Staying in Ojai

It's transfer time! Can you believe it?! Firstly, lets start off with

transfer news!

Okay, I made that more exciting than it needed to be. Hermana Zarate

and I are both staying here in Ojai another transfer! We are excited

to be here for the holidays, and to keep working with our

investigators and the members here.

This is why you never let your companion borrow your camera!

This has been a good week here in Ojai. I apologize for not having a

lot to write, but it has been a pretty routine week. Not a lot of new

things to report!

Yeah. This is a really lame post. I left my old planner at home and

for some reason I just blanked on everything that has happened over

the last week, other than a lot of rain! We love it though. It is so

needed, so there aren't any complaints from me!

Well, I will see if I can find some good pictures to send home

instead. I promise I will do better next week!

We found a British Candy store.... hello yummy!

Merry (early) Christmas everyone!

Love you all lots

Hermana Courtney Miller

Lots of Investigators!

Hello Everyone!

This will be a quick post. I don't know where time went this week!

Ojai is doing great. We had our ward Christmas Party this weekend, and

had 11 investigators there! Some of them were formers, and potentials,

and all kinds of different things, but it was so incredible. We also

had a ton of Less Actives there. It was such an amazing experience. I

am so grateful for the fellowship and support we received from the

ward that day, so that we were able to help every one to have a good

time. We were just so blessed. Then yesterday, we had a man who showed

up at Church. He rode his bike all the way from the far west end of

our area to come to church. He said he had talked to missionaries

about 6 months ago on the street, and they gave him the information

for sacrament meeting. He decided to come yesterday, found the

information, and showed up. He has never attended another church

before, and really liked his experience here. It was such a miracle

filled weekend. I love it!

Ward Christmas Party

This week, we have really been doing a lot of work with the new video,

He's the Gift. If you haven't seen it yet, you should watch it! Go to

Christmas.Mormon.org, and click "view video" It is just such a sweet

(short) video that reminds us what this time of year is really all

about. I have seen it a ton of times now, and I still love it. It is

so great!

Our cute little christmas tree!

Other than that, life is good. It is already the last week of the

transfer, which I can not believe. I don't know where time has gone!

It is strange too, because it is almost Christmas, and like 60 degrees

outside every day. Don't know that I will ever get used to that. Oh

well!

"Duck Lips," the yummy way!

Like I said, short post. I apologize!

Hope everyone is doing great. I love you lots!

Hermana Courtney Miller

Is it December Already?!

Happy December everyone! (Still can't believe that I am saying that.

Time is flying!)

I hope you all are doing great. There is not a lot to write this week,

so I was going to make up for it with a lot of pictures, which would

be exciting, if I hadn't left my camera on my desk this morning! Oops!

More to look forward to next week then? Sure. That works!

Anyway, it has been another great week here in Ojai. The big news is

that it rained yesterday and last night. Everyone is super excited

about that. Still trying to catch onto the excitement. Meanwhile, I

will just enjoy my scarves, sweaters, and hot chocolate, and hope that

an umbrella is enough!

S. is still doing great. We are still not totally sure when she

will be baptized, but it will be soon!

We did a lot of service for people this week. Lots of yard work, and

gardening. I am going to be really good at that by the time I leave

Ojai! Also, found out Black Widows and Brown Recluse spiders are

really popular around here. Got to kill a lot of those this week while

doing service. (And by kill, I mean run away screaming while the

Elders die laughing and kill it with a rock.) But whatever. (Mom, feel

free to pretend like you didn't read this paragraph. I promise, I will

be fine!)

Thanksgiving was great! We ended up eating with a family from the

ward, and it was good! They had a few other members over, so we just

had a good time. However, I swear turkey has been a part of every meal

we have eaten since then, so I might start gobbling here pretty soon.

Let's hope not!

Anyway, like I said, pretty chill week. I hope all is well with all of you.

Love you all lots. Stay awesome, and enjoy this first week of December!

Hermana Courtney Miller

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone has an awesome week! I can not believe how fast time is going by. I still can not believe that it is Thanksgiving. What happened to this year??

Ojai is doing great. We were blessed to have some new doors open up to us this week, as far as new areas to work in. We might have gotten *slightly* lost on Saturday (Okay horrendously lost. There was a lot of laughing and trying to find where we were on a map. Why did I ever think I could do this without a GPS?) We were trying to find a less active (who we never found, by the way,) but it worked out well, because we were able to find a couple AWESOME neighborhoods on the south edge of our area, that as far as we can tell, have not been worked in in a long time. We talked to a couple people, but are so excited to go back and work there more in the coming weeks. We were also super blessed that the Elders worked everything out, so we are now able to tract in the other half of Ojai. Before we were only allowed to go and visit people in the area book, and go to referrals from the English Elders, but now with that door having been opened, we are excited to get in there and find lots of people. 

S. is still doing great. We are really hoping that we will be able to work towards her baptism really soon. Right now, we are just waiting on a couple more things to happen. This week we are really going to be focusing on her and her husband together, and finding out if there are any ways that we can help them together. Lots of prayers are being said for both of them right now. We have pretty much finished all of the lessons with Shirley now, we just have a couple of things left from lesson 5. She is so incredible though. Last night, we were teaching about following the prophet, and she couldn't remember who Thomas S. Monson was, so Sister Longstaff pulled up a picture on her phone, and instantly S's face lit up, and she was like, "Yes! He talked at conference. I know he is a prophet. Of course I will follow him." I love her so much. I can not wait for her baptism.

We had a great zone conference this week. We talked a lot about staying "awesome" and staying true to ourselves, and then being the best we can be. It was really neat. I got to see Hermana Clark as well, and see photos from Rigoberto's baptism that happened last weekend. I was so bummed I couldn't go. It's all good though. It is always a fun day when you get that many missionaries together, though. I love it.

Other than that, there is not a ton to report this week. I can not believe it is already over. 

I know I have been slacking on the picture front, so I will try and take more this week. Promise. For now though, here are a couple fun pics from last weeks mini golf adventure with the district.

A Great, Crazy, Miracle-filled, Cold-fighting, Amazing Week.

What a week! It has been a great, crazy, miracle-filled,

cold-fighting, amazing week.

First off, Ojai. What a town. So not only is it like hippie central,

but we also found out this week about all of the celebrities that live

here. Not to brag, or anything, but I had dinner two doors down from

John Krazinski, and two streets over from Channing Tatum the other

night. I died. Just a little bit. Okay, a lot a bit. I will meet them

before I leave this town. Even if it takes my whole mission!

Okay, so now back to more focused things...

The work here is awesome. One of the Elders from our district served

here about a year ago, and this week, he and one of the Zone Leaders,

came up and worked in Ojai for a night, finding a bunch of old

investigators and contacts that had been lost over the past year. They

had some amazing success, and found us some awesome investigators, and

saw some awesome miracles, all while I was passed out sick trying to

sleep off a cold. It was so neat though, because even though we

couldn't do a lot that day, the work still went forward. Talk about a

miracle. I was so tickled about that. (Is tickled even the right word.

I don't know. Pretend like that fit.) We also saw an amazing miracle

yesterday. This man walked into church about an hour before it

started, and came right up to us. Hermana Zarate and I just happened

to be there getting some things together for the day. He told us that

he was baptized when he was stationed in Germany with the Army

probably 40 years ago, and he was really active for a long time, but

after a while, fell away, and had his records removed. He showed up

yesterday though, because some things have happened in his life, and

he wants to come back, and be re-baptized! What?! It was crazy. And

amazing. He couldn't stay for church, but we exchanged phone numbers,

and we got his address, and are going to go by tomorrow to visit him.

It was such a miracle.

Our other awesome miracle this week is S. She is the

awesome investigator I have talked about a couple of times. She is

from the Phillipines, and is totally deaf. Her husband is a returned

missionary, and can barely hear, and mostly relies on signing. So this

week, we went over, and took them a "Stories of the Book Of Mormon"

book, for Shirley. Since English is not her first language, it was

easier for her to understand. Last night, we went over, and not only

had she read the chapters we had assigned her, and explained them to

us in detail, she said that wasn't enough, and started reading from

the beginning. She is so amazing. She is going to be baptized here

really soon, we are just waiting for a couple more things to fall into

place first. I am so excited for her. She is one of my favorite people

in the world. I love her so much. I am so happy to get to be part of

her life right now.

So you see what I am saying.... AWESOME WEEK!

One of the ladies we are doing service for this week kept quoting a

Psalm, that I think perfectly applies to how I am feeling right now:

"My cup runneth over." It is so true. I feel so blessed this week, and

am loving this work. It has been such an incredible week.

I love you all. Stay awesome.

Hermana Courtney Miller

I Live in Paradise!

This has been a great first week here in Ojai. The area is great!

There are so many awesome people here. It really is a fun area. Super

quirky too. Hippies for days.

I live in Paradise. Enough said.

We have some awesome investigators, and I am excited to be working

with them. One of our investigators, S., is absolutely amazing.

She is deaf, and her husband can barely hear, so sometimes

communicating with them can be a struggle, but through the spirit all

things are possible. Her husband is a member, and a returned

missionary, so he has been able to really help us, and make sure that

she is understanding what we are teaching. We are looking into maybe

learning a little bit of ASL to be able to help her learn, but we will

see. That might just be getting a little too crazy. We will have to

see. But anyway, last night we went over, and they told us that they

had prayed about the baptismal date that we had committed her to,

November 22. They said that they had gotten an answer, and that

Shirley was ready to go forward with that day. We are excited to work

with her towards that date, and for her to be able to be baptized. It

is something that she wants so much in her life, and I am so grateful

to be a part of her journey. I am so happy to be here, with her, to

help her make these first steps in her journey towards our Heavenly

Father. She is so much fun to be teaching.

Hermana Zarate is great. I am loving serving with her. She is a super

fun missionary, and a hard worker too. That is my favorite

combination. :) We are going to have an awesome transfer. I can

already tell. Plus she kills the spiders that apparently love to crawl

all over me. It is a win-win situation. (Yes, this is a situation we

have been in more than once.)

Hermana Zarate and me

I love this work, and I love this area. It really is a great time to

be a missionary.

The district

I am so sorry this is such a short post, but hey, it's something. I

hope to have more to report soon. I love you all!

Hermana Courtney Miller

Awkard pictures for days. (Last P-day in Santa Paula)

Is It Transfers Already?!

Wow. I can't believe how fast these last 6 weeks have gone. It is time

for transfers already! I am going to be "back up training" Hermana

Zarate, in Ojai. For those of you, like me, who before living here had

no idea where that was, it is only about 20 minutes north of where I

currently am in Santa Paula. It will be such an amazing experience. I

am staying here in the same Stake and Zone, too, which I am super

excited about.

Us with our Ward Mission Leader "Master Sargent Ennis" (He gave

himself that name.)

So Monday, I got a WRETCHED hair cut, which then resulted in an

AWESOME member hooking us up with her friend who owns a Salon here in

town who totally fixed my hair on Tuesday. It was a blast. Back to

short hair again, for now at least!

My short hair!

Halloween was awesome! We got to do a lot of service here at the local

community center helping them set up for their activity, and went to

the Ward Trunk-or-treat that night. It was a blast. Great Day.

Our Halloween service. We still have blisters from tying all those balloons!

The Elders halloween costume and trunk!

An awesome pumpkin from the Trunk-or-treat. It is Lehi's dream from 1

Nephi chapter 8. Hermana Shepherd ended up with it after a drawing and

a little bit of loving threats from the other missionaries.

Trunk-or-treat with the glow-headbands Mom sent

So, as all of you know California has been in a huge draught. All

transfer, we have been praying for rain in every prayer. (Which is a

LOT of prayers.) But guess what happened Friday night? IT POURED. It

was a Halloween Miracle! (Is that a thing? Well, it is now.) Obviously

we went and played in it. It was awesome. It rained all day Saturday

too. It was great.

Playing in the rain!

Santa Paula is such a great area. I am sad to be going, but I know the

Lord puts me where I need to be when I need to be. This week, our

investigator, R., set himself with his own baptismal date for

the 15th of November. I am so excited to be able to still be in the

zone for that, and to be able to go (hopefully.) He is an amazing

investigator who is progressing a LOT. Last time we had talked he was

in Jacob 2, and now, about a month later, he is in Alma 62. Such an

amazing thing to witness. I will be praying fervently that he will

make it to his date. He is such an awesome man, and I have loved

teaching him.

I know I am probably forgetting something from this week, but I can't

think of what it is.

I love you all bunches, and hope you are all doing awesome!

Hermana Miller

Birthday Week

Wow everyone, what a crazy week! I am feeling the love!

Firstly, I had an awesome birthday! My mom sent me some screen shots

of some of your birthday wishes. You all are too sweet! They made my

day. We had a pretty normal missionary day on Thursday for my

birthday. My companions got me ice cream and donuts. It was awesome.

:) At night, the Hermanas came up from downstairs, and we had cake and

ice cream, and Martinellis. It was just an all around fun day. Loved

it! Pictures are included.

Hermana Young likes to laugh as much as I do; it's great! (And for the record, yes, I am drinking Martinelli's from a Mason jar, and yes, those are Avengers plates.)

Love these four so much.  They are SO GREAT!

Other than that though, it has been a good week. Saturday, we got to

go and work at the Swap Meet in Ventura. It was one of the coolest

experiences of my whole mission. We were there for only about two

hours, and talked to 58 people. It was CRAZY. We got so many referrals

from other missionaries of people who want us to come by, and it was

just such an amazing experience. This weekend was kind of a trial run,

but we are hoping to be able to do it more often. We saw so many

miracles. As far as the area, the work is going good. We have one

miracle family who we have been teaching on Sunday nights though, and

keeping all of their

commitments. They have been praying every night as a family, and their

mom commented to us on how much more peaceful their home has been

because of that. It is so cool. And last night, they asked us to come

back on Wednesdays, because they want to hear from us more times a

week. It is one of the best feelings ever! I love this work so much.

Getting to see the Spirit work through these people as they come

closer to their Heavenly Father is just one of the best feelings ever!

My mom is the best! (New Scripture cover)

My time is super short today, so that is about all there is to report,

but just know I love you all. I loved all of the birthday wishes. You

all are the greatest!

Casual Birthday Tiara

Avengers banner.  This was just too perfect not to share.

Keep being awesome!

Hermana Courtney Miller.

I Am Extending!

Hello everyone! What a week!

So firstly, I guess I will get the big news out of the way: I am going

to be extending my mission until August 26, 2015 to be making up for

the time that I missed while I was home. We had Presidents interviews

this week, and we talked about it then. Still not sure what all that

is going to change, and all of that jazz, but it will all work out! I

am glad to be able to have my full time to serve, and this opportunity

I have been given!

Anyway, so back to normal, boring missionary stuff. This week was

pretty routine. Other than interviews it was a pretty straight forward

week. Here are some fun stories:

Firstly, lesson learned this week, never let elders polish your shoes.

This lesson was learned the hard way by Hermana Clark. She let Elder

Lopez polish her shoes on Friday at interviews thinking he knew what

he was doing. There was a lot of laughing, and a lot of trying to

figure out what to do next. Her shoes are now about 3 shades darker,

and totally shiny. Anyway, this means we get a trip to Target in

Ventura today to get her new shoes. Photos are attatched. It was a

riot!

Tuesday, the investigator who had dropped us on Sunday, R.,

called us, and said that he was sorry about how things had ended, and

that he wanted to keep learning, just much more slowly this time. We

are teaching him again, and moving forward a little at a time. We had

a Less Active family at church yesterday for the second week in a row.

Last week they had gone to the Branch, but this week they came to the

Ward, which is where their records are, and are planning on staying.

It is so neat to see them grow in the gospel. R. also came to

church, and really liked it. We also had a less active and

investigator at the Branch on Sunday, so it has been a good week in

that aspect. We are teaching a really cute family with four boys right

now, and we taught them about prayer last night. They loved it, and

their 18 year old boy said the closing prayer. I am loving how

prepared the people here in Santa Paula are. It is such a great area!

Fact: Real men do love Jesus. (This was found in Oxnard, while I was

getting my passport. Also, the lady who did my passport was British.

It was the best thing ever.)

Other than that, there is not a whole lot to report. This week is my

birthday, so that will be fun. One of the members is taking us out to

Lunch that day, and then another member is making us Mole for dinner,

so all in all it is shaping up to be a great day! It will be a lot of

fun!

I have the best mother ever. THAT PACKAGE WAS AWESOME!

It's like missionary Christmas!

Sometimes, you have to put on your headbands and take cute pictures

right before bed.

Anyway, time is short, and I have to run, but I love you all lots.

Thanks for all of your support. Stay awesome, my friends.

Hermana Courtney Miller

Half Way There!

Wow. Time is FLYING BY. This week will be my 9 month mark from the

time I entered the MTC. For those of you who are counting, you will

realize that this will be my half way mark. I can't believe it! SO

CRAZY!

Inspiration for the week!

The area is doing good. This week was a little hard. Our investigator

with a baptismal date, R., was supposed to come to church

yesterday, but his ride showed up without him. We called him, and

confirmed what the person that was supposed to be picking him up had

told us. He told us that he didn't want to change religions, and had

really only been listening to us to be nice. It was sad, but a

learning opportunity. Obviously, there were concerns there that we

were missing, and things we should have been doing different, and we

are trying to do our best to learn from those. It is also a strong

testimony of people's agency, and how at the end of the day, all we

can do is our best, and teach them what they need to know, and then put

it all in the Lord's hands. We talked a lot about the situation

yesterday, after church, and are going to be working this week to

implement the needed changes into our teaching. Other than that the

area is good. We are going to be putting a big focus this week on our

less active members, especially those who live in our area, and attend

the branch. We were able to contact one less active family this week,

and meet with them a couple of times. They were supposed to come to

the ward Sunday morning, but never showed up. We were pretty bummed,

and were going to go over that night to see what had happened, but

then, we walked into the branch, and they were there sitting in the

back row! They used to attend the branch years ago, but had their

records transferred to the ward when they were offended. The branch

was so happy to have them back on Sunday though, and they were truly

welcomed with open arms. It was so neat to see. We really want to have

more of those moments! That is the goal. :) I am loving working in

Santa Paula, and have really loved my time here. Hopefully there is a

lot more of it still to go!

This week, I have been reading in the war chapters in Alma for my

studies. It is something that I have really enjoyed. In my previous

Book of Mormon studies, the war chapters have always been hard for me,

and I didn't feel like I got a lot out of them. This time through, it is quite a different story. I am really understanding what

is going on, and really enjoying not only the stories, but the lessons

there are to be learned. This morning, I started the section about the

2000 stripling warriors, and I am loving learning about their

unwavering faith, and how it is blessing them. These chapters are

becoming such a strong testimony to me, that as we are faithful and

obedient, the Lord will make up the rest. I love reading in the

scriptures every day. It is a great way to start every day.

One fun thing from this week! We got to go to a wedding! One of the

Elder's investigators got married this weekend, so she can be

baptized. It was a nice small wedding, and a lot of fun. I was

grateful for the training I got in cakes growing up. My mom would be

so proud. When we got there, the cake had been dropped off. In two

pieces. And the top tier was just cake on a giant board. No support

board underneath, no support system, anything. And it was a super soft

cake. No one knew what to do, fortunately, Hermana Killpack and I had

both helped with enough wedding cakes in our time to know what to do.

We were able to get the cake off of the GIANT board, and on to the

bottom tier with relatively little damage. All done with tools that

were randomly found in the kitchen. Anyway, it was something I never

thought I would have to do on my mission. It was an adventure. Of

course there are pictures.

The cake ladies

The bride and groom, and their children. It was such a neat day!

Anyway, I love you all, and time is up! I hope you all have a great

week! Love you lots! Stay awesome!

Hermana Miller

Sometimes, you have to make home made mac and cheese and eat it from a pot

Hermana Shepherd and me