Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everybody,

This past week was pretty good. There wasn't very much progress with our investigators but I really think that the ward is building up to the point where we will start seeing a lot of success from the members referring people for us to teach. We have one investigator who I think I've already written about but he's a Vietnam Veteran and is pretty disabled and so his house is a mess. The carpet is just filthy and he was referred to us by a member who merely wanted us to offer him some service. So we went and offered some service but he was more interested in hearing our message. It wasn't until Saturday when we were teaching him the plan of salvation that his land lord came and the Veteran was planning on kicking us out so he could talk to his land lord and we were going to leave but instead offered our service and the land lord I don't think had a very high opinion of us but he was fine with our cleaning offer. So I raked up huge piles of dog fur out of this guys carpet so that we could vacuum without it getting all clogged up. We straightened out a messy corner and moved some furniture to clean under and after we were finished it looked better. Nothing fancy but I felt pretty good that we were able to help and the land lord commented on our hard work and thanked us so I felt like a possible seed was planted or at least a heart was softened. The family that we were most excited about has cancelled a bunch of appointments so it isn't looking likely that they'll be baptized anytime soon. They are very cool and have said they want to be baptized but something always comes up.

We just got over a headache yesterday, at least for now. A man who has been taught several times in the past was seeking to have us okay him for baptism but he wanted to be baptized in Florida. It was a doable thing and we were almost clear for getting him the necessary paper work but he was kind of an odd duck and both my companion and I didn't feel right about him. Still he was interviewed by us and our district leader and he has a perfect knowledge of all the principles we teach but we never saw him at church and as one of the elders here put it "he's dodgy". Anyway, we were prepared to help him be baptized but he still hadn't met with our bishop which is a requirement and so we tried to set up a time for him to meet but the guy refused to meet with him and he wouldn't return any of our bishops calls to him. We talked to him and he said that he and his wife had a personal issue with our bishop and so wouldn't talk to him. I guess they'll either have to get over their issues or go through another bishop in order to get baptized, so until that happens we don't have to deal with him and I'm kind of glad.

Well that's about it from me. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying summer.

Sincerely, Elder Miller