September 3, 2013

We didn’t get to email yesterday because of Labor day. The libraries and the office that we usually email in were closed for the day. I had a chance to look at my blog for a minute. You should change the main picture of me to one that I don’t look terrible in (haha).

On Saturday it was super hot and we were biking. We had been out for like 3 hours and we were out of water and super sweaty, so we decided to take a little 7 Eleven break and get some water. We were paying and the guy behind the counter asked us if we could teach him (that doesn’t happen much). He is from Pakistan and is Muslim, but is looking into Christianity and has been reading the bible. Here is the best part - he gave us free Slurpees! The other day we were stopping by a less active’s house and we parked on the street in front of a random house across the street. As we were walking up the driveway the owner of the house pulled up right behind us until his bumper hit ours, parked it, and went inside. So I left a mormon.org card in his wind shield (haha).

One of the AP's came with us yesterday to our appointments, which was pretty awesome. He was very good at teaching and knew the gospel very well. Even just by listening to him I learned a ton and I know what areas I can improve in. It was a humbling experience to see that I’m not nearly as good as I thought I was (haha). It also gave me a good idea of what I want to become on my mission. I want to become really knowledgeable about the scriptures because using them in teaching is much more effective. Elder Aland said he told President Riggs that I am ready to train a new missionary next transfer. The AP also told me that I will be training next transfer. That will be a great experience.

We’ve had several Catholics that we’ve taught and they all seem to have the same concerns. They don’t believe there was an apostasy because they believe the priesthood was passed on through Peter to Linus all the way to the present day. We also are teaching a man who is Jainist, which means he doesn’t believe in killing anything - not even bugs.

We got to play some basketball yesterday with the whole zone and the AP's. It was way fun. It was actually pretty intense and some of the missionaries were pretty good. My shot was the first thing to go and it took me awhile to get it back (haha). I want to try to play more on p-days cause that was probably my favorite thing we’ve done so far (on a p-day of course).

The pictures I sent are ones I took of the sunset the other day. The pictures don’t look half as cool as it did in person, but I will say I think I’m a pretty great photographer, as you can see (haha).

Sunset in Virginia

I want to give a shout out to my buddy Braden Crist who is going on his mission to Long Beach. He is awesome and a killer Blops player.

  

A great scripture that we have been sharing with families in the ward is D&C 136:31. We are always going to get trials, but we are never given too much to handle.

Sorry for the short email once again, but I didn’t have tons of time! More will come in a week!

-Elder Miles