5 months?

 BIG NEWS INCOMING!!!!

It's official. The Northern Virginia Area has officially announced the creation of its first ever Spanish Stake. THIS IS HUGE!! Literally decades of prayers and fasting and hoping and working have gone into this decision and I couldn't be more excited for our friends. Members of these wards will now have new opportunities to hold stake callings which they are so ready for. The work is progressing x2 speed here and it's seriously an honor to be even the smallest part of it. 

On a more regular note we had a great week!! We're finally over all of our illness and really just on the grind everyday. This week we set some high goals for our area and ways we wanted to improve. We gave it our best effort to speak Spanish 100% (literally so hard) but we saw HUGE miracles!!! We found so many new friends, we were led more by the Spirit, we had people keeping commitments, it was nuts. So cool. 

Oscar is still on his baptism prep grind and I am genuinely stoked out of my mind for the 25th of January. We met Oscar in the beginning of November as he was getting his car jumped. We shared about the  Book of Mormon and invited him to start reading and we've been working with him ever since! He has had a lot of questions, but he has also had so much faith and watching his testimony develop has been truly one of the sweetest experiences of my life. He came to Stake Conference on Sunday and was able to meet our mission President, Stake President, and the presiding authority Elder Barcellos! It was seriously so tender to watch as each of them greeted him with hugs and smiles and congratulations about his decision to be baptized. Because God knows all of his children, Elder Barcellos knows Spanish and was able to talk to Oscar without any translation. Watching this special witness of Jesus Christ testify of the blessings of baptism to my very own friend Oscar was unreal and I'm so grateful for that experience. love it. 

In Stake Conference Elder Barcellos talked about binding ourselves to Jesus Christ through covenants! This bind brings confidence, protection, and deep and lasting joy!! So true. 

We did a lot of door knocking this week and got to meet so many wild people. So many people in towels and underwear and pajamas. Iconic.

I went on an English exchange! It was terrifying!! Special shoutout to every stateside English speaking missionary. You are doing the toughest work out there I'll tell ya it was not my cup of tea. BUT it made me realize that I don't really know how to do missionary work in English and that is something I need to work on because what? Luckily in that exchange we met a few people who spoke Spanish and I was able to talk to them with a little more confidence lol. And someone gave me a homemade scarf!!

Other Notable Things:

- drank this drink from El Salvador called atole de pina, wow that is a doozy I was extremely unwell after but yum!

-rained tons!! so fun I love the rain.

-I've been loving Spanish crosswords lately at the library

-got Biggie Bags with Oscar again lol he hates that stuff

-met a guy who used to be a landlord for the Elders in El Salvador! He had the cutest cat ever

- the APs thought it was funny to give me 6 heart attacks this week :)

- met this guy on a bike who is really interested in the church and then we found out we also ran into him and his wife on News Years so that was funny. It's been happening a lot. baller.

- been cookin up smoothies this week mmm

-ripped all my tights so now I have like half footie pajamas on at all times

- oh also I hit 5 months so that's crazy

-Jonathan S. Schmitt is the guy to know in this place. I love you dearly king. 

Please pray for Oscar and Marci!

I love you! God Loves you! Stay strong

Hermana Miller