Monday, December 13th Letter

Dear Family and Friends,


Wonderful and Crazy news from Texas!!! We had a baptism on Sunday for one of our investigators. Her name is Anna. She has kind of been involved in the church since she was young. Her friend would invite her to young women actives and she would go each week. When her friend whose name is Claudia went on a mission Anna came to the farewell. Then Claudia wrote a thank-you note to Anna for being her friend while she was on a mission. This was a big help to Anna at the time. So Claudia got home from her mission in July. Anna and Claudia have been hanging out and going to single's activities. Most of Anna's friends are members. Claudia decided she should invite Anna to come to church sometime. Well, she came and after had a lot of questions. Claudia has been very careful not to just dump on her everything there is to know. She just gives her enough info. Perk of being a missionary. She waited for Anna to ask to learn more. So the beginning of this transfer we got the call that Anna wanted to take the missionary lessons. The first lesson was Wednesday last week. She has been coming to church for the past 2 months. We have been having lessons like every night. Anna loves the lessons. She is just so "hungry" for the gospel. Her baptism was this Sunday. Only a week and a half since we got the first call. Its is such a testimony builder to me that people are ready. We just need to be patient and wait for their heart to be ready.

We have also found a new family to teach. They have such potential. They have 2 little little kids. One must be 2 because he is a "terrible two" if I ever say one. The little girl is only 2 months. The mom loves our message. We are so excited to be teaching a family. We still have lots of other investigators. We have a man whose older son and wife are members. We are working with this man and his nine year old younger son. His nine year old is ready for baptism. But the Dad wants to find out for himself if the church is true. I think the thing that interest him the most is the being married forever and being sealed to his family. He and his wife have such a good relationship. But Satan is working hard and giving this man some big problems in his life that he has to deal with to distract him from finding out. We pray for him. We are working hard here in Houston. It doesn't even feel like Christmas without the snow. And we are still having days in the 70's. I think my mission is going to turn into feeling like just a long summer. I like all the Christmas lights. Because I am in a richer area more people have lights and Christmas trees. I am glad because this has always been one of my favorite things about the holidays.

I just want to thank everyone who has sent me Christmas cards. I love looking at the pictures and reading how everyone is in their family. So thank-you to those of you who have sent me your Christmas card. I hope everyone stays safe and happy this holiday season.

Love, Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, December 6th, 2010 LETTER

Dear Family and Friends,


Can you believe that it is December?! I know I can't, especially with this weather we have here. This week we have had an average of 50s to 70s degree weather. It feels like Fall. If you know me well you know how I love Autumn. So winters in Texas are easy. Everyone is saying how cold it is. Everyone has there coats, gloves, and scarfs on. I on the other hand am wearing the same thing I did in the summer. The only difference is on occasion I will put on my hoodie at night and my rain jacket. My rain jacket is really just like a rain poncho. Everyone thinks I am crazy. Then I tell them where I am from and they just nod and say "Oh that is why." So this has been the first week in this new transfer with my new companion. This transfer will include Christmas and New Years. First, about "killing" off my old companion. We woke up tuesday morning as usual and Hermana Hastings all of a sudden got really nervous to go home. She kept saying she didn't know what she was going to do with herself when she got home. It is like she was so happy to go home all transfer and at the very end she realized what that meant. But I took her to the office with all the craziness of transfers. Lots of people at the office changing companions and with luggage(sp.?). I got my new companion and we head out. Pretty much the first night we dropped off her stuff and went to work. Now that I am the only one who knows the area I realize how much I do know. I am also the designated driver which means that I drive everyday again like I did my first 2 transfers.

So about my new companion. Her name is Jenny Bullock. She is the youngest of 4 children. She has 2 sisters and 1 brother. She is very happy all the time. I have never met someone who is happy all the time. It is exhausting just to watch. She is the same "age" in the mission as my trainer was. So this is her 9th transfer which means she has been on her mission now for over a year. She only has three more transfers after this one with me. She will be going home in May. Hermana Bullock loves being a missionary. She has still kept that "greenie fire" as they call it. She is not afraid to commit everyone she meets to baptism. We will do a lot of good here in this area with her here. She struggles with her spanish though. So actually I am using my spanish a lot more than before. Everyone tells me I have really good spanish for someone who has been out as long as I have. By the way I have now been on my mission for 6 months!! It is harder to see improvement in yourself when you talk with natives. But I don't give up and keep going.

We have some exciting news. We received a referral from the ward the tuesday that we changed companions. Her name is Anna. She is a friend of many many people in the ward. She grew up coming to activities, but never church. So when her friend came home from her mission, (Her friend is a recently returned missionary in our ward named Claudia), she invited her to church. Anna had just broken up with a long time boyfriend and was completely prepared to make this change in her life. We have been teaching her a lot this whole week. She plans on being baptized on the 18th of December. The ward has been great with helping fellowship her. Also our new ward mission leader is very enthusiastic about the work. We expect some good changes to happen in the ward to help the work go more effectively forward.

I keep working hard. I miss and love all of you. I hope all of you are safe and happy this Christmas season.

Love,

Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, November 22nd, 2010 LETTER

NOTE: This letter just came through today. To see Alaina's most recent letter scroll down to the next entry. Thank you for supporting our wonderful Hermana Mills!

Dear Family and Friends,


It cannot seriously be time for Christmas decorations. There is no snow. There is still green grass and leaves on the trees. This different climate is messing with my sense of time. This next week begins the last week in the transfer. The last week in the mission for my companion. So next transfer I am pretty sure I will be here again. I will be the only one in the mission who knows about the area what with my companion going home. So I am pretty sure I will be getting a new companion. Ha ha ha. Sorry being on the mission makes you a little strange. Starved for entertainment and all. But you are so happy at the same time. The spirit is so strong with this work.

This week we worked a lot with children and youth. We have several 8 year olds and 9 year olds that we are teaching. We have other investigators as well, but this week we just seemed to focus alot on the children. We also found 2 new investigators through a youth we are working with. The youth is a very less-active who doesn't remember anything. Not even who Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are. So we had a lesson with her and her friends were there. They loved the lesson. At first they were pretty aprenhensive as youth are. But the spirit was there and they opened up. The youth came to mutual night and had a great time. She knows some of the members from school. We have great hopes for her and her friends.

We had Zone Conference this week as well. Zone conference was great!! We use to have them every transfer, but now only every quarter. So we won't have another until March. (I got a candy-bar for my birthday. Birthday is not until February.) I got to see one of my companions from the MTC. I think I was an answer to her pray. She has a very amazing companion. And I think my old companion was comparing herself to her companion. This is always bad. Never compare yourself to anyone. Each one of us is special and unique. We all have our talents and our own ways of doing things. Being different doesn't make you a bad person. We don't need to try to fit some kind of cookie-cutter person. We are just asked to do our own personal best in being like the Savior and following his commandments. I also received an answer to a question I had. I didn't even ask the question and President followed the spirit and answered my question. He was giving his remarks and decided on the spot to say something he felt impressed to say. This was my answer. I am so grateful to a President who follows the spirit and is a great example to me. I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves and knows me so well. I am grateful for all the friends and family I have been blessed with.

Let us all show more love to one another.

Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, November 29th, 2010 LETTER

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! So I was invited to 4 dinners for Thanksgiving. We ended up eating with 3 on the day of Thanksgiving and the last the following evening. We first ate a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a very very less active family. It was great. There was turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, and apple pie. The non-traditional items included; stuffing (but mexican stuffing) with peppers and stuff, green beans, and rice. This family loved having us over. We teach the mom and the oldest daughter. The Dad is not a member, but has no time for us. But he likes us a lot. He is very friendly. Then we went to a dinner with a family in the ward. It was traditional food but not prepared in a traditional way. We had turkey with some tomatoe something or other marinated on top, rice with corn etc, french bread, yams(which were actually traditional), and a mexican salad. It was a salad but everything was chopped weird and it had things like celery in it. Then we went to the last dinner with the second counselor in the bishopric. Here we had lobster, shrimp, potatoe salad, and green beans. It was all good, but I felt so heavy and sick after eating so much food. I am just now feeling like my body is starting to recover. SICK!!! I needed a turkey coma (nap), but as a missionary you don't get a nap.

Also this Sunday was Hermana Hastings last Sunday in the mission. We had a baptism for one of the 8 year old boys we have been teaching. He isn't a convert baptism, but his parents wanted us to teach him like he was. So we did. He is such a smart little boy. We had a little hiccup when the jumper for Sammy (this is the little boys name) was missing. We had to scramble to another building to find one. We think what happened was there was a baptism the day before. We think they must have took the suit home to wash and dry it and didn't bring it back yet. So we called the elders up in Conroe who live a good 20 minutes away. They said they would take care of it for us. They had to call the English areas who had keys to the building up there. When they got to the building they discovered the jumper was missing as well. After lots of investigating we discovered that the primary president of an English ward had taken it home to was and dry it for her daughters baptism this coming Saturday. She had washed the suit but had not dried it. So we drove up to Conroe to meet the Elders, who then had us follow the English member to her house. We grabbed the jumper and we were booking it back to the church building. The jumper was soaked. So first we tried holding it out the window to dry. This didn't work too much humidity. So we turned on the heater full blast and used it to dry the jumper. Thanks to Heavenly Father it dried quickly. We were laughing so much. It was either laugh or cry from the stress. We choose to laugh.

So I am staying in my area again. So same address. My new companions name is Hermana Bullock. I will tell you more about her the next week. I hope everyone's Thanksgivings were great!! I love you all!! This work is so true. I love the Gospel!!!

Love, Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, November 15th Letter

Dear Family and Friends,


Hello from the mission field. Can you believe that it is almost Thanksgiving!?! What happened to the time? So this week began with Exchanges. I went to a different area and worked with two companions, Hermana Bullock and Hermana Christensen. The reason I worked with two people is because we exchanged with a tri-companionship. Hermana Ferro their other companion went to work with Hermana Hastings(my companion) in the Woodlands. It is always an interesting experience exchanges. You either learn a lot about how to do missionary work better or you learn to appreciate your area more. This exchange was more of a learn to appreciate my area more. The work is pretty much the same. You have appointments that fall through. You have appointments that are great and the spirit is very strong. You talk to people on the street who are super nice and very interested. Then you talked to people on the street who just laugh at you and go on their way. Just proves to me that the Lord is preparing people we as missionaries are just trying to find them. The other Hermanas told me that I have a real talent for helping people to learn to love and trust me quickly. I don't know what I do, but their members that we visited are hoping I get sent to their area. It is weird teaching with three companions. One of the companions just has so much energy. She is exhausting to watch. She has been in a lot of tri-panionships on her mission. She attributes this to her energy. That she needs 2 companions to handle her. The other companion is very sweet and very quiet. The one with energy struggles with spanish whereas the quiet one does not.

So this week we had some success in activating a family that was very inactive. Their father has the Melchizedek (spelling?) priesthood and knows a lot. His 9 year old daughter is who we are teaching and preparing for baptism. She is so cute. She loves the Book of Mormon. She came to church this last Sunday. The first time in a long time. The Mom is the difficult one. She likes to shop and her favorite day to shop is on Saturday. I think the Dad would be all up for coming to church if he had the support of his wife more. His kids are all for going. It just depends on Mom. One of our investigators decided to drop us in the middle of this week, but he came to church on Sunday. He changed his mind and decided he wanted to continue. It was weird. I was like so sad for him one moment. And the next he is at church apologizing. We also inherited an investigator from the Elders. She was suppose to be our investigator all along. She lives in our area. We didn't find this out until they split the ward. She is still in our ward which means she was actually suppose to be taught by us. She is super smart and likes us a lot from seeing us in Relief Society and Gospel Principles. Yes, I am out of the primary now that my companion and I don't really play the piano.

We started English classes this week as well. We have a professional teacher. She is a member in our ward who actualLY has a Master's in bilingual education. She will be in charge of teaching the lessons. We like this idea so much better because the missionaries change so it is hard to get the consistency you need if the missionaries are teaching. This way any missionaries in this area can help with the English classes. It is a good way to find new investigators. Because ward members feel much more comfortable inviting friends to free English classes instead of hearing from the missionaries. And as those people learn to trust us they will be interested in what it is that we actual do believe. It is a great thing that we are very excited about. Our member is also very excited about it. Many of the ward members as well want to learn English so it is a service to the ward as well.

I love you all and miss you all!! Find some joy in what you are doing everyday. I promise that you can find the joy, you just need to stop focusing on the hard/difficult. If you focus on what is good you can face the bad with such a better attitude and a resolve to overcome it.

-Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, November 8th, 2010 Letter

Dear Family and Friends,


So this week has been very good. Very busy with new investigators and old investigators. We reached our goal for lessons this week. We had an intense lesson with an investigator who was not progressing. The spirit was very strong in her lesson. We were testifying left and right. She said she did have a desire to find out if what we have been talking about with her is true, but a very small desire. We committed her to act on that small desire and promised her that it would grow if she would take the first step to read the chapter we gave her and pray about it. It is kind of sad in a way. We are giving her an opportunity to have something vital in her life. And she knows that. But she just won't act on it. She likes where she is. She doesn't have religion in her life at all. She did as a little girl and knows her children need it. But she just won't do anything about what she knows. It is sad to see someone so close to having something so awesome and still not take it.

So our ward was split this Sunday. They made a branch out of part of our ward. The area that is now a branch is full of less active members. All of these members have kept saying they will come back to church when church is closer to them. So now it is closer to them. We will see what happens. There are two sets of Elders that cover the new Branch area. Our ward now only has a two Sisters as the missionaries. Most of the members in our area are active. We do have some less actives we work with on a regular basis though. And we have some really good potential members. We are going to work with the new bishop I think a lot. When he spoke in sacrament meeting he said he had three goals. Baptizing, Retaining, and Reactivating were the goals. And that is what we as the missionaries of this ward have been working on. The new bishops name is Obispo Baich. He is from Argentina. He will be a great bishop. We also know the counselors really well. It will be sad not to see the Elders anymore. They are not even in our district. We are these two lone spanish sisters in the midst of all these english elders. But the Elders we have are great. It just scares us a bit to be the only missionaries covering the ward. But English Elders do it all the time. And our ward mission leader is back from his out of town job. YEAH! He will still be in our ward as well.

I pray everyone is safe and happy. I love you all. I pray for you daily. More than once a day. Until we meet again.

Hermana Alaina Mills

Monday, November 1st Letter

Dear Family and Friends,


So I don't have lots of time because I am writing at the office and there is a line of Elders and Sisters who need to write their family. Well, my poor companion got sick at the begining of the week. So I was inside for two days. I was going crazy. I couldn't clean because unlike Elder's apartments our apartment is very clean. But she got better and we went out and worked. We started knocking this new trailer park we didn't know about until recently. So we were knocking and of course another miracle happened. We ran into this woman who let us come inside. She told us about her life. She grew up in Mexico until her Dad basically just picked her up and drove her here to live. She was a trouble maker supposedly. She ended up marrying her American husband who she met while she was working as a waitress. Neither of them spoke the others language but they still got married. She now speaks English really well. She has two little girls. We have an appointment with them tomorrow. We had some specialized training this week about being obedient and seeing the results of our obedience. The spirit was so strong and amazing. We are working hard here in the field. I pray all of you are safe and living the gospel. This is really how we find safety and happiness.

Love,

Hermana Mills