Week 2

Hey y'all!!! love ya!!!!

Okay so this week has been completely insane!!! So many things happened!!! I hope i have time to say them all.

So Tuesday was zone training and that was great!! Learned a ton from our Zone Leaders!! Elder Lyman and I rode our bikes a lot this week. We also have a car btw. We just want to stay fit lol. Wednesday was TEMPLE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gosh dang it's a small temple. I think you could fit the entire temple into Gilbert's Celestial room. No joke. But it was soooooo great to go!!!! I loved the peace of going and being able to go with the whole zone was great. Our zone is the largest in the entire mission!! Something like 26 missionaries or so. The temple is so great guys. It clears your head and lets you refocus. After the temple we only had like four hours of proselyting left, but we had 6 lessons!! a good day here is 4!! and that's a whole day!! everything just went so well after the temple!

Thursday was great because we spent 4 hours doing weekly planning. Yippee...... We are teaching so many people our here it's ridiculous!!! I love the ward. They take such good care of us!! So much love and so much Candy! I love each and everyone of them.

Friday was super cool cus we got to meet Alydia from the District!!!!!!!!! She is one of the investigators that got baptized!! we met her and her husband(who is her boyfriend in the district) and her son!! Her husband baptized someone in our ward so we went over to their house and met all them!! It was super cool meeting one of our example investigators.

Saturday was great cus we spent several hours helping a less active move!! We met with a ton of people and got a new investigator! There's a less active family who lives in our ward who has a 9 year old that wants to get baptized! We are starting the lessons tonight!! The two investigators who have their baptismal date set are named Devon and Carolanne. It's a mother and daughter. Devon had to start living the word of wisdom too. She has to give up her smoking. I hope she can do it!! We know she can do it!! Their bap date is the 27!!! We are getting super excited!!!

So yesterday at church i had such an amazing time!! And that isn't sarcasm. So our ward starts at 11. At 11:01 the 1st counselor in the bishopric comes up to my companion and I and says that they may call upon us to speak because the high councilor hasn't arrived yet. So me and my companion said yes of course and then went oh crap and tried to think of something. They called me to speak first and the only thing i had prepared was to read out loud was the lyrics to the Hymn Brightly Beams Our Fathers Mercy.  Now Friends and Family, what i say next isn't to pull me up or anything, but it's to show how powerful the Holy Ghost is. I don't remember really anything i said. I think i spoke about missionary work. About going out and finding those who need our help. That God has entrusted us with the "Lower Lights" (read the hymn). I said several personal experiences about the holy ghost and about things that strengthened my testimony. Brothers and Sisters it sounded to me like i was saying words. I didn't know what i was saying until i had already said it. I bore testimony constantly and i took up about 25 minutes!!! I ended up using my companions time up too so he didn't speak. I went up there with a Hymn and preached the word of God from the pulpit. Now sitting down i thought i did awful. I thought it was super scattered and i honestly couldn't remember what i said. I just tried to put it past me and move on hoping to redeem myself through meeting with the members afterwords in lessons and what not. So you can imagine my shock when Literally half the ward talked to me about my talk and throughout the rest of church. The ward mission leader( who missed church cus of work) later that day that he heard that i was on the short list for the next general conference. Members came up to  me and said that was the best talk they had heard in years. They said it sounded like i had prepared it a long time ago. One came up in said that it was EXACTLY what she needed to hear and she left crying because of it. Friends and family i have no idea what i said in those 25 minutes. Every word out of my mouth was from the Spirit. I promise and testify that what it says in D&C 100 Versus 5-8 is true. The spirit will guide you in everything. There is no way i could've given a talk like that without the spirits help. The ONLY thing i went up there with was a hymn book. And so i guess the message i want you to get from this email is to put your trust in God. He knows what people need to hear. We don't. But when we are prepared to do all that we can, the spirit will carry us the rest of the way and take us to where we need to go. We will speak the words that people need to hear. I'm not sharing that story to brag about how good i am at giving talks, I'm sharing it because we truly are nothing without the spirit. Elder Bednar said "without the power of the Holy Ghost, we are utterly incapable of doing what have been called to do". I am a solemn witness of that. I have seen it multiple times throughout this past month.

I want to leave y'all with my testimony that the Saviors lives. He loves us. That God knows each of us and our needs. That he is willing to give us good times and bad times to teach us. I know that the Holy Ghost can truly bring things to our remembrance. And that when we let him into our lives, he will guide us to do good.

I love Each of Y'all and All of Y'all

Elder Miner

P.s. i'm sorry if i respond to your emails with short ones!! there's like 30 emails waiting for me every time and it takes a lot of time to read and respond to all. But i love hearing from y'all so don't stop!

Oh and here's a little pps...

So like half of the houses i've been to have people who speak German or who have lived in Europe. So it has been the coolest thing ever to try out speaking German to these people and to talk about Europe with them. It is a super nice connection. Who knew that would happen here. It has been a blessing to know rudimentary German and to be able to connect with them differently than anyone else.

Lydia from the District, her husband, Elder Lyman and Chandler

All the new missionaries that arrived the same week as Chandler