Things are looking up!

What's up all?

This week here in IC has been pretty good. We are slowly pulling a teaching pool together and finding some people with a lot of solid potential. We found a cool family, a single mom named Alisha and her kids Nehimiah, Amaya, and Rashad. They are a really cool family that is genuinely  interested, we are working hard to get them to church and out to the Ward BBQ this weekend. We are also working with a girl named Karia that we found this week, she's 15 but I thought she was like 22 when she answered the door lol. She's really cool and has been reading in the Book of Mormon so that's good stuff. 

We have a few other people that are intrested as well. Things are getting better though, we basically started from ground zero out here, literally had 1 person in the teaching pool my first day here and we dropped her my first day. So things are picking up a little. If I've learned anything on a mission it's a testimony of hard work, pretty much every area I've served in had nothing going on in the beginning and we didn't start seeing blessings until we labored as hard as we could. So that's the gameplan, hopefully some of these new people are prepared to progress. 

So on a funny note, school started at the University of Iowa today. Here are some fun facts about the U of I

-There's about 25,000 Kids

-The acceptance rate is 84% 

-It's the 2nd Ranked Party School in the Nation according to Forbes

So it's safe to say we meet some entertaining people when we are out and about. 

There's also a ton of girls here, Elder Zinn and I always joke that God sent us here to slowly acclimate us back to seeing pretty girls because we've seen more attractive girls here in the past 3 days then we've seen in the last 20 months lol. 

So with that we've been trying to talk to as many of them as possible, about the gospel of course. So we are approaching this one group of girls and I'm thinking "Alright, just be normal, talk about the gospel, you've done this before, don't be weird." 

First thing that comes out of my mouth "Hey how are you SISTERS doi..ah freak. " 

Good thing I'm not called as a YSA elder cause I have no Missionary-game. 

This week should be good though, we should have some people at church and get them working towards baptismal dates. 

Love you all, Hope you have a good week.

Shout out to my boy Elder Langford finishing strong and returning to the motherland 

Baptisms in B-town

Greetings!!!

Well this week has been great! We had a baptism, we caught someone pulling a gun on someone else on video, and I just low-key found out all of the transfer doctrine for our whole mission before transfers. Two Words: WACK

Well yeah this week has been crazy. We've been running around trying to get everything set up for Kara's Baptism and also trying to get investigators to attend the baptism as well! It was a super stressful week and we felt like it felt like we didn't have half the time we needed to get everything done. But the Lord definitely helped us out big time. 

Man we had a lot of funny events happen this week though. First we saw two ghetto guys almost get in a shoot out. Captured on video by the way. #NightCrawler

One other thing that happened this week was we went on exchanges with the Hamilton elders. Elder McCain and Elder Zinn. So Hamilton is interesting place. It's very anti and all the people "Know everything" About the Mormons already. Safe to say we met some delightful people that day :) We also had a water bottle filled with urine thrown at us! LOL. It was a fun day in good ole Illinois :)

Okay the most important thing that happened this week was that we had another great BAPTISM!! It was tight stuff. Kara did amazing. We also had two awesome investigators there as well! It was a great moment! I got to confirm her the next day and it was another great experience! 

But yeah it's been a good week. I love the work here in B-town. I also just found out my new comp is the one and only...Elder Eckes Anitok Jr. aka one of my bestfriends in the mish. I'm excitied to serve with my crazy Hawaiian brotha. But I'll miss my freakishly tall Gundy for sure :(

Me and my soon to be comp (the short brown one)

Twister

What's up fam? I hope you all had a good week! This past week in Waverly has been pretty interesting to say the least. We had a pretty good week this past week but also have run into a number of people who don't exactly fit the friendly Iowan stereotype. I don't think I've ever run into so many anti's in one week! But luckily we had the privilege of educating quite a few of them on what our faith is all about. :)

The past week has been awesome teaching wise, we taught De'Angelo and unfortunately we found out he "Smokes that Green" occasionally... But whatever, I know he'll overcome it as he gains a greater testimony of the Gospel. But he told us he believes in the Book of Mormon and wants us to come to his Family Barbeque and teach his whole Family! So we're pumped for that!

We haven't met with my home girl Sister Kerr this week, she has been gone visiting Church history sites with President Kerr (She's so Golden I can't take it). We will meet with her tomorrow and set a baptismal date with her! I'm so pumped!

 We taught a ton of first lessons with people this week and got some solid return appointments so hopefully we will be able to get some more investigators next week as well.

My favorite thing that happened this week was going on exchanges with Elder Tekarika, he's one of my favorite Elders in the Zone. He's from the Kiribati Islands by Fiji and has Learned three different languages while out on his Mission! He's hilarious and he doesn't speak English super well but we always get along. The funniest thing happened, I was driving us to an appointment out in the boonies and we all of a sudden get a tornado alert! Literally the most excitable I've been on the mission, I was so pumped. Elder Madsen called and we were yelling through the phone to each other about how we're finally going to see a tornado. And meanwhile Elder Tekarika is just flipping out like "Whas Tornado?! Whas Tornado?!" in his accent it was so funny. I told him it was like a hurricane but on land instead and he got all freaked out and was like "Elder am I goona die? Elder are we goona die??" It was hilarious. But sadly we never saw the twister, it touched down by some other town not even in our area :(

So I have run into a ton of bashers on my Mission thus far and I've decided to start keeping a list of all the funny lies and stories they try to hit his us with; here is what we heard this week: 

Anti Mormon Lies of the Week:

1. The Church owns Coca-cola (Not true,  also confusing as to why that would matter)

2. The Church owns all the Vegas Casinos and Strip Clubs (This guy was drunk I think, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt)

3. Brigham Young killed everyone he came across as the Saints trekked across the plains. (Yeah they were in Great shape, definetly all strong enough to go out and commit some murder when they weren't starving and freezing to death. Oh and no dates, times, places, or names could be provided for some odd reason :( )

All joking aside this week was great. It was frustrating at times when running into people who feel the need to try and tear down others faith in Christ. But I know that the Church is true and that Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us. And no amount of bashing and hate can take that away. 

I hope that you all have an excellent week, I love you all and hope you enjoy the start of your summer! Go share the Gospel!

Elder Milligan

Elder Tekarika and I on exchanges

Rehearsing for my role as Satan in the primary Reader's Theater. Somehow Madsen got to read Christ's part.

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