WEEK 75 NOVEMBER 30TH, 2016

Friends and Fam!

Sorry this is late.. the Church wifi has been out so we have been mooching off the wifi in the grocery store. It's slow so we only have time to load the emails we get, then we bounce out of there or else the workers get suspicious. I am writing this email in my notes so I will just send it whenever the next time I get wifi is and then I will write some emails on the computer when the wifi at the church feels like coming back up. Hopefully Thursday night.. But yeah I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving! I sure did 2 days later on Saturday when we celebrated it, so all is good. But on the real Thanksgiving I had some terrible off brand of cheerios and then a not good at all Maggi pack.. Do we have Maggi packs in America?

Anyways Friday we had our hoho ZoKo yayyyy! Got to see some familiar faces. Got a couple good friends going home this transfer. It's so sad, but I'm not far behind them ayyyy:) We saw the new Christmas video, it's so so good. SO much better than last years video with the creepy background music was... Overall it was a good zone conference. President even held almost the entire thing in English for us as a Christmas present :,) Afterwards of course we had to stop at a Christmas Market... Berlin is so unreal during Christmas time. Everything is covered in lights. I might have already said that 1000 times but I can't get over it. I only have one more Zone Conference... crazy stuff. 

Saturday was the Thanksgiving ahhhhhhhh:)) A half American family cooked so tears of joy were shed from Elder Fritz and I. A turkey, stuffing, MASHED potatoes, it ALMOST felt like I was in the states for a couple hours. It was hilarious... They had root beer there, and that's not a thing in Germany so everyone was making a big deal out of it. For about 30 minutes, one small glass of root beer was passed around the room slowly. Every single person did the exact same thing: took a quick sniff of it, grimaced, giggled, took a tiny sip, went "ACH BLEHHHH" and then they would all look at each other and die of laughter. Literally every time. It was like a bunch of cavemen who just discovered something new that was terrible. 

I haven't laughed as much as I did this week in a long time. Elder Fritz and I were by institute this week and there is a handicapped guy in our ward. Super sweet guy. I love him - he is hilarious. He is probably my age, 20 or so, and he comes to class as well. But we were in there and the lady was teaching and during the lesson he kept calling elder Fritz a pig. "Du Schweeiinn, du Schweinnn!" And I was having a hard enough time keeping in my laughing at this point. All of a sudden the topic of the class somehow gets on gay marriage, and from there he kept calling Elder Fritz gay. After that I was done, I couldn't hold it. I was trying so hard to hold it in, I ended up just making weird noises. I got all sweaty and there were tears in my eyes. I tried to leave the room a couple times but I was blockaded in.

This week should be a good week. We have a lot of things planned so the time should fly by. Been feeling really grateful for my mission lately. Sure hasn't been easy, but the more the days pass the more I'm realizing that I am going to miss so many things about it. Thank you to those who have shown constant support to me throughout my mission so far, it means a ton. Even if it is just a quick 2 sentences. December here we come. 

Ich hab' euch so viel lieb 🇩🇪️🇺🇸

Elder Miller 

Week 74 November 21, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving!!

That's super sad I completely forgot it was Thanksgiving this week until someone told me. Germany doesn't celebrate it:/

This week felt super fast and super slow at the same time. There's not much going on out here at the moment to be honest. But Fritzy and I make the most of it. It has rained literally EVERY DAY since I've been here. If I see another drop of rain I'm going to go insane. Which is probably tonight. We have no means of transportation other than bikes, and there is not a single piece of flat ground in this Gosh forsaken city. 100% cobblestone, huge potholes randomly everywhere, dirt etc.etc. The elder before me was like 6 foot 2 and the seat is way too high for me so my feet barely reach the pedals. I wanted to lower it but unfortunately for me the last elder took the bike tool with him? Mix all that in with rain and you get Elder Miller nearly falling off his bike every 10 seconds. Elder Fritz has fallen off twice already. I'm sick of being soaking wet and having a soar rear end all the time so I'm pushing for a car  -  we will see what happens there. We can't even reach a couple of our Dorfs in our area because they are too far. 

ANYWAYS, we meet with this guy named Mike a couple times a week. He's kinda got a rough life backstory and he has recently gotten it back on track. He has a smoking problem and we are working on that with him right now. He comes to church every Sunday though and I can for sure see a baptism there in the future so I am really excited about that.

Landry is one other guy we are trying to teach. He's from Africa and I have sometimes a bit of a hard time understanding him. Super cool guy but every single time we go over there, no matter how hard we try not too, we end up back at the subject of "How do we know Jesus wasn't black? I think he could be black." And he's 100% serious. He says he wants to be baptized but until he gets answers to his questions of what skin color did Jesus, or Adam and Eve have, he can’t…. It's honestly really frustrating. He came to church on Sunday though so that was awesome! 

I can't remember if it was Thursday or Friday but we finally got around to celebrating Elder Fritz' 20th birthday. His family sent him a cake and frosting. We made the cake, but then something must have happened to the frosting, cause it was all watery and yellow and nasty looking.. So Fritz was like, “ well we can just make our own frosting, I know how." A stick of butter, some milk, and an entire box of powdered sugar later we still did not have frosting. I don't even know how to describe what we had. So we kinda looked at each other and decided we should probably just go buy frosting at the store. Unfortunately, it was too late at this point - we weren't allowed to go out - so we put the cake in the fridge. We looked back at the substance we made and we didn't want everything going to waste so we just started throwing random ingredients in there: eggs, baking Soda, vanilla, and then we put it in a cupcake pan and threw it in the oven! Actually turned out not bad, tasted like vanilla powdered sugar bread! We were proud. Made something out of nothing:) 

We went by some contacts with no luck, saw a fight break out at the train station, what else... Forst is kinda rough. This is the first city I've been in that when I walk the streets at night I am always checking my back and making sure I'm aware of people around me. The only bank that Forst has got broken into so we can't even pull money out here right now.

All in all I like Forst though. It's what you make of it:) I'm grateful I'm here with Elder Fritz and that we are having fun regardless of maybe some not so great situations. It could be worse. We went to Berlin today for Pday because it's only about an hour and a half away. I have missed that place so much. It's so happy/sad being there because we can only be there for a few hours before we come back and there is SO MUCH TO DO. I can't wait to come back after my mission.

I'm grateful for my family and friends and all the support I get out here! I love you guys. Have a good Thanksgiving, eat lots of good food for me!

Elder Miller

Week 73 November 14th, 2016

Heyyyyy there,

I hope everyone had a good week! I'm doing well. Just chillin out here in the boonies, aka Forst. It's not bad! There is just nothing here - it's literally empty other than like a grocery store and Döner shop... So we're going to Cottbus for pday today to do some shoppinnnn.

Monday and Tuesday consisted mostly of me just packing and saying goodbye to people. It was really sad to go. I didn't want to leave baby Ashby. It was weird to see my pictures off the walls of our apartment and my stuff taken out after six months of it being there. We spent our last pday in Kiel and went bowling. I literally bowled 4 strikes in a row one round. I ended with like a 171 score -  I should honestly probably go pro. Anyways we went out to dinner and ended the night at a traditional bayrisch restaurant where we all had schnitzel. 

We did transfers on Wednesday so after sticking around for as long as I could, I boarded my ICE. I gave one final wave goodbye out the window to my friends as my train departed from the infamous Hamburg Hauptbahnhof and disappeared into the white abyss of the Northern Germany snow. I traveled alone reflecting on the past 4 transfers I spent in Neumünster and could do nothing but smile and chuckle to myself. I eventually wound up in Cottbus, met my companion, Elder Fritz,  and we boarded another train to get to Forst!

I'm still kinda trying to learn my way around this new area. Meeting members, investigators, figuring out where stuff is etc. etc. Shouldn't take too long considering how small the city is. There is a lot of youth in the ward. Well not a lot, but for Germany a lot. We play soccer every Saturday and I've barely been able to walk the past couple days. The ward also on Friday had this cook off competition between the young men and women. Elder Fritz and I, along with a couple others, were the judges and it was way fun. 

Fritzy is from Utah. He is a sweetheart. We are going to have a fun transfer. It's only a 5 week one so it should go by super quick. He's really musically talented and can play the mandolin too so I gotta have him teach me some stuff.

I hope everyone is doing well! Miss you and love you.

Elder Miller

Elder Ashby and I

TRAIN RIDE

FORST CHURCH

WEEK 72 NOVEMBER 7TH, 2016

Halloooo

Yes yes the rumors are true. After 4 transfers in Neumünster I am being shipped off. I struggled the whole week with sleep at night. I knew I was leaving, I just didn't know exactly where. Transfers are actually a really scary thing if you can't already imagine. In Germany, certain areas have built reputations for themselves over the years and these reputations are bounced around from missionary to missionary like teenage girl gossip.   So everyone is pretty well aware of cities they want to steer clear from. My next area, on the border of Poland, on the dark and scary threshold of Sachsen, deep in the east, bombed to smithereens in World War 2 and never rebuilt, is a city with an extremely well known reputation. The small city of FORST will be my next home for at least the next 5 weeks, and could very possibly be my last area before I am home bound. Forst Forst Forst... My entire mission I have known about Forst. And have heard mostly not good things about the city. BUT, everyone very well seems to know that they have arguably the best ward in the mission. Win - lose. Bombed city, bomb ward. 

My new companion is Elder Fritz. He's relatively new on his mission and hasn't had it so easy. So Pres wants me to go in and cheer him up so ima do my best!

But gosh I'm gonna miss Elder Ashby so much. We had so much fun these last 2 transfers and I'm so lucky I got to train him. He's got a good mish ahead of him. I'm a proud father. 

I will miss this place. I feel like here is where I really learned how to become a missionary. How to really work with people and how to really figure things out on my own. I came into contact with a lot of friends that I will love forever. Crazy another chapter comes to an end. Neumünster will always have a place in my heart. 

See y'all in Forst:)

BYE BYE ELDER ASHBY :(

THE BISHOP AND I

THE NWADILIMS

Week 71 October 31st, 2016

Moin Moin! Happy Halloween!

''Twas a solid week this week. Finally after what felt like an eternity of bad weeks we were gifted with a good one. 

Monday night we ate with family Jäger. I love Bruder Jäger! He's such a solid, funny guy. His wife cooks awesome too. After we ate and chatted about mission life we got up and were getting ready to head out and he said, "ich finde es toll das Sie hier auf mission sind." I think it's really cool that you guys are here serving missions... I just about cried on the spot. Nobody has ever said that to me in this country like that so directly. He served in Switzerland so he just understands missionary life in Europe..

Tuesday good old Herr Gerlich. I love Herr Gerlich. He would be the best member. It's just plain and simply not his time yet. The thing is, when we have differences in doctrine or different outlooks on scriptures, there is never contention. Never. We simply put ourselves in each others shoes and see it from the opposite point of view. He said that's one of the reasons he loves meeting with us. I remember when I first started teaching him, I asked him regardless of the differences we had, if he felt the spirit when he met with us, and he said no. But this last time as we ended with a prayer he stood up and said, "Ya know guys we discussed a lot of differences today, but I definitely felt the spirit." 

Wednesday we ate at Familie Nwadilim. The guy is half Nigerian but raised in Germany and his wife is from the Netherlands. I kid you not we had 4 different languages going at once. They have a baby and the dad only speaks Spanish to it, the wife only speak Dutch to it, we were speaking English to it, and then mixing German at the dinner table. Crazy. It was so fun. Where have they been my whole time here in Neumünster dang it!? 

Thursday was shot because we had to go to Rendsburg. A city a little north. I did a baptismal interview for a 9 year old stud named Arkhadi. He's from Armenia and his parents just moved here about 6 months ago and speak Russian. They were baptized last year but wanted him to wait until he grew up a little bit and then make his own decision. A year I guess. Well he passed with flying colors yeeeeee!! #getaufed

The rest of the week was normal mish life but good! We had a zone pday today and carved pumpkins and played mafia. Was a good time. 

Love you guys! Happy Halloween! 

Elder Miller