Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everybody,

This week was fun. We got our baptismal candidate interviewed by our Zone Leader while I was on exchanges with him for the day and it went well. The only tough part was when I was having the father of the boy fill out the baptismal record form putting down a bunch of information. At the part where he had to put his sons birthdate he put it down as October 11th 1998. The boy is 11 years old. The father had the good habit of saying what he was planning on writing down on the document before actually starting and I tried to hint at and correct him on the birthdate thing but he felt certain that it was 1998 and wrote it down. I didn't really think it would end well if I told him that he didn't know what year his own son was born, plus I was still trying to double check the math in my head to make sure that I was correct. Anyway, we double checked the membership records that we have just to be sure and went back and changed it to 1999. These baptismal records are the solid copy that actually is kept by the church for all time and eternity so it seems like it would be preferable that they are as correct as possible. Only now we are wondering if the boys middle name really is spelled A-R-R-O-N or if that's a mistake as well. If only the mother hadn't been preoccupied with a phone call, this all would probably not be confused. But we are excited. This will be the first convert baptism in the area in a year. And the first baptism that I'm a part of.

Then on Saturday we attended a meeting for our whole mission, all 200 missionaries, at which we were pleased to shake the hands and hear the voices of Elder Ballard, Elder Clayton, Elder Packer (not Boyd), Elder Hinckly, and Elder Allan. It was awesome and all pretty much dealt with how to work with the members of the church to help them increase the work and the effectiveness there of. A lot was said concerning "The Rescue" which refers to how few converts actually remain active compared to the number that are baptized. That's why members involved in the process are so wonderful. An immediate supports system to help an struggling converts.

Thanks for all the prayers and support.

Sincerely, Elder Miller