December 1, 2014 - Happy Thanksgiving!

In the Subway Tunnel

Happy turkey day everyone! That is what Hispanic people call it apparently. Recently President Riggs had approved missionaries to start playing touch football on preparation days. Yay! We played zone football last week for preparation day because it was 70 degrees. I was really looking forward to playing in a turkey bowl, but sadly our ward didn't have one... We spent most of the morning and afternoon time doing menial chores in the mission office. Such as updating all of the missionaries transfer board cards to say where they have been assigned and who their new companion is. We had dinner with a sister in our ward who has recently returned to activity in the church and her boyfriend. She invited us about a month ago because she had a non member friend who she wanted us to talk to at dinner. He lives in Florida and was only up here to visit for Thanksgiving. We had a really yummy dinner with all the usual items, but my favorite part was the strawberry cheesecake pie that was for dessert :).

Elder Miles and Gang

Because it was a holiday we were allowed to stay longer for dinner. We answered questions that the non-member friend had while we ate dinner. After dinner, we taught him about the Plan of Salvation. He had some very similar opinions to what we talked about. We gave him a Book of Mormon and several chapters to read before we left. He came to church yesterday and flew back to Florida last night. We are hoping to stay in touch with him on Facebook. We didn't really eat too much food - partially because we were talking and answering a lot of questions. Plus everyone else didn't eat all that much. It was not the most eventful thanksgiving of my life, but it was a good one. I think sharing the gospel is the best way to spend our time anyways! 

Young single adults are a lot more open to inviting their non-member friends then most other people. There are usually several non-members at church each week. Yesterday we had Robert with us at church again. He continues to be really solid. We don't even have to do all that much for him. He introduces himself to people and then sits with them without any help from us. He raises his hand a ton in class and volunteers to do things too. There were a couple other non-members there. One was a girlfriend of a recent convert that we set up a lesson with for this week! Our work has been picking up lately, but it is still more difficult to find people to teach in this ward.

The Missionaries at Zohra's baptism

It is already December again! Wow. We have been rounding up performances for the mission Christmas conference that is next Friday. The whole mission gets together for the day and we have a lot of fun! There will be singing, talents, and presents from the Riggs! We are going to see the festival of lights at the temple at least three times this month. We get to help direct parking for one night and the other two nights we are going to take Robert and then Rachael. Rachael is going to be back in town for Christmas. Directing traffic at the temple visitor center during the festival of lights can get pretty crazy... but it’s a ton of fun! We had to assign 80 missionaries from our mission to help out over a 10 day period.

At the end of each month we turn in a mileage report. Today we turned ours in for November and we drove 2,100 miles. Our average is probably about 2,000. I've driven 8,000+ miles in our truck since I came to this area. In case you were wondering. The reason I tell you this is because we are almost at the point where the mission will get a new truck! Hopefully that will happen while I’m still around. President Riggs asked me today about how long I should stay in the office and I told him I would be fine with whatever the Lord needs me to do. I’m sure that wasn't the answer he was looking for... (haha). At this point I am struggling to find things to write about, so I’m going to end it. Love you!

Elder Braden Miles

Washington DC South Mission