Spicy Eyes

There are certain things your mom tells you when you're young to keep you safe. For example, don't touch the stove, or look before you cross the street. Although I don't remember my mom ever telling me about the dangers of jalapeños. That's right. Jalapeños. Saturday night we had an awesome homemade dinner full of delicious vegetables. Peppers, tomatoes, onions, and jalepeños. I was cutting these veggies up when a strand of hair fell into my eyes. I brushed it back and felt an initial sting. Don't worry, I remember how to take care of stinging--I began washing my face with a rag. That was a bad idea because not only did the stinging spread, but it got into my eyeball causing difficulty to even open it. I helplessly tried putting in eye drops which made the stinging worse, but eventually got the situation handled. So to all y'all who were not previously warned of the dangers of jalapenos, you've been warned haha. 

This week has been crazy, not just because of my "spicy eyes" experience. I have seen so many miracles and learned so much. 

My dear friend Jana was baptized this Saturday. It was such a beautiful service. The Spirit was so strong!! Jana bore her testimony following her baptism and she shared a favorite verse of mine. It is in Alma 36:3. It says, "For I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." She then bore her testimony that God has been aware of her. He has led her gently to this path and she knew that He would never stop supporting her. It was beautiful and I knew what she said was true for each and every one of us. I know that God knows us!! He is with us, and He will not leave us comfortless. 

At the end of Jana's baptism, I was talking to a member who came to the service. She explained that she felt a special presence during the baptism. She shared that she knew that Jana's future family was there, and shouting for joy at the choice that Jana made. The thought brought tears to my eyes. The Holy Ghost witnessed to me that this was true. Her future family was there, cheering her on. It made me think a lot about my life and just how much that probably happens for each and every one of us. It has been said that angels are probably closer than we realize. It is amazing to think that each day, we have our angel children or ancestors cheering us on. Standing beside us, crying with us, laughing with us, and ultimately carrying us through this mortal journey. What a beautiful truth!! 

Someone asked me this week why we care so much about baptism as missionaries. They even asked me if we get paid for baptisms. I thought this was a good question and I wanted to share why we love baptism so much and want all people everywhere to be baptized!! No, we do not get paid. And no, we are not paid to be missionaries. The reason we wake up at 6:30 each morning and work until 9 pm each night is to help people progress towards baptism. But why baptism? Why not just church? We know that the powers of heaven are invoked upon all who enter the waters of baptism. Not only is it a commandment, but it is one of the greatest blessings one can receive in life. Following baptism, one is completely clean of sins, born of God, and they receive a priceless gift: the Holy Ghost. I have been recently studying about the Holy Ghost. In the words of a book I'm reading by David Butler, "His influence (the Spirit) feels like the hand of the Father, reaching across time and space, grabbing my hand, and saying, 'I understand.'" When our friends receive the Spirit, we know they receive a personal best friend for life. They receive constant comfort, hope, peace, and direction. They are blessed with greater knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ, sanctified from past sins, and given deliverance and strength to overcome weaknesses. We know as missionaries, that there is no greater blessing than to receive this gift. So to any of you who are reading this list and are thinking, "Hey! I want that!" I promise you that you can get it. Feel free to reach out to me, and I can help you get in contact with the local missionaries. We do this every day because we want people to receive these gifts. Nothing brings us more happiness than to see these blessings work in the lives of our brothers and sisters. 

Besides that, this week has been pretty normal. We have been working hard on finding through all the tools we have. We haven't found yet, but we know that God is preparing people to receive His message. 

I wanted to share one more quick experience this week. Sister Lines and I were on the subway when we saw a little family come on. You could tell by looking at them that their circumstances were very humble. Their little boy, around 4 years old perhaps, looked up at his dad and said, "Daddy I'm hungry." I could immediately sense the heartbreak of this father as he looked back into the eyes of his little son. He responded that he didn't have anything to give him to eat in that moment. Before I could act or do anything, a man got up from across the subway and moved to come and sit by this father. He was disheveled and appeared to be not in a good state himself. He was holding a box of pizza that had been wrapped up in a little rope. He looked into this father's eyes and offered to give his pizza away to his children. He accepted gratefully. I knew then that that pizza was this man's planned dinner, and probably was going to be used for leftovers for several days. However, I watched in shock as that man gave all that he had to this humble, struggling family. He watched them eat the pizza with a smile on his face. I was blown away at the kindness. I love what Elder Uchtdorf said about this. He said, "We cannot gauge the worth of another soul any more than we can measure the span of the universe. Every person we meet is a VIP to our Heavenly Father. Once we understand that, we can begin to understand how we should treat our fellowmen." This man on the subway understood this valuable principle. He recognized the worth of his fellow man and gave everything he had to these strangers he had never met before. 

I want to be more like this man. He showed me what it looks like to have charity and compassion as Christ has. 

I love you all. I pray for you. Please let me know what I can do for you. 

This church is true my friends!!

Be happy. Be brave. Be smart. 

Love, 

Sister Miller 

Pictures: 

1) Me on the Brooklyn Bridge :)

2) Sis Lines and I with the cityscape 

3) Me and my city !!

4) The Statue of Liberty in between our heads. (You might need to zoom in on this one lol)

5) It was President Nelson's birthday this week so we celebrated with cookies. Yum. 

6) Jana's baptism 

7) More Jana because we LOVE her.

Hay Bay,
I want you to know that you have the spirit. Something I am learning that may help. Sometimes we tell ourselves things that we think are true and our brains want to prove that right. It will gather all that information that seems to support our truth to make that seem accurate—whether it is or not. The next time your brain tries to warn you politely say, “Excuse me, sweet brain... I know you are trying to help me be healthy. I promise you I will keep being healthy. But you don’t need to protect me by telling me I’m not something. I’ve got this. We are going to be okay.”

Make your brain create a new truth. A new story. I pray for you everyday everyday everyday. I know the Lord will teach you ways to find and miracles will happen. Keep believing and trusting. 

I love you. I am grateful for your service. You are blessing so many people. Keep believing. Keep Trusting. You've totally got this!

Love, Mom

Dear Sister Miller,

I received a sweet call from your mother about you worrying about me.  I was so touched and sorry that I had caused you some concern.  I thought I had answered your last email and feel horrible that I missed it.  So many appointments and things happening last week.  Anyway, thank you for caring about me.

I had to laugh when you talked about your experience with the hot peppers. My mom didn’t warn me either, but we really never used them in New Hampshire.  In fact, I never had chili until your grandma, Cheryl had gone out to Idaho for school and came home and made it for us.  When my husband and I moved to New Mexico for a couple of years we attended a ward dinner the first week we were there.  The food all had a Mexican flair to it and knowing that I like chili I took some.  It smelled so good so I took a big bite.  I tell you I thought I would die.  Rick too, had a similar experience.  The members sure liked their spicy food and put peppers into everything. They even liked the ghost peppers.  We didn’t have any intestinal problems the whole time we lived there. :0

I was so excited to hear about Jana, what an experience for you and her.  I hope the members find a way to involve her right off.  I know when we first joined the church it was like, ok we are members so they forgot us.  I think that is one reason my mom had a hard time attending.  Our ward here is growing by leaps and bounds, even with the Covid 19 thing going on.  Last year the stake split our ward which left us with the bare essentials  I mean we had a bishopric but most of the strong members were moved out.  We also were now the only ward in our building.  The first Sunday that we met together the pews were about empty.  The stake had told us to have faith because we would grow.  I tell you revelation has certainly been answered.  We have had over 60 people move in the last couple of months.  Sure gives me comfort that the priesthood leaders are led by a loving Heavenly Father who knows what He is doing.  I just love Him so much, He certainly takes care of us.

I love your experience of the little boy who was hungry.  Tears rolled down my face as I read how the humble man offered what he had to the father and little boy and how the Dad had to swallow his pride so that his son could eat.  We need to be more like both of these men.  We need to offer all that we have and most humbly accept what the Lord gives to us.  It is hard for me to accept help.  I have a wonderful ministering sister who is always bringing me baked goodies.  I keep telling her she doesn’t need to do this mostly because I am not in an eating mood these days.  What a sacrifice it is that she does this. She lives about 25 minutes away from me, but still makes the trip to my house.  I will try and be more like the father in your story and accept with a humble heart. 

I hope you have an awesome week and know that I pray for you and your companion.  Your Mom told me that you haven’t been endowed yet.  The Lord is well aware of your circumstances and will make up the difference for you.  The temple gives us strength and is wonderful, but for right now the Lord knew that He had people like you who could go forth and teach His word without the endowment.  It will come so be patient.  I hope they will allow your folks to attend, but if not, don’t fear, the Lord will make up the difference.  He always does.

Love,

Aunt Cindy

You cannot imagine how happy I am to hear the great adventures you have had and even if you do not believe it in a year, it seems that I will have to serve my mission and it is a great satisfaction to know that the effort of each day to bring the truth to those People are bearing fruit, and I am happy to know that as well as you, I will soon witness the great love that the Lord has for each one of us by allowing us to bring the truth to all those people.
I am extremely happy for your spiritual growth and I wish you all the luck in the world in the rest of your mission.

Note: thanks for the jalapeño data hahaha
Geremy Cruz Minaya

Hay Bay,
This week was another crazy week full of Eagle projects, school, and emotions. The online and in-person still of school is trickier than first thought. It’s hard for Jake to not have a consistent format. I am sure we will make it, but it is definitely not easy. And, it definitely puts me at my end. Don’t misunderstand. All is well. We are doing good. Just needing to get our feet under us. I’m sure this will teach new lessons that we could have in no other way. I’m happy that I can see the kids more. Despite the difficulties.

Amber does struggle a bit with half of her friends being on one day and a half on the other. 

We listened to a talk by Elder Eyring today. It was the one I didn’t love at Conference but now I actually love it. It’s funny how our perspectives can change.

Really, not much else has happened this week. We’ve been crazy busy but not a lot to show for it.

I hope you got your packages. We love you. We think of you daily and pray for you even more. We believe in you. Believe in yourself. Believe in Him. That He is and that He can heal all wounds.

Goodnight sweet girl.

Love, Mom

Hi Little Girl,

 

Well, you made it to another P-day (or at least P-day eve.  Actually, based on the time, you will get this in the morning, so never mind)!  Hope you had a great week.  We always remember to pray for you to find new people to teach.  We also pray you will avoid ax murders, so hopefully, you at least got one of those. 

 

Real bad news to let you know about. Manchester United got beat by Crystal Palace yesterday, 3-1.  Really embarrassing.  Palace is not supposed to be any good.  Just terrible. It is the first game of the season and we are lost to a team people are worried might get relegated.   I am depressed about it.

 

Dan came over and helped me this week.  Three times actually.  It was good.  We were able to have a kind of gospel conversation.  I need to invite him to church.  He is hiding from people right now, so not sure how that would go.  Plus the Fishers are the worst examples.  I am not sure I can convince Dan Mormons are not nuts because of those crazy people. 

 

I made it (mostly) through year-end at work.  Still, lots to do and it will be busy, but it should slow down from the last two weeks.  Your mother is still torturing me every day to work out. When you come home I will be ripped.  Probably not, but hopefully I will no longer be a marshmallow. 

 

Keep your chin up.  Sometimes as a missionary, things are not the way you want, but you are serving the Lord and He will open doors for you.  He will even help you deal with crappy/annoying people (and people can include companions).  You are beautiful and wonderful.  The light of the gospel is shining out of you.  People will see it and want to be around you.  The spirit will guide you and, you will have success.

 

Good luck you sweet girl.  Your dad loves you.