Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everybody,

Mighty fine week! Actually on Tuesday we drove another companionship to the mission office where there is a doctor that meets exclusively with missionaries on tuesdays for a few hours. Heres the story. Our neighboring missionaries are in the Valparaiso ward and they have a ginormous area and are on bikes because previous missionaries didn't use their car very wisely and it was taken away. The current missionaries have been trying to get a car for quite some time now but there just happens to be a car shortage in the mission. I think roughly a quarter of the missionaries in this mission are on bikes and they usually are in areas that are small, like parts of downtown San Jose. In the weekly e-mails we get from our Mission President it sounds like there have been quite a few car accidents recently and so there are even fewer cars floating around. It used to be that missionaries could claim health issues such as back or shoulder pain and they'd be given a car to cope. My first companion for instance had a "shoulder injury" some time ago and so was given a car even though he was in a tiny area. Anyway the the missionary now in Valparaiso has extreme exzima and the tips of his fingers are always peeling and riding a bike and having to grip the handlebars makes his hands bleed. He didn't want to draw attention to it but his new companion tried to exploit it in the hopes of it getting them a car, and it resulted in us taking them to San Jose to have a doctor check it out. It didn't change anything. But it was fun to drive to San Jose and it was the day after halloween and the office workers had candy put out in trays on their desks and I helped myself quite happily. So that was Tuesday, and then on Wednesday we had our Zone conference.

Zone conference went well. It started off with an amazing presentation by a member who was the former Chief of Police of San Jose. His presentation didn't really have anything to do with his career or field of expertise which I found strange but he talked about the different levels at which we should be capable of teaching. He brought up how people learn in different ways. Touch, listeners, visual. And correspondingly we should be able to provide multiple ways to help them understand. Our mission president hit it off by briefly telling us to not be boring when we teach. Try and connect with people logically, emotionally, and also give them something to do, put something in their hands to grab their attention on all levels. It was a great message and I think extremely helpful. Probably the best part of the conference so it was kind of sad that we started with it. We had lunch though and I got to catch up with a couple of missionaries from past areas I served which was fun. Members of the Relief Society always prepare lunches for us and they do a great job and we are always so grateful. And then for some reason our tradition is to repay them with a rousing verse of "Called to Serve". After lunch we did some role plays and learned a bit more how to practically apply what we were learning and also to set goals for it. Fun day.

On Thursday our bishop took us out to lunch at his favorite new Mexican Restaurant. He said the name translated to "little bright star" or something like that. And then I remembered that he served his mission in Brazil so I was wondering how he knew that unless it's the same phrase in Portuguese as it is in Spanish. And he said that he couldn't remember what star is in Portuguese but that for some reason he knows quite a bit of Spanish. It seemed odd to me. Anyway, had a good meeting with him and he was pleased with the update we were able to give on who we've been trying to work with.

On Friday we had a referral from a member to go teach one of his friends who is dying of lung cancer. We went over there right at 10:00 am and attempted to teach him but he was kind of impatient, and rightfully so I'd imagine. He first asked "what happens after death?" so we tried to start teaching the plan of salvation, but he wanted it in brief and after that he asked "what do I have to do to make it to heaven?" so we started on teaching the main points of the gospel which is generally the third lesson we teach. Throughout he asked us questions that drew from all 4 lessons we teach and in the time that we did it I don't think he got very much out of the encounter. But he was already set on coming to church because of his friends influence and my hope is that we'll be able to meet with him more and try and get more across. Later that day we got a call to give a blessing to a lady in the hospital who had had an emergency C-section on halloween and lost her baby and now had an infection from the incision. It was a really peaceful and pleasant visit with this lady and her mother and step-mother were there and it was just nice. I think she really appreciated the blessing that I gave and was truly comforted by her Heavenly Father.

On Saturday we played basketball with our ward members and then afterward we got to help an inactive family with some backyard cleanup. They had ivy taking over their fence and so we trimmed it back and got to spend some quality time with them. They have two teenage sons that were never baptized who could really benefit from just having new friends in church. They are considering being baptized. And after that we got to teach our investigator who Elder McKenzie knows quite a bit of her family back in Utah. She has a really tough time understanding the Book Of Mormon but we read a chapter with her and kind of translated it into easier terms and she picked up the principles and message from it no problem and we could tell that she accepted it all as things important to her life.

On Sunday we were on our way to church when we got a call from some members in San Jose whose parents live in our area. They were calling cause their father had slipped from his chair and the mother wasn't able to lift him back up. So we abandoned the ward council meeting that we were headed to in order to help this old guy out. We got there and he didn't seem to be in much distress, he was just sitting on the floor leaning against a chair watching television. But we hefted him up and on his wheelchair and his wife took him to use the bathroom and give him a bath. We waited around in case she needed further help with him. She wheeled him out eventually. He has Alzheimers and can be pretty difficult with her. She said she could handle it from there so we went back to church. Church was good. The man with lung cancer did indeed come with his wife and so did the young couple with a baby that we've been teaching. It was a good turn out. After church we met with another investigator who says he has some presentations to give concerning his new product that saves elctricity in LA so he may soon quit his other job and come to church. Then we had a good dinner with a family. We were sitting on the couch waiting for dinner to be finished when the dog was let in. It came rushing in and stopped on the rug and spat something up out of it's mouth. It was bright red and I at first though the dog had puked up something and at first glance I thought it looked like a heart. I was freaked out for a split second until I noticed a bunch of seeds in the juice on the rug and realized that it was a tomato. Sparky's a maniac.

After dinner we went to our stake center to catch the tail end of a fireside that our mission president and area authority were doing to inspire all the members on how to assist the missionary efforts. It was great. After that it was bedtime and today I'm writing to you all.

Sincerely, Elder Miller