Consecration

HELLLLLLOOOO real world!

What a week!

We made homemade empanadas con la familia DeLeon this week. So yummy.

Did I mention that we made them in their back yard wood burning oven?

Oxnard is doing well. We have an awesome investigator with a new

baptismal date. His name is F., and his brother is a recent

convert. F. has met with missionaries before, but was always

distracted by other things, and never really made any commitments.

Well... now it is summer, and he is about to go into his senior year

of High School, and he told us that he really wants to start to take

things seriously, and really wants to learn more. He has a date for

the 25th of July, and we are so happy for him. He came to church

yesterday, and is excited to keep progressing. We are also focusing a

lot on working with our members and less actives. Especially trying to

get to know those who are in the newish area that we have. It has been

really neat to see how getting to know them has helped a lot with just

gaining trust. I love this ward we are working in, and I love Oxnard.

We had emergency transfers this week. But I got to see all my favorite people.

This week, I have been studying a lot about consecration. I feel as I

have made it a bigger focus in my mission life, it has actually become

a harder thing to do. Although it is something that we will never be

perfect at, it is something we should never stop striving towards. I

was reading a talk by Elder Maxwell this morning, titled Consecrate

Thy Performance. click here The whole thing was incredible, and I wish everyone

would read it. But the part that stuck out to me the most was when he

said, "Spiritual submissiveness is not accomplished in an instant, but

by the incremental improvements and by the successive use of

stepping-stones. Stepping-stones are meant to be taken one at a time

anyway. Eventually our wills can be 'swallowed up in the will of the

Father'." I felt like that was so true. There was no way that we would

be able to do it all at once. That was never the intention. We are

just supposed to keep moving forward. I also really like what he said

at another point, about those around us. He said, "As you and I

develop additional love, patience, and meekness, the more we have to

give God and humanity. Moreover, no one else is placed exactly as we

are in our opportune human orbits." That is Oxnard. The perfect people

have been placed in Hermana Eames' and my human orbits. We have been

surrounded by the perfect people to keep us up, and keep us going when

we otherwise probably would have fallen down. It has been a roller

coaster here these last 10 weeks, but as we keep just trying to move

towards the Savior, he takes care of everything else around us.

Anyway, it has been a good week. I love you all so much, and love

getting to hear from you each week! I hope your lives continue to be

blessed!

District Birthday BBQ for Elder Law. Instead of cake, we had poptarts.

Meditating under citrus trees. #California

We keep it classy.

Much love!

Hermana Courtney Miller

Becoming a California Girl

Hello everyone!

First for the big news of the week: Hermana Brown is being emergency

transferred tomorrow down to Agoura. I am so jealous. But she will be

great. We sure are going to miss her, though.

We went on a hike last week. (And when I say hike, I mean we literally

scaled a mountain. The view was worth it, though!)

Hermana Brown. #Classy

Oxnard is great. We were able to have some awesome success this week

finding new investigators through our members. They truly are the best

way to find new people, and we are excited to see what will happen

with those we are starting to teach. We had a really cool experience

with another investigator this week. He has been trying to get Sundays

off from work for the longest time, and so we fasted with him this

week. He felt really strongly after that he needs to be baptized, and

should be at church next Sunday. We are so excited to work with him as

well.

California is growing on me. (And by growing on me, I mean that I am

already obsessed with this place.)

Sorry this is so short, it has been a crazy week, I just am not sure

what to write.

I love you all tons though!

Have a great week!

Hermana Courtney Miller

Tender Mercies

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week! We sure did here in Oxnardia.

Oxnard is great. I love the work here. This week Hermana Eames and

Hermana Huey contacted an awesome referral from Elder Law that are

super solid investigators. They are currently reading in 2 Nephi in

the Book of Mormon (after starting in the beginning) and have such

incredible desires to learn more. We are so excited to start working

with that family, and to see what will come of that. We focused a lot

this week on doing a lot of How to begin teaching and getting to know

our investigators more. One really cool miracle that we saw come from

that is finding a major concern of one of our investigators. He had

been telling us for weeks that he had been asking off Sundays, and

just not getting them, but after taking the time to get to know him,

and really showing how much we cared, he opened up to us, and shared

that he hadn't asked any off, and that he wasn't sure how he could do

it. He asked how we could give up so much to come on our missions, and

we shared a lot about faith, and how we have to just trust in our

Heavenly Father's promises. We are excited to keep working with him,

and to help him progress towards baptism. This coming week we are

going to work on doing the same thing with our Less Actives, really

getting to know them and finding out how we can help them. We are

excited to see what will come of that.

Someone came up last Monday and surprised me at emails. I figured this

was the most appropriate photo to describe our relationship.

This week I have a strong testimony of the phrase "the tender mercies

of the Lord." This Saturday was a huge one. Hermana Brown and I went

on exchanges with Hermana Newland in Ventura. Exchanges in and of

themselves were great. It was awesome to have some time to get away

from everything, and to have a fun change of scenery, and do some

awesome work. Hermana Newland is awesome, too, so that doesn't hurt

anything. The coolest part though was a baptism we went to on Saturday

morning. Apparently one of the Elders had told Hermana Newland that if

I was the one who was going to be in Ventura, that we needed to come,

though we had no idea why. When I walked in we found out it was a

baptism from the Ojai ward I nearly cried. Seeing everyone was so

incredibly awesome, and just what I needed. It was incredible to get

to see D. and S. again. I am still giggling like a little girl

over how happy that baptism made me. The Lord has perfect timing and a

perfect plan. It was an incredible day.

Best reunion ever!

This week we did a lot of service for the O. family, a part member

recent convert family, who moved to Idaho. It was sad to see them

leave, but awesome to get to help them so much. I will let you know

when I finally get all the paint out of my hair... :)

I love you all so much, and hope life is good for all of you. I love

Oxnard so much. I love this mission so much. Life is crazy good.

Hermana Courtney Miller

Becoming Perfected through Christ

Helllllooooo everyone! I hope you had a fantastic week!

Oxnard is doing really well. We spent a ton of our time this week

focusing on our LARCs and we were able to have so many of them at

church on Sunday. It was truly a miracle. I am so grateful for the

blessings we see as missionaries. Another really cool miracle that we

saw this week was with E., who comes from a part member family.

He knows that he needs to be baptized, has a testimony of everything,

but just doesn't feel like it is his time yet. He came to a baptism on

Saturday, however, and LOVED it. He was crying, and felt the spirit so

strong. After, just joking, we asked, "So we will all be here next

weekend for your's? Right?" His response: "I'm thinking about it."

WHAT?! Such a change of heart. It was such an incredible thing. He

still won't commit to this Friday as a date, but we are all praying

for a miracle. Other that that Oxnard just keeps on keeping on. It is

such a great place.

We have also spent this week helping to paint the house of a recent

convert family who is getting ready to move. It has been a blast. I

will let you know when I can get all the paint out of my hair

though….

My testimony this week has been strengthened about how we can become

perfected through Christ. Mind you, I am no where NEAR perfect, nor do

I claim to be, but I have seen this week how much of a different

person I have become on my mission, in a good way. We were talking a

lot about being consecrated missionaries this week, and I was thinking

about how a consecrated missionary is one who sees who Christ wants

them to become, and does everything they can to get there. Again, I

don't claim to be even slightly good at this, but as I look back over

this year plus some, I see how much my desires have changed, and I am

so grateful that we can truly put off the Natural Man through Christ.

I am grateful for that.

I love being a missionary. Life is good.

Yes, you can all kill me. We didn't take many pictures this week. 

But here is one from last P-Day. It was Elder James' last day, so we had a feast, and hung out. It was a riot.

 #DeerGangForLife #Oxnard6ForTheWin

Have another awesome week!

Con carino,

Hermana Courtney Miller

Christ Can Help Us with All Things--Phillipians 4:13

Hello Everyone! Time is already running short this week, but I have so

much to write. Sorry if this is just all word vomit! Here we go:

So last Monday, our whole zone was together, and we ALL got the

stomach flu. Just like that the Camarillo Spanish zone was out. Only 2

sets of Elders made it out unscathed. Hermana Brown and I were out all

of Tuesday and Wednesday. The poor Elders had to practically babysit

us. We were such a wreck. It was not a pretty sight.

Since the Elders couldn't come in the apartment, they brought lunch to

the sickys and sat outside and talked to us. They're literally the

BEST!

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner of champions (Or just sick people.)

Wednesday night I was finally feeling better, but around 10:30 Hermana

Price had some weird things happen with her head, and I was rushing

her to the ER (Hermana Brown was still sick, and Hermana Eames can't

drive yet.) She had been having problems all transfer, but had been

doing so much better. It came as a surprise to everyone. President and

Sister Felix met us at the ER, and then... we waited. Stupid ER. We

were there until about 2 until Hermana Price was finally seen, and

then we waited some more while she was seen. Sister Felix went back to

the room with her, and President and I waited outside. It was a crazy

night. Sleep deprivation was real, and anyone who has seen me around 3

in the morning knows it was not a pretty sight. We all had some good

laughs, and some sitting staring at the wall, and talked about pretty

much every topic known to mankind. It was an adventure, that's for

sure. They weren't able to find any problems, and couldn't run and MRI

on her for some reason that I still haven't figured out. (Which is

probably a good thing because other wise I probs would have gone crazy

on that ER staff.)

Sand dunes, or mountains?? The world may never know...#EarlyMorningERAdventures

Anyway, Thursday, President called and let us know that Hermana Price

would be going home on Friday, since no one could figure anything out.

It wasn't a huge surprise to any of us, but it was still hard to hear.

She left early Friday morning. We are still going through Pricey

withdrawals! Anyway, that left 3 of us in the struggle bus that is

apartment 851, and we are now tri-panning it! We will actually all be

staying together for the next transfer, too, which we are excited

about.

We are all going to miss Hermana Price SOOO MUCCCHHHH!!!!

It has been a roller coaster of a week, and we are all DEAD tired, but

it has been a good week as well. My testimony has definitely been

strengthened on the fact that Christ can help us with all things.

Phillipians 4:13 has become my mantra for life. If you haven't read it

recently, go, pull out your Bible, and read it again. It is so true.

We can do everything with Christ on our side. This week proves it. We

go through hard things, but at the end of the day it all comes

together to work for our good.

Life is never what we expect. But it is exactly what we need.

Anyway, there is the insanity that was this week.

I love you all so much and am so grateful for the support and love you

all give. You are all always in my prayers.

Now, go have an awesome week. Okay? Okay.

Con Carino,

Hermana Courtney Miller