5-28-12

It has been rather warm here. A bit humid, but not as bad as it was a week or so ago. Still pretty comfortable. I worry about how bad it's gonna get, but I try not to worry. I'm supposed to be here. So I know I'll be able to handle the heat. :)

Ooh, had a pretty nice meal this sunday at a member's house. Had some chile concarne (spelling?) kinda stuff with corn and beans and meat and some onions. It was tasty. We also had rolls and juice. Afterwards, she served us some sticky rice stuff. I got the recipie from her. First you make plenty of rice. Then you mix equal parts brown sugar and coconut milk and mix well while cook until the brown sugar all melts and it gets sticky. Then start adding rice until it reaches a good consistency. It should turn out as rice with sticky tasty sauce stuff all over it. It shouldn't be runny or like pudding or anything. It was delicious. :)

I actually think that street contacting is more scary than doors. After you ring the doorbell, you're already in for it, so you just do what you can, and then walk away. With street contacting, you have to try to stop someone on the street and talk to them. And they are not very likely to stop and talk to you. And even when they do, once they hear that you are talking about religion, most of them say any one of a variety of kurt, though not overly rude phrases, all pretty much meaning no and walk away. Silly people don't know what they're missing out on. :)

Had a wonderful fireside last night (Sunday night) from one of President Pimmentel's old companions. Wonderful theme about miracles and going big and not letting opportunities pass you by. :)

Anyway, it seems that this post may be a little short, but I can't think of a whole lot else to talk about. -shrug-

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Feel free to email me if you aren't already. :)

Keep your Light and Happiness close. Never walk away from truly good and pure things. Keep your standards from slipping. And always remember to find the good. :) Talk to you next week!

-Elder Micahel Miles

5-21-12

Hello everyone! I hope your weeks have been going well. Mine has been.

We had some cold weather too. Cloudy and windy. We have had a couple days now though with very nice warm weather. And today is shaping up to be very warm and pretty. :)

The food has been strange, but not horrible. When something comes along that I really just do not want to eat, it is usually simple enough not to eat it. The families are all very nice, and all seem to understand that I might not like all of what they are serving. It's nice.

Still planning on making pigs in the blanket and such. Found some meat that seems to closely resemble hot dogs, and my companion says that it's about as close as we're going to get as far as flavor. They come in jars! A lot of things come in glass jars here. It's odd.

The work out here is going well. A lot of people that we can't seem to get a hold of, and plenty of people canceling on appointments, or not showing up. But it doesn't bother me. Did doors for the first time the other day. Liked it more than street contacting. It wasn't so bad. Helped me to think about relying on the Lord, and simply conveying his message. :)

I also have been striving to simplify how I think about the Gospel. I feel that I have a full, great understanding of it all, but I very easily get caught up in the details, and that can be bad in a lesson, because it can confuse the investigator, and distract the overall atmosphere from the true message of the lesson. It is nice learning to simplify. :)

Things are going well out here in any case. Plenty well off buying groceries and such. (Easier than I thought ;P) Getting along well with my companion. He is easy going and laid back, and a good missionary. Weird though, because he is going home after this transfer. Normally a new missionary would get two transfers (three months) with his first trainer, but I am going to have only one transfer (six weeks), and then I will have a new trainer. A 'step dad'. Your trainer is called your dad, his trainer is your grandpa, etc. Other people that your trainer has trained are your brothers, the end of your mission is death, the start is birth, your first area is the area you were born in, lots of funny terminology.

Anyway, I'm off. Have a wonderful week everyone! And remember, at the end of the day, no matter what kind of a day you have had, you are always the one in charge of how you feel about how that day went. You decide whether to focus on all the disappointments and shortcomings, or the positives and progress. Decide to dwell on happy things, and keep moving forward. Have fun! Talk to you next week. And feel free to email me if you aren't already. (Cody, Danny, would love to hear from you.)

Elder Michael Miles

Skype call.

 We (Michael's Family) were able to talk to him today on mothers day. Here are some screenshots of the call. The person in the second photo is his current Companion.

May 7th 2012

Hello everyone! It's crazy, it feels like it's been like 2 weeks since I emailed last! I hope things are going well for everyone.

 

Things have been kinda crazy, but good. Still picking up more German every day, but having a hard time understanding a lot of people. I need to be patient though. I know it will come eventually. It is odd to me that I can communicate ok, I just can't understand. Seems like normally it's the other way around from what I hear. Usually people talk about being able to understand but not being able to speak it. I guess I simply haven't had enough exposure yet to native speakers.

 

We have a grill out on our back deck. ... I don't know if I told you that already... It's been fun though. We have roasted some marshmallows and tried to do hotdogs once, but they didn't really taste like hot dogs... :P

 

We had a baptizm yesterday! It was a pretty cool spiritual experience. Everyone was all excited and I felt a little awkward not being even close to as excited as they were. But it doesn't really feel like my baptizm because I only showed up to watch it happen. I didn't really get to help it happen. That's ok though. The litle bit of participation I did get was very cool. It was a very spiritual experience.

 

I still don't understand most of the church meetings. I'm getting better and better at conversations though. As long as the person speaks clearly, doesn't use big words, and doesn't say too much at once, thereby giving me ample time to process each question and statement, I can actually carry on conversation rather well. I know that I am messing up a lot of conjugation, but that's ok. They still understand me.

 

Another tricky thing about the German language is that they have two forms of the word you. The formal version is 'Sie', and the informal is 'du'. When someone is a young teenager or younger, or one of your peers, or a close friend, you use the 'du' form. Otherwise, it is respectful to use the 'Sie' form. If you try to use the 'du' form with someone, especially someone rather older, that you do not know, they can get rather offended, depending on the person. It's a tricky thing... Also, close friends that you use the 'Sie' form with might feel that you are being unecessarilly cold and formal... It's ok though. I'm slowly getting used to it. :)

 

So as you all may know, mission rules vary greatly depending on your mission president. One of the changes that my mission president has decided on, is that it takes just as much time and distraction, if not less, to write an email, as it does to write a letter. Thereby, we have express permission to take up email correspondences with all those that would normally write us letters. We therefore do not really set aside time for letter writting, only emails. If you do want to keep in correspondence with me, please feel free to email me at mmiles@myldsmail.net. I would be happy to hear from you.

 

Along those lines:

-Grandma and Grandpa Miles, please do email me.
-Grandma Diane, I plan to respond to your letters via email at some point. Forgot to bring your letters along with me today. X/ Please feel free to write me. I'd love to hear from you. :) 

-ShayleeAnn, I sent you an email in response to your letter. I hope it got to you. Couldn't remember if I got your email address right. Hope to hear from you soon. Let me know if you didn't get any email.

-Erick, I want to write you back via email, but I don't have your address. Please email me and I will make sure to respond to your letter. Looking forward to it.

-Molly, I also am lacking your email address. Prompt supplying of such would be greatly appreciated. I would love to hear from you.

-Any others that would like to continue writting me, I would love to hear from you! Talk to you then. :)

-Again, that address is mmiles@myldsmail.net.

 

The food has been a bit different, but not too much so. The few eating appointments we have had so far have been stomachable and at least mildly enjoyable. :)

 

We are rather well off financially, and are able to buy rather good food thereby for our appartment. That's been nice. The cereal tastes totally different. Will have to find new favorites...

 

Been reading a whole lot in Jesus the Christ lately. It has been really cool to read. Really eye opening and explanatory. Love it love it. I would once again encourage you all to read it. :) Also, do all that you can to read from the scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon every day. The modern-day prophets have promised a LOT of blessings for doing so. And there are NO excuses. Even if it means taking ten minutes out of your sleep before you go to bed, I can promise you that it will be worth it. Heavenly Father will always help you find the time, or help you get the rest you need in spite of having stayed up the extra few minutes. You'll thank yourself for it. :)

 

I love you guys. Thank you so much for your support. Make this week a wonderful week. You always have the choice. Keep Christ close. He will always watch out for you. And lastly, remember to love. :)

 

Oh! One more thing! I don't know if I've shared this already, but there was a sister back in the MTC that shared a cool idea. Someone told her that whenever they are taking the sacrament, they listen to the water cups drop back into the tray, and they are always reminded of the sound of drops of blood that Christ so lovingly suffered for that person's sins that week. She said it changed the sacrament for her forever. Now it has done the same for me. It brings me so much more reverence and focus. I hope you all can benefit from similar Christ focused thoughts during your Sabbath-day observance. :)

 

Talk to you next week!

 

-Elder Miles, Lieutenant Mikey, Michael, Calcium

4-30-2012

Let's see. Flight was weird. Not too bad though. I mostly just didn't like sitting down for that long. It was a 10+ hour flight. Hour and fourty five minutes from Salt Lake to Seattle Washington, then then 10+ hour one to Amsterdam, and then an hour an a half flight from there to Berlin. Twenty-ish minute layovers each time. Taking off and landing were rather fun, but other than that it was just a whole lot of sitting down. Oh yeah, and turbulence was pretty awesome. I liked that. Even though we only ever got really mild stuff.

 

So I'd gotten rather little sleep the night before the flight, then I didn't really sleep at all during the flight, and then when we landed it was like 11 am, and we went straight into doing stuff. We were all dead tired. It wasn't horrible though. Mostly just rather crazy. And I kept getting all dizzy feeling, feeling like the ground was still moving around under my feet a little like I was still on the plane. -super- tired. Not so tired anymore though. It was mostly just that first day.

 

Germany is cool. Rather different cars. Lots of hatchbacks, plenty of smart cars, they all look kinda snub-nosed. The streets are tighter and a little crazier, but people are a lot nicer while driving. When people need to pull out into traffic, they just kinda do, and people just let them in. It's not even a big deal. Cool stuff.

 

Everything for the most part tends to look older in general. Older streets, older buildings, older trees. There are a LOT of trees. All the buildings are super tall too. Usually at LEAST three stories. Makes it impossible to get a gist of where you are because all you can see are the buildings on either side of you. I haven't been feeling claustrophobic or anything though.

 

The public transportation is crazy good here too. Lots of busses and trains and subways that are very useful. One card that costs 90 Euros, which is about 120 dollars, gets you free transit on anything in the area for a month. {good thing we get re-imbursed from the mission office on that one...}

 

My trainer {Elder Pierson} is a very cool guy. Really laid back. We're getting along very well. I am enjoying learning how to do the work and speak the language better. Not too stressful or anything, just working my way forward.

 

So far I am understanding about 50% of what is said by the natives. Some people talk really clearly and the only thing that holds me back is vocabulary. In those situations where I can hear them clearly like that, I understand more like 80 percent. Other people though slur a lot more or mush their words together. I only catch like 20 percent of what they say. My companion understands it all though and is very good about translating for me when I am asked a question that I don't understand. And as far as speaking goes, I feel that I am doing rather well for where I am so far. I can usually express myself rather well. I often don't know a word, but then I just ask my companion, and he suplies the word, so I use it and continue. My grammer still must sound very broken, and I am having a hard time using genders very effectively, but people understand what I'm trying to say, and that's nice. :)

 

In German and many other languages, every single noun has a gender, either masculine, feminine, or neutral. This affects how words like 'the' and 'a' are conjugated: 'the book' - in German book is a neutral word, so one would say das Buch. 'the skirt' - in German, skirt is a masculine word {very few words' genders reflect what they are} so for 'the skirt' one would say der Rock.

 

All in all, after taking into account conjugating for the gender of the word, whether it's plural or possesive, and what part it takes in the sentance {subject = nomnative, direct object = accusative, indirect object = dative, or part of a prepositional prase = whose case is decided depending on the preposition} there are in total 16 different possibilities, 6 different words for 'the', all of which used for at least twice in the grid of possibilities. der, den, dem, die, das, des Ridiculous, no?

 

Anyway!

 

I haven't gotten super homesick yet. But I don't feel like I'm the kind of person to get homesick, so we shall see. I'm getting pretty good sleep. Doing some good work. Gotten to contribute to some lessons so far, some more than others depending on how much I was understanding, and have been getting better at street contacting, though I still have a very long way to go. :) I'm doing well and I'm happy.

 

The food has been good. A little strange, but good. Ate asparagus for the first time the other day. It was a different kind than I was used to seeing. It was white. Didn't really like it, but I finished it off to be polite.

 

The weather has been good. Rather too warm actually. And the humidity doesn't help. End up sweating a lot. Not horrible though. I haven't really been bothered by it yet. :)

 

Oh right, I guess I should probably tell you what area I'm in... It's called Spandau. It's a section of berlin. Kinda like the sections of Salt Lake where they're pretty much their own cities, but they're not actually considered as such. In any case, it's on the west side. Rather pretty. Lot's of smokers and cars, but not horrible in any sense I wouldn't say. {Oh, gas costs like 1.30 Euros here per liter. That's something like 4 and half dollars a gallon or more. Ridiculous.}

 

They have these massive parks. Huge areas with lots and lots of trees, kinda wilderness-y. It's cool. There will be big buildings and bustling city on one side of the street, and a massive overgrown looking park on the other. Have yet to walk through one. They specifically build up and dense instead of out so they can preserve areas like that. It's cool. Recycling is a much bigger deal here too.

 

They also have dedicated bike paths on the sidewalks of all the major streets. {Please keep in mind that everything I tell you may only apply to the Berlin city area, and even then, may only apply to the Spandau area of Berlin.} These bike paths are serious. You don't walk on them, because you could get bowled over by a bike. They will ring their little bike bells at you and tell you unhappily to get off the path. Cool that bikes are that prevalent though.

 

In any case, that's all I can think of to talk about. I guess I'll stop there for now.

 

I love you guys! Keep the Lord close, and make sure you are filling your life with Light! Go make today good. :)

 

- Elder Miles

4-23-12

Hey everybody! Don't have much time today! Gotta get to my last couple classes. Leaving at 8:00 tomorrow morning. :)

I am actually the only one in my entire zone that has never flown. Thereby there are a couple people that know very well what does and doesn't work for luggage. We have one of those cool hanging scales that you hang your bag off of in the custodial closet so you can check how much your checked baggage weighs.

 I was about to tell you about an average MTC day, but I don't have time. I'll email you about it later. :)

And the spiritual note that I want to end this on is this: Stop focusing on what this glorious Gospel of Happiness tells you what you can't do. Don't worry about it. Instead, focus on all of the wonderous blessings of obeying these laws. We have an instruction booklet to life. Live it. You will find SO much joy. I can honestly promise you that. You got this. Have a wonderful week! Talk to you from Germany next!

4-16-12

I am getting a bit excited as the days go by. Still not much though. I am officially leaving on Apr 24th. Week from tomorrow. We will be leaving at something like 8 in the morning. Not too bad at all. Many of the other districts that we have seen leave, left at something like 4 in the morning. In any case, we'll be laying off in Amsterdam for an hour, and then on to Berlin. Also, from what I'm told, we will be getting off the plane, putting our bags in a car, eating a sandwich, and street contacting {paired up with a zone leader or other leader}. In that order. No real breaks. I'm excited and a bit nervous for that.

Deutch geht besser und besser jeden Tag. I kann Deutch sprechen. Es ist ein bissen seltsam. Vor zwei tage, ich war mit mein mitarbeiter sprechen, und ich habbe gedenket, "Oh mench! I kann Deutch sprechen!" Sehr seltsam... {I guess I can translate that for you. ;)}

First, the literal translation.

German goes better and better every day. I can German speak. It is a little strange. Before two days, I was with my companion speaking, and I have thought, "Oh man! I can German speak!" Very strange...

Now without the strange grammar.

German goes better and better every day. I can speak German. It is a little strange. Two days ago, I was talking with my comapnion, and I thought, "Oh man! I can speak German!" So strange...

It really is odd to think how much I have learned here. Conjugation, grammar, crazy stuff. It will still be very, very hard in the field because of dialect and how quickly they talk and how much the words will run together. But at least I understand grammar well enough to start understanding once my ears adjust. But at least for now, I feel pretty good at it. I keep having moments of realization where I realize I am actually conversing and understanding in German. Way cool. The Gift of Tonges is real. :)

It is very odd being 'off-grid' here. Every now and again you'll hear a noise that is reminicent of a cell phone buzz, and it throws everyone off. And it is actually rather odd, especially in my p-day clothes, not to have my phone always in my pocket. But it's not so strange really.

It is very strange here, becuase we don't actually do a whole lot of scripture reading, or have much time for it. We wake up and right away we have things to do. Places to be. Meetings, class, firesides, language study, meals, and by the time personal study comes around, you're so busy beoming more familiar with Preach my Gospel, or reading something like Jesus the Christ, or looking up specific scriptures to use for your faux-investigator, that there is very little time to actually just read. I used to read every morning and every night. Now I get to read a chapter or two every three days or so... I'm excited to be out in the field in that respect so I can get back on my own schedule as far as study.

I have been asked for advice for Ben or I guess, in general, just advice I would give future missionaries.

1. Careful not to eat too much. They pretty much give you all-you-can-eat buffets at every meal. It is so easy to overeat. Pick a good main course, one dessert, and make sure you drink lots of water. Oh and fruits and vegetables would probably be good.

2. Be warned. Personal and companion study time get sidetracked real quick because you're always doing it in a room with your entire district. One person makes a comment, and 20 minutes later, you've wasted 20 minutes talking about some dumb movie or Lake Powell or whatever. Be ready to ignore what is going on around you and simply focus on studying.

3. Make sure you have clothes for at LEAST 7 days. I thought I wouldn't need a white shirt for laundry day, but while my laundry was still wet and hang drying, we had to go to the temple. I nearly was without a shirt.

4. Make sure your family and friends know what your favorite candies are, but don't encourage them too much. When you get a package it is always good to make sure you get what you want, but they will flood you with candy. On top of that, the elders in your room, district, and zone will also be getting countless packages full of candy, and all the elders leaving each week like to dump what candy they have left on whoever is nearby. So make sure to only ask for what you really want, and sparingly.

Hmmm...

5. Don't stress. Stress destroys you here. Just let things come. They will. Don't worry.

6. When you're new, everyone will talk like they know so much, and treat you like a complete newbie. They aren't rude about it, or mean, but they still try to talk like they have so much wisdom to share with you. Don't get down about it or take them too seriously. They still have good tips and tricks and advice, but the phrase, "Big fish in a small pond," is a ridiculously huge understatement here. Sure they know more than you, but they've only been here for a few weeks themselves and are still learning all the time.

7. You'll do fine. Just trust in Christ. :)

Have fun everyone! Also, if you're planning on writting to me, do so promptly, else you might want to consider writting to my mission home address.

Elder Michael Bright Miles

Germany Berlin Mission

Zerbster Strasse 42

12209 Berlin

Germany

Just becuase I'm leaving in a week, and any mail that shows up here would take much longer to get to me out there. Also, you should still be able to use Dearelder.com when I'm out in the field too. The site should say whether it delivers to my mission or not. Go ahead and check.

Good to hear from those of you that are writing me! Been having plenty of time to write, so any of you that haven't written me, or stopped recently, feel free to write. I really would love to hear from you. Getting letters is awesome. :)

Go make today awesome! Keep smiling, and keep Christ around!

- Michael, Elder Miles, Calcium, Mikey