Greetings From San Jose

Hello Everybody,

This week has been spectacular. My new companion is great and has been a wonderful asset to me and this area. He is a well seasoned guy and is really helping me transform Santa Cruz into a great place to be a missionary. The second day I was with him we got into a less active members home and there was also a non-member friend there who was mostly unfamiliar with the church, or at least with the missionaries. We both introduced ourselves as Elder Miller of course and he asked about that. We explained that the Elder part is simply a title and a way to show respect, and he interrupted and said, "yeah yeah, I get the Elder part, but what do you have to do to become a Miller?" That was great, we were careful not to laugh too much and cause him to think we were making fun of him but we quickly explained that we both just happened to have the same last name. That was a really neat experience though. That day we had been fasting, our first full day together as a new companionship and we had started as a whole zone to fast just to try and spruce up the area. And the day wasn't particularly amazing but we were able to teach three lessons which is about on track for where a missionary should consistently try to hit, at least around here it is. Our area has been really low lately and so being average is a mark of improvement. Elder Miller and I have been fumbling around the area, I haven't learned it all quite that well yet so it's like we're discovering it together. It has been an enjoyable week and I'm looking forward to the next few.

Saturday was a major bummer of a day however. Normally the weekend is the best time to reach people all throughout the day. We had a big old list made up of people we wanted to try and visit and get in contact with and of course we expect to miss a few of them and just not connect up at the right time, but this time we didn't find a single person we had planned on dropping by. We blew through our list and then were left just with the worst feeling for missionaries which is just not knowing what to do next. We took a break from trying to find more people and did a little more preparation work by shrinking a map index down to assist us in our navigation efforts.

Sunday was great, we just scheduled a bunch of appointments with some active members and taught them and shared the spirit in their home and all came out the better for it.

My birthday, Monday was alright. We discovered a group of the young men were playing basketball cause of the holiday and they invited us to join so we played some and had fun. Normal laundry and other shopping. Then we actually went to the Delaveaga disc golf course which is supposedly one of the best in the world. Elder Miller got his disc stuck in a tree on the first throw of the day. Had to cut that a little short cause our housing cooridinator was picking up an old dresser from our apartment. And then we had dinner with our Bishop and his wife and it was great. They even got me balloons and baked me a cake. Really quite fun and I was really grateful to them for that.

I wanted to thank everyone who sent me a card or package for my birthday. I love you all.

Sincerely , Elder F. Miller