Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everybody,

This week was pretty good. Especially the weekend. On Saturday, for our workout time we go and play basketball with the ward so that was great. Then the young mens president was moving so we went and helped out with that and then we went back to our apartment to get freshened up and do our study time but we saw a couple of guys that were moving into our complex so we offered our help in unloading the U-haul (once we saw that they didn't have much furniture and that they live on the ground floor) They seem like pretty cool guys though. While handing stuff to us we got to know them pretty well. They had a huge crate filled with Dungeons&Dragons manuals which my companion used to play and so he talked to one of them a bit about that. And then they also had a bunch of rock climbing equipment and some old fencing gear and snowboarding stuff. I think one of them is a math teacher and the others occupation I would guess as a hippie. Our ward just so happened to be hosting a softball/BBQ party later that day so we invited these two guys to it but they didn't come.

Instead we walked with our investigators to the ward event and our investigators had a great time. Free hot dogs and watermelon I think appeals to just about everyone. My companion and I even got to play a little softball. I think I scored one run but my other hits were all fly balls easily picked off by the five year old boy playing short stop. I pitched a bit as well and it was near the end of the evening when all the ladies were finally coaxed up to bat and perhaps I made the pitches too easy cause they filled up the bases and then started scoring runs on us. I picked up a bunted ball and got a runner out though. At one point I retrieved a way foul ball that went over a fence and I threw it back towards an out fielder who I though was expecting my throw but she wasn't and so cowered up protecting her face when people told her "heads up" and it bounced off her back. I felt really bad but I don't think it did any damage. She was nice about it. Her son is the one we always take with us to appointments cause he's about to go on his mission. Later I was standing around and I heard him call out, "You hurt my Mom!?" It was all in good fun and the BBQ was a big hit. Although we had dinner with the former relief society president last night and she hadn't realized that our investigators were our investigators and was talking about how a couple of strangers came and helped themselves to the food and festivities.

My companion will be leaving tomorrow and I'll get another. He has been here his whole mission so far and all the ward members were very sad to say goodbye to him on Sunday. He truly is adored in this ward. I'll be surprised if a few members don't try and follow him to his next area and start up a Church of Elder Orgill. It's good to have such a connection with the members, hopefully my next companion and I will be okay substitutes.

After church we had a lesson with a man who is progressing extraordinarily well. We weren't expecting him to be able to come to church until November cause he said his work schedule doesn't change until then but he traded shifts with some of his co workers and he promised to be at church the next two weeks so that will be amazing. Then we had two dinners. Our ward mission leader was signed up on the dinner calendar so we went and had the biggest pizza I've ever partaken of. Like 3 feet in diameter just about. And then we had a lesson scheduled with, as I mentioned above, the former relief society president and her family and she just assumed we would join for dinner too so we didn't quiet that notion. We had lasanga and it was good. We were there to teach her non-member husband. Started off kind of rocky cause the first thing I said to the man as I entered the back yard and saw him working at the base of his giant tomato plants was, "Are they overgrown?" I guess he is very proud of the size of his tomato plants and all the work he put into them and so my question was a little unwelcome. But in all reality he must have recognized that the fact that he has no ripe tomatos by the end of August means his plants are off in some way, so really I guess I was adding salt to the wound. But it was all good. He is a really nice man and just enjoyed ribbing me because of my mis-step.

That's about all with me. Hope everyone is doing great.

Sincerely, Elder Miller