Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everyone,

This week was great. Went by super fast because we had a trip to the Temple on Wednesday and then of course General Conference ate up our Saturday and Sunday. On Wednesday we actually got our Bishops parents to give us a ride to the temple even though they are actually members in a neighboring ward. But they are super cool. We showed up to their house around 8:15 and they had us load up in their mini van and we headed out. The sister had water and candy mints to give us and we had a pleasant ride up to Oakland. We crossed the San Mateo bridge I think and it was huge. They mentioned that it used to be the longest in the country but I think one recently supassed it in Florida or something. Normally I hold my breath over bridges just for fun but I would have passed out five times at least if I had tried on this one I'm sure. That took us across to the East side of the bay into Hayward and then we headed North to the Oakland Temple. I guess we made pretty good time but about 20 minutes from the Temple my companion realized that he had forgotten his recommend, but we didn't say anything to our hosts. We got to the front desk in the Temple and I was surprised to see a member from my last area which is almost a 2 1/2 hour drive but he's one of my favorite members from back in King City who rides unicycles. Anyway we told him the situation and my companion had to fill out a little form and they had to try and contact our Mission President to validate my companions worthiness I guess. They eventually let us in and we managed to make the 10 o'clock session and it was great. Then we headed back to Redwood City and the couple stopped for lunch at In n' out burger and it again was pretty good. We have two In n' out burger joints in our area alone but that's the first time I've eaten in one of them. So it was a great temple trip, pulled it off successfully.

Then this weekend was spectacular, mainly in the sense that we got a ton of free food. We picked up some other missionaries on Saturday morning and we watched General conference at our Stake Center in Menlo Park and it was great. We took a lunch break between the sessions and had to drop our fellow missionary pals off at a members house where they were watching the second session and then we watched the second session back at the stake center. I have real difficulty remembering which general authority specifically spoke about what even though I took extensive notes. But an overall feel I got from conference was a resolve to read the scriptures more and really study them as well as renew my abandoned plans to memorize the scripture mastery scriptures. After the second session we were about to leave but were invited by members of the Tongan ward to their youth conference where we had to introduce ourselves, share what we learned from Conference and then sing a hymn in order to earn a meal. It was a good meal and they had doughnuts so the effort was all worth it. Then we went to the Priesthood session which is always a little more comedic than the rest of conference so it was great as well.

Then yesterday we had much the same pattern, except that after the first session a bunch of members set up on the stage for a lunch and all the missionaries were invited and we didn't have to perform anything to get a meal this time. We did break down all the tables and chairs afterward though but we ate a lot so we needed the exercise afterward to try and burn off some calories. Then we watched the fourth session and it was great. I don't remember if it was that session or not but I really enjoyed President Monsons story about the tour bus in Texas of all the churches.

I hope everyone enjoyed hearing from our Prophet and take the counsel from it seriously. I consider conference more of a mormon new years. Time to evaluate and apply new things into our lives.

Sincerely, Elder Miller