Service in Whittier

Hola Familia!! Hey thanks for the letter!! Sounds like you guys had an awesome week full of bday parties and all sorts of fun! I’m super jealous!  Well my week was actually pretty good! This past week we really committed to having members come out with us for lessons and it turned out great! We had one every single night up until Thursday so four in a row! The weekend is pretty hard for them to come out and we had three bail so that was a bummer, but it was a great week. The lessons were awesome. We are teaching a guy named C** right now and he really is in a giant hole in his life. He has a drinking and smoking problem so we have been teaching him the very simple things.  We had a great week of lessons with him, but it is hard with addictions. We are patient with him because that is how you need to handle the situation, but it is very sad and frustrating to see him always so depressed.  We know how to help him, but he doesn't fully want to accept or take action on what we teach.  He promised us he was going to come to church along with three other investigators we have been teaching, but at the last second they decided not to show up.  We even went by on Sunday morning to help get them up and ready to go, so that’s hard because you are just watching the doors at Sacrament meeting.

Helping with a move

This week we also have been busy movers! Haha We have helped three families move into their apartments at our complex. One of which is a recent convert family who was baptized in April and they are a solid family!! I truly love this family and they love having us over.  The B**’s have two kids ages 14 and 9 and they are always asking for us to come over and talk and teach them, etc. which is great! With them moving in and so close we are for sure going to take advantage of the Noche de hogars we can have with them.  They want us to teach them English in exchange for Spanish… which I am down for!  We spent all day Saturday moving them and two other families so it was a busy and sweaty day.  The humidity is killing me out here literally. My clothes are in such bad shape from sweat, tears and stains etc.  I got a flat tire on Friday and accidently got bike grease all over one of my shirts so that one is toast. Ha ha.  Also on Friday, we had a zone conference from 9-3.   Elder Pecht and I just chilled together.  And no, I haven’t been on any more splits with Bubba and I probably won’t unless I stay in this area for one more transfer.  Transfers end on your birthday mom so happy upcoming bday.

Driving home from church

Yesterday was a pretty good day! Church was long and I still don’t really get a lot out of church because of my struggles with Spanish.  It gives me a headache to try to follow all they say.  haha   We had some pretty good success last night. Yesterday, we pulled up to a new area and decided we needed to say a prayer to help us find three new investigators. I know it’s crazy to ask for three for one day, but we just hadn't met our goal for the week and really needed some help.  So we went out on foot to find people. Right then we knocked on a door and found this 16 year old kid who is golden! Literally he has really great potential.  We started talking and he really liked what we had to say.  We then asked him if he would be comfortable in saying a closing prayer to see how he would feel about pursing our messages more in the future.  We bowed our heads and folded our arms and all of this is on his front porch (btw) The next thing I know, it is silent.... for like 5 minutes... Seriously, not kidding.  It was so weird, he just stood there praying while we stood there silent. He said, “Okay that was good!"  “I feel good about it, you guys can come over some other time and I’m sure my brother will want to join too!”  Sweet! we were pumped! We aren't saying he is an investigator yet, but he has some real potential.  About five minutes later, we saw a group of kids out playing basketball in the street. There were 4 boys and 2 girls from the ages of 9 to probably 16.  Their ball rolled down the street and came right to where I was walking so I picked it up and started contacting them. We challenged them to a game of basketball and of course they just laughed at us.  They were like, “What do you want, etc.?”   We told them that if we win, we get to talk to them and their parents about our message, but if they win we have to do a ton of push-ups and never come back. haha.  They accepted and we started playing literal street ball in our "pros" clothes. haha   It was pretty weird… I will be honest, but Elder H** and I did our work and the hoop was maybe 9 feet, so the hoop was easily dunk-able.  It was great! We had a great time and after we won (of course) we went over to talk to their dad with them. Sadly, their dad didn't want to have anything to do with us so we didn't actually get a lesson in, but hey it was still fun!

Well that pretty much sums up my week.   It was good!   We’re hoping this week is just as good if not better. I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for all your love and support love you guys!

Hasta Luego

E. Woffinden