Rare to Find Someone that Speaks Italian Here!

Ciao da Roma!

Well, things here are great. Rome is crazy! I had no idea what a big city was until I got here. There are foreigners everywhere, and we talk to people from all over the place every day. it is pretty incredible. We live right by a ghetto tram, that takes us to the main Train station in Rome, and every other place we need to get to. On average we spend MOST of our time on the metro, the bus, the Train, or the tram! Ha ha the work is completely a different story up here. We don't really do street, its actually nice because its a lot more natural to talk to people on a bus, or waiting for the tram, because your both already THERE. WE basically spend about double the time getting from appointment to appointment, because it is such a larger area, and we spend anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half making our way around the city.

Our Area is the South East chunk of Rome. We have the Colosseum in our area. It is a huge area. The ward is pretty small actually from what I thought it would be. About 60 active members, and TONS of less actives. We have been able to see only one of our investigators, whose name is Teresa. She is Peruvian, and is golden, except her husband wont let her get baptised. She speaks what is called Itagnolo (Spanish and Italian) It is terrible ha ha. i started reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish last week, its going well ha ha.

My companion is so sweet. She is from Pollock Pines California and is really really quiet. She is a year younger than me, she was home schooled... She is the 2nd oldest of 7 kids, and cant speak a lick of Italian ha ha its great though because it helps me to remember how powerful a simple testimony is! It seems like yesterday that that was me just getting here. She is super humble, and is really really great. We are doing good at Speaking Italian all day. It makes it hard for her, but I know how important that is in learning the language. It was awesome, her first full day here, we went out and did proselyting at the Colosseum, to get her thrown right in the world of being a missionary, and facing our fear of talking to people immediately! Ha ha on the way there, we started talking to this girl on the Metro. I looked up and realized that we were supposed to get off. This lady was super awesome so i started scrambling through my purse trying to find a pamphlet in Romanian. I managed to get it to her and escape off the metro, my companion on the other hand, got completely smashed in the door ha ha SO I was on the outside, pulling her arms, and trying to pry the door open, meanwhile people are totally just staring at us laughing I'm sure ha ha It was a good welcome to the mission for her. She got the pamphlet though!!! Woo!

Today for Pday we went to Saint Peter's Basilica and spent the day seeing the sights at St. Peter's Square. It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. the statues are just enormous and there is so much history packed there that a few hours there weren't enough. We also went to another sweet plaza called Piazza di Spagna. Amazing P-days here..

Sorry my letters are gradually getting shorter and shorter, but I will fill you in on everything soon enough. I love love love being a missionary. We taught this amazing Romanian family we met this week, and were able to see them again last night. they don't speak a lot of Italian, but we have a new convert who is Romanian who is going to help us with teaching her. i just am so grateful for what I have learned on the mission. i am so glad that I now know who I am and who I want to continue to become. I have such a strong testimony that the hardest times in our lives are the times when we can be the closest to our Heavenly Father. He will lift us if we go to Him and are humble. I never want the mission to end!!! Training is just awesome and it helps me remember back as I share with her my experiences, of all the countless experiences I have had that have helped me to grow as a person. I know God lives and he has an intricate role in our lives- He loves us, and gives us opportunities to recognize him every day. We have evident truth of his love through the Restoration of his Priesthood. the church is true!!! How could it not be!!!!?????? I love you all and pray for you often! But to be honest, I don't think of you that much! ha ha I only have a few more weeks to give my whole heart might and strength to this work!! No time to loose!

Vi voglio un mondo di bene!

MONICA

...Sorella Miller

Your Not Gonna Believe this!

HEY FAMIGLIA!!!!

My fingers cant type fast enough. I am so so so excited to write and tell you all that The Lord hears and ANSWERS prayers, because I'm going to ROME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cant believe it ha ha I prayed since last June to be able to serve in Rome and now I get to do my last Transfer there! President is blowing us out of Bari. Sorella Tinoco is going to Sardegna, and I'm off to teach the Romans! And, I am also TRAINING again ha ha I cant believe it. I was freaking out on the phone when President called me, because I was already pretty prepared that I would be staying in Bari to finish the last 6 weeks, but then he told me that I was going to be in Rome and I just freaked out ha ha So yea, I take off tomorrow on a train to Rome, I still cant even believe how lucky I am. The time is going to fly by, but I couldn't be happier to be able to not only finish my mission near the temple grounds and the VATICAN, but also to be able to train. Those transfers of training were my favorite months of the mission it was an incredible experience. This is totally an answer to prayer, because I'm going to have to work my tail off these last 6 weeks, and that is EXACTLY what I want to do. I have also realized that the Lord will be humbling me up and preparing to re-enter into the real world not as a missionary, with my heart completely devoted to him. Yea, so that means he is blowing us in to Rome. I'm sure that I will be lost the majority of the time, and its going to be crazy having a new missionary with me, but I seriously couldn't be happier. I have been praying so hard to just make the most of my last transfer and to work work work like crazy, and the Lord is SERIOUSLY just handing that right over to me with this responsibility. I have learned a lot of humility lately since it has been a pretty difficult last few weeks (considering the work here) In Bari

The Family we have been teaching is not really progressing anymore. Unfortunately the father is drinking again, and smoking more than he was before. Not sure why these things happen sometimes, but I know that Satan has got a big role in it. Oh yea, and President Kelly told me that Sorella Foote will be coming as one of the replacements here in Bari, so i couldn't be happier about that, since she is incredible and will do a great job.

Well, I don't really know what else to say, except I will be sure to have a nice lengthy email for you next week informing you of how its going in the capital of Catholicism of the world haha WOO BRING IT ON!!!!!!! :) I love you all, please pray, because as excited as I am, President said its going to be a hard work there, especially training, because I will have no one to train me on the city, and we are not talking like its a city the size of Ragusa ha ha this is ROME! Oh and PS I'm also really excited because I already know the zone leader, (the Elder from Spain in the MTC) and they will be in my ward and district apparently. President said that he will be able to help us so that will be good. There are 14 missionaries in Rome, and 4 wards. I still cant believe it. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Con tanto affetto,

XoXo

MONICA

aka... SORELLA MILLER

January 5, 2011

Ciao Famiglia,

Well, I thought I would be finishing here in Bari, but now I am not sure. I received an email from President with his thoughts about what he wants to do for my last transfer, and I was pretty shocked. He told me that he is highly considering taking BOTH Sorella Tinoco and me out of Bari and putting in two new Sisters. He asked for my input, and said that we will be getting final calls on Saturday. Holy Cow, I have no idea how it will all play out, but I am sure it will be exciting either way!

We haven't really seen a lot of progress with our family lately since they have had family in town at their house. Sunday only the Father came. We had a Sunday school lesson on honesty and bless his heart was like confessing up a storm to us and the rest of the class. One of those hours in Sunday school where you wish that they would just poke their head in and say "5 minutes"...and it never seems to happen. Yeah, he basically told us in one of these "confessions" that the cigarettes are stronger than him, and he is having no success at quitting smoking. Ehhh, its hard to help someone with something that is so strong, when they don't have a strong testimony of WHY it is important. We will keep working to help them, and try to get to the ROOT of the problem of why they aren't keeping commitments.

Something that came to me this week that I think is a huge lesson that is applicable to a lot of things is this: Its not just "This person did not come to church" "this person is not coming to church on time, they only come to Sacrament meeting" "this person will not quit drinking coffee". OK, yes these are the facts, these are realities, but what is more important is "WHY is this person struggling to come to church, and how can I help them to overcome these obstacles, what can I do for them to help them!"? Far too often we just jump to conclusions and assume there is some PROBLEM with someone if they don't reach certain results, but far too often there is more we can do to HELP them, than just judge and get frustrated with them. Not sure if that makes sense writing it on paper...?

This morning on our P-day the stake called me and asked me to come be a soccer coach for the Stake Young Men and Young Women's soccer activity ha ha I was the coach for all these young women and it was hilarious. Only 8 of them wanted to play, and they were all clinging on to me the whole time and just running around flirting with the boys gathered around to watch. Doing cartwheels down the field and dancing etc. Ha ha I remembered for a minute what it was like to be 14 years old, it was a sweet little flashback, and hilarious to watch them at the same time.

This last week we had a lesson with our investigator from Venezuela. He was a dentist in Venezuela, and lives here with his wife and two little girls. It is super hard to teach him, mainly just because he makes offensive comments and it is difficult to talk. He believes in magicians from south America who tell you about your previous lives etc. He's a big supporter of reincarnation etc. Makes the plan of salvation make so much sense to me!! Its all so beautiful and simple.

We had one of the nicest encounters with a Jehovah's Witnesses couple this week in the park. My companion approached them (not knowing they were TJ's as we call them here (Testimoni di Geova)) and we ended up having a 45 minute discussion there in the park. Most of them are really really contentious, and they were the nicest TJ's I have ever met. Towards the end they started bringing up confrontational concepts like "Why we don't call him by his real name GEOVA? and why we believe in a prophet when the gifts of the spirit are gone?" etc etc. Wow, THE GOSPEL IS SO TRUE!!!! HOW COULD IT NOT BE!?!?!?!?

We had a fun time on new years eve (me and my comp) We had to be in our apartment at 6 pm and I introduced her to the good ole' miller tradition of SNOWBALLS. woo, it was great. We sat on our balcony with our snowballs and watched the pyromania Italians shoot fireworks off their balconies into the trees and small courtyards. There are no laws against fireworks here and it is a pretty dangerous month to be in Italy ha ha. For the last 3 weeks we hear tons and tons of fireworks every night. They are seriously obsessed with them ha ha

New years day was the annual cleaning day and our apartment was sick. We found tons of cockroaches that were living in our coach, and threw away a TON of junk. it felt so good to have a clean house!!!!

I often hear someone say to me "Yes I will listen, but I will NEVER change my religion, I was Catholic in the womb, and I will die one, even if the truth is somewhere else." I wish I could help you understand HOW stubborn 99% of these people are. I love them, but man they are soooooo TRADITIONALISTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were able to teach this sister of the branch president that we found this last week. It went well, considering they have never let missionaries in their house, but then at the end of the lesson she whipped out a line something like " I will listen to you and I think you girls are wonderful, but I will never change religions" Patience Patience :)

I will let you know how I will be finishing my last transefer, next week! I hope you are all well!

A scripture that stood out to me this week that I had never noticed before. Here is a cool spiritual thought to think about. In Alma 60: 21-24. This is in a war context, but it jumped out to me as applicable to all of us, since we are all surrounded by many who are spiritually wounded and dying, we have the "means" to help these people. I love the first part of verse 24. Get up and Do something to help these people. Love you all.

Tante belle cose,

MONICA

...Sorella Miler

ps. sorry this letter was a lot of random thoughts and stories

December 29, 2010

From: Monica Gean Miller

Hey famiglia,

Wow it was so great to talk to you all. Everyone looks great and it gave me a huge boost to finish strong. Even if the next day was hard again all over! Haha To be honest the work right now is really hard. We saw the family on Monday. Unfortunately it seems that Satan gets them to think about their problems more than having faith in Jesus Christ. It is hard to get them to keep commitments because there is always an easier excuse. We are going to try to focus more on their 21 year old son who is awesome and super receptive to the spirit. We think maybe if we can get him to make progress he will be the one to now set the example. All in all, we are praying a lot to find the elects that are out there, just super hard to find.

We were doing house the other day and found a man. It turns out that his wife is the sister of the branch president in Bitonto who is NOT a member, and their daughter got baptised about 4 years ago. Their daughter now lives in Milan, and 5 months ago her husband was also baptised. We knew NOTHING about this family. Turns out the Branch president in Bitonto baptised their daughter, AND son in law, and has been working for years trying to get them to receive the missionaries in their home. We randomly found this family, and they let us in! Right there at the door. We then saw them in church on Sunday, and they were with their daughter who was here for Christmas from Milan! We talked to the branch pres of Bitonto and he is convinced they are ready to accept the gospel in this period since they willingly let us in, when before they had sent the sisters to them many times and they never let them in. Were guided! Cool story.

I know the gospel is true. This week for the first time I had a realization that my time is running out. I love feeling the spirit every day here in the mission. I know it is because we are literally set apart from the world, but also I know it is because we DO a lot to INVITE the Spirit into our lives. I love that feeling of joy and wanting to just do good, that the spirit gives us. I hope that even though you all are in the world, you do things each day to invite the spirit to be present each day. I know that we can always have that JOY that the Spirit gives us if we want to have it, but it takes conscious effort. I love you all so much.

Con tanto affetto,

Monica

XoXo

...Sorella Miller

Merry Christmas! December 22, 2010

HIIII famiglia!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, this letter will be short since we willl be talking with you all via skype in just a few short days. Wow, I am so excited and that will be the best present for me i could ask for.

I am so excited, and dont feel like writing a letter when I can just tell you on the phone in two days which is much easier. I hope I can get to some how talk to everyone! Today was sweet because we went out to Chinese food, just like we always do, the week of christmas! haha

Love you all and Merry Christmas!! TALK TO YOU SOON!!!!!!!!

Just so you all know im going to bawl my eyes out, oh well ...

Con tanto affetto,

un bacione

MONICA

...Sorella Miller

Missionary Companions and Scriptural Companions

Sorella Miller and Sorella Tinoco November 2010 with The Bible and the Book of Mormon

Preach My Gospel

We continue to teach and pray for this families baptism...Grazia & Giacomo