it a ritual" which is totally understandable... he's just missing one thing.. the authority of God- we'll be talking about that next...as soon as he doesn't stand us up again like yesterday!! But its all good, things are still progressing and getting better and better!!

    This last week I had the privilege to go to some training :D All the zone leaders, district leaders, and MoBatt group leaders were invited to this "leadership training" it was on Wed., Thurs., and Fri., from 8-4... yup it was some serious training!! But it was AMAZING! Basically it was to get all the leaders together so we can discuss everything we've learned from the new district filming and training they got from the missionary department when they filmed here last year. President would instruct us for awhile, then we would practice it and do some "role-plays" and then we would talk together of how we can help the rest of the mission get more "my purpose-drive". Man I can't even make a dent in all the things I learned from that, it was INCREDIBLE. I took good notes though, so don't you worry :) I will divulge all of things to you when I get home.. aren't you excited? Haha its seriously, so cool!

    We also had a mission presidents fireside Sunday night (we do them once a month). It's where a bunch of missionaries get together and form a choir (I was in the choir) and practice a special rendition of a song and there a few other special numbers from other groups of missionaries using instruments. All of these musical numbers are mingled with recent converts that were asked to share their testimonies. Everyone comes to these firesides- nonmembers and members. They are sooo great. The spirit was so strong and aww, I just loved it. 

     SOO as you can tell it was a pretty amazing week to say the least :) I loved it. Things are going great and they are just getting better. Thank you all for your support and the time you take to write me letters and emails, I really do appreciate it soo much! You are the best. I have to get going, but I hope you all have a great week too! I love you!

Love forever,

Sister Kimaree Miller

Hello Everyone :D

    August has come and gone and now we're in September, can you believe it!? This just does not seem quite right. Fall is all around us (well.. it's still summer here of course :) but the halloween decorations are going up in the stores, thats crazy!)

    Things are going good here. We have a few progressing investigators, not as many miracles as last week... but I know Heavenly Father is mindful of all of us so I'm sure there will be some coming soon. Until then, Sister Stott and I are working our tails off trying to help our investigators keep commitments!

    School has started again which means a lot of the ward members here in the Helix ward are moving away back to school :( which is sad, but what can ya' do! I've been so blessed to be in this ward, I've made so many new friends! On Sunday we had a big "break the fast" and they celebrated the September birthdays and they didn't exactly hold back in announcing it was my birthday month (how they knew, I'm not really sure!), so they made me stand in front so they could sing to me. They are great, I love them so much! But yeah so they are totally revamping the ward since we're losing so many. But they've already extended some of the callings to new people and they are GREAT. We've met with some of the new auxiliary leaders and they seem to have a great desire to kick things up a notch and help the ward succeed in bringing their friends to activities and ultimately embracing the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

   So I'm sad to announce... Gilberto was not baptized this last Sunday. The morning of his baptismal interview his mom gave him a letter she had written to him (after he told her about he baptism). That pretty much begged him to trust her and reconsider... they eventually negotiated to him waiting a year and then if he still wants to, he can be baptized. To be honest, we were sooooo SAD. Mostly sad that he was going to have to wait a whole other year until he can receive the blessings of the gospel and the gift of the Holy Ghost. But since then, we had an appointment with him and invited President Donaldson to join us and we were able to talk about it and we all feel better now. He leaves for school here in a week or so, but President has connections with the institute director up where he's going and so he'll be in good hands.

    Cassidy (the speed skater) is doing good and has made some good friends in the ward which I think helps calm his nerves. Whenever we meet with him he can't help but express his love for the Book of Mormon he says, "it just feels good holding it, you can feel the power of God coming through it". He is so GREAT! And he lives right by the church building so whenever he's having a rough night and can't sleep he'll come skate around the parking lot because it's so relaxing to him and just feels good. I'm so impressed with him, he's a rare one, he really pays attention to his feelings when he's at church, or reading, or praying... for example, he missed church this last Sunday, and he said he just felt bad... it just felt wrong the entire day, like he should have gone. I just love that guy- he's great! He knows right from wrong and he's not afraid to do what's right if that means following the example of our Savior.

   Anyways, there's not a whole lot to update you on. Some good things, some bad things. But all in all- things are still going good and we're truckin along in this GREAT work that we should ALL be constantly involved in... there's no greater joy than the joy found in participating in missionary work, I promise. And I challenge each of you to go OUT of your way to invite someone to learn more. You'll be surprised of who's placed in your path. If we can show God that we will not let someone pass us by without inviting them, he'll trusts us enough to place the prepared ones in our path because he KNOWS we will talk to them and invite them to learn more... he'll put them there because he knows they are in good hands. We just need to show God that we are serious about the sacred covenants we've made and will do all we can to honor those (building the kingdom of God here on earth). Let's do it :)

   Today for pday we had a big birthday party for all the senior couples and sisters that serve here at the Mormon Battalion for the month of September so they sang to me then too, so far it's been a GREAT month :D

   Alright well I have to head out, I love you all and I hope you have such a good week! You're in my thoughts and prayers, ALWAYS :) I love you!

Love,

Sister Miller

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