Ice Storm

What's up everybody? 

This past week has been pretty good for us here in Ankeny. We have been working hard to find people to teach after our recent string of baptisms. We have been finding a ton, but it's always fun and good for stories. We do have a few promising investigators that are progressing pretty well. 

I'll just talk a little about each of them real quick. 

Jamie- Jamie is a really nice lady that we found using our area book. She used to be an investigator about a year ago but her husband kind of pushed the missionaries away. We stopped by to try and see if we could get in and teach her, we were able to catch her home and we started teaching her again. She's a heavy smoker but we will be teaching her the stop smoking workshop tomorrow and that thing is straight fire. It works every time! She's super humble and has a date for February 18th. so we will be working hard with her to make sure she can quit smoking before then. 

Osheana- Osheana is a cool young mom, she has the cutest little daughter ever named Brealya. We have been working with her my whole time her in Ankeny. She's got a lot of commandment issues but we are working to help her get through them. Her date is for Feb. 11th :)

Malinda- Malinda is a really nice lady! She is actually our mail woman! We've interacted with her quite a few times and we always know right when she is going to come through our complex. She's super funny, she always teases us when we get letters and knows about what we do as missionaries. She always talks about how cold she gets so we thought we'd leave her a suprise in our mail box to help her get through the day. I noticed we have approximately 37 thermoses in our kitchen so we made her some hot chocolate and left it in there with a note. Later that week we talked to her and she thanked us and we set up a time to teach her. She's now an investigator, I've got really high hopes for her! :)

Some other stuff that happened this week was that we got a crazy big ice storm. It was pretty intense a lot of trees and power lines got taken out cause of all the ice. Our car had like 2 inches of ice all over it that we had to thaw and scrape off. I'll send videos of it haha. But other than the crazy weather not much else has happened. I hit my Year Mark last Friday, can't believe missions go by so fast! Also quick late shout out to everyone who sent me gifts for Christmas! I really appreciated it! You're all the best! 

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

Last Day With my homie Elder Anitok (Spent the last 4 days of the Transfer on exchanges with him haha)

The final pic of the P-Day Dream Team

My favorite little African boy, Pooki.

Our Liberian squad of recent converts:

Missionaries of Waverly Place

Greetings friends and family! Well the time has finally come, I am officially in the beautiful, icy, frozen, snowy, cold, windy, teeth chattering, knee knocking, face numbing, ear burning, state of Iowa. And I love it! So a lot has happened since I last wrote, the MTC didn't do me any solids P-Day wise so I'll just have to catch you up on everything that has happened since the last time you heard from me. So the second week of the MTC was pretty cash, we got to watch an awesome broadcast that went out to all the missionaries in the world. It was held by David Bednar and Neil L. Anderson and they basically just talked about how we can improve in every facet of missionary work. They also had an awesome music video about a family living their everyday lives and being missionaries through acts of service and kindness set to "I'll go where you want me to go" that song always gets me going so safe to say I was pretty fired up after that one. But anyways the rest of the week played out pretty routinely, I got to see my dear friend Emily Clegg at the Temple and she brought me and Van Halen some solid treats so shouts to her for that. She also got me yelled at by one of my leaders wives cause she "Shook my hand for too long" but that's a story for another day. I also got to see Spencer and Jamie a lot this week, and to counter Jamie's accusation of leaving without saying goodbye  I stood up on a chair in the cafeteria trying to find her and got yelled at for it so I tried my best. The food improved somewhat as the time went on, they set us up with Chic Fil A one day so that was a tender mercy for sure. Elder Robley and Elder Van Halen and I got to practice teaching fake investigators quite a bit and we found out one of them actually was a real investigator, so it ended up not being a complete waste of time like it felt for the most of the week! But all bitter feelings aside I really enjoyed the MTC and my district Elders became my family so I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to grow close to them. 

So on Tuesday night we woke up at 2 amand got ready to drive to the airport, we all piled into this giant van with like 14 elders in there and drove to the airport. It was kind of funny as we were going through security all these people were yelling encouragement at us, apparently we looked terrified I guess? Anyways after that I got to talk to my family on the phone and that was such a blessing, especially hearing my dog's voice through the phone lol. On the plane to Denver I sat next to this guy from Chicago who was way cool, he works in Stocks and wanted to know all about my mission and he thought it was awesome. He kept accidently swearing and apologizing and it was really funny haha. Then on the plane to Des Moines I sat next to this Hindu guy from India that now lives in Des Moines, we talked about my mission and he had a bunch of questions and ended up giving me his card cause he wants to have me over for dinner if I'm ever in Des Moines lol! We landed in Des Moines and met President and Sister Jensen then stayed the night in the mission home. I then was assigned my companion, his name is Elder Sjoblom (he's Swedish) and we are serving in a small town called Waverly in northern Iowa! I haven't met many of the members yet, the branch is tiny and there were only about 25 people at church on Sunday but they are all super nice so far. 

We have been teaching 4 investigators so far and this week was insanely good. First we have Tyce and Jenny they have come to church twice but have been shaky about baptism but we asked them again and they committed to be baptized!! I'm so excited for them their date is set for February 13th. Next we have Michael who referred him self online, the old elders gave him a BOM and when we met with him he had already read 20 chapters! And he committed to be baptized!! Then we taught a referral named Sherri, she is a single mom of three. She read some of the book of Mormon and she believes it, and wait for it, she committed to be baptized! This week has been a huge testimony builder of the Holy Ghost and how it can touch peoples hearts! I love the people of Iowa even though I have been cussed out and had the door slammed in my face by many of them (I thought Iowans were known for being friendly), I wouldn't change my decision to serve them for anything. I love you all very much. Thank you for the Birthday emails and packages this week it feels so good to feel loved especially when I spent my birthday tracting in -20 degree weather lol. I hope you all have a great week. Go share the gospel. 

Loves, 

Elder Milligan

P.S. Apparently there's a huge storm coming in that's apparently going to kill everyone that ever lived in Iowa ever. It's supposed to be worse than "The Winter of 03" whatever that means. So if I don't write next week just assume I succumbed to the elements I guess?