We are Moving!

   Hello friends and family! I hope you all had a solid week and that you all enjoyed your Easter weekend! This past week has been great here in Iowa, even though Sunday was probably the coldest and ugliest Easter I have ever seen lol. But we got invited over for Easter dinner by one of my favorite families and we had a great time with them, they are awesome! They even made us Easter Baskets, it almost felt like I was back home. This week was really awesome for our investigators, we taught Sherry's son Quentrel three times this week and he is just soaking in the lessons like a sponge! He gets so excited every time we come over and is always sprinting around and being hyper and we have to get him to recompose every three minutes haha. We have been teaching him the lessons in a super basic format and have just been drawing them out for him so it is easy for him to grasp, luckily Elder Sjoblom is a artistic prodigy and he draws these super detailed pictures of the lessons to keep him interested. The funniest thing about Quentrel is that he always argues with us when we talk about him getting baptized, he wants to move his date to the nearest possible Saturday and we tell him no every time and he gets super flustered. The other day we had to explain that the reason we choose certain dates is because we ask God when the person should be baptized and he gives us an answer and we have to stick to that. After I said that his eyes got huge and he was like "Wait, you talk to God about me?" and we were just like "Yep, all the time" and he just got super quiet. It was a really awesome moment and you could feel the spirit so strong. 

   Another great thing that happened this week was that we met a new investigator named Sarah! She is the granddaughter of one of our awesome members, she grew up in Baltimore and had a super rough life, but she wants to change and start coming to Church! We taught her the restoration at her Grandma's house and our ward mission leader bore his testimony about his conversion to the gospel and it was so powerful! She accepted the baptismal invite and wants to learn more, we are so excited for her!

   The best thing that happened this week however was that Sherry was finally confirmed as a member of the Church and received The Gift of the Holy Ghost! I'm so happy for Sherry and all the changes that have taken place in her life since she started accepting the Gospel! It's incredible to see how the Lord blesses us once we accept him as part of our lives. 

   One funny thing that happened this week was when we were volunteering at this place for adults with special needs, we go there every Tuesday to volunteer and the lady who runs it LOVES the missionaries it's hilarious. She is always trying to give us money for food and she even invited us over for her birthday dinner! One tradition they have there is that all the missionaries paint a ceiling tile in the building and hang it up, you're supposed to paint something that represents you or some cheesy thing like that haha, so I painted the North Face logo because it's one of the inside jokes in the Mission. It actually turned out pretty good I was pretty proud of my self ;).

   I hope you all have a great week and that you are blessed with opportunities to share the Gospel! I love you all! Happy Belated Easter!

Love, Elder Milligan

P.S. I forgot to elaborate on the subject line, we finally found a new apartment that doesn't have rusty water and we are moving soon! Ya!

Goin' to the Chapel, Gonna get Baptized

What's up everybody?! I hope you all had a fantastic week this week and that all you bums are enjoying March Madness (I'm going through withdrawals). We had a great week here in Waverly, jam packed with funny stories and most importantly the baptism of my home girl Sherry! Funny thing about Sherry is that some of you might notice that I have spelt her name at least three or four different ways since we have been working with her because my companion was adamant that it was spelled one way, then I was positive that it was spelled the correct way (cause I'm usually never wrong ;) ) And then the missionary that filled out her baptismal form spelled it a different way and we were convinced that it must of been that one and we were both wrong. But alas my instincts were corrected, I should of had more faith in my self I guess. Haha all joking aside, Sherry's baptism was quite the experience, to start off Elder Sjoblom and I had to wake up early to fill the font and when I turned on the spout, a GIANT spider fell out and almost landed on me! I straight up had a heart murmur, I hate bugs. But I killed it with the snow shovel and we were all unharmed. The actual baptism was amazing, Sherry was baptized by our Branch Mission Leader, who is a convert of only two years so it was a great experience for both of them! We are so excited for Sherry and her decision to enter the covenant of baptism and receive all the blessings that come along with it. We are also pumped because we have been teaching her nine year old son Quentrell (I didn't spell that one right my first time) who is straight dynamite, he just eats up the gospel and he loves to pray and is pumped for primary and cub scouts! We set a date for him to be baptized on April 9th and we couldn't be happier for him! 

This week has been one of the best on the Mish thus far no doubt. On Thursday I went on exchanges with one of our Zone Leaders Elder Devenport, he's a stud and we got to teach down in Cedar Falls. The night we were teaching was around the time when UNI (which is in Cedar Falls) hit the 3/4 court shot to win the game in the tourney so the whole town was lit haha. But my favorite experience was teaching three African families! None of them spoke English so we had to use little French phrases that Elder Devenport has picked up and basically just pointed at the Restoration and were like "Jesus. Christ. He. Loves. Us." it was super funny but the spirit was very strong as well. It made me jealous of my best friend in Africa who gets to teach these awesome people every day;) white people just aren't as receptive for some reason lol. 

Well I hope you all have an amazing week, enjoy the Madness. Share the Gospel.

Loves,

Elder Milligan

Also, I took a picture with the World's Biggest Frying pan! Iowa, ya!

P Day Pic

Just a fun picture, curtesy of Sister Schrader from Eagle who is also serving in Iowa!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Mom is pretty "hype" as Jake might say, about getting a hand written letter from Elder Milligan for her birthday. 

Saturday Night's Alright for Finding

Sup fam!? I hope you all had an amazing week, we had a pretty momentous occasion this past week in that we finally got to break out the short sleeve white shirts..Holla! The weather the last few days has actually been decently tolerable and the whole town has been turnt, like seriously all of Waverly is partying, like people standout in the street and drink and talk till like 3 am, it's kind of weird lol. Another milestone this week was the completion of my first transfer! Only six more weeks till I am no longer a baby! Unfortunately with transfers coming it was time to say goodbye to my homies Elder Henderson, Elder Marte, and Elder Martinson. We went out in style though, on Tuesday night before p-day Elder Henderson called and was like "Yo Elders, do you guys have dinner plans?" (Funny cause we never do. Ever. But it's fine.) And then I was like "Good one Elder of course not!" So he invited us down to Cedar Falls and we ate at Texas Roadhouse for his last dinner in the area. We spent the night at their apartment and the funniest thing happened, Elder Devenport took his mattress and came running into the living room and yelled "Sleepover!" and tried to slide on the mattress on the leather couch and he slid off and drilled the book shelf and knocked over the supply shelf for the entire Zone! It was hilarious, Elder Henderson was so ticked hahaha. 

Missionary work wise the week seemed to be going pretty slow, we had to drop a few of our potential investigators and we were getting pretty frustrated. That was until Saturday night, Elder Sjoblom and I were "Finding" in Waverly and we both got this impression to go to this small town called Nashua that we hardly ever go to because it's so small. We both looked at each other and said it at the same time, it was freaky! So we drove a half hour to this little town and it was insane! We knocked into this guy named Deangleo and he invited us in and told us he's met a few missionaries before. We taught the restoration and he loved it! He and his wife Amy are now investigating the church and it was a huge testimony builder and really showed me that if you continue to work hard even through a long dry spell like the one we had. The Lord will bless you! After that we went to meet with Sherri, and our additional male who was supposed to come didn't show up (ugh) so we just talked in the hallway about her baptism coming up on Saturday. Then her son Quintrell came up to us and said "Hey I've made a decision, I wanna get baptized." It caught us both so off guard we were just like "Heck ya Q!!" we were so hype it was an insanely good night. And a huge encouragement after the rough past few weeks we've had. Well I hope you all have a great week, shout out to my Mom once again for hitting the big FIVE-ONE (I think)! Wish her a belated happy birthday for me if you didn't get too already! 

Loves, 

Elder Milligan 

Feeling the love! Thanks everyone!

When a fire starts to burn

What is up everybody? I hope you all had a great week and that you had the opportunity to share the gospel with someone! Our week here in Waverly has been kind of exhausting, it felt like the week was never going to end to be honest. But it was still full of awesome and spiritual moments, along with some really funny ones as well! So this week we were finding for pretty much the entire week, which is always good for stories and funny experiences. We also had a great district meeting all the way out in Manchester, Iowa which is like 2 hours from Waverly haha. Our district area is massive, so district meeting always takes up a huge portion of the day because it is like a 6 hour ordeal all things considered. One funny thing that happened at district meeting was that Elder Sjoblom and I were so tired the whole morning before the meeting and during the drive that we fell asleep in the Church parking lot waiting for the Sisters to show up haha! We were asleep for probably a solid half hour and I was rudely woken up by our Sister from Samao Sister Tauti, opening the door and yelling "Good Morning Elder Milligan!" in here crazy accent it was super funny. I like screamed cause she caught me so off guard lol. 

Tracting this week was pretty slow and no one seemed to be interested at all. The most interesting thing that happened wasn't particularly spiritual but it was definitely memorable haha. What happened was Elder Sjoblom and I were walking up to this house and we could here a bass bumping inside so I figured it was a frat house or something for the college in Waverly. But I was wrong. As we get closer I look through the window on the door and I see these two OLD women. They were literally so old, they had to be in their 90's at least. The lady who answered looked like the old version of Rose from Titanic! But anyways I look through this door and I see these two old women doing like a dance routine in front of the TV with the speakers just bumping the song "When a Fire Starts to Burn" by disclosure. For those of you who have not heard this song, I'd strongly encourage you to look it up and as you listen, try and imagine the scene I am describing to you. These ladies are just going hard to this song and I am trying so hard not to laugh, but the lady answers the door and is just like "Sorry it's a bad time, my Pilates club is over" and I was just like "Oh sorry to interrupt, I really love that song though!" and then we left it was super off the wall and we couldn't stop laughing about it lol.

The best thing that happened to us this week though was that Sherri made it to Church again! And this time she brought all the cute black kids!! Haha it was a really awesome experience to see some of the families come up and fellowship her. She stayed all three hours and said she can't wait for next week! She is doing awesome and should make her baptismal date and we are sooooooo stoked for her. We are continuing to work with her and she has accepted every thing we have taught her with so much faith it's truly amazing to see the spirit work with her. 

Well I hope you all enjoy your week! But I have a major request, EVERYONE WISH MY AMAZING AND LOVELY MOTHER A HAPPY BIRTHDAY THIS FRIDAY!!! I would really appreciate it if you all could give her a hug for me and tell her happy birthday. I wish I could be there to celebrate it with her. But she is the one who prepared me the most to be out here on the mish so she only has herself to blame I guess ;) 

Love you all, go share the gospel!!

Elder Milligan 

Waverly District, Feat. Fellow Eagle Homie Sister Schrader