January 18

It was a hard week this week, and not very much happened.  

One day I felt like I needed to call our hospitalized investigator to see if he picked up the phone and he did. He had just gotten out of the hospital and charged his phone that morning. He had said that because the hospital was boring he had been reading the Book of Mormon, which is a miracle in itself because he went into the hospital because he was going blind. He said he is about half way done with it and is praying about it.  The only bad part is that he goes into the hospital again today( i think) to get another surgery. So he has said we can visit with him next week hopefully.

We met with our Pakistan investigator and he is a tough one. He has a lot of deep questions and we are trying to teach him simply but his questions he asks are not simple questions. Elder Bodan and I will talk about him this more and think about dropping him, he just is not very prepared to accept what we are saying.

This week I got to read one of my favorite stories in the scriptures, the story of Alma meeting Amulek and both of them going and contending against Zeezrom. I love these two missionaries and the way they work together to confound Zeezrom. I loved it a lot! I found some cool points. I have also been working on improving my prayers so I have been studying a little bit about that as well. 

Playing the piano this week was in one word...laughable. In more ways than one. I found out a couple days before the stake presidency was coming to visit us. That made me a little bit nervous. Me playing was better than not having the piano, but not by much.. I was glad I could laugh at myself and everyone could laugh and forgive me..

Im super excited to go to Nauvoo that will be cool!!!!!!

LOVE YA LOTS!!!!!

Miles

 

 

Elder Boden burning a shirt

Elder Miles the Younger

It was a fun week for us out here. We had some let downs and lots of little happy moments that made it a pretty interesting week this week. 

One letdown this week was our investigator who was in the hospital has not had any contact with us. He is in a hospital where they will not let anyone but family visit and his phone is turned off. So we honestly have no idea how he is doing. We just have to wait until he comes out of the hospital.So we will just have to wait on that one...

On the bright side we had one of our investigators come to his appointment with his two friends. When we first looked at the situation Elder Bodan and i were both kinda bummed because usually multiple people in one lesson is hard and it doesn't end up being a lesson, but it turned out to be one of the best lessons we have had together. They all went to the Catholic church to go and study the scriptures and learn about God, but they said they didn't like it because the people there just wanted to hang out and play around. They said right in front of us that they don't think that it is true.  We shared the first lesson with them and then answered a lot of their questions. They seemed to like our church a lot, so they will  be great investigators.

My study today was a lot in Mosiah.  I read and ponder alot about the conversion story of Alma the Younger.  thinking about that brought me back a little bit to repentance. I found some cool stuff on it. I have also been studying the Christlike Attributes more and focusing on applying them to my life. My attribute this week was humility and I saw some blessings come from striving to be more and more humble this week.

My miracle this week was that an investigator that we have been trying to meet with since I got here came to church on Sunday. He slipped in late and left right after so we didn't have a huge amount of time to talk to him, but it was good to finally meet with him. We should be meeting with him this week. I hope we do!

I got a calling in our ward this week.......I am the new ward pianist...it was pretty awful this last sunday...but i will be practicing really hard this week. good news is it gave me more of a desire to play piano and practice again!

Love you lots!!!

Elder Miles Diede the Younger

pic. walking on a frozen river

 

 

Sportn Korean Glasses

Like to the Look

Contest winner- Elder Diede

Making Dumplings

Pork Intestine soup-  Favorite

Funny English

It was kind of another week where the wheels are turning but your not going anywhere. Those kind of weeks are definitely bound to come. It was slow with investigators this week, our investigator with the baptismal date went into the hospital again and the hospital didn't allow us to visit him on the weekend so we will try and visit again this week. We have been keeping in contact with him talking through the phone but haven't seen him in person this next week.  All of the rest of our investigators either couldn't meet or punked their appointments. We did pick up a new investigator, but im not sure how much interest he really has in the church. I'm getting the vibe that he just likes us and because we remind him of his sons he wants to meet with us.

so because it is new years we make 떡만두국(dumpling soup) with the ward. I ate TONS!!! also cool fact: If you make pretty dumplings later done the road you will have pretty daughters....im pretty sure your gonna have some pretty granddaughters. not being prideful or anything....;) also after I ate a ton of that we had an appointment and he didnt listen to us and took us to a resturaunt and bought us 순대국밥(pig intestine soup) Super good but I was SOOO full!! I was keeping the food down with my chin. But I did throw up this week once..on purpose. Elder Bodan and I did a food challenge. the challenge is drinking 30 of these yogurt things. I surpassed the mark...see picture.....

This week for study I was in the Book of Mormon, I read from Jacob and started a little bit in Mosiah. Well, it is a lot easier to understand the Allegory in Jacob 5 now. It took a little bit of hard studying, but i got most of it down I think. Also something cool this week was I was reading an older Liahona an there was a guy who asked pretty close to the same question that I asked you last week about repentance. It answered more of my question, but lets definitely talk about that more later! That was a cool "mini" miracle this week.

So Trasfer calls also came. I am staying with Elder Bodan...no surprise. The kid that replace me in my last here is coming to be Elder Batschi's comp so I will talk to him tons!!!

One of my other miracles this week was that I get to stay with Elder Bodan again for another transfer. Elder Bodan is a blast to be with and he teaches me alot. I am also super excited to have Elder West come here so he can tell me how my old area, recent convert and investigators are doing. I am excited to see the miracles this next transfer!!

Love you lots!!!!!

Elder Miles Diede

December 28,2014

Hey!

First off im jealous of the Fiesta Bowl. 

This week was a week for me. but not because of the visible success we had this week, actually there wasn't a huge amount of that.  We met with our investigator who is the walking hospital. He is having some struggles with life even more lately. When we met him this week he told us multiple times how he has had thoughts of suicide this week. We talked to him a little bit about that and then Elder Bodan and I decided to share the He is the gift video. He really liked that and it really set the tone for the rest of the lesson. It set the tone so much that we gave him a baptismal date and he accepted the day. The only problem with that is because he is really sick, he cannot come to church easily and to null the pain he turns to smoking and drinking. We will be continuing to try and prepare him for baptism over the next coming week so he can get baptized in January. 

We have another college student who we met with, but he was just really sad that his dog was in the hospital so he didnt listen to us much.He was just really sad. Finally we also picked up a new investigator who, as Elder Bodan tells me is golden. I have not met him before because I was on exchanges when we had an appointment with him.  

So this week was a good study/pondering week for me and i have a couple questions for you. I am reading in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi and I have noticed that one of the patterns in the Isaiah chapter is Repentance. I really felt this week that I need to understand the role of repentance and how we use it better. not because I have some huge sin in my life, but i feel like I will have to explain it and use it better. Maybe I will just have to talk to you in person to make more sense, but I will say it briefly. So.. we all repent and have to keep repenting because we are human and make the same mistakes over and over again. One part of repentance is feeling Godly sorrow,forsaking the sin and asking for forgiveness through Prayer and maybe talking to your bishop. so my first question would be when does the sin become something you have to confess? I know you confess the big sins, but If i feel Godly sorrow for commiting the sin and ask for forgiveness is that full repentence or must there be more? Also because we are human we will almost always make the same mistakes, therefore commiting the same sin we just felt sorry for and promised not to do anymore. That is where the infinite atonement comes in, because He suffered we get unlimited second chance. We just have to STRIVE to be perfect. Because we always are making the mistake over and over, we are never really forsaking the sin. Sometimes after I make the same mistake again i get frustrated because I question if I truly repented in the first place. so How do we truly hate the sin and leave it behind us? As you can tell I had alot to think about this week.

So the reason I will remember this week is because it was a great time to embrace the Spirit of Christ, not Christmas. I dont know if I will ever have a really good chance to do that again but I want to make it a part of my Christmas every year and life every day. I Love this Gospel so much! It makes me be a better person, man, missionary and future husband and father every day! Transfer Calls is this week so we will see what happens. im pretty sure im staying with Elder Bodan!

Love ya Lots!!

Miles