The flesh is weak...

.... I have C-Diff. HA! It has been sent straight from the Devil I am positive. Butttt, I know I am here now for a reason and this is a trial I needed to have. My new favorite line from the ward is- "I would hate to see you well!" Hahahaha. I got some antibiotics on Monday to start the 14 day recovery process, and then on Wednesday had a HORRIBLE reaction to them. I honestly saw my life flash before my eyes. I know what that means now. My throat closed up, my tongue went numb, I couldn't talk, and my throat felt like it was being ITCHED raw! The most disconcerting of those symptoms was obviously the not being able to talk. I started BAWLING and poor Sister Helm still doesn't know her way around so I'm just pointing at every stop sign where I want her to go! We grabbed some Benadryl and I called a former bishop of the singles ward here (who reminds me soooo much of Dad) to give me a blessing. I tried to call Bishop first, but he lives 15 miles away on the South Fork, so I knew I needed someone close. He gave me a blessing that I would be healed according to my faith and that the Lord knew my circumstances, so that's no problem. I'll be good as new in 14 days!

I have hated being on "light duty" because this is the Lord's time. I could be sitting around at home. Just because I am sick doesn't mean people don't need the Gospel. So I told Sister Helm we could stay home unless we had a set appointment (which is almost all the time). So we go to all of our appointments and almost all of them cancel on us! I just had to laugh because the Lord truly is in charge of my life. Ward members have started calling and asking what I need and commanding me to go sleep. It's the weirdest thing. I am in so much pain all the time I have had literally EVERY side effect listed on these hard core antibiotics. Sister Helm has just excepted that I will be vomiting, aching, and falling over in public. My back started to hurt soooo bad and I was like- oh no not anything else! Then we read the side effects again and lo and behold- back pain. What a miracle modern medicine is riiiight? But the good news is I am giving the Mills Family a good name. All the hard core ranchers out here are like- I would hate to meet those parents who raised you. I bet they are a devil to contend with!

So although I was on "light duty" all week we had a lot of miracles as usual. One started when I decided to go to the dentist since I am already down and out and teeth cleanings make everyone feel better right? (Also, the dentist is one of my fave ward members Bro. Taylor and lets us come in for free when he has cancellations.) Last Saturday we had been at a wedding reception and recieved a referral of this woman named "Mary Kay." She lives 20 miles up the South Fork so we hadn't been able to go visit her yet, AND the Sister who gave us the referral was getting us her EXACT address. Well it turns out she works as a hygienist for Dr. Taylor and as I'm getting my teeth cleaned she pops in to tell my hygienist how much her headache is killing her and how she doesn't think she'll make it through the day. Sister Helm pops up (inspired of course) and goes- I have Excedrin at home and we live RIGHT DOWN THE STREET. Let us go get you some! She of course turns us down nicely, but after my appointment ends we run home and bring back Sister Helm's monster bottle. Mary Kay DIED. She was SO appreciative and apparently she called her friend and FREAKED out about how angels were sent to minister to her. It was just a simple thing, but the opportunity to serve was amazing AND she told us to stop by with a movie that Sister LaRose wanted us to take over there! (about the restoration of the church) so.... that is the story of how the missionaries in Cody 2nd ward became drug dealers...? I KID.

Also, I've sang at a wedding and NOW I've painted the outside of an inn? A woman called us and asked us if we could help her friend paint her inn so she could sell it. We of course jumped at the opportunity! Then we arrive to find out the inn is in the canyon (CRAZY WINDS) aaaand we are painting the outside. It was two story. We had a sketch 14 foot ladder. AND 4 crazy 18 year old elders. Just envision this. It was awesome to help this woman who was SO appreciative and had just had neck surgery so she couldn't do it herself. She started bawling thanking us and kept force feeding us "caffeine free soda" because she KNOWS we don't drink caffeine. What a sweetheart.

The work is moving forward. I love you guys and miss you a tonnnn.

I am stoked for General Conference and I hope you have a question in mind while you watch it. Please pray for me. I'm not above begging the Lord for relief from this pain AND for my VISA. There are some things you just want you know?

I love you forever,
your daughter,

Sister Haley Kristina Mills

Quick Health Update...

Haley's aching belly was diagnosed as C-Diff...  Apparently she got more than dinner at a member's house...  She has a good doctor and is being treated so her tummy won't hurt anymore...  Poor girl.

A Little More Haley...

I'm not sure what to even name this week.  We'll start with Doctors trips. (we took three).

So I've been feeling sick for about 4 weeks, but we'll start with Sister Helm, who started feeling sick this last weekend. We both went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 10:00 on Sunday and were almost late for church! AWKWARD! We brushed it off to the members like we were busy doing missionary activities, of course, but secretly we were both DYING and I was totally off my game and I'm pretty sure offended a member (which SUPES surprise, I hadn't done yet!). So Sister Helm had this monster ear-ache and asks me if I could try to clean out her ears. We go to the Walgreens on the corner (on Monday, who do you think we are, sinners?) and get some supplies and I spend Monday night after we come home trying to drain her ears (with all my practice as a doctor under my belt to help, obviously). AKA we could have been hurting or helping her, we weren't sure. We had our member GOOGLE different ways, it was QUITE the night. So finally we broke down on Tuesday and went to the Doctor and guess what? She had an ear infection! So he cleared it right up and started her on some antibiotics. Problem solved.

Well this quick fix inspired me to call mission medical and finally admit that my stomach had been KILLING me for 4 weeks, and I didn't call because I didn't want it to stop me from going to Brazil. Elder Diem (mission med) talked through my symptoms and was stumped so he sent me to the doctor! Shout out to Bro. Peters for seeing us errry day this week! Hahaha. But, we show up, and I start joking with his nurse about her praying for us to come again, and she was laughing so hard she couldn't do anything for like 5 minutes. The good news is I must have gotten my grove back? Anyway, they did some blood tests and we'll know next week, but don't be surprised if I say I'm fine- go to Brazil- and come home with a baby dragon in my stomach? I'm not above that.

In other news, we DID get missionary work done this week. We got DROPPED by our favorite investigator and it was so sad! Jerri said she was too stressed out trying to quit coffee and tea and couldn't do the "mormon" thing. It STINKS because she totally knows the church is true, and has been off coffee and tea for 2 WEEKS! She kept telling us she wasn't addicted, but now she is saying her head-aches are unbearable. I'm hoping she comes to her senses, but when we prayed about it we just got this feeling to let her go, so I guess everything will work out how it should. She still has her agency after all!

In other GOOD news, we have a new investigator! Michael! Michael's wife is in-active, but was converted in Michigan like 5 years ago. She still believes the church is true, but her hubs was super against it. WELL then he met me! BESTIES! During her prayer at the end of our lesson she goes- "thank you for sending the sisters to soften my husband's heart. Please help them come over and do puzzles more often." So obviously we are in! Hahaha. He has already read to 4th Nephi and just really hated the Elders in Michigan, soooo we're working on that.  

Sorry our week sounds pretty lame! It wasn't, but some missionary moments just stay here you know? Mostly the ones involving sketch homeless men and bathrooms.  Don't worry about me, I've got the Lord on my side!

LOVE YOU/MISS YOU!

Sister Mills

Missionary Work, What's That?

They should call it missionary play? Because - when done correctly it is - FUN. (How cheesy am I getting? Let's get real.)

So today is transfers... Just kidding. It really is transfers, but Sister Helm and I escaped them! Hollaaa! Cody is ours for the taking! Although to be fair we both got transferred here in the middle of a transfer so we deserve more time riiiight? Plus I could get my VISA any day now. I'm to the point where I just love it here and don't want to leave. Everyone says that's when the VISA comes. I'm starting to panic about teaching in Portuguese, English is just so EASYYYY. I KNOW English. Hahaha. Oh well.

So now that I know I am staying with Sister Helm I can tell you guys what I've been living with for the past 3 weeks. This girl. So I am making myself something for lunch (and usually we have appointments or Bro.McDougall force feeds us so this never happens) and Sister Helm starts talking about how bad she wants French Toast. I tell her to stop whining (but sooo super nice like a missionary should) and make some! So she goes- well what's in French Toast? I'm like- bread, eggs, and milk. So about five minutes later I walk over to the stove and see her mixing this huge mass of like... 1 egg to 4 cups of milk. In a pan. That isn't hot yet. And then she goes- when do I put the bread in? HAHAHAHAHA. At least she is an amazing missionary. We'll work on the cooking.

Speaking of I LOVED THE PACKAGE! Holy cow you should have seen me running around the living room holding that bag of cookies! You guys are seriously the best. And the cookies are too. Would you send me your pumpkin bread recipe momma so I can make bread for all the people we serve? They would love it! …AND the Bowler cookie recipe too. Obrigada.

Also- Sister Helm was browsing through our "Lehi Monument" and saw that Thomas Godfrey is in her mission! Kentucky for the win - apparently? She was like ask if he's ever served in Corbin? (She's from a small town in the South-East part. Although she doesn't think it is small...)

So I am running out of time (we have zone P-day today and no time to do anything) buuuut I will tell my favorite story of the week. We get out of a dinner appointment a little late and, trying to be as obedient as possible, BOOK it out of there when we get the chance. Well, we get out, and Sister Helm announces she has to go to the bathroom with a VENGENCE. So we decide to go to some members on the street so she can use their restroom. NO ONE IS HOME. Not a single person of like... 100000. But really like 5. Still it is a Tuesday night what could they be doing?! Anyway, I finally say to Sister Helm- The Lord wants us to visit someone. Who is it? And I look down at the ward list and there is one last family who lives in the last house on the street. And has been inactive for 25 years. I had visited them before and they were NOT super friendly. I'm like fiiiiine. So we go knock on their door. They let us in and I talk to the wife, Kathy, for 3 hours and make the most headway anyone has... ever. She told me she knew she needed to come back, but she was just offended and God knows where her heart is. I told her he did know, and it wasn't where it should be. A little tough love is what she needed. It just testifies to me that the Lord knows whose hearts are softened. The Lord knows each one of us. And he knew she needed us at that time and he made Sister Helm have to go to the bathroom and no one else be home? HAHAHA. But there is no such thing as coincidence and I am convinced more and more of that every day.

I love you and miss you MUITO!

Keep up the good work and prayers, Let Katie (Wagner) know she is in my prayers! .

Sister Haley Mills 

Sisters Mills and Helm with their neighbors Elk

Sister Mills remembers 9/11

The Sickness of 1000 zzzzs

So this week has been AMAZING. We got 3 new investigators! WHAT WHATTTT! Well, technically the Lord got them, but we facilitated, so that makes us feel pretty great! Sister Helm has this new joke (except it isn't really a joke?) that I can get into anyone's house. It's sooo awkward. People will answer the door and tell us we are the devil and that we sacrifice children and women (what are we?) and then I will subdue them with my charms and they inevitably let us in. Now I don't want you running off and telling everyone I'm amazing at missionary work because of this. False. Buuuuut it is one of many talents that I never knew I had! Slash never had reason to use back in the AZ? When I get home we'll have to think of reasons for me to go into random people's houses? Sketchhh.

Anyway, the reason I tell you about my secret talent is BECAUSE... I got us into this man's house yesterday night (don't worry his wife was home) and he started telling me all his problems with the "Mormon Church." I usually try not to "Bible Bash" but I honestly felt like I should answer all his questions. So I did. And at the very end he asked about the Word of Wisdom. He said that coffee has some medicinal qualities and all this other stuff. Wellll we have another investigator who is STRUGGLING with quitting coffee and I finally just told her it is an obedience thing. Maybe coffee has some medicinal qualities, maybe the world is wrong (like we have been so many times before) but I know that if you obey God's commandment and stop drinking coffee you will be blessed and your health will improve (she has like 1 million and 1 probs). So I tell this guy "Wayne" the same thing. That we follow it because we are asked to, and if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God (which he was) and he received this revelation through God (which he did) then all we have to do is obey. Sister Helm was literally holding her breath because she always worries when I am so blunt with people. HA! But then he goes... "You know what, I've asked that question of a million members of the church and they've all given me these different explanations... and I've never had it explained to me like that. I agree. I think that God doesn't ask too much of us, but like with Eve eating from that tree, I'm not sure if that fruit was even bad for her to eat, but the point was that God asked her not too." And then Sister Helm took a breath. Then he asked us to come back and told us he would read! HOLLAAAA! The Lord has been preparing the people of Cody for me to come. Isn't that crazy?

It's good that awesome things are happening here, because the majority of our week I spent in bed! I have been SO sick, and Sister Helm thought I was just tired because I was covering it up REALLY well, but I told her I needed a nap or I would die. So we go home one evening and I jump into bed an hour early, then I wake up at 10:30 the next day. AKA 13 hours. Then we get up and go meet with the Bishop. I come home again EXHAUSTED and sleep from 3 until the next morning at 6. AKA 16 hours. Then I rip myself out of bed for church and (former) Bishop Taggart (our dinner appt from the night before that we had to cancel on) gave me a blessing. It was amazing. He pretty much told me the Lord knew I was working my hardest, and that I should slow down a little and let my body rest and that I would be blessed. THEN that night, we got 2 new investigators. Woahhh. Blessings. The nice thing is Sister Helm updated our area book and got a ton of personal study in? Anyway, I'm feeling way better and to be honest, Sister Helm might be a more positive person than me even, so anything that happens to us is good! HA!

So one night one of our favorite families "The Taylors" couldn't feed us because her mom went into the ER. Well her husband forced money on us (we tried to run) and told us to go to the most expensive restaurant in town. We weren't going to go, because he gave us like our monthly allotment and we were freaking out, but he said he would follow up and see what we thought. Totally a returned missionary. Well, we had enough to pay for the elders too, so we convinced them to come with us, and us four waltzed into this restaurant. Within like 10 minutes we had received 2 referrals. Sister Taylor freaked out when she heard and called her mom and told her it was "okay" that she messed up their dinner with the missionaries, because it was all part of God's plan! HA! The things that happen here... I die. The moral here is... ehhh the Taylors just rock.

It's been monsooning here. As in they don't believe in monsoons. People are always laughing at me because I am freezing, well you should have seen the panic when the rain hit! HAHAHA. We were walking down the street in a rainstorm and everyone else was sitting in their car in the middle of road waiting for the rain to stop! Hilarious.

Last one, promise. We visited this woman in the hospital (which we do about once a week) and she kept forgetting who we were. She was like... and who are you again? Halfway through a story she was telling. Everytime I told her I was from Arizona she would tell me she spent every winter in Sun City West(?) until her husband died a year ago. Then 5 minutes later she would go... and where are you from again? It was hilarious. 50 first... missionary lessons? New movie ideaaa! Ha! But it got even funnier when we mentioned it to the workers there and they said she didn't have memory problems? Sooo pretty much I'm offended because we aren't memorable? We could not stop laughing. Probably the funniest visit of my life. And then when we got home and told the woman we live with "Norma" she waits 5 minutes into our conversation and goes... who are you again? I die.

I love you and miss you dearly!

Sister Haley Kristina Mills

Sister Mills will TARGET you

Soooo... this week has been cray. But so is missionary work. There are so many ups and downs I feel like a bipolar college student? AKA my life until 10 weeks ago? Just kidding. This week like a good little girl, I made you a list, so you might actually find out how my week is this week? It's fine.

We'll start with District Meeting last Tuesday. Now, normally I won't bore you with District Meeting details, but this one was EPIC! It all started when Elder Hayes (District Leader Extraordinaire) didn't get an outline from the Assistants to the Presidents. He was freaking out about what we should do when Elder Ross (his companion. ginger. has no soul.) suggested a movie themed district meeting? So naturally, at 9PM the night before (we turn into Pumpkins at 9:30) Elder Hayes tells me he wants me to lead a discussion. Pick my favorite movie and compare it to something in Preach My Gospel. So we may or may not have had a fabulous discussion on how The Parent Trap is like turning to the Book of Mormon with investigators questions? I know, I know, how do those relate? In the Parent Trap the twins never had success until they remind them of their original story. And then that love that they feel helps them overcome whatever obstacles are in their relationship. It's the same with the Book of Mormon. Any obstacle can be overcome with a testimony that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Because then Joseph Smith was a true Prophet, and this is the true church, and any and all revelation he received was from God. Still not sure, but everyone loved it? And we've decided to theme our meetings more often. 

On Wednesday we got to drive up to Billings (the BIG city!) and go to the temple on Thursday. We got to stay with the Sister Training Leaders in Billings and they live in a mansion? That was amazing, although we couldn't swim in their inside pool? For obvious reasons. But it was still one of my bigger regrets! HA! It was such a tragedy to me though that we had to drive all that way, when we have a temple so close at home in Mesa and don't go nearly enough. It just gave me such a huge testimony of temple work. Being there I realized-- through that one ordinance I was doing, one person was getting the opportunity to be with their family forever. Maybe that person would have received the gospel from someone like me, on the street in Cody, WY, but they never had the opportunity. It's missionary work from another angle, but just as important. I know that when we do family history work, and go to the temple, that we are giving people the same opportunity we have to live with our families forever, and that when we die we will be greeted and thanked by them, and how great will be our joy!  

Billings Temple with Sisters Lasson, Erbe, Taylor, Helm, Mills, Baird, Schneider, Christensen, & Steck

Friday was the day the Lord blessed us…with investigators and Less Actives GALORE. So get STOKED! We were out of miles for the month (we get a certain amount of miles we are allowed to drive the car each month and every missionary runs out like 2 weeks early because everything is way to spread out here to walk!) so we walked to a street that is sort of close by where we live. Sister Helm was determined to get someone to come to the first door we knocked at. We could hear someone, but people ignore us all the time, so no big. Sister Helm though was ADAMENT that someone would answer this door. After a door bell ring and three times knocking a guy answers from the second floor in a towel? (awk) and is like uhh heyyy, can I help y'all? We told him who we were and that we thought a member lived there. He said the member had moved but that he was also a less-active. As in he called himself that? Anyway we made an appointment to come back and visit him, and then the next two houses we knocked at agreed to let us come back. It was a day sent to make all the other days worth it. I know Heavenly Father has prepared people in Cody to hear the gospel, and I am so grateful to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to lead and guide us to those who are ready.  

Using "Miles" with Sisters Mills and Helm

Saturday night we got to go to the Cody High School football game (we won no big)! We live with the old coach who coached there for like... 5000 years, so he got all excited to show us off and we had a blast talking to people about the gospel who were forced to stay to watch their children? Aka I imagine it's something like spirit prison?  

Sunday is the most exciting though because we had two of the people we are working with to come to church! One of which we invited last week, but didn't even call this week? Brian and Patrick thought it would be fun to surprise us and it was like I was their Mom or something because I got SOOO overwhelmed seeing them there and knowing that they were doing what God would have them do! Brian got up and bore his testimony about how you "can't say no to Sister Mills" and how "Sister Mills will TARGET you." It was maybe one of the more awkward testimony meetings ever, but afterward everyone came up to us and told us how happy they were to have us in their ward and started giving us referrals?! Sooo I guess Brian was following the spirit and I was just so embarrassed that I was blind to the positive effects? HA! Also, we got our investigator Jerri (woman) to church! She has been making excuses as to why she couldn't come, but I told Sister Helm we were going to dress her and push her wheel chair all the way to church if we had to this Sunday. So we said a prayer that we would know what to do and then walked over to her house and she tells us her Parkinsons is too bad and she can't make it. But through a series of promises and maneuverings we got her to agree to go to Sacrament at the Hospital where she would be the healthiest 75 year old there? Well she went and BY GOLLY she loved it and although we had to move her baptism date back, it might actually happen, and I KNOW that the Lord softened her heart for us to be able to finally get her to church!  

Sooo I realize this is way long... sorry I'm not sorry? 

Love you muito! 

Sister Mills