Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everyone,

This past week went by really fast. Last Monday, perhaps I already wrote about this, but we were volunteered for service at the Creche exhibit in Palo Alto. I guess Creche is an old French word that means crib essentially and is now used to denote old nativity scenes. I don't know who started it but every year they display hundreds of nativity scenes in a building and they heavily set up for it. I spent much of the day hauling tables to set up and hanging garlands along the walls of the cultural hall. Well yesterday we were called upon for a shift. Apparrantly missionaries weren't technically allowed in the beginning of the Creche because it wasn't necessarily a mormon event, it's coordinators also include people of other religions. But a missionary asked if he could set up a hot chocolate table outside and remain out there and draw people that way without being intrusive. And so for however long that was missionaries have been at the Creche passing out steaming cups of cocoa. We went last night and it was sadly not very well set up. And we ran out of cocoa pretty quickly. As far as missionary opportunities go this one wasn't that great. The majority of people that come are members and all the hot chocolate is snatched up by all the little kids, and missionaries. It was pretty hot as well, I burned my tongue good. We did get to wander around inside and check out all the Creches though and that was pretty neat. Kind of amazing how many there were. It's nice to know that the awareness of our Savior is worldspread. Items from Poland and Japan and South America and everywhere. Lots of them had little signs next to them and talked about how many were picked up by missionaries as souvenirs upon leaving their missions. I thought about what kind of nativity I could find here in California that would embody the area as well as tell the story of Christ's birth. I guess just carve it out of a Redwood tree, or perhaps a surf board. There were some from Vietnam that used recycled paper rolled up and glued in some fashion.

Anyway, on Thursday we had our first district meeting with my companion recently assigned as the new district leader. I however missed most of it because I had to go with one of my Zone Leaders so he could interview the man we have been teaching who has lung cancer. He passed the interview and is actually scheduled to be baptized today at 2pm so I have to wrap up this e-mail quick. He has an intravenous pump that we'll either have to have taken out real quick then baptize him and put it back in or wrap it in plastic and hold it out of the water. He also suffers from a lot of anxiety attacks and when he's drugged up he's not really with it. We are rushing this baptism cause unfortunatly he is not expected to live much longer. It is really sad but I'm glad that we have gotten to know him and taught him and he has accepted it all. When we taught him the plan of salvation and we had the knowledge that he was planning on dying soon it was strangely peaceful to let him know exactly what was in store for him and he was looking for just that information. That this life was not the end but that he has a long future ahead of him. He's counting on being with his wife in the after life as well so we hope to continue going over there and teaching her more and see if she can hope to be with her husband again too.

Actually nothing else all too exciting happened during the week. I'm not sure why it seemed to pass so quickly. We're doing well though and are gonna have to find some more people to teach since the ones we have been spending so much time with have kind of graduated up and we spend less time with them. I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys the things the seasons bring.

Sincerely, Elder Miller