Family!

This week was a good and interesting one. We got a lot done and felt the Spirit while doing it. Goooooood times. I’m really enjoying my mission!

In last week’s news, Dawn and her daughter Heather were baptized last Saturday (over a week ago). In all the excitement of last week, I seem to have forgotten to mention that awesome fact. Yay for making the decision to enter the Fold of God!

Elder Oakey is feeling much better this week. I believe I told you last week that he was suffering from undefined stomach pains. He talked on the phone to a doctor Monday night and found out that his stomach was producing too much acid. We nabbed him some Prilosec OTC and he hasn’t complained since. Problem solved!

Wednesday, we were “prayed” to the Van Dyke’s home. We didn’t have anything pressing to do so we just followed the Spirit. We ended up at the Van Dyke’s home and didn’t know why. After a short discussion, we found out that Brother Van Dyke was about to go into the hospital for some crazy procedures and was very nervous. We asked him if we could do anything and he started to get a bit emotional. He said that he’d been praying that something would happen to help him. He asked us if we could give him a Priesthood blessing which we gladly did.

In other news, we had a good lesson with Jason on Thursday where we taught him the Word of Wisdom. The lesson went well although he was nervous about giving up the substances that he’s addicted to.

On Friday, we spent a long time doing some therapeutic service with a shovel. We dug up, steamed, and skinned beets with Sister Johnson. It was a good break. It’s wonderful how mind-clearing physical labor can be.

The last bit of news is that Elder Oakey bought a retro typewriter about a week ago that was broken. He didn’t know it was broken and was rather bummed when he found out. I told him that I could fix it so I set to work. It was a four-day-long project, but I ended up reverse engineering his typewriter and getting it to work perfectly. I felt pretty awesome having helped him out and beat a piece of ancient technology into submission. Booya!

That’s about it for the week! I’ll see if I can shoot you some pictures next P-Day. Enjoy your week and stay strong in the Faith!

Yours forever,
Elder Jesse Millar


P.S. Got this email from Dawn after her baptism. Thought you’d enjoy the short sentiment since you got such a kick out of Sister Simmons’ letter.

Dawn doesn’t call me “Elder Millar”, she calls me “Jesse”. She’s so funny!


Hey Jesse,

I just want to thank you so much for helping me find my faith and helping to guide Heather and me on this wonderful journey. You are a wonderful young man, and have become part of our family.

Hey, family! I love P-Days because it means that I can communicate with you guys!

This week’s been a doozy. We’ve had an abundance of spirituality, hard work, good conversation, and boredom. Sounds like the recipe for success if you ask me!

Last P-Day was where the boredom came in. We were planning on spending the day with a member family, but it didn’t work out for them so we ended up leaving by late morning. Bummer. We spent the rest of the day being bored, because we had nothing to do and didn’t want to hang out with the other elders. We were able to help the Hemingway family a bit in the evening though.

Tuesday was significantly better. It was the day for interviews with President Neider, but we had time for some service before President arrived. We helped out the Hemingways again. They are a super solid, recent convert family, and are in the process of moving in, so Brother Hemingway needed assistance unloading all his tools and such into his new garage. He is a professional mechanic who seriously knows his stuff which means he has loads of equipment. We moved a couple 1,000 pound tool boxes and maneuvered some crazy metal-working tools for him. Good workout!

Interviews were very long, but they ended well and President saw things from our perspective. He told us that he really wanted to keep me and Elder Oakey together because we are a dream team. He told us that he was going to pray about what he should do and that he’d give us a phone call with the final details. We still haven’t received the call, but Oakey and I are still together which is what we wanted.

Wednesday was a day of serious work. With the stress of interviews off our shoulders, Elder Oakey and I just let go and followed the Spirit. We met with a whole bunch of people, said some epic prayers, gave a cool blessing, taught a few things, and generally had an amazing day. It’s fantastic what you can accomplish when both missionaries genuinely WANT to work!

Thursday marked a visit with Jason (one of my former investigators from Overton who recently moved here to Logandale). The Logandale elders hadn’t really visited him in a while so we swung by. The meeting went incredibly well. Jason told us that he wanted to get baptized, that he’d been praying about the Book of Mormon, that he’d felt the Spirit, and that he knew he needed to get married to his fiance in order to get baptized. Sweet! We’re going to meet with him again tomorrow. Here’s hoping he keeps up the pace!

Friday revolved around service and microwaves. The Hemingways asked us to swing by in the morning to pick up some lasagna. When we got there, they handed us the plate and said that they wanted us to have it because they didn’t have a microwave to heat it with. We took the food and promptly set out on an adventure. We wanted to find the Hemingways a microwave. We gave the matter some thought and decided that we should swing by Sister Chow’s house. She is friends with a girl who goes to storage unit auctions, so she has a bunch of “junk” sitting on her forty acres of land. We asked her if she had a microwave lying around. She led us around back and plopped a perfectly good microwave into our arms. She also told us we could have a fridge if we wanted which was sweet because the Hemingways also needed a fridge. We delivered the goods and felt awesome!

Saturday morning, we occupied ourselves with some service. Later in the day, we had a couple, very short lessons that somehow resulted in two new investigators. I’m still not sure how that worked, but I’m not complaining! Woo! New people to teach!

We met a great family that really wants to get back to church. We figure that fellowship and friendship is what they need, so we spent Saturday night playing pool and foosball with them. I won once at pool and Elder Oakey won once. Fun times.

Sunday went decently well. We didn’t have as many investigators come as we were hoping for, but that’s alright. After the third ward, we went home so Elder Oakey could rest since he was feeling awful. After resting for a bit, we decided to cancel everything for the night so he could relax. We called Sister Neider and asked for permission to go the doctor today, but no response. I wonder what’s causing so much abdominal pain… We’ll get him to the doctor soon.

That’s our week! I’m looking forward to an even better one this week. It’s great to be Elder Oakey’s companion. I’m really enjoying his spirit and company. It’s such a blessing to be on a mission!

I hope you all have a great time these next couple days. Remember to pray hard and listen to the Spirit. The Gospel is what brings true happiness. I know that for a fact. I love you all!

Yours forever,
Elder Jesse Millar