Welcome Home!

Elder Miller returned home with an honorable medical release on Saturday 

We are proud of him and the work he has done! 

Pictures 10-13-14

good fries

Sunday dinner in the dark. (The power was out)

10-13-14

Pretty good week. I have become an expert at making fries during this week! I've made them almost every day. And they are pretty cheap because I just reuse the oil over and over and potatoes are cheap. So that was sweet. Found these crazy bugs in these trees and they all just sit there and bubble and this liquid stuff drops from them on people. Tay Tay Sola are the bugs names and they are way weird. Oh yes and so apparently I was told this Sunday I will be giving my talk. So that's cool. So our DMB and good friend Patricque asked to borrow my old camera to use for the JAS trip to Rano Mafana so yeah I let him and I asked him to proofread my talk because not only is he amazing in French, and English but also in Malagasy. So he did that for me and made a few grammatical corrections for me. I was surprised most of it was good haha. Then Thursday my comp was sick so I got to sit in the apartment and study all day. Yay. Oh Wednesday morning I also cut my own hair for the first time on my mission and it went without a hitch! It was nice. Apparently October is the hottest month here in Fianarantsoa and it is fairly hot. Not as hot as Idaho/Boise gets but its more humid and sticky here. So kinda worse. And Saturday my suit was supposed to be done but unfortunately it will not be done til Wednesday now.... So pictures of that for next week! And things are going well.
Elder Miller

Bonus add on!
For my talk between sitting on the stand and actually giving it I drank 1.5 liters of water.

Picture 10-6-14

10-6-14

So not much this week. Monday we rushed up to Antsirabe. There we spent some time. Then the other Fianarantsoa elders went to Tana tuesday morning. And I stayed in Antsirabe, Went on some splits. Tuesday I ate at this hotely and dinner had noodles. Wednesday morning at 3 I puked a ton. Then Wed I didnt eat breakfast or lunch and went on splits with the zone leaders. Then we went to Pizza In and I got pizza and icecream. Thrsday morning I had some choc cereal and didnt eat lunch. Then I puked again at like 3 in the afternoon. Fun, My new companion came Thursday morning. Hes french. But speaks english pretty well but has a strong accent...Friday drove all the way back and rerranged our house. Yippee having six people in our house now is a little crowded. Only have one toliet and one water heater. But everything else should be good, there are two showers... Then Sat we got a new phone since our area split. I checked on my suit and its looking sick... and it will be done next sat! Ill have to send pics, its the sickest! Pres Adams came saturday and we had this meeting thing at our church and him his wife and the clowards took us to dinner at their hotel. My stomach was still wishwashy and even though it was way expensive I was kinda dissappointed in the food. For the price. Sunday was fast sunday. Yep no general conference yet. Got jutop but they all suck except for Guovay, the strawberry and grenedelle and fruit cocktail are all undrinkable- I dont know how anyone stomachs that stuff. And BYU lost, Taysom broke his leg and Alabama lost. Wow that sucks,

Elder Miller

9-29-14

So yeah crazy week, Found this place to make a custom made suit and the colors for it are going to be the best! I cant wait to wear it when I get home. Tried making chocolate pancakes but they didn't really work out. I went on a split with the area in Fianaratsoa South, and it was weird. We had to ride bikes and the bikes there are not the best. The chain fell off of my bike like 6 times and it had like 2 gears but would not change like at all. The biggest piece of junk that I've ever ridden, Zone leaders came again for splits and brought some things I asked for from Antsriabe since they have a Shoprite. I got 10 jutops guovay and some oats and brown sugar. Hiked the whole mountain to find out the investigators there weren't home. So that was like a 2 hour hike for nothing.... Had a party dinner with our DMB Friday night at Sophias. Then we had our baptism Saturday morning. We had some from both branches. 3 investigators from ours and a 8 year old girl. So yeah I baptized two of them and his dad baptized him and the 8 year girl, hes also the 2nd counselor in our branch presidency. Prepared my talk for Sunday morning. Then at church Sunday we had the confirmations and everything. Then the couple missionaries were handing out award things for like 20 something minutes and they do the whole french custom kiss the cheeks which made it even longer. So there ended up not being enough time for me to give my talk, but next week I guess. So got transfer news. I'm getting a new companion and hes french. But since the other two in my area are training and going down to Tana to get the companions I had to come down to Antsirabe with them to stay with some missionaries. So fun like a 7-71/2 hour drive on a cramped bus for pretty much nothing. Yippee. He apparently is at least somewhat decent at English. That's good.
Elder Miller

Pictures 9-22-14

9-22-14

So this week was cool. Last Monday was a bit of an adventure. o we met this investigator who said she could make suits for us for 20000 AR (like 8 dollars) so we went to meet her at the church to get our measurements. Then she was like oh I didn't bring anything to measure with. So she said she had to walk to her house and all. And she said it was like 2 km. So we start walking. And walking. And walking. Down these train tracks to like the other side of the city. We walked for like a whole hour! It was soo long. Then we got there and she took our measurements with a string. And just wrote down 1 2 3 4 on this piece of paper. So we were like what the is she doing. Then she starts telling us the suits are already done so she would have them the next morning at 10 in the morning. So we are thinking hmmm. This could turn out terrible. And Elder Garcia and I both got them, my housemate, and she had us pay up front. So we go to the church the next morning at 10 and sit there. And sit. Then we were like wow she prly scammed us. But finally at like 10:45 she came and said sorry, I was late a little. Then she gave us the two suits. Elder Garcias was sooo small and tight. Then I tried my coat on and it fit ok. So I took it home and all. Then I tried the pants on. And they fit length wise. But fit someone like 400 lbs!!! Its ridiculous. So I need to find a belt that works with those loops or something. Kinda crazy. Then found a store that has some NBA stuff... haha... Sweet Wednesday night after teaching a time, this drunk guy followed us out saying he wanted to confess to us then told us not to come back and he might have to use force to make us leave. But he was an old man too haha and drunk. It was kinda awkward though. Our next time there was a drunk guy too so we couldn't go in. Thursday at 3 in the morning I was puking for like an hour. So didn't go out that day, but we did splits so Elder Lehr went out with a branch miss and our DMB sat in our house. Have baptisms this week! Also giving a talk in sacrament next week! This week should be really good!

Elder Miller

Note: I asked Elder Miller what DMB means and he said the DMB is the Ward Mission Leader but those are the initials for it in French.

Pictures 9-15-14

Obama Underwear

lizard thing 

The amazing fruit salad 

with the branch missionaries 

9-15-14

So I got my voice back Tuesday morning. So we taught this lesson and this relative guy walked in and I think he was kinda drunk. And during the closing prayer he just kept saying amen and hallelujah throughout the whole thing. It was needless to say weird. We had splits on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesdays we hike the mountain and so from that time we went to another appointment a little the other way from where we live. It took us literally an hour to hike back up, down and get all the way to their house. Sooo long. My legs were way tired. I made some brownies for some investigators/members and they liked them, of course. They said they were really sweet. Malagasys aren't quite all used to as much sugary stuff as we are. Our store finally got some ice cream again so milkshakes are coming up today. We have a baptism planned for the 27 of Sept. Still not quite sure how many we will have but it should be great. On Saturday while teaching English I explained the American money to one of them and was explaining all these business terms to him. In Madagascar to graduate high school you have to pass this big like 5 day test called the BAQ. And two guys in our branch, our DMB and one of the branch presidents counselors, The scores got posted Saturday night and they both found out they passed! So now they are both getting ready for their missions which is sweet. It was Elder R's birthday on Saturday so they had us over for dinner. And it was way good. The fruit salad thing was the bomb. Then this week has been a lot warmer. Looking into getting some suits made. They will be sick.
Elder Miller

Pictures 9-8-14

our DMB in Elder Morelys sweater

my noodles

9-8-14

So we got some rain here so our power has been stable which is cool. Heard some weird Malagasy riddles from our branch missionaries, most of them are weird and don't make sense. We had ordered jutop drink but it didn't come still which is dumb. I bought some little drink mix things so I don't have to drink just water as much. Made more ohenries but I tried putting pudding on top from this pudding packet thing. Hopefully it tastes great and everything, Oh bought some noodles to have for dinner and just to have food at the house for back up.... Just a few....Our church on Sunday started like 45 min late because we sat there waiting for the counselor in the mission presidency to arrive. It was weird. So we basically only had 2 hours of meetings. Lost my voice on Friday and still don't have it which sucks. Not much else happened but a cold front came through and some rain. And so it got pretty cold. I had to wear a jacket again but its funny. Our DMB wore like 5 sweaters and under armor type stuff under his pants and our Elders Quorum Pres had a ton of jackets and Ski Pants on. Haha. Pretty funny. Making brownies again today. Getting a haircut too. Oooh and I saw someone wearing a Rajon Rondo jersey yesterday so there is still hope that I will find one. But not a ton happened partially because it feels like I couldn't do much most of the week with no voice.
Elder Miller

Pictures 9-1-14

new watch

new outfit 

kinda can see the view haha

the branch missionaries "studying" way hard! haha actually just marking scripts

making ice cream

9-1-14

So this week had a few crazy things. Our water finally came back on Tuesday around 10ish and has been on since. So that's good. We finally got to shower and wash all of our dishes. But then that night all the power in the north side of the city went out from like 5ish and came on around 8:30ish. This person in our ward had some questions that I was answering, gospel related of course, but I wrote the answers out so that was fun. Getting to practice writing and "translating" into Malagasy is fun. So we went to teach this English class for this new investigator we met. Last time we went there were like 10 people. So we go there Wednesday about 11. We talk with him for a few seconds then go inside the room. AND IT IS PACKED, There were like at least 100 people in there. All part of this English club. So what we did was introduce ourselves, answered some questions about English and then taught the first lesson in English to them. But they gave opening and closing speech things and we were their very distinguished guests. Part way through a guy came in with one of those big video cameras like TV people use. We didn't know before or at the time, but since then some members in our ward said they saw us on TV and that this thing was on Madagascar National News on TV. Haha crazy! So my companion got sick with some stomach thing or something so when we hiked the mountain that day he was suffering some what. Then we ended up going home early Wednesday since he was sick and didn't go out Thursday. So I watched some general conference. Made some OHenries and they turned out nice. Didn't have white karo syrup but kinda just made my own and it seems to have worked out because they are wayyy good. Oh our power was out Thursday night again about 5 to 8ish again. Some kind of pattern perhaps? Then Friday we got a call saying that President (of Madagascar) Hery got mad at something about his water or power and so threw 6 utility people into jail. So the utility people said they were going to turn off all the power and water in Madagascar on Sunday. So we had to get all this extra food, gas, fill all these containers with water and everything. And who knows maybe the Pres would have the military step in to stop their strike. So it was some crazy news, Then Saturday night our power went off at 5 and came on at 8ish again. We were at a members house and he told us that its because their hasn't been enough rain to keep the generators going all the time. So they take turns turning off the power to different parts of the city for a few hours. Anyways also ordered this really good juice and got some make your own icecream things. Then Sunday came and went and the day of reckoning did not happen. So not sure what ended up happening with that but we still have power and water. But yeah just the average week in Madagascar. Our investigators for the most part are all progressing well and I have taken over leading all the lessons we teach to investigators now. So that's good.
Elder Miller

Pictures 8-25-14

8-25-14

Felt like a short week this week. Made some super sweet brownies. Made some chocolate chip cookies but I ended up guessing on the margarine since I didn't have the conversions so they ended up kinda weird. Saw a crazy drunk guy who had killed this dog and was draggin it around and throwing it around. The dog had chunks of fur missing and was bleeding and what not. And the guy was like wailing. Took an 8 hour bus ride to Antsirabe for our zone conference. Super long cramped ride on a sucky road. My favorite! :) Elder Hamilton from the 70 i think was there. Hes a general authority. Talked with us and answered questions and stuff. Got some letters from the AP's since they drove up from the mission home. So didn't quite get one in time for my birthday. And unfortunately I have not seen any hippos here. Went to a "real" store in Antsirabe and got some supplies for back in Fianarantsoa. Drove 8 hours back the next day. Annnnnnnd our water is not working. So going on 4 or 5 days without showering or shaving. And not sure if Ill be do laundry for awhile. Or dishes. And I got a cold from riding the dumb taxibruse since I had to sit next to this Italian lady that had a cold. I think I caught it from her. Made a mini Malagasy hymnbook by having a guy photocopy and shrink all the pages and then a guy bind it. Its sooooo cool. He made the pages pink again for some reason even though I had wanted no color.... Then had a mini dance session with two branch missionaries yesterday. Fun. Even with being gone so much still taught a lot and its really cool to see the investigators change and continue to progress. Hopefully the water is fixed soon.
Elder Miller

Pictures 8-18-14

8-18-14

So last Monday we did some nice errands really fast. Got a few other Nba hats. Unfortunately its hard to find ice cream in this city and when I went to buy some ice cream to make milkshakes they were out. I tried drawing a map of the US from scratch and it turned out not tooo terrible. We had splits on Tuesday. I had to lead in my area with the district leader. Of course a lot our times fell through so I had to come up with things to do and other people to visit which is hard since a lot of things are really far away from each other in my area. So my companion was doing baptism interviews for the other branch and they were all taking like at least an hour and a half so I had a lot of time to wait for him. And this other elder in my house made some crosswords using quotes from movies as clues. He did a MIB (Men in Black) one for me and I aced through it sooooo fast. Then that got me on the mind so I went through and wrote down 13 pages of MIB quotes from the movie and you can follow the whole movie from the quotes. Probably  not the best thing to do but I got way bored sitting there for around 6 hours waiting for him to finish right after our 4 hours of study in the morning. Set a lot of baptism dates with our investigators this week which is awesome. Some of them are progressing really well. So I'm working on making a mini Malagasy hymnbook. I had a guy shrink all the pages for me and I gave it to the guy in the other branch to bind for me. No I'm not getting the pages colored this time though. Our YSA had a fundraiser selling croissants so I bought a bunch. Pretty good. Our DMB also sang the Malagasy anthem for us. We had some dogs try and attack us this week. I was just about to kick one in the face but a Malagasy woman started beating it with a broom instead. Yeah saw a mouse. Outside though. Okay it's so hard to remember all the crazy things that happened during the week. But until next week.
Elder Miller

Fun Fact

Ny Fiangonan'i Jesoa Kristy Ho An'ny Olomasin'ny Andro Farany is how you write The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Malagasy.

Elder Miller says it literally translates to the Church Jesus Christ for holy people last days
haha : )

cool trees! 

His pink scriptures 

The name is handwritten! 

His delicious milkshake

Elder Miller and Elder Lehr with some branch missionaries and an investigator 

His new camera!

Elder Miller with some member kids : )

8-11-14

So this week was really good! It was my birthday on Monday and we had a great time- we played basketball with some members and I got a new camera too- one with a rechargeable battery and a really sick camera too. SONY Cyber shot 16mpg. So we were shooting with some of the members and then I played three on three with some other guys there. In basketball I had only about 20 blocks and could score literally at will! :) It was fun haha. We went to a suarway thing which is like a FHE. But it was in a fairly small room and there was a huge table in the middle with some snacks and drinks. Somehow they had a little over 40 people in this room! We got there a little late and crammed in and it was sooo hot though! I almost died. We had subway hamburgers for dinner too!

This week weve had some problems with our water too. Some mornings it had not been on. So Wednesday and Thursday some of us had to go showerless which always kinda stinks since we also cant shave or anything either. Our zone leaders came Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning I also made oreo milkshakes and they were literally the best things ever. I don't know if I've ever had anything better haha. I bought some Rayban sunglasses from some part member investigators that we have for 3000 AR, yeah so a little over a dollar.

Ooh yes. So Thursday morning Nanova who binds books and things called and said he had finished with my books. We had asked to get like zippered covered and the pages colored green. He said he might not have green so he would do red if he didnt have green. So he gives them to me thursday morning, and they are just like hard covered bound. The pages are all colored pink and he put in pink bookmarks too. WOW. It was sorta lame haha. And to make it even a little more girly is that there is a girl in our ward that has the same pink pages and bookmarks. ... But anyway its pretty good. I'll live. We went to clean this new investigators house on Thursday. It was small but we were still there for 3 hours! Everything was coated in dirt and there was some nasty stuff in there. But we managed to survive and it was fun to do as well. There was a house on the hill blasting music so loud that we could hear it across town back by our apartment and we were teaching a recent convert family that live like right next to them and haha I could not hear anything. We saw a guy sculpting a chicken out of cement too. We were also teaching a lesson in someones fairly small house and there were like 15 baby chickens that came in and were chirping so loud. For like 50 minutes-chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp. Ayaiah. Two 8 year old kids got baptized on saturday-they have a little pool they fill up outside to do them in. ALso something else really funny is the english songs people have here. For some reason just about every youth in our ward and that I've met have the song Pink-Give Me a Reason and they play it allll the time. Its insane how much I've heard that song already..

Ooh and Sunday night we walked one of the branch missionaries back home. It was dark already and so we are talking to her aunt and cousins and what not since they all live like right next to each other. And you have to climb up a little dirt hill on a path made from tires and junk to get there, But they tell us not to walk back by this church- because apparently someone has been killing people around there at 7 pm. So I look at my watch and oh- guess what 7 pm. So that was a little creepy to be walking home knowing.... But a good week, restocking on the milkshake supplies today.

Elder Miller

8-4-14 Pictures

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Francois sleeping 

8-4-14 Elder Miller's Birthday!!

Crazy week. Last Monday we did some cool shopping and I got this Lamba of a Map of Madagascar. Its awesome. I started getting sick last week so we slept some. Then Tuesday and Wednesday I was sick in bed and it was terrible. I also literally slept 2 days straight. But I've been getting better from my sickness and Thursday was rough but then the days following haven't been quite as bad. On Friday we went to teach an investigator but he wasn't there. His cousin was though but she couldn't learn because it was her birthday. Then I learned the Malagasy way to celebrate birthdays apparently. You get flour and eggs. Then people throw flour at you and break the eggs open on you. And what timing. Guess what today is. My birthday. I'm probably going to get egged today. We go teaching with the branch missionaries a lot(which are just the youth in our ward). They are all way cool by the way. And they sounded pretty excited to be doing this.... I also tried my first mofo akondro. Which are fried bananas. They are actually pretty good and like 100 AR each so super cheap. When we were teaching on Friday night, one of the branch missionaries that goes with us a lot, Francois, fell asleep during the Restoration Film we were showing a 12 year old investigator. His family are all members but he isn't. Anyways we got our cameras out and took some pictures of him sleeping and Elder Lehr took a video of him just sitting there sleeping and it was pretty hilarious. The family knows him well too and they thought it was hilarious.

Saturday morning our water turned off right after everyone else showered but me. And my hair is fairly long right now,(for a missionary) and so I had it sticking all up. And we had no water so I couldn't shower or fix it at all. Haha. Then that night we found out that some kids playing around had turned it off. :( Wow! Saturday at the church we finally ran into the book guy too! So I'm getting a cover for my English Scrips and my Malagasy ones! Its great. But it takes a week so I'm a little crippled scripture wise for a week. We went to a couples house to teach them but they couldn't then because he was sick. But there kids are all members and love missionaries so we played around and took some pictures with them for awhile. Its amazing how time flies when you are with kids haha.

Then Sunday night I made something really amazing. At a little shop you can buy doughnuts that are just plain doughnuts. Good but plain. All the ippisearies also sell chocolate. So I melted the chocolate and dipped the doughnuts in them and put them in the fridge. Then this morning I microwaved them a little to warm it up and OH my they were so good. Probably the best thing I've had in Madagascar ha, I cut one and gave a third of a doughnut to each of the missionaries in the house and they all agreed.

But I did something stupid and tried microwaving the chocolate first so I burnt it. Gross. And yesterday as we were walking to someones house there was a band across the way and across a little river playing songs like the Saints Go Marching In and another song. They were pretty bad and the trumpet was really blatty but I was dancing to it with some of the branch missionaries which was fun. The branch missionaries are really fun and pretty amazing. And yeah its my birthday today so we have some sweet stuff planned.
Elder Miller

Birthday!

Elder Miller's birthday is NEXT week! It would be fabulous if everyone could send him a short email wishing him a happy birthday! His birthday is on his P-day so he will even get emails on his birthday!! It will be his first birthday away from home.  Go forth and email him at miller.dallin@myldsmail.net

7-28-14 Pictures

Branch missionaries and Elder Miller's companion

Elder Miller and a 14 year old branch missionary