Elder Braden Miles, Washington DC South Mission: March 10, 2014

This past week has been awesome!

Elder Miles along the Potomac River

Last week the sister missionaries passed a referral to us because it was a single guy. We finally were able to meet with him and he is golden! His name is Richard and he is from Liberia. While he was in Liberia his boss was a Mormon. He went to church 8 times with his boss and learned a lot about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He has even seen the Joseph Smith movie! Right off the bat when we first met him he was telling us that he wants to be a missionary. He kept asking us what he needs to do to become a member, so we told him that he would need to get baptized. We were having the lesson at the church and he asked if we could baptize him that night! We set a date for baptism for April 5 because he is leaving for Texas next week. We taught him the restoration, he pretty much knew everything and said he wants to help us teach people. That was really exciting! We have some great investigators right now!

The sister missionaries in my district (also in my ward) were having a baptism this past Saturday. It was an older single lady and all the members that she knew were sisters, so they needed someone to baptize her. They asked me to do it! I got to baptize her on Saturday and stand in the circle to confirm her on Sunday. It was a great experience to be able to baptize somebody! Ian and his friend Amy (that we have also been teaching) were at the baptism and it got them really excited. They want to be baptized but need to quit smoking first! It was a great service and I definitely felt the spirit!

Elder Miles and his new iPad Mini

On Thursday we got our iPads!!! Every missionary got iPad minis that we will keep for the rest of our missions. I heard that there are now 30 missions that have them. We had a four hour meeting to learn about them, get them set up, and to hear the rules. They are pretty locked down and we can’t download anything. The two main things that we use them for is for the gospel library app and the area book/planner app. It feels really good to have some technology again! The area book and planner are going to take some getting used to because it is harder to use then just a paper planner. In the long run after we get used to them they will be very helpful! At the meeting President Riggs talked about how these have been given to us to help hasten the work and they are to be used as proselyting tools. We didn't get iPhones and those might not come for a long time. It is really great to have access to the gospel library because we no longer need to carry around our bulky scriptures. During meals and free time I love to listen to general conference talks! I can’t wait until General Conference!