Week 4 pictures

For some reason we didn't end up getting a detailed email about Elder Miller's week, although we did get a few small personal emails. So we do know that he is doing well : ) Although we are not quite sure what happened with the main email. But here are some pictures!

Elder  Miller's district with The Honorable Rebecca Kadaga, 

the Speaker of Parliament in Uganda.

Elder Miller's district at the temple.

Week 3 pictures

Week 3

So I played a lot of indoor volleyball and some sand volleyball with my district and zone and its pretty fun. I've upgraded to the overhand serve now and am blocking at the net quite a bit and spiking too. The best part of volleyball for me is definitely playing at the net. So last week I got sick though and had a pretty nasty cold, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morningish all kinda weren't the best because of that. Thursday was TRC night, where we "hometeach" volunteer past Malagasian missionaries who volunteer to come in and talk with us. It was pretty fun and they all remember quite a bit, they also understand us well which is good for us but obviously we can still only pick out some things they say when they give lengthy and more complex answers. Mostly just because of the vocab they use. If someone speaks Malagasy here and its not too too ridiculously fast and they use vocab I know or at least like mostly know I can pretty much understand what they are saying. There's a sister missionary from Madagascar here going to the Temple Square mission and she actually knows one of my teachers, he served in her ward for a while. So she comes by sometimes and we talk to her. She can speak ridiculously fast and kinda quiet sometimes when shes telling stories or something so none of us can understand like anything. Besides the teachers. 

We were listening to some talks from general conference translated into Malagasy and some of them were so slurred together it makes it hard to make out anything. That will probably be the hardest, listening to people who slur words together. So we learned about all the types of verbs now, since we have gone over active, passive and circumstantial. The Sunday night devotional was by Sheri Dew, a big LDS author, and it was pretty good. And it was funny since Elder Wootan and I were sitting with my two companions and his, we were like maybe we would see Elder Price since Elder Summers told us he came in last Wednesday but was at the West Campus. Then like 3 minutes after I saw him and he ended up walking up and sitting behind us, right as he got there and we said hello, the prelude music started so it was short lived but maybe next Sunday. Monday our zone was begging us Malagasians to go play kickball with them so we did, and I jammed my thumb fairly badly catching the ball once-so I couldn't really write for the rest of the night since it was my right thumb. Oh also threw up Monday night. Went to the doctor here Tuesday morning and it was pretty much what I expected, he basically said it was a virus/cold thing. So we had to walk to the Student Health Center of BYU so I could buy some medicine there. We were going to go after dinner and before the devotional, before it closed at 6-then of course it was pouring rain then so we got soaked walking there and back. Tuesday night Elder Ballard spoke so that was an awesome experience. I was like 7 rows back this time though. Wednesday our district hosted, I hosted three-one going to Japan, Frankfort Germany and somewhere else I don't remember. And today we are being visited by the Speaker of Parliament from Uganda! She wanted to like visit the church or learn about it and so as part of the tour of the MTC and Church things she wanted to see a classroom. All the people going to those other African countries near Uganda are apparently in the Ghana or South African MTC, so we were the closest thing so she's visiting us. There will be armed guards, President Naly and Elder Hinckley of the 70. It'll only be for about 10 minutes or so and then we get our picture all together outside afterwards. Pretty cool. I guess I'll write about how it goes next week though. Ah and the new MTC president seminar/training things starts this Sat through next week sometime so our main building is going to be off limits and there will be a lot of general authorities here- including the apostles and Prophet. So the rumor is probably next Sunday and Tuesday for our fireside and devotional one of them will be speaking. Hopefully anyways. 

-Elder Miller  

Week Two Pictures

 Three different pictures of Elder Miller's district

Picture of another district in Elder Miller's zone

Elder Miller, Elder Webster, Elder Wootan 

Week 2

Well after the first week there's not really much to say here at the MTC since its basically just studying and studying and stuff. But on Fridays they have Papa Johns pizza which is nice but last Friday they also had a ton of watermelon, which is my favorite food on the planet, so it made that meal totally the best!!! Oh there is also an Elder in my zone going to Lithuania I think, and he just says like crazy random things all the time, into conversation and his voice just perfectly goes along with it too. So I got a mini notebook to record some these gold nugget lines or things that make me practically die laughing, everyone else in my district finds it funny too, anyways its a blast. And since the first day he tried making this reference about the band 3 Doors Down by saying something about being 2 Doors Down the hallway, he is forever known as Elder Two Doors to most of our district. Anyways played some beach volleyball and gym volleyball during gym as well as some basketball which both were a ton of fun. One of my companions and I had to give a lesson during district meeting on Sunday which ended up being to two districts, on Repentance but it went really well and got a ton of compliments on it. Monday night during class time in the evening, our district leader was trying to draw a map on the board and placing all the states and capitals right, it ended up being the weirdest USA map I've ever seen but I dazzled everyone with my complete knowledge of the US capitals ;) May not have been the best use of class time, but 11 hours every day of complete on task studying for 6 weeks straight is practically impossible... Tuesday night at the devotional Elder Cook talked which was really cool and my district sat in like the 3rd row from the very front which was pretty awesome. A bunch of new mission presidents are getting chosen or set apart or something in a week or too so a lot of general authorities are going to be around and one of them might be speaking at a devotional or fireside or something. Well going pretty good, and we learned about passive sentences, so now besides just the normal verbs, we have to memorize all the passive versions too.... Apparently circumstantial is next week too. Oh yeah I also saw Elder Summers leaving the cafeteria Wednesday and Sister Roedel in the cafeteria yesterday(also Wednesday I guess), and also ran into Elder Kuiken who was in band at my highschool with my for a year or two this morning, hes at the West campus but he got bussed over for Pday I think- but anyway just interesting.
Elder Miller 

Pictures!

A can of rootbeer. 

MTC classroom

MTC Classroom

MTC Classroom

Elder Wootan and Elder Miller 

Elder Miller, Elder Yeagley, Elder Andersen

flowers : )

Fountain! 

A classic MTC dinner 

Provo Temple 

Week 1

Hello! So we didn't get a P-day last Thursday because it was still an intro day. So right after getting dropped off at the MTC I get sent to my class and the teacher just starts greeting me and talking in Malagasy which was kinda crazy and caught me off guard. But that night we learned some greetings and all those simple things. So my district has 7 Elders in it which include Elder Ahlstrom, Elder Andersen, Elder Obiama, Elder Garcia, Elder Yeagley, Elder Wootan and me. So after getting there we had to watch this video on gym stuff and I knew Elder Wootan was going to the same mission and same day as me, but I wasn't sure if he would be in my district or not because I had no idea how many missionaries were going to Madagascar at the time. But he walked in during later which was kinda exciting to see a familiar face. Anyway my companion was supposed to be Elder Tavo but no Elder Tavo showed up. Apparently he is international and they aren't really sure why he didn't show and they haven't heard from them so I got assigned to be a trio companionship with Elder Yeagley and Elder Andersen, they were going to put me with Elder Wootan and Elder Ahlstrom but I share a room with E Yeagley and E Andersen so they switched it. Anyways its nice only having 3 people in our room. Elder Andersen is from Caldwell/Middleton ID and E Yeagley is from like Ephraim Utah or something like that. Elder Ahlstrom went to BYU as well as obviously Elder Wootan and I. 

Anyway the cafeteria at the MTC is almost a clone of the Cannon Center but I would say the food seems to be very slightly better. The trays, cups, drink machines and everything are the same-they have some different meals from the cannon, but they were serving the Cannon staple Chicken Cordon Bleau one night. At gym time on Friday we went out to play beach volleyball but the sand was burning hot so we played frisbee instead. Otherwise the other gym times Ive gone and played basketball in the gym. Ah but the amazing thing too was Friday night they had Papa Johns pizza! It was sweet. We also started teaching an investigator on Friday in Malagasy named 'Solofu or Solofo' and our teachers Brother Sell and Brother Bingham said he was a Catholic Madagascarian visiting Provo at the time. Of course most of us were suspicious and assumed he was a returned missionary friend they were having help out or somethin. So yeah we do a LOT of class and studying- most days we have about 11 hours of class/study. So it was nice on Sunday when we got to do our temple walk as a zone and I got some cool pictures. Both of the devotionals have been pretty sweet. Sunday at dinner I ran into Elder Webster in the cafeteria so I brought him over to where our district was sitting and Elder Wootan and I talked with him a bit and got a picture which was pretty cool. He left for Houston Tuesday morning. 

Tuesday morning we had service which was somewhat of a mystery but we then found out its just cleaning buildings  around campus. Then after we had gym but they had the people at the gym go help move mattresses and bed stuffs into a new residence hall they are building. Tuesday at dinner our district was eating and Elder Wootan and I were laughing about funny things, and then he said something right after I was drinking some apple juice and I totally lost it right there and just threw up all over my tray but then I also started choking on some of my "upcoming food" and I was turning all red and kinda almost passed out I think. One of My companions ran to the front desk and they got someone and whatnot. Luckily I didn't get any on my suit or shoes or clothes or anyone else... but there were two girls in my zone sitting on one side of me, so I felt pretty bad about that. Anyway they sent me to the bathroom and there I threw up the rest of my dinner. Then I felt a bit better and the doctor said I could go. So I went on to class and the devotional. But the whole thing was pretty embarrassing. Plus I ate at the cannon for a whole year and the food never made me throw up there.... haha... So yeah Wednesday I saw Elder Clark also from my BYU ward, as he arrived that day, and yesterday Elder Alhstrom told Elder Yeagley, Elder Andersen, Elder Wootan and me a story about how he knew someone in a class at BYU who said they knew someone who worked at the MTC teaching Malagasy and showed him a pic and guess who! Yeah "Solofo", his real name was Travis. We got back to class and coincidentally he revealed himself as Brother Alduis, one of our teachers. We went to the temple this morning on our first pday which was cool.

Elder Miller 

First letter from Elder Miller!!

Dear Family,
Today has been a very eventful day. It really feels like a million days all crammed into one. We don't get a P-Day this first week but it would be Thursday, so I don't get to check my email until next week. Something crazy, my companion hasn't actually come yet. We are supposed to have 8 in our district, but only 7 right now. Apparently he is coming from somewhere international and they aren't sure where he is last I heard. So I get to just tag along with another companionship in my district, which is sometimes a little awkward/weird. Even though most of our district hangs around about with each other anyway. Also the rooms have 3 bunkbeds but from my district 4 and 4 (3) are in each room. Elder Wootan (a friend of Elder Miller's from school) is in the other room, but we are also barely ever in our rooms. Malagasy is interesting enough. Wednesday afternoon we dove right into greetings and such in the language training. They gave us a lot of training books and a triple combination in Malagasy. The language is going quickly and learning a lot all at once. It's hard to continue concentrating and learn with long blocks of hours of just learning. Tonight we also meet with our Branch President for the first time. I saw Elder Durney a few times, I don't know if he saw me and Elder Hanks a few times as well. A girl that was in my ward at BYU is here too. Elder Wootan and I saw at the meeting thing Wednesday. The MTC food is also pretty much exactly the Cannon Center food which is a bit disappointing, exact same trays, cups, drinks, food. The hamburger at lunch didn't seem to be cooked quite as badly as the Cannon Center's though. As of Thursday night I got assigned as part of a threesome companionship because they don't know where the other Elder is.
                        Sincerely,
                                        Elder Miller