Greetings From San Jose

I Extend Greetings, A little while ago I decided to try and make each start to my letters a little different than the previous ones since I've been doing the same thing for two years. I didn't think it would be so hard to come up with original starts to my e-mails, I'm going to have to start studying up on synonyms for Hello if I intend to keep it up. This past week was pretty fantastic. We had the opportunity to attend three different baptisms. While none of them were for investigators that we had taught they were all good none the less. The first one was actually just a normal eight year old baptism but the father of the child is less active and the mother was trying to organize the whole thing herself and so asked us if we'd be able to help fill the font and set up and do whatever so we agreed. Actually to guarantee that we did help she signed up for dinner and told us that she'd feed us at the church after we'd helped set up and got the font running. The baptism didn't go very smoothly after that though. The boy was baptized by his grandfather who didn't really know what he was doing. I had lent him my Missionary Handbook so he could practice the prayers and have them down and he studied it beforehand but when it came time he couldn't repeat the prayer word for word at all. The bishop coached him through it and then he submerged the child but the kids foot came right up and breached so they went again and the same thing happened. I beat myself up about this cause the thought came to me while we were about 15 minutes from starting the baptism that I should ask the grandpa if he and the child had practiced or if they wanted to. I dismissed this thought telling myself that it wasn't my baptism and so it wasn't my place to be checking up on people and telling them how to baptize or practice baptizing their grandchildren. I realize now that that was a prompting from the Holy Ghost that I ignored and if I hadn't then the baptism would have gone a lot smoother and I wouldn't be lamenting it all now. They tried baptizing the child again and this time the child was focused and kept his feet down but the grandpa was also focused on the foot and so he failed to submerge the child's head completely. Everyone thought that this time it was perfect and some people even clapped, I guess cause it had been so suspenseful, but then our bishop cut in and said "now that was good but not quite all the way, we'll just do it once more." The child was unhappy about this and they took a recess at the bidding of the Stake President during which they practiced in the changing room and came back out eventually and finally did the ordinance correctly. Afterward I remembered that since we had filled the font we should probably also drain it. As I walked back to the font I thought about it and remembered that there is no chain attached to the rubber stopper that needs to be removed from the drain sitting under 3 feet of water. The grandpa and child were already dried off and dressed so I went about trying to think of another way to remove the plug. I was recalling the assets of our church building mentally trying to picture all the long stick like heavy objects I could use to reach down and loosen the plug when a lady in the ward noticed our problem and said that one of her sons would probably jump at the opportunity to strip down to his undies and yank the plug for us. So we scouted out the son she mentioned and waved him over and told him we had a special assignment for him, trying to play it off like it was the coolest thing in the world that we were about to offer him. "We need you," we crack the entrance to the font open so he can see the dilemma "to go down there and pull out the plug that's stopping the water for us. Think you can do it?" He didn't look too certain. So then my companion suggests "How about if we and maybe your Dad as well just lower you over the glass viewing wall holding you by the ankles?" The kid's too logical for this plan, says "I'd probably just fall in." So it was back to plan A. I found a metal table leg that was for some reason not attached to anything and I leaned out and down over the glass viewing wall, nearly bifurcating myself and just barely managed to scrape up the edge of the stopper and get it to shift allowing some water to start draining but it was very slow since the stopper was still mostly in place. I realized that basically hanging off of the glass wall wasn't the best idea and so we taped a pasta claw utensil to the end of a broom handle and I got the rest of the plug removed. And that was my font drain adventure for the week. At that baptism was a non-member friend of a lady in our ward who has now come to church twice and knows some other members and it's seeming likely that she'll eventually require some missionary lessons. For now we're keeping at bay, letting her develop roots on more of a friendship level with the ward members and then when those are strong we'll add some Gospel Miracle Grow. I don't normally view people as plants but there can't be anything wrong with it since Jesus did the same thing in parable. Anyway, we have been teaching a lady in the singles branch and it's going alright. She tends to play devils advocate during the lessons. This greatly vexes my companion cause ultimately I guess it tears down a bit of the reverence that should be there when discussing the Gospel but I notice that she knows when to be serious and not poke at the points we're making as well. We originally had a baptismal date given to her for the 28th of this month and then when we were discussing that my companion asked if she was still good with that or if she would like to more definitely set it for another day. He and I were assuming that she'd go for more time but she surprised us and said that she'd prefer a sooner date. She has been taught in the past and bailed on two baptisms but she's seeming pretty committed this time. So her date was set then for the 15th, as in this Friday, but we talked to our ward leaders about it and they want it to be on Sunday at the earliest, and that way everyone from the branch can just be there and attend right after church. So it may be the 17th, oh, Fathers day, didn't even think about that. Maybe some branch members won't be around anyway for that. Yesterday she almost didn't make it to church. We called right before sacrament meeting and she was saying that there was a dead rat in her car. I don't think she has mob connections, it was just a literal rat that I guess had gotten in there and died. I don't understand how this hurts the proper function of her Volks-Wagon but we had to send a branch member to go pick her up. And then she got super emotional as a man performed a song in honor of Pioneer Day about pioneers laying their dead babies on the side of the road. If this baptism happens it will definitely be a miracle. We have a few other people the we are working with and things seem to be picking up around here. Getting the hang of things, took me long enough. I hope you are all doing well. Sincerely, Elder F. Miller