Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everyone,

This week was quite exciting. Just so you know, missionaries consider Monday to be the start of the week so I am technically correct when I include Sunday as part of last week. Anyway, starting off on Thursday I was on exchanges with another member of our district, a new Elder in the spanish program named Elder Dunham who is pretty fun to be around. He talks pretty much non stop but I like him. Part way through the day we had to drive up to Seaside to a building there with a bit of a view of the Monterey bay so that was fun. We had a Zone meeting in which President and Sister Jackson told us about their plans for all of us to set goals to make this Month our best one yet so that we can usher the Jacksons off their mission with a bang of success. It was a fun meeting and kind of thought provoking.

Then on Friday I spent all day with what we call the other "district monkeys". Since my companion is a district leader he has to attend meetings in San Jose every once in a while and I go with the companion of another district leader. So the district leaders companion is usually referred to as the district monkey cause all they do is hang around the district leader and do little chores for them. But the day was fun. The other district monkeys and I spent the day in Salinas and looked up less active members and things of that nature.

The real fun was on Saturday when we spent pretty much all day in the church setting up for our baptism. I got the font temperature just right and perfect and it was all going well until we went back to check on the water level and noticed that there were dust bunnies floating all in the water. I guess the font had been collecting dust and we didn't notice before we turned the water on. We tried to fish out the most obvious ones but there was just no combatting them, they seemed to multiply like bunnies too. Eventually our baptismal candidate came with his family and extended family and a few other families of the ward came and our bishop conducted the meeting and it all went well and was actually one of the shortest baptisms that I've ever attended I think. And I think I know the reason why. The speakers on baptism and the holy ghost were teenagers. That's the problem with other long baptisms, they get close family members who feel like they have to talk for half an hour. Those talks were simple and sweet and kept peoples butts from getting sore. So it was a fun event and a success.

Sunday the kid we baptized was late to church so he was confirmed after the sacrament which was a bit of a blunder but not too bad. Then after church we had a quick lunch/dinner and then got a ride from a less active couple to the last outgoing fireside for our president and his wife and family. It was packed. 900 people came to this fireside it was pretty unbelievable and really hot in there. It was fun and good though and the only problem is that we didn't get home until about 11:30, which is 2 hours past our curfew and an hour past our bedtime. We were kind of tired on preparation day but it was worth it to see the last outgoing fireside for our mission president. It's really weird thinking that even though he's been my mission president for the last ten months and will kind of be for the coming month, I'll have the new one for even longer and technically a majority of my mission.

Well gotta sign off.

Sincerely Elder Miller