Greetings From San Jose

Hello There, This past week was pretty good. I am not currently recollecting much of it so hang in there... oh yeah, one great thing was this lesson we had in which we invited a senior missionary in our zone to come. He and his wife are genealogy specialists and so we brought him along to talk dead people with the non member wife of a less active man that we had visited once before. It went amazingly well. This senior missionary is a great guy and he actually was serving as a mission president a while ago but was removed due to medical issues. He got right in there and we just sat back and munched on some interestingly delicious french toast custard dish that was quite good. The only problem was that I kept blowing on it to cool it down and that would disperse powdered sugar all over me. There wasn't much of a lesson taught, the senior missionary just got their basic family information and got working on their lines and there was just a wonderful spirit felt as they were able to work together to do family history work. At the end it was revealed that the wife has been reading the Book of Mormon and has been considering joining the church for quite a while. They had a daughter that desired to join the church but passed away before she could. So we're letting the spirit of Elijah handle this case until it's ready for us to teach a little more. Another new development occurred on Sunday. Everything just kind of worked out for us to finally get around to teaching the girlfriend of a less active guy that has been coming to church regularly now and bringing his girlfriend along. Sunday was mostly normal except that our mission president was the guest speaker along with his wife and my companion. So our less active friend brought his girlfriend again and she was able to attend sacrament meeting and hear the good talks given by these three people. After the meeting the branch hosted a dinner and so we all hung around and ate together and so it was just good to have the girlfriend getting to know everybody better over a meal. And then that night was the outgoing fireside for the missionaries going home. We had our less active friend offer to give us a ride (in his girlfriends car cause his is on the fritz) So the girlfriend came along as well. On the ride up I was given the front passengers seat due to my leg proportions and so my companion sat in the back with the girlfriend and worked wonders in just being friendly. At the fireside she was bombarded by testimonies of missionaries and recent converts and then on the ride back we basically taught her a bunch of principles. We set up to teach a more official lesson the following evening. Monday, we had a beach activity with the neighboring zone. So we all drove down to Monterey, or Carmel I think technically and had a few hours fun on the beach. The beach was not quite so nice as the beaches in Santa Cruz and I found myself upset with the lack of frisbee playing space. But there is always sand to dig in and structures to climb on and whatnot so we made our own fun. Lots of missionaries that I don't know so well and didn't bother to really get to know better. That evening my Irish companion was severely sunburned and I was but unaware for a while. We had the lesson with our less active friend and his girlfriend and it was good. Her main concerns are just a difference from what she's grown up learning being Catholic and then although we didn't teach it, she is aware that members of our church don't drink or smoke or party so much, or have pre-marital sex and so her worry is just changing those things while she considers herself to be in the prime of her life when that's what young people are "supposed" to be doing. She understood everything else and is a great investigator but much depends on just whether she really wants this. She's seen her boyfriend make a lot of changes and that may be the source of both her intrigue and trepidation when it comes to learning about our religion. We look forward to teaching her more and it's great to finally have an investigator, that is more legitimate than many others we've had. The difference is made when they have a tie to a member. They have a measuring stick into the church. "Well he's normal so his church can't be too out of whack." Makes a huge difference. Anyway, I lose my companion next Tuesday and I'm not excited. I always dread transfers. I guess for all the things I say about investigators being afraid of changes I'm not all that much better myself. It will be good though. One more companion to come and finish me off. Have a great week everyone. Sincerely, Elder F. Miller