Elder Millard with his mission president

Elder Millard with his mission president

Monday, November 14, 2011

WHITE Christmas





Hola Hola!! This last Friday, we had a huge conference where the whole mission came to the chapel in ViƱa Centro, my new home. President Gillespie asked me personally to play the piano for this conference. I got to play prelude for 30 min while the whole mission, all 208 of us, were sitting in our seats, and studying the scriptures while waiting for our guest speakers to come. Let’s just say, there is a good reason that the whole mission came to this conference, because our guest speakers we had were very special. We had the privilege of hearing from Elder Cook quorum of the 12, Bishop Mcmullen, Elder Zeballos quorum of the 70, Elder Richard area 70 chile.

I was so excited because I had the privilege to play the piano for an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ!!! Right in the middle of the conference, when Elder Cook´s wife was speaking, she decided to do a musical activity out of the blue. So, in front of everyone, the whole mission and various general authorities, she called my name out, and asked me to come up front. When I heard my name, my heart was pounding out of its chest haha. As I walked up to the front, all the general authorities were looking at me and could not help but laugh because of the intensity of the situation that I was in haha. When I got up to the front, she asked me if I could play the hymn that she showed me. At this moment, I have never been so grateful for all those years of piano practice. The hymn that she showed me, to my extreme relief, was one that I knew very well, Put your shoulder to the wheel. So I said, “yeah, I can play that,” she said, “oh good.” Then we did a fun little musical activity using that song. Imagine how embarrassing that would be if I could not play the hymn that she showed me haha.

After the general authorities left, I got to stay up front and play some postlude. Right in front of the piano was where Elder Cook sat for the conference. I noticed that he had left his glass of water half full on the ground right next to where he was sitting. You may think I am weird, but the elder that was directing the music and I decided to drink from the same glass, the same water that a living apostle of the lord Jesus Christ drank from. As that water went down my esophagus, I could totally feel the power running through my veins. I got to shake his hand too, which was a very memorable experience as well. The conference was so fun. I got to see just about all my old comps and all my mission friends. Good times!

I had a miracle finding experience this week! It all started off when I was on interchanges with a new missionary from Argentina. We taught a great lesson to Gladys and her kids. After the lesson, we were on our way up to Santa Ines to go eat lunch. We could not get ahold of the family that was supposed to give us lunch. But before we went back to the pension to go make our own lunch, we decided to go to a member’s house and ask her for references. We went there and had so much success. She gave us like 7 great references which has never happened to me in my whole mission. We normally eat lunch at 1:30, and at this time, it was already 2:35. We started walking really fast down these hills to get to our pension. After we had been walking for about 2 min, we heard footsteps running behind us. We look back and there was this 13 year old kid running to catch up to us. When he reached us, he asked “what do you guys do?” We told him that we help others to come unto Christ. He said, “Perfect, my mom wants to talk to you guys, come with me, I’ll take you to our home.” At this point, I could not believe what was going on. We backtracked up all those hills again to the house where this family lives. When we got there, the mom was super happy to see us. She let us know that she has been looking for us for the longest time but did not know where to find us. She heard that we could help her family out, especially her 16 year old boy who is getting into some trouble. This family reminds me of a scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 123:12, which says:


12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are ablinded by the subtle bcraftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to cdeceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they dknow not where to find it—


They have now found the truth. Now this family of 4 will now be able to receive the joy of the gospel in their lives. The two boys, the 16 and 13 year old came to church with us yesterday. We shared with the whole family in the afternoon. They are so great and willing to learn and progress. They accepted a baptismal invitation. We are going to try to help them get baptized on Christmas day. I´m dreaming of a white Christmas.

I love you all!

Chao

Elder Millard