The Plague

​How's it going everyone? 

So we are emailing really late again this time it's cause my companion Elder Zinn is pretty much a walking zombie. He threw up 11 times last night, he's got nasty food poisoning or something it's bad. I don't know how he got food poisoning and I didn't since we ate the exact same food but lucky in love I guess. 

But literally the whole zone has been so sick this week. Everyone has had a cold or the flu in the last few days. I had a cold the whole week and have been coughing up crap all week. But we've been out trying to sweat it out and we got a lot of work done as well.

The Kurosawa's are doing good still, they are so funny. No English at all, communication is just smiling and nodding with a few basic words like yes, no, hello etc. They are doing good though, they came to Church again and we got them some Japanese pamphlets and they were able to read about the sacrament and prayer during the meeting. I think that helped a lot. We got another meeting set up with our Japanese speaking member so I'm stoked for that. 

We have been doing a lot of service lately, like more then I have done in the past year but it's alright. I like being outside now that it's not a billion degrees and you don't feel like you're taking a shower every time you go outside. The other day we dug a huge hole out for a member so they could put a drain in for their pool. 

Okay so that Iowa vs Iowa State game tho, lets goo Hawkeyes! We just happened to be eating lunch while the game was on, imagine that timing. 

Something else funny that happened this week was that a member gave us facials it was pretty funny. Got some good pics of it. 

This week just kind of flew by so I don't have a ton to talk about. But it was good stuff.

Love ya'll

Let's Go

Greetings Loved Ones.

This week was amazing. Literally all of the work we have been putting in this whole transfer is finally amounting to something and it feels real good. We had a ton of miracles happen and we saw a ton of blessings come from it.  It's 7:00 pm and I've been in the car for 6 hours and I just ate like 4 pounds of roast and sweet potatoes, so if none of this makes sense I apologize. Just know that E. Zinn and I are goin hard out here in Iowa City. 

I'm just going to make a list of things that happened this week:

-So I'm not sure if I've even mentioned this before, but for the entire month of August our zone has been in a competition to hand out the most BOMs. It was the IC stake vs the Nauvoo Stake. So throughout the month we have been keeping track of how many BOMs our zone has handed out and really been emphasizing giving a BOM to everyone we talk to. Our zone ended up handing out 628 BOMs in the month! Which was ton compared to usual, and we won the competition ;) 

-Last Friday we had Zone Conference it was pretty sweet. Lots of good things were learned. 

-THE KUROSAWA'S!!!!! Okay this is actually pretty sick, we got a whole family to church! It was awesome, we have been working so freakin hard to get people at Church this transfer and nothing has been working. So I've been getting really frustrated, during studies one morning I was kind of just fed up and in my prayer I just put it all out there and asked Heavenly Father to help us get people to Church, cause obviously whatever we were trying was not working. Honestly probably the hardest I've ever prayed for anything in my whole life, but anyways. We were out knocking, nothing going through, all our investigators being shady, all our potentials peepholing us,etc. So we get back in the car and I was about to lose it and all of a sudden we get a text from the referral system. The referral was for the Kurosawa family, they moved to IC a week ago from Japan! They were taught a little by the missionaries there and we went straight to their house and met them. They speak like 0.005% English, but they are the nicest people ever. We got there and they were freaking out to see us at the door and they gave us a ton of Japanese candy. Then Sunday they came to church and it was lit, I was on cloud 9. A member from Japan and a member who served in Japan translated for them and helped them at Church. We haven an appointment to teach them Wednesday Night! Pray for them, my favorite family of 5 Japanese people ever!

-Other Miracle this week, KRAIG went to the temple! Yeah boiii! We got to go do baptisms with him this morning at the temple! (hence why I'm emailing in the dark.) It was so cool to be there with him and my former comps Butterfield and Hansen! I got to dunk Jess like 10 times it was way cool ;) We took some pretty lit photos on Kit's phone so I'll send some of those. 

So this week was just blessings on blessings on blessings. I have a real testimony of hard work, I feel like God has been stretching me this whole transfer. My whole mission things always kind of seemed to fall into place perfectly, but this transfer has just been a battle. But I think sometimes God does that too us to let us prove that we are willing and worthy to work for the blessings he wants to give us. 

All in all it was a good week! I love you all! Have a good week!

Rush Week

What's up everybody?

This week was pretty great here in IC. We were pretty busy all week which is always a good thing. We did a ton of knocking and street contacting this week, just trying to get people interested and find some new investigators. We worked really hard each day and stopped by every person we had met this week. 

Knocking helped a ton we found 10 new investigators this week, which is way fruitful for this area. Some are a lot more solid than others, but that's life. We found some cool new people this week that should progress though. 

Our most promising guy is a man from the Congo named Osborne! He's dope, he just moved here a year ago from Africa, he's friend is a cool Recent convert from the congo. He came to the Ward BBQ on Saturday and we met him and gave him a tour of the church and invited him to be baptized. He's a really cool guy and we should be teaching him in a members home this week!

We had interviews with President and Sister Badger it was great as usual. I love being with President Badger, he's such a cool guy. 

A sad thing happened a few days ago we had a sad thing happen in our zone. Our senior couple lost one of their sons in a car accident so they've been gone to be back with their family for a time. Last night we drove an hour Belle Plaine, IA so we could decorate there door and put notes on it. They got home today so hopefully it helped them.

This week was great though. Just grinding every day trying to get people to come recognize the blessings of church. 

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 

Poison Ivy

Hello friends and family!

This week was an adventure and we had some funny things happen. The main thing that happened this week is that my beloved comp Elder Zinn has been suffering from some insane poison ivy hahaha. Like it's bad though, it started out as a stripe on his leg and it's spread to both legs and all the way up his stomach to his chest. So we got to research some ways to try and get rid of it. Zinn was taking like 8 benadril a day at one point but we realized that probably wasn't healthy. Eventually we went to the urgent care and they gave him some steroids and told him to take an oatmeal bath (you best believe I have documentation of that). 

Other than my companion almost dying from a rash, it's been kind of a boring week. We knocked a lot of doors and are trying to build up the teaching pool here and get people to church. Things are looking up, slowly. We'll get it though. 

School starts here pretty soon so we are excited to kick it with the YSA elders and teach a lot of college students. Should be pretty lit when they all move in. One thing that was surprising here is how many Asians we teach. It's insane! Everyone is from China and Taiwan and they are here for school, so we teach a lot of people that have no background in God or Jesus Christ. It's a different feeling for sure, but it's way cool. We're trying to learn how to OYM people in Chinese but it's way hard, mad props to all the people that speak Asian languages. 

We'll that's all I got for this week, hopefully we will have more exciting news next week. Pray for Elder Zinn's rash, also pray that I don't get it! 

Love you all!

Elder Zinn convinced our whole zone to take Pre Workout before Pday, lol:

This thing is called a cicada killer. they are like a giant wasp. if you have ever seen a cicada, these things kill those... yeah:

A member gave us a whole pizza but we had to walk home so Zinn carried this pizza for like 5 miles:

Iowa City; Where The Grass is Green and The Girls Are Pretty

Greetings.

I'm emailing from my new home and hopefully my last area, the BEAUTIFUL Iowa City!! Yes the dream came true and Elder Zinn and I got our shot at serving together in a college town, yes! I'm super pumped to be here in IC it feels like I'm back in civilization after spending 6 months out on the frontier in Nauvoo. One of the things President Badger said while telling me I was going there was "Elder Milligan, I believe they have a Huhott in IC, I knew you'd be excited for that." He knows me to well.

So Iowa City is lit. There's college kids everywhere and school is about to start up, so everyone is moving in. Sometimes when Elder Zinn and I are sick of knocking we will just walk by the dorms and offer to help move people in and invite them to institute and Church lol. 

My New comp is Elder Zinn, we came out together and he was in our district in Nauvoo so I know him well, he's one of my good friends in the mission so we were stoked when we found out. Our zone is a party and we've had a lot of fun so far. He is super creative and abstract so it's funny being his comp. 

So I just got here and our teaching pool is kind of trash right now lol. So I don't really have anyone to talk about but that will change by next week cause we are goona build this place up right quick. Sunday was cool though, we cover the 2nd ward here which is all the famalies that moved here for residency at the med, dental, and law schools. So a lot of young families and doctors so I love talking to them. Our ward is diverse to there's families from Africa, China, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Scotland and more, it's sick. 

That's all I really have for this week, I'll send a lot of pics I took saying goodbye to the families I loved in B-town and some final pics from Nauvoo. I love ya'll have a good week. 

Hol' Up Fill The Font'

What's up Everybody?

I hope you all had a great week! Not goona lie though, it probably wasn't as good as ours here in Nauvoo. ;)

This week was the GOAT cause we baptized Kraig and Kraig is the GOAT. Look at his stats. 

-Has Read BOM completely twice.

-Has read all of D&C

-Has read all of the Pearl of Great Price

-Studied for Over 4 months

-Been inside the Nauvoo Temple (lol, whoops)

-Confounded a Basher

Kraig is basically the Micheal Jordan of Investigators. He's as solid as a rock. He's a man of few words, but his testimony speaks for it's self. I love this guy. I was honored that he asked me to Baptize and Confirm him. Such a sweet moment to share with a guy as cool and humble as my man Kraig. 

So the Baptism was definitely a highlight of the week. We had a lot of other awesome things happen as well. 

Monday- We had P-day in Nauvoo and played ball. 

Tuesday- We had another good day, we taught our investigator Jazmine with a member and it was one of the best lessons I've ever had. The spirit was so strong.

We also had Stake Coordination with President Badger and President Church the Nauvoo Stake President. We discussed the Missionary work in our Zones and in the Stake. IT was a great meeting. Those two men are spiritual giants!

Wednesday- We had our last District Meetings of the Transfer. We had testimony meetings to end both meetings and there were some powerful experiences share and testimonies born. That night a member took us on exchanges to the Nauvoo hotel, probably the best buffet in the world. After that we interviewed Elder Esplin's investigator for baptism it was awesome! Then we went to pageant after with our investigator!

Thursday- We were on the grind all day finding new investigators and getting people ready to come to Church. We met with Kraig and got him ready for his baptism as well. 

Friday- We cleaned the font and worked hard throughout the day to get people at church and invited all of our investigators to the baptism. That night we went to the British pageant again with our Recent convert alex and his mom. It was awesome, the British pageant is so spiritual and teaches a ton of doctrine. It's awesome. 

Saturday- BAPTISM LES GOOOO!

Sunday- Our investigator Jazmine came to Church and brought her 3 kids as well. The ward did a great job of welcoming her and fellowshipping her. One family even invited her over for dinner, it was awesome. The Burlington ward is lit. 

Jazmine is now on date for Sept. 9th so I'm pumped. Pray for her she's the bomb! 

On a sad note this will be my last time emailing from the Nauvoo Zone. It's been a party here and I've loved every second of it. The last 6 months have been the best of my life, NOTHING beats serving here in Nauvoo. 

We find out where I'm transferring to tomorrow morning. But there's a rumor that a return to a certain city could be on the cards ;) we'll see next week.

Love you all!