Unexpected

Dear Friends and Family,


First, I just want to thank everyone for all the love and support. Due to some recent medical challenges it became necessary for me to return home from my mission. I flew home on Tuesday the 25th of January and was honorably released from my mission due to medical reasons. Originally we were hoping to have me recover while on my mission. But I have increasingly become worse and we came to realize that the best thing for me would be to come home. It has been hard to say the least. But the spirit has strongly witnessed to my Mission President, the Stake President, a General Authority and me that the Lord was pleased with my service and that I needed to return home. I have cherished the memories and people I was able to meet on my mission. So many people have touched my heart there and I will never be the same. The lessons I have learned on my mission will benefit me for the rest of my life.

And now as I embark on a journey I never wanted or expected, I take courage in the knowledge that this is the Lord’s will. Sometimes his plans for our lives are different than what we expected, but his plan is always for the better. I know as we have faith and trust in the Lord, he never leaves our side. That has become very real to me, especially in this difficult time. I am also so blessed to have the love and support of so many friends and family. I am working with my doctors, and we are very positive that I will make a full recovery. I thank-you, in advance, for the support and love as we, my family and I, are adjusting to this change.

May the Lord bless and guide you in your lives.

With Love,

Hermana Alaina Mills

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 Letter

Dear Family and Friends,


So it is official I am in my new area. This area is called, Hafer. It is called Hafer after Hafer road where the mission office is. Yes, the mission office is in my area. I am in the Houston Zone now in the Houston 6th ward. My previous ward was Woodlands 3rd ward. It broke off of this Houston 6 ward. My new ward is a lot bigger than my old ward. We actually fill the chapel. So they will have to open the overflow whether they want to or not. I say this because Latinos always seem to sit so close to one another. We have some great members here. But more than half of the ward is not allowed to go out with us. Because when they changed bishops the last time. There was a member who wanted to be bishop and started gathering a following. I am serious. Like he was gathering a group who were going to not listen to the bishop and do what they wanted to do instead. Uprising, how dramatic. The ward is all together. The stake put those members in their place. But it was crazy from what I hear. So my companion and I and 2 Elders serve in this ward. We cover the west side of the ward and they cover the east. It is nice not to be the only missionaries in the ward anymore.

Also this ward feeds us on a regular basis. We have weekly dinners with like four families a week. The same families. They want to feed us and insist that we come over. There would have been more, but we aren't allowed to go over to those families who were involved in the uprising. So my new companion's name is Miriam Rodriguez. She is from Guatemala. So needless to say her spanish is amazing. She is helping learn a lot more. I am grateful for her help. She is a very chill kind of person. She is the youngest of 2 children. She has an older brother. Her mother and father and brother now live in California. But she and her brother were raised in Guatemala by their grandparents. Her English is pretty good. I actually help her with that as well. So we help each other with the language. She has a fiancee in Guatemala named Angel Eli Rodriguez. He asked her to marry him right before she left on her mission. He is waiting for her in Guatemala. She plans on marrying him about 6 months after her mission. She has been on her mission now for 10 months. She goes home the end of September. We are getting along pretty well. We keep working hard teaching and finding.

My new address is
14131 Cornerstone Village Dr.
North Bend Apartments #1003
Houston, TX 77014

I love you all and miss you all. Be safe and stay close to the Lord.

Love,

Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, January 10th, 2011 Letter

Dear Family and Friends,


Hello!! Well this has been a pretty average week overall. One thing I will say about Hispanics is they really love their vacation time. A lot of our appointments this week were rescheduled because many people still had family over finishing up their holidays. But our next week here in the Woodlands is already packed with appointments. We have an investigator here who is close to getting baptized, but refuses to set a date. He says he is waiting on God to give him the date. Some people don't like to make any decisions on their own. This investigator also says he won't get baptized unless I am there at the baptism. This brings me to the big news.

I got transferred!!! I am going to a new area with a new companion. My new companions name is Hermana Rodriguez. She is from Guatemala. So yeah my Spanish is going to soar!! Whohoa!! This will be nice, because with this last companion, I felt like I knew more Spanish than she did. She is going home in three transfers. She goes home in May. But it is all good. We all have our own struggles on the mission. Well I don't have the address yet for my new apartment, so just send any letters to the mission office address for now. Here in the Woodlands, we are surrounded by English speaking Elders. We are the only Spanish speakers. In my new area, we are in a district with all Spanish speakers. This means we will get to have Spanish study together. Also, my old MTC companions are in my district. Weirdly enough my two MTC companions are now companions again in a trio with another more experienced Hermana, Hermana Maylett. Hermana Maylett goes home in two transfers. It will be so cool to see my old MTC companions more. And there will be other missionaries covering the ward I am in. Yeah, I am no longer in charge of a whole Ward in regards to missionary work. So needless to say, I am excited. I will give you more details next week.

Stay safe everyone. I love and miss all of you!!

Love,

Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, January 3rd Letter

Group Shot from Christmas Conference

Dear Family and Friends,


So I have a New Year's Surprise!!!! We had a baptism!!!! On the 2nd of January one of our long time investigators was baptized. He was found in a Jack-in-the-Box. He said that he usually goes through the drive-thru, but on this day he wanted to go inside and he didn't know why. He went inside and saw three white girls with tags that were in spanish. He is from Colombia but very much Americanized. He speaks better English than Spanish. But he likes associating himself with the Latino population. So he asked the girls if they spoke spanish. They replied to him in Spanish that in fact they did. He was so surprised and intrigued. To make a long story short he came to church the next day and has been an investigator ever since. He has been ready to be baptized since July but there was always an excuse. He wanted his family who were in Colombia to be here. When they were finally here he had taken a new job that makes him travel. He would still go to church wherever he was. We would have lessons over the phone with him. So he finally decided that the next time he got off time for work he wanted to be baptized. So they began teaching him in February of 2010 and he was baptized January of 2011. He is a very sweet guy. He is 44 years old. He was a Marine and loves to watch the Discovery channel. His name is Guillermo. (William in English) We had a lot of visiting Hermanas at his baptism because they had all taught him at one point.

It was a very nice service. They bishopric decided they wanted to have a musical number right before the actual baptism. They didn't tell us they wanted this until the day of the baptism. So no one wanted to or couldn't put together a musical number that fast so my companion and I put something together. We didn't even practice. We were copying the programs. We just picked a hymn and talked through what we would do. Then we just did it. Everyone said it was beautiful. I had someone come up to me and asked if I had studied music before. It was a nice way to bring the spirit in. We also had two investigators at the baptism that we hope will be baptized soon. I pray all of you had a very Happy New Year!! New Years I was sleeping and working on a baptism book. We had to be in by dusk which is like 5:30 ish here.

Love you all,

Hermana Alaina Mills