January 25, 2016

Elder Mifflin is still in La Vega zone, Conina area, with the same companion.  They had one baptism in December and the work is picking up. They now have 8 investigators with baptism dates.  Even so they still have some difficulty getting the people they teach to follow up with commitments and make it to church but they are pleased with the progress.  It has been really, really hot and Elder Mifflin misses winter.  He has stayed healthy and is eating lots of rice and beans.

As for most missionaries, service opportunities abound.  Elder Mifflin and a few of his buddies raised some money and rebuilt a needy member’s house at Christmastime, including new walls and a metal roof, all in a few days and it was a big surprise to the sister.  Skyping at Christmas was a special treat for our family. We can vouch for the fact that Elder Mifflin’s Spanish is getting pretty good.

Living in the tropics has its adventures.   Here is an excerpt from a recent email.  “At night before I went to bed I noticed that there was a huge spider chillin’ on the wall above my bed, waiting for me to go to sleep so that he could eat me.  It was a little bit bigger than the size of my palm and super fast.  We had a pretty intense battle, him and I, for about 10 minutes and then I was finally able to smash him with a door, on  top of our shelves.  Fortunately I was able to kill him and sleep in peace.”

Elder Mifflin wrote “the mission has been super frustrating but also super good…I have lots of blessings to count.” He also quoted Elder Jeffrey R. Holland “the mission is hard and sometimes painful, because if you want to be a representative of Christ you must feel and experience a tiny portion of what He felt and experienced.”

We are proud of our missionary.  His testimony and commitment are strong and he is happy with his decision to serve.  He also has a newfound appreciation of the many blessings of the good ol’ USAJ

December 15, 2015

 I will be able to Skype on Christmas Day and will probably have to use the computer at the church.  We still haven´t seen either of those investigators so they might just be gone forever, but we have about 3 references that we are going to receive this week and they are all families so that should be really good.  P day today was pretty sick!  We went to Jarabacoa up in the mountains a little bit and hiked to this sweet waterfall in the jungle. It reminded me a lot of Hawaii, except the water was kinda gross haha,  but was really fun and  was pretty cool.  If the water wasn´t gross it would have been more of a temptation to cliff jump in haha.  We have transfers on the 12 of December and most likely Elder Tucker is going to leave and I will stay here. It is a little bit intimidating to think that in 10 days I will be the comp who has to know the area and everything haha there is a slight chance that I will leave, but I doubt it.  Last night we had dinner at a members house and everyone wanted me to sing some Christmas songs in English.  While I was singing, I was reminded of Grandpa LaVell and all his awesome songs he is always singing.  I couldn't stop smiling and laughing, man that made me miss home and the family a lot for a minute there.  Tell all the family that I love them. I hope you guys enjoy the winter and enjoy this week!

Elder Mifflin

New Pics

Week 14

This Sunday was easily the worst day of my mission so far!  None of our investigators came to church and then a bunch of our lessons fell thru during the day. That couple and another one of our investigators haven´t answered any of our calls or come to the lessons we had set with them, so we probably won't be having a baptism anytime soon. It is all good though, we have been able to find some new people and hopefully we can have some success.  Our Thanksgiving dinner today turned out pretty well. We bought 30 pounds of potatoes and 18 pounds of turkey and also 32 rolls.  It took like 3 hours to cook and mash all the potatoes but it was a success!  I think that was my first meal since being in the CCM that I ate till I literally could not eat more food.  Have fun at the cabin for Thanksgiving.  Love you all!  

Elder Garrett Mifflin

Week 13

As for the marriage and baptism of our couple that was ready to get baptized, it won´t be happening anytime soon. The couple went to go get the papers that they needed to get married, and rats had eaten the husbands papers. In a goverment building of records, rats had eaten a bunch of the papers and there are no other copies and no digital copies of the forms either!! The things that can happen in the DR! It could take up to 10 months before they can get married now, so that’s a bummer! We also have a guy named Hipolito that is going to get baptized the 28 of November. He has been to church 4 times in a row and is super committed to progressing. He is 70 something years old and a really cool guy. We also have an investigator named Nelson who has a date for the 5th of December, he is a really cool guy and we are homies with him. He had a lot of trouble in his life due to drugs and such but he is really turning his life around and changing a lot. I think his date will hold and he will get baptized, he is an awesome guy. Other than that not too much happened this week. It went by really quick. Today for p day we played baseball. I am really bad haha but it was pretty fun. Since we have so many Americans in our zone we are all going to make a big Thanksgiving dinner next p day. That should be pretty fun if it works out. It still won’t be anything like Thanksgiving with the family though. The mish is going by pretty fast and even though I still have a lot of struggles, I am improving everyday and enjoying it. I love you guys so much and miss you. Good luck with everything and enjoy this week!
Elder Mifflin

Week 12

Well.... this was quite the interesting week. Probably the best place to start is with our phone. Elder Tucker accidentally washed it with his pants the other day, so we put it in rice after and gave it some sun treatments and it kind of started working again but not very well, kinda off and on. Then from there things went pretty normal for a couple days. A couple crazy flash flood type storms, lots of lessons, lots of mosquitos, lots of walking. Then Sunday rolled around and let me tell ya I am never going to forget this Sunday!  To start, we had a district conference in Primavera and had 5 investigators attend which was awesome. One of them is this way cool guy that is progressing a lot, and it  was his first time at church. I looked over at him about half way through a hymn and he was crying.  After he said he loved it and felt the spirit really strong there and he wants to go to church every Sunday for the rest of his life now.  After the meeting we had our couple get their baptismal interviews and we helped them to plan their wedding and baptism day. Then we walked 30 minutes home, ate lunch, left for the day, and had some good lessons.  So up to this point it was a pretty good Sunday right?  It was indeed, but from there things went wacko. So we got home around 9: 30 and on Sunday nights we are suppose to report our numbers, but our phone stopped working earlier that day so we couldn't report our numbers. Our zone leaders knew that our phone was barely working and it was too late to leave to try and call them with another phone so we figured that it wasn't a big deal if we didn't report our numbers. So we planned to call them tomorrow, ate some food, and went to bed just like normal around 10: 45 pm.  At 1: 30 am I wake up to the sound of someone banging on our door.  I walk over to the door and look through the little crack in it and see white shirts and ties, its the zone leaders!   Then I hear Elder Walker´s voice outside, one of the AP´s. So I freaked out a little bit and ran over and shook Elder Tucker awake and we opened the door. There were the AP´s,  two members from our ward, and PRESIDENT CASTILLO!  I never thought I would be seeing the mission president trying to break down my door at 1: 30 in the morning, but I did!   So anyway,  they run in and are losing it (where have you guys been?!?!......what were you doing?!?!?!) They told us that they had called the police, all of our investigators, and the area seventy. They thought we had been kidnapped.  So we had to assure them of our innocence, that we had been there the whole time sleeping and our phone just wasn't working.  Then they left after about 15 minutes.... it was so crazy!  I was so shocked I couldn't fall back to sleep for about 3 hours.  I also didn't know if they had called our families and so I was a little freaked out because I know that my mom would have lost her marbles if she was told I was missing.  So how did all this come to be? We ended up finding out the next day that the hermanas in our area were told by the district leaders we hadn't called in. So the hermanas called a member to go to our house around 11 to check on us. He must have not knocked hard enough because we didn't wake up. So he told the hermanas nobody was home..... and they freaked. One of them called the mission president crying and told him she thought that we had been mugged or kidnapped, so that is why he ended up coming!   Well, thats my story, sorry that was a really long email but I needed to give you guys all of the details. Other than that life is good.  I am only 9 days away from the 100 day mark which is kinda crazy.   Our couple is going to get married and baptized next weekend so that’s awesome too!  So yeah that is my life right now, working hard to improve my abilities as a missionary and also my Spanish. I am hoping to have 5 baptisms before Christmas and things are looking good for that to be a reality.  I miss you guys a lot and I hope that everything is well.

Elder Mifflin

Week 11

We get a solid afternoon rainstorm about 2-3 times a week.  For P day Santiago last week we went to this big monument in the city (I will send some pics) then after we went on intercambios. I was with an Elder from Honduras named Elder Merlo, then I woke up at 4 am and we had a 4 hour bus ride to Santo Domingo. We had to do a bunch of stuff there for our legal papers and we also needed to do some medical stuff.   While doing that I found out I have lost about 10 pounds since I left the CCM!   Also we didn´t have running water in our house for about 5 days or gas to cook for about 2 days.  Now we have both again though so that is really nice!  For Halloween we made some Jack o lanterns out of watermelons because there aren´t any pumpkins here. It actually worked really well. We have a new family of 4 that we are teaching and they are really cool. They are the first family that me and my companion have met together.  As my Spanish improves so does my relationship with the people. The last few days have gone really well and been fun. It is kind of crazy that I am done with my second transfer already.  I love you Momma and all of the family. I think about you guys everyday and hope that everything is going well for everyone. Dont forget to be weird or be afraid!

Elder Mifflin