Life isn't just about the Destination but the Journey that takes you there. Find Joy in every second of the Journey.

There are no failures in missionary work. God would never let that happen.

I highly recommend President Eyring's talk called "Recognize, Remember, and Give Thanks." It has changed my whole perspective on life for this week!! I am so grateful for everything here!!!!!!!! So here is a list of just a FEW of my gratitude moments and things I am grateful for from the past few days. If time allowed, this list would be MUCH longer.

•  The Russian Language- I am truly falling in love!!! It is so beautiful,even if most people think of it as an angry language! The words within each sentence rhyme because of the way cases work! And if you know me, you know how much I LOVE making up songs and rhyming the lyrics! And everything follows rules! To make a sentence you look at a specif case chart and find out which "rhyme" or "ending" applies to each word. I love these rules and charts because it reminds me of math, and I love math!!! I may have a hard time memorizing things right now, but I'm taking baby steps. Russian. is. the. BEST.
• The Girls on our Floor - Everybody here is sooooo nice! We are like one big family of sister going through the same thing at the same time. The new sisters arrived this weeks which means we are no longer the babies of the Russian family. It feels great! But then again they all have Russian experience and are probably better than me at the language.... But I am so grateful for their sweet, sweet spirits and the gung-ho attitude about missionary work! During gym time, my companions don't like to run, so I do splits with the other sisters. [Side note: By the end of the mission, my abs will be tight. Like unto a dish.] I love going on runs with them and getting to know them better! This morning I went running with a girl from Seattle who previously studied Chinese. Crazy. I am so grateful to know everybody here! They teach me so much!
• Our Investigators - We are currently teaching Maxc and Buktop. I have learned so much from these two! It is easy for me to recognize what my strengths and weaknesses are while teaching because we are forced into a real situation with real people and real Russian! I am so grateful for these lessons because it has given me a small taste for what lies ahead! I have learned that one of my weaknesses is to be passive while teaching. Because I have 2 other companions, they always have something to say. I need to step up my game, and be proactive at learning Russian phrases confidently so I can say things instead of letting my companions do all the work.
• We have Agency, but Limited Options - Alright, this may sound awful, but it is truly a blessing!!! Let me explain. Here at the MTC we have schedules, yet we still can plan a lot of what we do with our time. In the cafe, we only have about 5 options of what we can eat. In the morning I can decided between my black skirt, or my brown skirt. We go to bed at 10:30 and wake up at 6:30. Everyday. Now all of this may seem like negative things, so why would Sister Miller put it on her Gratitude list? Because instead of spending all day long focusing on things of the world, we can center our lives around "Our Purpose!" This has allowed me to view everything with an eternal perspective! And I love it! The things that matter most in life are the the things that are eternal. Jacob 2:18. D&C 25:10
• Fast Sundays - My absolute favorite day of each month! I always feel the spirit so strongly and I can tangibly feel the testimonies of those around me! My major take away from this past Sunday was about Faith. If I want to increase any aspect of my faith, (which there are many....) I need to first increase my faith in Jesus Christ. He is the center of everything! Through the power of the Atonement, ANYTHING is possible. I know this is true and I am so grateful for the blessing of the Atonement in my life!
• Laughter -  OH. MY. GOODNESS. My abs will definitely be tight like unto a dish in the near future! I laughed to the points of tears, several times this week!!! Funniest. Thing. Ever. On Friday my companion Sister Taylor get us each an orange cream Popsicle. On her first bite, her tongue got stuck to the Popsicle. I laughed at her soooo hard!! Later I carefully took my first lick. No problems or stickage. So I dive into my popsicle and BOOM. Guess who's lip gets stuck! Karma!! I pull it away and we all laughed it off. But apparently I didn't learn my lesson because guess who's lip got stuck again. And when I say stuck, I really mean STUCK. And this time it was both lips. This Popsicle was not coming off!!! By now my companions are rolling in laughter and people from other tables in the cafe are pointing and laughing at me as well. I finally ripped off the popsicle and a big chunk of my skin came off with it! Apparently my lip was bleeding profusely. This was the most excitement our district had seen in days! It was quite the event and we all were laughing.
• The Book of Mormon -  I have such a strong testimony of this book! I know that it is the word of God and it can be a source of modern and personal revelation for each of us. Every time i read from it, I hunger to know even more truth! It always makes me want to be a better person and be proactive in serving others! Since I have been here at the MTC I felt so much guidance from it! It has helped my learn the things that I need to hear and has helped me receive guidance on what to teach my investigators. I know that the Book of Mormon has increased my faith because it is centered around the Savior, Jesus Christ and is evidence that he lives! His works never end. And His words will never cease.

 Thank you everybody for your support and emails! I love you all very much! My testimony is growing everyday here! The MTC is awesome!

 I love you all so much!

- Sister Miller

If you're a Russian in the hallway, what are you in the bathroom?

 I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!! 

Apparently a lot of Red Heads are sent to Russia

So much. Words cannot describe how lucky I am to have this opportunity to spend all day every day learning how to become closer to my Heavily Father and be more like my Savior, Jesus Christ. There have been many hard moments this week, but the moments that are good by far outweigh the bad ones.

Funnies:
If you're a Russian in the hallway, what are you in the bathroom?


If you're a Russian in the hallway, then European in the bathroom!!!
This was super funny because our floor has both Russian and European missionaries on it.

What a fabulous week it has been here at the MTC! Every day is sooo long, but the weeks fly by so fast!

So this week we found out that the guy we were teaching lessons to all of the last weeks is our new teacher!!! WHAT?!? That blew our minds! Lets just say we had some trust issues we had to work out on the first day.... But seriously, this teacher is INCREDIBLE! He is soooo patient and willing to teach us! And most importantly he has a super strong testimony of the gospel and we can feel the love that he has for his Savior every day during class.
Bret- you asked how the whole investigator thing worked: I have 2 teachers. They are both pretending to act like real people they met while they served their mission. It really is a cool experience!!! We are currently teaching BUKTOP (Victor) and MAXC. I think we overwhelmed Victor during our lesson with him yesterday. We are going to have to slow it down, get down to the basics, and find more out about him and what he already knows. I may not be a good teaching yet, but I can feel that I am improving. My companions and I do a much better job at "team teaching" than we did out first week here. At first we focused on teaching with the spirit, but now we know that it is just as important to plan lessons with the spirit. Without God's guidance, we can't do anything!

Speaking of teaching by the Spirit, my loving companion taught a lesson on Sunday. I was totally following along with the topic the first five minutes or so when all of a sudden something hit me hard! I have had this personal question that has been eating me up for the past 5 months. This past week especially I have been praying that I would receive an answer to this question. And then BOOM. I knew the answer. It was crazy. I immediately just wrote like a crazy women in my journal for the rest of the lesson as the spirit flowed in me. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what the lesson was on. But because my companion invited the spirit into the lesson, I was able to receive an answer to my prayers. And the answer was SOOOO obvious!! I can't believe I hadn't seen it before. I can be so oblivious some times...

This life is not about accumulation, but contributions and service.
It is time to get to work, and tell the world the good news of the Gospel!

Improvement is a HUGE thing! There are so many time when I feel like I don't know Russian. But then I think to myself how much I knew before I got here and feel much better! It is crazy how fast we are learning!

Cool thing I found in my scripture study this week:
After Cain killed Able, he was cut off from the Lord's presence. At this time he went from the WEST to the EAST side of the garden! The Angel Moroni calls people from the West. My mind was blown.
Also, did you know that the BOM was translated in 63 days!!! That's crazy fast! I have a hard time just reading it that fast! It shows us that any thing can be down when we have the hand of God in our lives.

Read Philippians chapter 1. It is great. I've discovered that many a times I start to act like my crazy Elyssa self and start laughing and acting silly. This is fun and all, but it truly distracts me from my purpose here which is to invite others come unto Christ. [Side note, we memorized "Our Purpose" in Russian already and now Imp memorizing the first vision] In Phil 1, (I think it is verse 26?) It says to rejoice more abundantly in Jesus Christ. The days and moments that I do this, I can feel myself immediately coming closer to God. So my goal this week is to focus my conversation and thought around the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have a stronger relationship with my Heavenly Father than ever before. This week has been full of lots of study and heart felt prayers. I know that my Healy Father is pleased with me and my work as I strive to be a good missionary. I also more than ever before, I believe in Christ.

Thank you for the emails and prayers. I feel very blessed! I pray for you all everyday!!
Thanks for preparing me for this moment in my life. The people of Russia are also thanking you, for it is them you have blessed.

I love you all so much!


LOVE,
CECTPA Miller