Greetings From San Jose

Wuz Crackin',

Well this will probably be short since the computers are once again in high demand and my companion and I are sharing a time slot. My Fourth of July was fine. We actually were on exchanges with another companionship so I missed the ward breakfast that was put on and instead attended a different one with a different companion. It was really good. Some of the tastiest pancakes I've ever had and the members somehow got the word out enough to have a bunch of people not in the church show up.

This week we have zone conference coming up and so my companion made sure we washed our car today cause often times the car coordinator for the mission will inspect the vehicles while we're in the meeting. We washed the car decently and then we got a call from some other Elders saying that to save miles we were just going to ride with them down to the meeting. But that's okay, we really needed to wash our car regardless if someone was going to inspect it or not. That's probably the hardest thing for me, convincing myself to spend a half hour of Preparation day to wash the car.

We were at a baptism for a little boy in the ward last night and he had to be baptized a couple of times and then it was good. It was kind of funny cause the first time his foot came up so for the repeat I'm sure they counseled him to keep his feet down and subsequently I think the kid locked his legs on the second try cause you saw him kind of just lean back and his dad almost toppled over him cause he was pushing him down but was forced to reach back and back. And then the third time was counted good and everyone dismissed back to their seats and then someone inquired as to whether the kid had a middle name cause the father had just used first and last and it turned out that he did have a middle name and so they repeated it and it went well the fourth time.

We were super hopeful that our investigator would come to church. In the past the problem has been that she didn't have a car and she still doesn't but she said her father was interested and was going to drive her and her son and come himself on Sunday. They didn't show up and we have yet to figure out why but it's starting to look like she just doesn't really want to come. But we have been meeting with a recent convert quite a bit and building him up and encouraging him to share his beliefs with others and this Sunday a friend that he has invited a bunch of times finally came. They had to walk a ways to get to church and the convert kind of tricked his friend into the long walk so we'll see if he comes back but he seemed to like it and shared his feelings during a gospel essentials lesson. Then he was invited to come and attend "bible study" with us when we usually meet with the recent convert on Thursdays.

So we have a few odd things that seem likely to pick up. This past week we finally were able to catch up with a less active guy that we had been teaching regularly but then I guess we just happened to never catch for like two weeks straight, of trying about every day. I figured he was avoiding us but then we found him. I even tried to fix his bike for him. Really all I did was mess it up more and then fixed the part that I messed up and the original problem was still there so I just told him to stay away from the low gears and he'd be fine.

Well I hope you are all doing well. Have a great week.

Sincerely, Elder F. Miller