Getting to know Huauchi!

Buenas tardes amigos y familia!!

How was everyones week? I can imagine things are starting to look prettier and prettier in good ole utah county. But too bad its not as pretty as it is here! Haha this place already has my heart. Compared to my other three areas, Huauchi is paradise.

This week we just got to know the area, the people, and the ward! We have already had a lot of success finding people, people are so ready and prepared here! Im used to Pachuca where everyone rejects us haha. Still almost everyone is Catholic, but there are a lot of people who are super interested, and we've already found quite a bit of them! We were left with a whoppin 0 progressing investigators so we are starting from ground zero, Thats makes it more fun though right? 

We had to road trip up to Pachuca this week for the leadership council which went super well! .We had to wake up at 4:20 but Hermana Kimballs food made it worth it haha.

Sometimes I miss food from the states haha. Im super curious to see what happens to the mission in June because President Kimball, the two assistents, and 7 of the 13 zone leaders are all going home! I have been the youngest zone leader for about 5 months now, so I dont know what we're going to do without younger leaders! We'll see what the new President does! Lots of changes coming up. Its always fun to see my trainer, old comps, and many others at the leadership councils. After it ended, we road tripped back to Huauchi! It was a total of about 7 hours and 300 pesos for transit haha. I hope we dont make that trip too often. 

Unfortunately today we had to make another trip to Pachuca to get my eye checked out. About three weeks ago, I got hit in the eye with a soccer ball and ever since then there has been a repeating flashing light in the peripheral of my left eye. I thought itd go away but it never did so we went to go see what the problem was. We went to an opthomologist in Pachuca who is actually the son in law of the old stake president in my first area, President Lozano, who just barely got called as a Seventy! I love that man haha, but his son in law was able to help me out! He did several exams on my eye, many of which were some of the weirdest sensations ever haha, and find a contusion in my retina. This is actually very very good news because the doc was thinking I might need laser or surgery if it were more serious. But he just find a contusion that should scare up on its own in about a month and I wont have any of the symptoms anymore! Definitely an answer to my prayers, vision is something you dont want to mess with. Im hoping Ive already received my portion of injuries on the mish, so Im looking forward to moving on without any more problems! Maybe my wrist will get better one day haha.

This week we had something to do every morning which made it difficult to study, but Ill share some thoughts from a district class we prepared this week (My comp and I also have the district leader responsibilites in this district). We talked about I think the second talk of general conference on saturday that talked about the tree of life parable. How the river goes right next to the tree but not exactly to it. Its the difference between being casual and careful with our covenants. I think this is super important! One of the biggest issues now adays is being casual with our covenants. Its almost more of a risk to just go a little bit off the path instead of all the way to the great and spacious building. I hope we can all find things that are making us be casual with our covenants, and fix them so that we can receive all the blessings prepared for us!

Hasta la proxima!!

Elder Millard

HUAUCHINANGO and Arturo & Rosario Baptism!

Que honda familia y amigos!!?



What an incredible weekend with conference!! I hope we can all follow their counsel because it is truly counsel from the Lord.


This week was amazing!! The weekdays were pretty normal but this weekend was absolutely insane. We had three baptisms planned for sunday right after the last session. The night before, the hermana Alma told us that she didnt feel ready or convinced and that she didnt want to get baptized (even after she had the baptismal interview, had her white clothes, and had been planning on this day for months!!!) uhhhhhggg we were so dissapointed. We told her to at least come to conference the next day to feel better about things. She came but then left saying that she still doesnt feel it. And that was the last time I saw her. After almost 5 months of teaching her and having so much hope for her baptism. Definitely was one of the hardest things of my time in Pachuca. I have the faith that she will be baptized soon though, the Elders are still gonna teach her.


But enough of the bad news, the weekend was so amazing for Arturo and Rosario! Elder Cassat and I found them our first week together three months ago. Rosario was the 30th person we had contacted that morning and the first 29 had given us unusually harsh rejection. Thats why it was such a miracle and answered prayer when we found them! They were golden from the beginning, just the fact that they werent married and Rosario wasnt devorced from her previous partner. Thats a missionaries worst nightmare. Long story short, we worked it out with Pres to have them keep the Law of Chastity for sufficient time to show their commitment so that they could get baptized before they get officially married! So they were able to get baptized and it was such a special program! President and Hermana Kimball came too! The spirit was so strong during the ordinance (as usual) but this time was very special mainly because of the testimonies of Arturo and Rosario at the end of the program. Both of them shared such a heartfult and tearful testimony that had all of us mindblown. Pretty sure there was not a dry eye in that room. Im so grateful to have found them and that they are now official members! Everyone literally already thought they were members from all they did (cleaning the chapel, going to church every week, and even going on ward campouts). It was the best way to finish of my time in Pachuca. We had a whoppin 30 ish members come to the baptism so it was the perfect opportunity to say goodbye to all of them. Their love is so great and I really appreciate all they did for me and the investigators during my time in the ward. One of them said "when youre prophet, dont forget about us" hahaha. 


The rest of the night consisted of getting packed and saying goodbye to a few more people. I received my changes right after the last session of conference, and since we had the baptism, I barely had any time to get ready to leave! Lets just say that was a very long night.


So my new area is...... Huauchinango!!! Try giving that pronunciation a try. haha Ill help you out (wow-chee-nahn-go). Everyone in the mission classifies this place as the prettiest in the mission! Its actually in a different state of Mexico called Puebla! Its about three hours away from Pachuca. As soon as I arrived I have been mindblown of the beauty here! SO MUCH GREEN! Its literally a jungle. Lots of hills, and a heck ton of people too which is great for us! I was sent here with Elder Zufelt from SLC! He arrived the same day as my trainer which means he's leaving in 3 months. We'll be zone leaders together in this area! We are opening this area together which means that both of us are brand new and know absolutely nothing! That makes it so much more fun though! We're excited to get to work and meet everyone in this gorgous place.


One specific part of conference really helped me with what happened with Alma. The speaker said that if we invite people to Christ and they dont accept, it is nothing of our own fault. The spirit is the teacher and its just our job to be the hands! It is such an important responsibility for the members to be the instruments of the Lord and share the gospel! If people dont accept, dont give up hope, they might accept later! If we do our very best to invite everyone, there will be people who join us in this great church.


Les amo! Hasta la proxima!


Elder Millard


p.s. I have lots of pics but this internet cant even load one of them. Next week hopefully I can send some!


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End of Transfer!

Buenas tardes familia y amigos!!

I hope everything is all well in O town! Im sure spring is starting to spring! I love how Utah actually has seasons haha. The only thing here is a rainy season and then everything else is basically the same haha. It was a great week here in Pachuca!

On Tuesday night, the bishops wife came with us to an appointment with Alma! She is doing really well but doesnt feel super comfortable making a baptisimal commitment if her husband doesnt even want her going to church every week. We explained to her a lot of things, and tonight we have another appointment with her to see if she is willing to follow through with her baptisimal date for this Sunday! I really hope she can because that is probably that last day I have in this area.

Arturo and Rosario are looking great for this coming sunday for their baptism! They are literally the best members of our ward and theyre not even members. They helped clean the chapel this saturday, they drove people up to a ward camp outing, and they are giving the missionaries food now. We love them. They're super cool too because we found them on a day that (before finding them) had no success. We contacted 30 people that day. The first 29 wanted absolutely nothing, but Rosario was the 30th contact, and look how far shes come. That was just a lesson for us to never give up on the contacting, there are people ready. 

Another baptism planned for this coming week is the hermana Nadia who is the cousin of an investigator that we've had for about 4 months. He just cant start smoking. But now his whole family is learning about the gospel and things are looking good!

We have high hopes for this weekend with 3 baptisms planned and Alma that could very well get baptized this week as well. It is the last week in the cycle which means Im probably leaving to a different area next week, since I already have 4 and a half months here. Its always posible for me to stay, but missionaries in this mission rarely stay in the same area for 6 months so we'll see. We're just excited to finish off the cycle strong! These are great investigators we were blessed with and how cool that they get to be baptized right after the last general conference session on Sunday! We are so excited for them, and SO EXCITED for conference as well! It'll be quite the weekend.

I just started reading the Book of Mormon completely in Spanish. Ive read obviously a lot of verses on Spanish but now Im going from start to finish. So right now Im still in 1 Nephi. I just loved reading Lehi's vision of the tree of life again. Its unbelievably relatable to what we are all going through. It talks about CLINGING to the iron rod to be able to keep going through the misty darkness that arrives in the world. With the words of ancient and modern revelation, with family, with prayer, with living the gospel, we can stay strong to the iron rod and make it to the tree of life which is eternal life. 

Que tengan una buena semana!

Elder Millard

P.S. no pics this week but next week im sure there will be plenty to share!