The Great Cookie Adventure!

Hello, my lovely friends!

This week was a fantastic week! It feels like time just flew by!

Sister Arcayos and I got to work and had fun while doing it! We had a lot of adventures and success. I already love it so much here in Solano and I cannot wait to continue serving here.

As always…, this week was full of miracles! 

The biggest miracle of this week is that we were able to extend baptism to a family! 

We have only been in this area for 2 weeks, but one of the members told us about their interested neighbors. We promptly went to their house and met them. (They were the coolest family! And they were truly excited to learn about Jesus Christ.) We were able to set up a return appointment to teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. We were so excited!

As we taught them, they were so ready to receive the gospel. We felt impressed to ask them if they would like to accept the gospel in their life, and without hesitation, they said “yes”! We then invited them to be baptized and they agreed again. I am soooo excited! When I got here, I was a little overwhelmed to build an area from scratch, but the miracles have been beautiful. The people here are amazing. I feel my faith growing in the Savior, His plan, and His miracles, as I yet again teach the people in this new area.

This week, we also had exchanges! I got to be companions with the one and only Sister Gonzales!! I love her so much and it was so fun to work with her. I learned so much and felt the spirit. I think sometimes exchanges are hard because it feels like I have to prove myself. But as I worked with Sister Gonzales, I didn't feel that way at all! I was able to be confident in my abilities and grow even more. It was fun to work with her and hear about some of her experiences here on the mission.

Other than having exchanges, Sister Arcayos and I poured ourselves into our area. We have been busy finding and helping people come closer to their Savior.

We did have a bit of an adventure this week. Let me tell you about it:

We wanted to tell our leaders and members how much we appreciate them before Sister Arcayos leaves (this is Sister Arcayos's last full week on the mission). So, we decided to make cookies to give to our leaders, helpers, and some of our interested friends. But we had a small problem…we didn’t have an oven. So, we called around and found a member who had an oven! It was all a great plan. We made the cookie dough and were ready to go. Then…they brought the little oven over (it was a toaster oven…which would be fine if it had a temperature dial). BUT…there was no temperature dial! So, we had a ton of cookie dough and no way to make it.

It was soooo sad! But don’t you fret, we had yet another miracle! We are teaching someone who owns a bakery! They have bakery-size ovens. We thought that it would be a perfect way to make contact once again. A win on both ends… So, we called them and very sheepishly asked if we could use their oven. And of course, they said yes! We made the cookies and got to sort of build a relationship with our interested friends! It was an adventure for sure.

This week was just adventure after adventure, and I loved it! Sister Arcayos and I are trying to take advantage of every minute!

For my spiritual thought, I want to share a little bit from the talk “One Percent Better” By Michael Dunn. In his talk, he quotes Elder Bednar who said:

 “Small, steady, incremental spiritual improvements are the steps the Lord would have us take. Preparing to walk guiltless before God is one of the primary purposes of mortality and the pursuit of a lifetime; it does not result from sporadic spurts of intense spiritual activity.”

I love this idea. If we can just get a little better every day, we are coming closer to Christ. We are becoming who he needs us to be. We cannot let ourselves remain stagnant, because then we are moving backward. But as we take small, incremental steps to get a little better, we find true joy in the gospel.

I think sometimes we get so caught up in improving in large leaps, we overlook the small things. We need to focus on the small things to grow in big ways.

This week was great! I love you all and miss you!!

I hope you all have another great week!
The Church is true, God loves you,
Be happy, Be brave, Be smart,

Love,
Sister Miller