Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everybody,

This week was quite good. I'm not sure if I can explain exactly why but it was a good week. Perhaps it has to do with a few lessons that we taught that were just really open and progressive discussions. One investigator confided to us that he has been having some weird dreams that as far as I can interpret make him feel like he is lost and I think that's a good thing cause we are here just in time to guide him. He also told us that he has been having some odd neurological problems as well. Some members in our ward invited this couple over for dinner and as far as we could tell it was a successful and fun evening for them all. But apparantly our investigator lost his memory of that whole evening. All these efforts are spent to fellowship our investigators by our members and our investigators lose their memory of it. That's insane and though I don't want to attribute it all to the adversary, there's something going on that is rather disruptive to our investigators' progress. It's great that he told us all of this so we know how to help him from here.

On Tuesday I was on exchanges so I went around Palo Alto with a couple of Tongan missionaries from my district. It was fun but when we get into lessons I'm kind of useless not being able to speak any Tongan. Most of them speak english so it's not a complete failure when meeting their investigators and members. I found myself getting a little frustrated though cause both of the missionaries being straight from Tonga, don't have drivers licenses and so I was driving but I don't know the area and taking instructions from someone who has only been speaking english for a year is kind of difficult. We almost ran out of gas on the freeway at one point and I was not happy. I just don't like driving in general and when I switch to unfamiliar cars my back starts to hurt. I probably need to work on my posture, and oh shoot I'm probably boring everybody right now, sorry.

On Wednesday we had our second lesson with a man who has lung cancer. His good friend just happens to be the Stake Mission Leader and in his current condition he has really been concerned with what happens after we die and his friend has been able to teach him a lot. His memory isn't very good given all the drugs he has to take I assume and so we just power through the lessons and we're almost more concerned with teaching his wife than him. He kind of just accepts it all because he really trusts his friend, but we want to help his wife discover the truths as well so that they can eventually be sealed and have that great hope of being together again in the eternities.

On Friday we went with some other missionaries to volunteer at a local church that has a soup kitchen. It was great, that's the first time that I've ever worked at a soup kitchen and it was fun and all like 450 people that came in and I dished up steamed squash to were grateful and often times in cheery moods despite the rainy outdoors they had just been waiting in. We got free breakfast there and were offered lunch as well but I was full enough from breakfast. There was one little old lady who came up to us and insisted that we turn our name badges around since it was a non-denominational church we were at and they didn't promote any specific church. I didn't really notice an issue and so complied but my companion ignored the lady until she came back again and they argued a little bit. It turns out the lady wasn't even in charge of anything, she was a fellow volunteer and the head honcho guy didn't care if we kept our tags or not. I felt kind of guilty having so quickly removed my tag that is my symbol of faith and discipleship of Christ. Another missionary bickered with the lady too and uncovered that she just held a grudge against our church. But still it was an enjoyable service day.

Saturday we attended a baptism for a couple of children in our ward because we had an investigator come. It was a good service and we were glad our investigator got to witness it. Our area authority a week ago on Sunday in a missionary oriented fireside quoted some statistics and said that 70% of investigators that are taught in members homes are baptized and 80% of investigators that attend someone elses baptism get baptized. This investigator is doing both of those things and so I'm confident that she will make the commitment to follow Christ but she has a few things in her way to overcome first and I'm planning on being transferred next week so I probably won't be here when she does finally accept and gets baptized.

Yesterday was good as well. We had ward council and it went great. There are always some good laughs to be found even though serious issues are discussed as well. Our bishop had been talking about potentially changing our 1pm start time to 11:30 for Christmas but everyone seemed to object and the primary reason was so people would have more time to lounge in their jammies. Right when I walked into the room Bishop and his 2nd counselor started talking to me saying, "okay Elder Miller let us have it, no need be humble or hold back." I had no clue what they were talking about. My companion caught on before I did, somehow he knew that Oregon had beaten Stanford so they were awaiting my cocky jibes I guess since I'm from Oregon. I didn't really care, especially since I have no clue what the score was or how that affects teams standings. I've never really been one much to follow football but given I'm on the mission I know and care even less than normal. After church we had a lesson with our investigator who has still never come to a church meeting though we meet with him directly after church every week. Partway through the lesson my companion got pulled out and replaced by our ward clerk cause our bishop was meeting with a family and wanted one of us their to ask them to listen to the missionary lessons. This is a family where the mother is a member but has 7 kids that aren't baptized and they have recently been coming every week for the past month or so. They agreed to take the lessons, in fact our first one is tonight and they are counting on being baptized. The older son is a senior in high school and I guess a really good running back/lineman and he got a call from BYU wanting to offer him a scholarship but he's got hair like Troy Palamalu and they told him he'd have to cut it. His response was to hang up the phone.

That was my week. Do people like how I write my e-mails? A day by day breakdown is kind of easiest for me to remember.

Sincerely, Elder F. Miller

P.S. I'm planning on getting transferred next Tuesday so all letters should either be sent to the mission office or wait until I find out my new address to mail them.