week 3 in Coquimbo

Hey Hey Hey!!!!!! Another week come and gone!! I can´t believe that i am already half way through my first change. (changes are six weeks). this week was super awesome! we accomplished a lot and had some great experiences! this week was particularly different because my trainer Elder Mace was in capacitación all week (meetings/training) so i was on comp exchanges with the two other elders that live in our pension, Elder Mackay and Elder Solerno. they are super awesome and i learned so much from them. it was kinda cool to be in a trio again haha. we taught some great lessons and i learned more of the importance of bringing the spirit in the lessons, teaching with clarity and telling them what they are feeling and what it means.
the language is really coming along!! i still can´t understand everything that the chileans say but i am definitely better off than the first few days that i was here. i can now contribute a lot more in the lessons and can express myself freely. its kinda funny... sometimes my comp asks the people, ´´how long do you think my comp has been in chile?´´ suprisingly, the usual answer is about a year or so! that makes me feel super good but i obviously have a long way to go and i do not take any credit for it. i was studying in the book of mormon where it talks about all of the gifts of the spirit. one of them is the gift of tounges. so i give all the credit to the lord for helping me out.
I´m starting to get the hang of things out here! time is starting to go by faster... because let me tell you all, the first two weeks were some of the longest days of my life haha but great as well of course! but yeah i feel like i´m starting to get into the groove of things! so basically i have an awesome trainer! but yeah i´m having so much fun, working super hard, and doing everything i can to be the best missionary i can be.
elder Mace and i had some sweet experiences this week. so first off, during our daily plannig sessions at 930, we had planned some lessons and had some extra time to go find some investigators. so we prayed about it and we felt like we should go to this particular street. so the next day, we went yelling ´´Alo´´ at this street, and the first house that we stopped at, there was this guy that walked out, and he seemed so happy that we were there. he let us in right away and we sat down and got to know him a little bit. his name is Hiraldo and he plays basketball for a local chilean team. we started teaching him, and it went SUPER BIEN. this guy was so prepared to hear the gospel. we asked him inspired questions and he felt the spirit, it all made sense and he was absolutely touched by the message. we prayed on our knees afterwards and he offered the prayer. he gave thanks for the spirit that he felt and that he knows that this gospel is true. He wants to get baptized now, but the only complication is that he is moving to Conception chile in about a week and a half!!! bummer right? its all good though, the missionaries in conception will have a great prepared child of god coming their way. kinda funny though, after this awesome spiritual amazing visit, we went to go find some more people. the next person that we talked to was SO mean!! she walked out the door and yelled ´´Valla no mas!´´ which means, Just leave! just get out of here!.such a difference in preperation to hear the gospel haha.
Elder Mace and i had another great experience this week! so we were asked to give a musica number in sacrament meeting. so the morning of sunday, we chose to play abide with me. i was on the piano and elder Mace was singing. right before sacrament meeting, we went in to go make up an arrangment and practice a little bit. so after it was all prepared, sacrament meeting started and it was eventually time to give the musical number. It went so well!!! the spirit was so strong and it was such a great experience. the song made a quite a few people emotional including our branch president that gave his testimony after. Music seriously is so powerful and i am so blessed to be able to have these great experiences with music on my mission.
Our investigators are doing great! the only thing is, they still have some obsticles to overcome so keep Marcos, Danisa, Jeovanni, and Joselyn in your prayers. they are all so great and i would love to see them baptized. we have another great investigator named Gabriella that can´t have a fecha bautismal because she is living with someone and wants to get married but just has not done it yet. that is the ontly thing that is holding her back, but she is SO awesome! so keep her in your prayers too if you can! thanks
this sat the 11th is a sweet holliday in chile. apparently its the craziest up here in coquimbo so all the missionaries up here are required to be back in their pensions at 6 pm due to... oh you know ha. and next sat the 18th is even bigger. everyone goes so crazy and apparently its a pretty huge deal here in coquimbo so i´ll let you know how they go!
This week, i had the opportunity to go on an intercambio, (interchange), with elder Teebles in a place called sindempart, a little part of coquimbo. i work in tierras blancas, another part, that is about 20 min away. anyways, this was Such a great experience and we had so much Exito!! (success) we taught so many lessons and made such a big difference. it made me realize that my favorite part of being on a mission and definitely my favorite part of my mission so far has been the people, and the changes that i have seen in these people´s lives. its so cool to see the change in peoples lives when they accept the gospel. chileans are awesome humble people! its been such a blessing to get to know so many people and to learn from them.
Well, i love you all and i hope all is well back at home! until next week!
love Elder Millard

Week two in Chile!

Wow! I can´t believe i have already been a Chile Viña del Mar missionary for 2 weeks! So crazy! I guess time just flies by when you are having fun, working hard, and being focused right? I absolutely love it here! Chile is So different from good ole O town utah but it is so awesome! I feel humbled right now to have this great opportunity to serve and be a missionary. I also have no choice but to be humbled with how fast chileans speak spanish and how many ´´modismos´´ they have. haha. But serisouly i love being out here and bringing the one thing that can give people true happiness and hope... the Gospel. Elder Mace and i are working super hard and are going all out! I never thought that walking could make me tired but after walking super fast all day, i sleep so well! haha.We are finding, we are teaching and we are being obedient and working hard. Success is a gift from the lord and as long as we keep working hard, and working smart, follow the spirit, be obedient, and be humble, the lord will give us success. He is a great trainer and has taught me so much already... i still totally have to rely on him for so much... especially the language haha. Elder Mace has so much great advice that i have basically soaked up because he is a great missionary and i know i can learn so much from him, as i already have. So Elder Mace and i have 3 investigators with ´´fechas´´ or baptismal dates! their names are Marcos, Yeovanni, and Danisa. So if its alright, i would love it if you all could pray for them. Our zone is rocking!!! as a whole zone, which is one of the smallest in the mission, has 36 investigators with Fechas!! Hoorah! i´m pretty sure that is a new record! So the north of Chile viña del mar is rocking with fechas and our goal is that 16 people are baptized in the month of Sept. So awesome! So here in chile, its not the regular knocking door contacts... there is a special way that you get the peoples attention in the house. most of them do not have door bells and there is usually a gate around the house with spikes on the top. so in order to get the people out to find ´´ futuros´,and do a contact, we say...¨¨ALO¨. haha. Every day for luch, we have the great privilege of eating with the members! some days great, other days not so great! but the grand majority is so good! i love the Chilean food. The members give us SO much to eat, and often times i even have a hard time finishing it. The food is so good though! Often times, we eat at houses that lets just say, are not the cleanest or nicest houses in the world. But the members are so nice to give us food! so basically here in chile, people don´t really eat breakfast or dinner so our whole day is sustained on lunch. I love the food though... the bread is amazing and they have Panerias on basically every corner that sells fresh bread. So lets just say, in general, i am in love with chilean food. Well i love you all and pray for you! I absolutely love my mission! it is Super hard but the reward is what makes it worth it. bringing salvation to the souls and giving them something that we are all so blessed to have! Farewelll until next week ha. Elder Millard

First e-mail from chile!

WOW! I am finally here in Chile! I really cannot believe it, it does not even seem real right now! haha. It is SO different from good ole Happy Valley Utah haha. and it is absolutely not what i expected, but i love it! So, lets start out with the flight to chile... i never thought there could be a longer flight haha it was good though because i got to read a little bit, catch up on my journal, and just try and contemplate that i am actually on my mission right now and going to the place where i will be spending the next two years of my life! So exciting. So after a long night, we were still in the air, but as we were flying over chile, the sunrise started to form... all i can say is wow! that sunrise was absolutely stunning! it was creeping up over the Andes mountains and it was vivid blue on the bottom and vivid orange red pinkish as it got progressively higher. So beautiful!. as we were landing in the Santiago airport, i looked out of the plane, and i thought to myself.. Here i am!!! Ready to go!!! we walked out of the plane and started walking to go pick up our luggage. we talked to as many chileans as we could on our way there... so we said ¨Hola¨.. their response sounded like this... apwoefjsldknva haha i could not believe how fast they spoke! me and elder roach just laughed. We eventually got our luggage and met President Gillespie. What a great guy! He will be an awesome mission president.. we took some pictures and headed off to viña. it was about a 2 hour drive. i just looked out of the winow of the car and could not believe that i am in chile. from santiago to viña, it got progressively more beautiful... vinyards on the hills, beautiful scenery... We got to viña and stopped at a lookout point. we all got out to take pictures. The view of viña and valparaiso was absolutely amazing!! wow this place is so cool. president Gillespie then gave us a little speech about how there are thousands of people out there ready to hear the gospel. we need to find them and give thm the joy that we have and the knowlege that we have so they can have the joy that they are looking for. Great thought... Obviously it was better than i am describing it right now haha. We then got back to the car and drove down into the city of viña to go take pictures at the flower clock. This place is so different but so awesome! we took some pictures and then they told us that they were going to split us up into groups of 4 and give us the address of the mission home. we all had to split up into these groups of 4 and find the mision home on our own in this city that we just barely drove into. haha. thats where spanish comes in handy... we asked the natives where to go and eventually we found it. it was a cool experience! At the mission home, we had a little meeting where we got to know everyone and then went into another room for orientation... where we learn all of the essential of what we need to know to be a missionary. after that was done, it was food time!!! we ate some amazing Empanadas. if i eat like that for the next two years, i will be a happy fat man/elder. haha. After diner, we went out to go meet our trainers. our trainers walked in singing the mission song. ¨viña del señor¨. they then told us to go find out who our companions were so we had to go pick someone, get to know them is spanish, then ask them if they were our trainers.... eventually, i asked all of them and none of them were my trainers. that meant that i have a nice 6 hour ride up north to meet my trainer in Coquimbo chile. So i packed my stuff along with 2 other elders and we head off for coquimbo. When we got there, we were met by our trainers! i soon realized that my trainer is Elder Mace from England. He is so awesome!!! He has been on his mission for 10 months and has been in coquimbo for about 6 months so he knows what he is doing. He also plays the piano and likes to sing! which is so awesom because we have sang hymns in a couple of our lessons and it just invites the spirit so much. we also have a concert with piano and singing this wed for mentally ill kids and their parents. hopefully it will be a good finding tool! He is so awesome though and i have learned so much from him!! its actually kina funny, his spanish has an English accent as well haha but his spanish is really good and he is helping me out a lot with spanish. Great missionary and i´m sure i will learn so much from him about how to be an effective missionary. We get along really well too and have a great time together. Missionary work is alot harder than i thought it would be! ha. there is the 'physical side of it where we have to walk about 10 miles a day, but at a pace where we want to get somwhere fast!... we don´t want to waste the lords time walking slow right? so my legs are actually a little sore believe it or not haha. but also its go go go all day long and having the spirit with you and having these spiritual experiences drains you. It is all SO worth it though. of the lessons that we have taught, i have already seen a huge change in peoples lives! thats what makes it worth it, making a difference and giving the people somthing that is of eternal worth to them. It is a huge responsibility and a powerful calling and i am so humbled that i have the opportunity to share this true message and gospel to the people of chile! We are working with 6 people that have fechas... or baptisimal date. it is just SO cool to see the change in these people and see how much the gospel will change their lives. we are teaching a girl named Joselyn. She has an abusive mother and basically lives on the street. she spends most of her time at a members house just chilling there and helping out where she can. We are teaching her and she is coming to church and accepting the gospel and i can see the light in her change. she now has something to live and hope for. she loves church and loves meeting with us and this is what makes it all worth it. all of the walking, the waking up early... I love missionary work. Well i love you all so much and i love it here! missionary work is awesome and when i fully put my heart into the work and love the work, i will forget more about the distractions and be a better and more powerful missionary. Love you all Elder Millard

Letter from the Vina Del mar secretary

Dear Millard Family, We would like to thank you for supporting your son and for allowing him to serve in the Chile Viña del Mar Mission. We want you to know that he is doing very well and enjoyed the first day here. We are very blessed to have such a great young man and look forward to serving along with him. Upon arriving, he took a picture with President and Sister Gillespie in front of the flower clock here in Viña del Mar. Attached is picture which you may share with family and friends.
-- Elder Williams
Secretario
Misión Chile Viña del Mar

Week 8!

As i am writing this letter, I cannot help but be SO excited that this is my last week in the MTC and i will be leaving for chile in 6 days 8/16/10. WOW!!! So excited! so this will be the last email from the MT, the next will be from the distant land of Chile! I have absolutely loved my time here and i learned so much! Missionary work is amazing and i can't wait to get out there to Chile and start serving! These times in the MTC will stay with me for the rest of my life and i am so grateful for all tthat i have learned and for how much i have grown spiritually! This is the greatest thing i can be doing right now and i am so honored to have this opportunity to serve the lord. So this last week was absolutely incredible!!! I am now at the point where i know my way around really well here and i can just focus on learning the language, improving my teaching skills, and learning about the gospel. I learned so much this week and have had some great experiences! So this week, one of the things i learned was of the importance of setting goals and actually accomplishing them. The goals that you set reflect the true desires of your heart and the type of missionary you want to be. I learned to set goals that are achievable so you can accomplish and improve. if you set goals that are out of reach,, yyoouu plan to fail. We had some great teaching opportunities this week! we had the privilege ooff tteeaacchhiinngg the word of wisdom a couple of times, the law of chastity and the law off tithing. These are all somewhat hard to teach because they are hard for some ppeeoopple but throught theese practices, i have learned that it is not so bad if you follow the spirit and make sure they know the blessing they will recieve andd tthhee importance of keeping these commandment. i have loved the experience that we have bbeeeenn getting to teach people in the MTC. i feel so much more prepared to go out aanndd teach real investigators. Hermano Cowles (my teacher) went to cchhiille on his mission. so he talked to us like a chilean would talk to us!, i definiitteellyy have a long way to go haha. I got to go to the temple one last time for two years!!! it was such a great experience! i love the temple so much. so this sunday, i had the opportunity to play a musical number with cousin jordan!!!! it was so awesome! we played and sung "Where can i turn for peace",... one of mmyy favorite songs. so i was on the piano, and jordan and i were both singing. it went so well! i loved this musical number so much! it wwaass such a great experience. i hope i will be able to use music a lot inn mmyy mission. music is so powerful and i believe it is one of the languages of heaven. if it is the right kind of music, itt brings the spirit so strong and it touches people hheearts. after the musical number, people were telling me that thee song that we played was exactly what they needed to hear. apparently we put our branch president to tears.... yeah music is extremely powerful. and i love it. so my toe is doing absolutely amazing!!! i have been able to run around and it is not huurrting me too bad. so basically its ready for the field!!! hoorah.! i heard some great advice this week on the keys to a successful mission. they are 4 tthhiings that we need to do: Humility, Diligence, Attitude, and obedience. all of these put together will make one heaven of a missionary! ha. so these are the things that i will focus on. if i can achieve these, all the other things willl fall into place This sunday, we had the wonderful opportunityy ttoo watch the Joseph Smith Movie. Wow, this movie is so powerful and after watching, it, i really gained a stronger testimony of this church and of the prophet Joseph Smith! He really was a true prophet and this church is absolutely true!! As a missionary, i have really gained a better understanding of the eternal perspective and what is important. i have also learned of the complete joy that the gospel brings! this gospel is amazing and i cannot wait to go share and serve the people of chile!! This MTC experience has been amazing! i'm positive it will keep getting better and better. we often learn more from the hard times. i can't wait to go serve!!!!1 Love you all so much. and next week, i will be talking to you from CHILE! Love: Elder Millard

Week 7

HEY HEY HEY!!!! This last week was so awesome! So many great experiences and lessons learned. time is starting to go by Super fast now that i have been here almost 7 weeks! I'm loving the MTC so much! this place is so awesome! I'll definitely live it up while i'm here but i can't wait for Chile! its basically a 2 week countdown now! So crazy! as of this week, our district is the oldest district in the zone! we are now the Jefe (boss) group of the zone. the elders here are so great! i have loved spending time with them and getting to know them. So this last week was the first week that we were able to go to the temple!! i love the temple so much and it was so awesome with the missionary perspective while going through. Great experience! i only get to go a couple more times, then the next two years are dry. So funny story...sort of... on last tues, i was planning a little bit with elder roach. when elder paulsen walks into the room, he came to sit next to us so we can all plan as a companionship. when he sat down, his scriptures in his scripture case were just chilling on his desk. so when he lifted up the platform, his scriptures slid off and landed.... i'm sure you can imagine... directly on my toe!!!! AHH! it hurt pretty bad! it was swollen for the night and all of next day. on Wed, i decided to get a priesthood blessing from my companions. so that is exactly what we did on Wed night. It was a great experience, i chose elder paulsen to give the blessing. The next day was my doctors appt. At the doctors apt, the doctor moved my toe around to see the condition. When he moved it down, he actually pushed reallky hard! haha I basically screamed like a girl ha, anyways, after the doctor messed with i a little bit, he told me that i could start wearing my regular shoes and even start running.!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Miracle!! priesthood blessings are so great!!! so the next day at gym, i played some frisbee and tried running around a little bit and it actually felt pretty good! it's not perfect but it is definitely feeling SO much better! THanks for all the prayers and love!!! In the RC this week, i had the opportunity to talk to a man named David, in spanish of course. so when he answered, he talked Super fast!!! i could only understand about 87.6 percent of what he was saying. But that did not matter because i have the help of the spirit right! so one thing led to another, a conversation started up, and i ended up talking to him for about 15 min! at the end of the conversation, he accepted the missionaries and they were sent over to his house! i always love these RC experiences because they are the closest things to real missionary work. In the TEC this week, The dynamic trio taught many lessons. i would like to highlight two great experiences. So the first was with Hermana MUrillo. We were practicing door contacts. So we did the contact and it lasted about 6 min. when we were done and she was giving us advice, she said that our contact was so good that she would not have changed anything! EVerything is starting to come together! the Next experience was with bro. wellings. We taught him the first lesson. We got in there and started to get to know him a little bit. his question was: Why do terrible unjust things happen to good people? he later went on to tell us that his son was killed in an accident. we talked a little bit about the plan of salvation and totally taught to his needs. we used great scriptures, shared great experiences and testified. The spirit was so strong and we made the investigator cry. afterwards when he was giving us critiques, he said "Elders Que hermosa su leccion, que bonita!" in other words, your lesson was absolutely wonderful! he said we were so good and the spirit was so strong that he invited us to come back. he asked us to set up another appointment with him because he wanted to hear us teach again! So awesome! i Love missionary work! This week Was So great and i learned so much! I love you all and Chao until next week. Love Elder Millard

Week 6

Hola!!!!! Wow, I can't believe its already week 6! So Crazy! This last week was great at the good ole MTC. I had some great experiences and learned so much. Apparently, this is the time when missionaries start to get a little lazy and stop increasing in knowledge because they have been here for a while and they think they know everything, but i'm definitely trying to not level off, i'm going to keep working hard and strive to prepare myself as good as i can for chile! Thats why were out here right, is to work hard and give all our heart, might, mind and strength. my teacher said that the things he remembers most from his mission were 1. the people he met and how they influenced eachother, and 2. his determination and how hard he worked. so its super important to work hard and i will do my best! this week was so awesome! i'll start off with the weekly toe update.... so this week, nothing really dramatic happened!!! Hoorah! my toe actually feels great most of the time. I go in this week on thurs to the specialist to get the final consensus. I really just want to know so bad what my fate is with this lovely toe!! ha But you can sleep soundly, "Das Sandle" is doing his job. We taught so many lessons this week! seriously like two to three a day, but it was so beneficial. On this last Thurs, the dynamic trio came through yet again! we taught this lesson to a random missionary who had supposedly (in this hypothetical situation) already been a investigator but had to be dropped. So the actual lesson went super well! everything just flowed and the spirit was so strong! after we were done, she was giving us feedback... when she talked about how she felt and the spirit that was there, she started crying. it was so awesome to see the influence of the spirit. one of the reasons the spirit was so strong is because there were a lot of testimonies given. Testimony is such a powerful tool to bringing the spirit! There was another lesson that went really well this week. We taught a teacher that works in the TEC. his name is Bro. Sanders. Now i don't know what it was about this lesson, but everything was flowing so well, the spirit was super strong and after we were done, Bro. Sanders was in awe of how the lesson went. he felt the spirit so strong and we guided the lesson to exactly what his needs were! i am proud to say that this particular lesson is the Best lesson the dynamic trio has taught so far! On Thurs, we played this game where you had to speek spanish the whole day. you were only permitted 20 words in english. if anyone went over that 20 word limit, there was a punnishment the next day of which i will talk about haha. so on this particular day, i was doing great, i only had like 6 words in english and it was barely past lunch. after lunch, we went to the bookstore and elder roach asked me a question. i was in a hurry to buy pictures so we were not late for class, so i responded to his question in english without thinking! that put me at 28 words! The others that failed this game were Elder Roach, Elder Funke, Me and a few others. ha so for the punnishment. We all had to put our hands up like a raptor all day up until luch time! it was actually pretty funny! So for the RC this week!! Awesome experience! so this week, it was all in spanish again. It's always super intense when its in spanish because you never know if you will get someont ethat speeks at warp speed and can't understand them. but its all good! anyways... i had the opportunity to get ahold of two people. one who's name is Rudy, and the other who's name is Leticia. I had the experience of talking witht these people for a little about the gospel in spanish. i really felt the help of the spirit because these conversations were going so well! eventually, with rudy and with Leticia, i ended up sending missionaries to their house! So awesome! it always feels so good to help people and it feels even better when you do it in spanish!! SO awesome... I Love missionary work! Well i love you all and i pray for you! hope all is well back in the real world! Until next week! Elder Millard

Week 5 letter

Hey Hey Hey!!!! Week five come and gone! this last week was so great! I had so many great lessons and i feel like my testimony has grown so much! The spirit that is here is really something else! Through the power of the spirit, you can know the truth of all things. I have definitely seen that, through the help of the spirit, i feel like my learning capacity for the language, for teaching skills, for doctrine, has increased dramatically. I now have a greater understanding of the role of the spirit with us missionaries. in preach my gospel, it says that the spirit is everything in missionary work. i am now beginning to understand that more. it not only helps you grow and learn, but it is the only way that our investigators can understand and be truly converted. So the imfamous toe update! funny story this week... actually it is not very funny because it really hurt haha. so here i am playing frisbee. i thought to myself that frisbee would not be bad for my toe... i mean, you just stand there and throw it and it does not put stress on your toe. well the worst case scenario happened. The frisbee, coming full speed, nailed my toe dead center!!! i will just say that it did not feel very good!. i could not walk with my good old friend das sandle anymore so i resurected das boot. i've been wearing that the last few days. the swelling still has not gone all the way down. my toe is huge again! hopefully it did not mess anything up with the healing process. i realy do not want my departure date to be extended! it's not that the MTC is bad, its just that i really wanbt to get out there and start seving the people of Chile! start with the Real Deal This week, we taught lesson two in spanish probably 15 times! i could probably give the lesson in my sleep ha. It really has been so beneficial. through teaching these lessons, making mistakes, doing things well, just going for it, you really do improve. sometimes it is so hard to express yourself completely in spanish! i do not have an amazing vocabulary or anything so sometimes it is hard to answer the questions the way that i want to answer them. One particular time teaching the lesson, we mostly just asked him some simple questions and talked most of the time. he gave us some great input afterwards. he said that we should apply what we are saying to the investigator instead of just telling them what we believe. so instead of saying "we know that if we repent of our sins, the lord will forgive us." you can say "We know that when you repent of your sins, the lord will forgive you:" just apply it to their lives and let the spirit guide and testify. The elders here are so awesome! All of the elders in our district get along really well. We all have so much fun but at the same time, we learn so much as well! I feel that the addition of Elder Roach into the dynamic trio companionship has made the biggest difference! He is a great elder and adds so much with his humor and his testimony. Elder Paulsen never ceases to make me laugh! He is a great elder as well. They are both out here for the right reasons and both have such great testimonies and work ehtics. The key to a great companionship is just to love your companions and have charity towards them. Another thing that i learned this week is the importance of setting goals and keeping them. In preach my gospel, it states that you can tell what kindo of person/missionary you want to be by the kind of goals you set! it shows the true desires of you heart. a prophet once said that in many cases, if a man does not set goals, he may look back on his life and not known what he has done and not accomplished much. Setting goals is so important. once you set goals, you then have a vision of where you want to be then you work towards that. i have already noticed a difference. This mission is such a wonderful opportunity for me! President holland said "A mission is the greatest gift that God could give to a 19 year old boy." This is such a wonderful opportunity for me to serve the lord. if you really think about it, this is the lords mission and i am the instrument in his hands. I know, deep right? ha. I love you all! Until next week :) Love Elder Millard

Week 4 letter

Hey everyone!!! I can't believe it has already been 4 weeks since i have been out!! that means i am precisely done with 4 percent of my mission haha and i am loving every moment of it. This week has been so great! I never thought i could learn so much. Elder paulsen and i recieved an addition to our companionship. his name is Elder Roach. He is so awesome and brings so much to this companionship. Elder roach and i get along really well and he has such a stong testimony. This testimony really comes in handy when we are teaching lessons because it adds so much and brings the spirit so strong! So, Much has happened this week This last Wed, everyone in our district made a goal to only speak spanish for the whole day. there were a few exceptions... like speaking to people that had no clue what spanish was ha. but yeah we all spoke just spanish for the whole day! it was such an eye opening experience realizing that i do not know as much spanish as i thought with wanting to fully express myself. i got by though and i grew so much. i kinda got the easy route though because i was at the doctors most of the day and they do not all speak spanish so... speaking of the doctors... my toe update of the week :) so i talked to the doctor on tues and got an xray. due to being closed for 4th of july weekend, they were backed up on reading results so i had to come back on wed. so i come back on wed and he said....... elder, its not looking too good. there is not very much calous formation where the avulsion fracture has taken place. but before i reccommend surgery, i will send you to a specialist first to get a second oppinion. So i had to wait yet another day to await my inevitable fate. haha. On thursday, the dynamic trio companionship took a shuttle to the provo hospital for the specialist. it was super wierd leaving the MTC! i have not seen the real world for like 3 1/2 weeks so it was pretty intense ha. but when we got there, and when we were waitint in the lobby, everyone wanted to talk to us because we are the missionaries!!! ha it was so cool. the people around here have such respect for us missionaries. they were all LDS so we could not really baptize them or anything but it was still so much fun to be in this position of respect and talk to people. anyways back to the doctor. so eventually after like an hour wait, i got into the see the specialist. he took a look at my toe, made me do some tests with strength and some other cool stuff. He told me :"Elder, i think you are going to like the news" in my mind i am screaming HOORAH! ha. so i went to get yet another x ray. the doctor looks it over and says that i can get rid of the Boot and start walking with a walking shoe. So "Das boot" is history and now i have my 'Elder das Sandle." a million times better and more comfortable. so i go back in three week s to get a final checkup and see how i am healing but i guess it is looking good! thanks for your prayers!! This week was the start of teaching lesson 2. it has been quite the experience because there is so muuch to talk about and you only have around 30 min to teach the investigators. We have had some great experiences teaching these lessons. Every week, we have the opportunity to teach in the TRC. this is a place where volunteers go to recieve the lessons from the elders. so we taught the lesson 2 (in english) and it went really well! the spirit was so strong and i felt like we were able do what we are supposed to do. This is the last time that we will be able to teach in english. from here on out, everything is in spanish so wish me luck! This last tues at the RC (Refferal center) we had the opportunity to call people in the spanish portion of the calls. it was so intense because we are not all the best at spanish, i mean some are better than others but for the most part, most of us can get our thoughts across in spanish. so here we are calling people in spanish. for me, the first time someone picked up, they said "Bueno". and there i go in spanish hoping that they can understand me ha. after i am done talking, they respond. in one case, there was this lady that if she had to speak in a speaking speed contest, she would be a gold medalist! haha i could not understand a single word she said!!! so here i am, not knowing what to say, so i say.."otraves por favor". then she mumbled on for another little while then after all of that, i heard the words "adios". which i know means goodbye haha. Quite an eye opening experience. apparently the people of Chile talk super fast and slurred so i am in for a big treat :) Fun experience. so this last sunday, we went to sacrament meeting early because we just wanted to. here we are, sitting there, the dynamic trio. it was super quiet so i started playing some prelude music. one thing led to another and now i am the designated pianish for our district of like 60 elders and sisters. so every week, i will be able to play some improve prelude and then play the hymns. it will be great! With my hurt toe, i have found some fun in playing some volleyball on one foot! haha i can't really move much but i can say that i was a high jumper before my mish so that one foot can still do some damage up in the air. i get up there and spike that ball with all my might haha. its pretty awesome hah well thanks so much for all your love and support! i love you all and bueno suerte hasta el proximo semana. good luck until next week Love Elder Millard ")

Week 3 letter

Hello Hello Hello everyone!!! Greetings from the MTC! This week went by so fast but it was so amazing! So many things have happened and i have learned so much! Brody and Jordan came in on Wed. The one and only Jordan says Hi. I get to see cousin jordan like 5 times a day because he is in the same zone as me and is like 3 classrooms away. its pretty awesome! So since i have been here for three weeks, we are starting to speak spanish more and more. I am so grateful for the gift of tounges and definitely believe in it. I am so suprised how my spanish is coming along. The MTC really prepares their missionaries! So i have had some awesome experiences this week. First one... Elder paulsen and i taught a lesson on friday in the trc. we taught this lady that was a native speaker. She talked SOOO Fast. i had somewhat of a hard time understanding her but i think i got the bulk of it. The lesson went really well. i was SO suprised how i was able to communicate with her! We taught the first lesson in spanish with ease! it went so good that we even committed her to baptism at the end of the lesson and she accepted haha pretty cool! during the lesson, there was a camera recording us. after we were done teaching, Hermana Murillo gave us some great advice and some great compliments! she said to me that i almost sound like a native speaker!!! that made me so happy and so excited. she encouraged me to talk in spanish all day long and avoid english as much as i can. that will be tough but it will be great! Another great experience happened this week! So in the RC (Referral Center), i had the opportunity to get ahold of this guy named Ralph. Ralph and I talked for like 45 min. i taught him basically most of the first lesson and part of the plan of salvation. he loved to talk so much! he told me so many stories and situations in his life. I ended up testifying of the book of mormon. he was so interested and said "I have been searching for God for so long! I think i might have finally found it with you mormons!". I sent the missionaries in his area over to his house. he asked me personally if i could go over to his house to teach him. i sadly said that i couldn't because i am in the MTC in orem utah, but will be going on a mission to Chile. I totally wish i could go over to teach him though. He lives i Tucson Arizona. I know the gospel will change his life so much and i am so grateful to have brought the knowlege of this gospel to his life. He was so lonely because his wife died of cancer a few years back. i testified to him that through our church and through the temple, he would be able to be sealed to his wife forever. It was a great moment! He loved that so much. I'm just so excited that i was finally able to have my first legit missionary experience!So for the 4th of july this week, the MTC had a fireside for all the Elders and Sisters. This fireside consisted of a bunch of people acting out parts of people that led to the restoration of the church like martin luther, ben franklin, christopher columbus, and so many others. it was actually kinda funny and cheezy. these were a bunch of old guys in wigs that could not really act for the life of them. The message that was shared was great though. i learned a lot. In my oppinion, they did this fireside so nobody could sneak out to hear the one and only Carie Underwood sing haha. anyways... after the fireside, they let all of us elders go out to watch the fireworks! so many of the elders acted like they had never seen a firework before in their life! haha a bunch of them started singing hymns. haha. it was kinda funny but cool at the same time. On sunday, we had an awesome fireside that talked about the power of music and the indisputable facts of why the Book of Mormon is true! The talk about the Book of Mormon was so powerful! it talked about kiasmus (or however you spell it)... basically an ancient complex form of writing that was only done back in ancient times. there is no way that joseph smith could have known that. it also talked about certain ways that you can tell that an author wrote something by the way and amount of times he uses words like... and, the..... well they tested the book of mormon and the books of Nephi and Alma and the writings of joseph smith are all so different. it was pretty awesome. the guy that gave the talk was a lawyer and he also gave other reasons like how the three witnesses never denied their tesimonies even after they left the church. pretty powerful. So i actually find out tomorow if my toe needs surgery or not so WE WILL SEE!!! whatever happens is what is supposed to happen. Well i am loving it here and cannot wait to actually get out there to Chile and start serving!!! it will be great!!! i love you all hope to hear from you soon... in letters of course! haha. p.s. thanks for the packages and the Dear elders. it is definitely working and i love them!!Love elder Millard