Greetings From San Jose

Merry Christmas Everyone,

My week was pretty good. Some memorable moments. The end of it was when it picked up. First few days were not so great. Wednesday night we started our exchange with our Zone Leaders. I went into their area and we have two zone leaders and they have a third companion who isn't a zone leader but I was with Elder Bunker and Elder Teo'Tafiti and Elder Sotele went with my companion in our area. It was fun. Our Zone leaders serve in a Tongan ward as well as a "pulangi" (white) one. So we drove mostly about East Palo Alto throughout the day and visited a bunch of members and were sharing little Christmas messages and also trying to visit their investigators. In the car we had some Christmas music by some Italian opera singer. His music was beautiful but we couldn't help but giggle when he sang "everybody knows a Tourkie and some mistletoe". His accent just didn't quite make the right sounds some times. It was fun visiting the Tongan members and hearing my Zone leader converse with them. This really slim skinny white guy from Utah speaking Tongan like he's one of them, awesome. They were fun to be with for the day and get to know some other elders a bit better.

On Friday we had a great lesson and got a new investigator because of a very enthusiastic sister from our ward that just got back from her mission. She went ahead and invited an old school friend over for lunch and invited us as well to teach her. It was really great. The first time I've eaten with that family because it's a single lady but we finally got another guy to come with us. This lady, as tradition, makes every meal member display a talent at the end to kind of pay for the meal in a sense. It was fun. I juggled and three people sang someone drew a picture and another played the piano. It's a cool tradition that I think would be awesome to start doing if/when I have dinner guests. Fun way to end the session. Anyway, after that we went and were roped into helping set up for the ward Christmas party to be held on Saturday evening. It was quite the endeavor. When we got there it was little unorganized and we were told to start setting up tables but then a member showed up and was like "Why are all these tables already here?" They have a huge canopy made from like 12 parachutes sewn together that they put up to kind of mute the lights. So first we had to string lights all the way across the cultural hall which was actually kind of fun. Then we strung up the parachute canopy, the lights took most of the time and then the canopy but after that we got the tables placed and chairs and it was mostly done. It was fun climbing up and down ladders and working on stuff. Different kind of satisfaction that comes from that than you can get being a missionary otherwise.

So on Saturday we left the apartment early cause a baptismal candidate of the neighboring missionaries needed to be interviewed by our mission president and my companion being district leader needed to be there. So we waited at our stake center for a while and then she was interviewed and passed so her baptism was set for later that day at 12:30. We went back home and got lunch and changed into our suits and then went back for the baptism. The same missionaries had two baptisms later at 5pm as well and imbetween those there was a stake childrens baptism, where our first counselor in the bishoprics daughter was baptized and then another ward in the stake had a convert baptism. That pretty much ate up our whole day. Running around helping prepare for all those and doing what we could to help people. We had our ward Christmas party and we were there for a bit then had to pick up the Elders who finished with their baptisms and then went back to the party for the end of it. It was great. I really had my heart set on getting a picture with my companion and Santa Clause but we didn't make it in time. Had some good soup though and ice cream and then we broke the whole set down. Put all the chairs and table away and then dropped the canopy and folded it up and then we cut the lights down. Lots of work for a couple of hours of party but it was fun.

Yesterday we went to church and it was great. The program was a bunch of speakers giving little talks based on the perspectives of certain people in the nativity story. Really interesting and neat. One brother spoke on the Innkeepers perspective and I had never really given it that much thought but he mentioned how the man is known in scriptures to be this heartless man who wouldn't let a pregnant lady and her husband in cause there was no room. The speaker started off by saying that he felt sorry for the man, that he's learned who he rejected by now and is probably embarrassed in the spirit world. But in reality how was he supposed to know who it was knocking on his door. The best part of sacrament meeting though was a less active woman and her non-member husband who we have been teaching finally had their little baby girl blessed by our bishop and we got to stand in circle. The first baby blessing I've gotten to participate in. Also we got a new Ward Mission Leader. I don't think I'll get to work with him much, he goes on vacation for two weeks and I think I'm leaving in two weeks. But still he seems like an awesome guy, just moved into the ward with his wife and child from Boston where he was in the bishopric and he and his wife both served missions in Hong Kong.

A member who we visit often and his wife were at Stanford Hostpital due to pregnancy complications so we were invited over there to give his wife a blessing. One funny thing was that on the way to the hospital room we had to get visitors name tags and the security guard in charge of writing out our nametags was Indian I think and he noticed that we already had nametags so he first asked my companion his name and wrote his correctly but he didn't even bother asking my name cause he thought he saw it on the nametag. So when I got my sticker it read "Jeasus C." I was pretty happy with that. Really funny.

Now is Monday and Christmas is coming up. Should be good. On Christmas eve we have a mission wide breakfast which is a new thing and should be fun and then on Christmas our day will probably be spent going around sharing little messages with members and then accepting whatever cookies or treats they feel obliged to offer. Good times ahead. Merry Christmas Everybody.

Sincerely, Elder Miller