January 23,2012

Hola todos

 

 

Well I´m afraid this will be a short email seeing as I don´t have much time. First I just want to congratulate Christian Davis for the mission call! Way to go budy! I hope we don´t go 4 years without seeing eachother haha

 

Okay, so the highlight of the week was definitely the mission conference with Elder Clayton. In my whole year and half of being in this mission, never have met together as an entire mission. It was very special.

 

Accompanying Elder Clayton on the mission visit was his wife along Elder and Sister Amado from the area presidency in central america. As they came in we each had a turn to shake their hands. It was then that I realized that the Clayton´s were from Irvine. haha I guess I should have known that before. Anyways, Sister Clayton told me we´d take a picture afterwards, and we did so Mom you should get that in your email sometime soon.

 

The training portion of the conference was awesome. Short and sweet. I loved listening to the general authorities speak. Each of them said things that I felt were directed to me by the spirit. All in all it was a wonderful day because at the end I was also able to recieve my christmas package! Thanks fam!

 

Missionary work in Escazú continues to move along. The sister missionaries had 4 baptisms this week so we have a consistent flow of new members in the ward. Elder Velasquez and I had to drop several investigators this week. We did find new ones though which is good. Lately finding has not been much of problem for us, but it´s getting the people to progress which has slowed us down a little bit. We are now working with a couple named Ronald and Cristina. They have a 1 year old baby girl, and seem to have a lot of questions for us.

 

Okey doke. That´s it for today. Thank you all-

 

Pura Vida

 

Elder MIller

January 16,2012

Hola! What´s up everyone?

Things are still going great with us. This week we gave it all we had
and came up a little dry, but nevertheless it was a good week.

The coolest news that I recieved was probably from the youth. In Costa
Rica about 450 youth from all over the country attented EFY in
Alajuela. They do it a little differently here and it´s called SOY,
but it´s the same concept. Anyways, one of the young men in my ward
here was partnerd up with one of my converts that I had in La Campiña
ward. (Sebastian Solano) He asked him if he knew an Elder Miller and
he told him I was serving in Escazú. He also told me that Sebas shared
his testimony and is doing very well. I was pretty happy to here that.

Let´s see... What else?

We are working right now with a man named Luis Flores and this week
was his second week in church. His family is from El Salvador and I
can tell you that they make delicious Pupusas. (Empanada from El
Salvador)

We also have a couple named Max and Berlín. They are from Nicarauga
and have ten years together with out being married. So the obvious
plan is to marry and baptize them as quick as we can haha

This Thursday we´ll have a mission visit from Elder L Whitney Clayton
so I´ll let you know how that goes.

Love you guys

Pura Vida

Elder Miller

January 9, 2012

Hello, 

My short time in Escazú has been awesome! I thought it would be a pain getting to know another area so quick, but it has been a smooth transfer. The area is really pretty and there is some nice city views from up in the mountains. 

I love my companion Elder Velasquez. He is pretty different from the other two Honduran comps I have had. He is very humble which makes the missionary work easier and more pleasant. He also loves learning English so we are having a lot of fun with that. 

So a little info about the apartment. (primarily for my mom) We live with members, and we have a small atahced apartment to their house. Yesterday they had us over for dinner and they are nice people. The single mom of the family was baptized in 1966 and one year later the missionaries started living at her house. So do the math on that one haha A long time for the Elders and some sisters that have lived there. It´s a got a small charm, but really needed some help in the cleaning department. This morning I spent a good 4-5 hours trying to get it fixed up while my companion slept. jk haha He helped a little bit. It still needs a good scrub, but it looks a lot better than the first time I saw it. 

So this is my 3rd consecutive area with 4 missionaries serving together. This time we share the area with sister Missionaries? haha Nah It´s actually pretty cool. The Sister´s seem to be hard working. One of them is Sister Hunter from the Laguna Niguel stake. So we are representing Southern California here in Escazú. 

We are definitely not the only gringos in the ward thoug. Escazú has by far the most that I´ve ever seen and probably more than any other ward here in Costa Rica. 

Well, last but not least we baptized a family this week.!! It was a cool little welcome in present.Their names are Francisco and Joselyn, and the Elders had found them knocking doors about 1 month prior to me coming here. We also had the chance to take them to the temple on Friday the day before theor baptism. They loved it and said they´ll be back in 1 year to become an eternal family!! 

Talk to you later guys. Love you 

Baptism Day

Pday Fun

Josh finally gets his Christmas package

Elder and Sr. Clayton

1/2/12

Hey guys!

Well this past week I think I finally got all the things out of my suitcase and got settled in the area of San Ramón. I was thinking I would be in that area for a good long while, but I turned out to be pretty darn wrong. Saturday we were called and told that both my comp and I would be leaving! It was a pretty big shocker. All in all though I felt pretty peaceful, and I know the change was brought about for a reason. 

Sunday was my last day in San Ramon and I ended up giving a talk in sacrament so that was pretty fun. I didn´t get a chance to know the members very well, but it was a fun six weeks in that small branch. 

So my new area is called Escazú. I believe it is one of the most wealthiest places in Costa Rica. Well see how the work goes! haha 

I´m very grateful to be here and to have this opportunity to serve!

Well I had a mellow but fun New Years Eve, and I´m expecting great things to happen in 2012. Thanks for all your support!

Pura Vida 

Elder Miller 

12/26/11

Merry Christmas Everybody!

What a pleasure it was to speak with you and know that everyone is doing well. I feel blessed to have such an awesome family. 

Well for those that I didn´t talk to let me tell you a little about the week that we had here in San Ramón. I think I´m getting to know the area pretty, now being here for a whole transfer. Those six weeks went by incredibly fast. I think the more time you aquire in the mission the easier it is to get transferred and having things changed around. 

We didn´t have too much development happen here speaking of investigators and mission work, but we have some prime possiblities for the next couple of weeks. 

Christmas Eve and Christmas were pretty mellow for us. The 24th we had carne asada, tamales, and arroz con pollo, which is traditional grub. You´ll have to remember that central americans believe that Christmas is more of a party than anything so they also like to light off fire works and there is a little gift exchaning.

I´ll be happy to return family traditions next year. 

Enjoy the rest of the holiday season everyone! Love you 

Pura Vida 

Elder Miller 

12/19/11

Hey Hey everybody, 

Hope all are well. Today we had a fun p-day as a district. Early this morning we went to a place called Grecia. There we visited some dark underground caves and we played around in a river/waterfall. It was up to our knees so no worries about breaking the rules. It was super refreshing though and everyone enjoyed themselves. That was up until we missed the bus though and had to walk an hour to get back into town. It was all good though. 

Well this week for me it was a battle with the flu. I more or less came out on top, as I am now feeling better but not quite at 100% still. We did manage to work and get out of the house almost every day. I felt a little strange speaking to everyone because I had lost my voice, but I guess people could at least understand me. 

So the baptism we were going to have on Saturday did not end up happening. It was for one reason. Teodosia, our investigator had a baby haha She was actually in a lot of pain on Sunday when we did the interview so they walked straight to the hospital afterwards and the baby was born. I think there is like a 40 day wait period for her to go swimming so we´ll see what happens with the baptism. We very happy for her, but we wish the baby would have waited a little longer so they could have been baptized this month. Melvin and Teodosia are basically the only investi´s we are working with right now. 

We did not have a very high attendance in church on sunday because it seems like the whole town of San Ramón has left to go pick in the coffee fields. I guess it does provide jobs for a lot of people though. In San Ramón this week Guinness world records was also here. In the town center they made the biggest tamale ever in Costa Rica. Unfortunately we didn´t get to try it or take pictures. Tamales are super popular here to make during Navidad. I´m sure I´ll eat much more in the upcoming days.

I hope everyone has a wonderful christmas. 

Best wishes & Pura Vida 

Dec. 12

Hey there everyone, 

Well today has not been the greatest day ever, but I´m still in good spirits. Saturday night I started feeling bad and yesterday and today I have been hanging out in bed. I did talk with the mission nurse and she said I probably have a virus which has taken away all my strength. Walking here to do internet was even a struggle haha Apart from being sick, things are going along pretty well. 

We have put a baptism goal with a family that went to church yesterday. Their names are Melvin and Teodosia. If everything turns out okay we should have them married and baptized by the end of the week. They are super humble people but have really big hearts. They have been investigators for a while, but not until recently have we been able to find them. It´s a pretty funny story. The Elders went over there to teach them one time and found out they had moved. They don´t have a phone or any means of contacting them so we went weeks without seeing them. Finally other Elders were walking around town and saw Melvin. They had moved because they couldn´t pay their bills and went to another side of San Ramón to pick coffee beans. Luckily they still live in our area. 

We have not able to teach other investigators because they have left to pick coffee as well. I guess this is the season when the beans are ripe and ready. 

Well I think that´s it for this week. I apologize for the short email. I think I´m going to go home and lay down again haha

Thanks to all, with love

Pura Vida 

Elder Miller 

Dec. 5,11

Hey, What´s up ?

Well we are all working hard here in San Ramón. This month of December is pretty darn important for us. As a mission, President Galvez has put the goal for us to baptize 100 families. That´s pretty much unheard of. Last year December was the worst month for us so he wants to make sure we don´t let it happen again. We usually baptize an average of 20-25 families a month so you can see how big of a stretch it will be for us. My companion and I are working together for two families. It will take some big miracles in order to have everything work out.

As a zone this month we all covenated to make sacrifices in order to recieve blessings. I´ve really come to understand a lot more about covenants than I did before. They are very sacred and deserve complete dedication, devotion, and fidelity. 

We have a lot of possibilites as far as teaching people goes. We worked really hard to get most to church, but in the end none were able to make it. We did change chapels this week to another house in the area so we were expecting the attendance to drop a bit but it actually went up a good share. We also had the Christmas devotional that we were inviting people to all week. I guess it didn´t spark an interest in anyone, but I loved it. I believe that was probably my first time watching. I hope you guys saw it too. 

Anyways, that´s about it for today. Thanks for your support! Love you 

Pura Vida 

Elder Miller