Brycen!

Howard's baptism on Sunday was awesome! He was way excited for it. Elder Taylor, one of the Zone leaders, interviewed him Saturday night. After the interview Elder Taylor told us that Howard was more prepared for Baptism than anyone he had ever interviewed. Howard is fun to teach, but he likes to go off on stories and try to come up with a bunch of metaphors to try to answer our questions so our lessons usually tend to take longer than they should.

His Wife, LaVon, came to church for the first time this sunday too! I think she had really good experience and Elder Hamren said he say her wipe a few tears during the baptism service! Yes!! Score: 1 for the Spirit!

Our other progressing investigator, Marti (the older lady who we taught a lesson to with Pres and Sister Thornock) came up with another lame excuse for missing church this sunday (so i guess she's not progressing any more). She did a test drive to the church on saturday to make sure she knew where it was and was comfortable with the drive, but i guess she freaked out on the "winding" roads on the way there and had to turn around. Her real problem is that she's scared to make that big of a commitment cause she's afraid of her own faith and what it might lead her to do. But she'll get there eventually.

We tracted into another young family this week. They live at the end of a road on the top of a hill. We've been tracting out their nieghborhood for a few weeks now (its a big, spread out, cabin type homes neighborhood on the side of a huge hill) it's been good excersize tracting up there, i've probably lost a couple pounds, which is good cause i definitely didn't weigh 144 lbs before i got out here. I was closer to 135. (pretty much all of it is muscle of course) I got to play soccer this morning, it was wonderful, simply wonderful. If winter wasn't coming so soon i'd ask you guys to send me my soccer cleets, but i probably wont get a chance to use them til next spring, so lets hold off on that.

I'm planning on sending the old camera back as soon as i have enough money to. This month's cash supply has been a bit low cause at the beginning of the month i bought the stuff for the new camera (bigger memory card, protective screen, ect) and then Elder Hamren and I bought everybody in the district pumpkins for us to carve for district meeting yesterday. It was a lot of fun, but pumpkins are a bit more expensive out here than they are in Utah so we've had to be even more careful with our spending. (Don't worry i'm still eating well, the members take good care of us) And our pumpkis are way cool. I'll send pictures of them next week.

well, i gotta go,

live it,

love it,

teach it.

-Elder Mills

Well, my Trainer is getting moved up to Clarksburg and is now going to be a Zone Leader. My new companion with be here tomorrow. Elder Hamren is prettty much just switching places with him cause he used to be the ZL in Clarksburg. I'm glad i'm not getting an 'apostate' missionary. I guess most of the time the "greenie breaker" (2nd companion) is, um, less than obedient and a bit more difficult to work with. I'm sure Elder Johnson and I will be do fine together.

Howard get sick again on sunday so he still hasn't been confirmed! He was feeling pretty good on Saturday though, so we went over and taught him and his wife. This was the first time His wife, LaVon, has sat in on one of the lessons, so it was super cool. We reviewed the restortation with them, and when we got to the part about Joseph Smith we had Howard teach it to his wife. It was really neat to see him teach about it and try to explain what had happend to Joseph in the grove and the events that lead up to it. He did on ok job at it, but it was really cool when began to bear his testimony to her about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and the Church. It was really powerful. I'm sure his wife will be baptized with in a few months, she's a great lady.

I feel like a bad American today cause i'm not Voting. Mrs. Obrey would be mad at me. I really wanted to vote but i missed the dead line for the absenty ballad, rats. Oh well, i've been a bit out of it as far as politics go anyway, probably wouldn't be a very informed voter.

So Utah's getting snow!! Oh, i miss skiing already. 2 seasons without skiing, ahhh! Devan: Go Skiing for me!! A lot!!

Mom: let Devan go skiing for me!! A lot!!

Brette: Go skiing with Devan for me!! A lot!!

Kelsey: don't date guys who don't ski

Dad: you should try snowboarding ;)

Lisa: good luck finding a mountain

Pedro: dido

But don't Cry for me and my inablity to ski, cause baptisms are better than backflips on the ski slopes.

love y'all

write me letters, lots of them.

learn it, live it, love it

-Elder Mills IV

We went on the same hike today that i've done two other times since i've been here. I'm not trying to complain, but something new would be nice. We had a whole bunch of new elders come into the Roanoke Zone this last transfer and they all wanted to go on the hike after seeing our pictures, so once again i make the "grueling" treck up to Mc Afee's knob. Its still a fun hike, even after the third trip, but the leaves are all on the ground now and they're a nice dirty brown color. The view from the top was still pretty cool, but it was more of a terrestial view compared to the last hike's celestial view. (and then of course there was the 1st hike's telesial view with the super thick fog all around). The Appalachian mountains (or Apple-atch'n, as they pronounce it out here) just can't quite live up to the high expectations that the Rockies have set for the title of "mountains". But was still a good hike. We had a group of 10 elders from around Roanoke come. Missionaries are good company. Three of us went ahead of the group on the way down and the other two buried me in a pile of fallen leaves right next to the trail. When the rest of the group walked by I jumped out of the pile in an attempt to scare them, but ya just can't faze a missionary, they just looked at me with the type of expression that seemed to say "what are you doing Elder Mills?" and kept walking. Needless to say, the other Elders and I were slightly disappointed in their response. Thank goodness for sisters and moms who know how to give a proper response to the valiant effort guys put into scaring the day lights out of others.

So, dad you wanted a play by play of the life of a missionary in the Roanoke 2 area of the West Virginia Charleston mission... prepare to be awed, shocked, amazed, slightly overwhelmed, and envious.

6:30 am wake up, pray, use the facilities, exercise (usually pushups, sit ups, stretching, and bench pressing

7:00 am shower (our shower has pretty good pressure so this is a refreshing event), shave, dress, comb my hair

7:30 BREAKFAST!! generally a bowl of cold cereal, occasioned by a poptart or toaster-strudel, mmm. I just got some blueberry poptarts, i'm excited.

8:00 Person Study Time, itzdabest!

9:00 Companion Study Time, pretty good too

10:00 Adventure into the lone and dreary wilderness.

a couple times a week we do library service at this time, its ok, but not my favorite thing. Soon we will have to go to the Chiropractor three times a week in the morning for Elder Johnson's back.

This is my least favorite time of the day because pretty much nobody is home so tracting is dificult.

12:00 Lunch time. I have a rather extensive variety of lunch possibilities ranging from frozen pizza to last night's leftovers. after lunch i usually study or take a quick nap, or do both simultaneously.

1:00 Tracting or Follow ups (trying to get return appointments with people we've previously tracted into)

Elder Johnson is big into less active work, something Elder Hamren and I didn't do much of. Its good i guess, but it take a lot of miles on the car. (by the way, I drive all the time because Elder Johnson is red-dotted, meaning he isn't alowed to drive)

6:00 Dinner time!! Usually at a member's home, they feed us pretty well and are usually good company.

7:00

oh, time's almost out, gotta go

love you guys!

-Elder Mills