Busy Week in Long Beach East

Heading out to teach!

HEEY!! What’s up! How is everyone doing this week?? I hope well! It was good to hear from a lot of you this week and I love following up on the events that are occurring back home especially con mis hermanas embarasadas.  Ha-ha. But anyways, this past week was really good! It was full of all kinds of great events that happened so I am looking forward to trying to sum it all up into one e-mail.

To begin, I will start with the missionary work. So as of right now we currently have three solid investigators and each of them has a baptismal date set for the end of February. Sweet!  So with L**, I will just say that she is super awesome and so prepared! She actually reads and prays when we commit her to do so which is a big change from the investigators I have been used to teaching. This past week she was out of town so we only saw her once, but we had a really awesome Plan of Salvation lesson with her that really helped answer the big questions of why am I here, where did I come from and where am I going. She really enjoyed the lesson and the member we brought with us really helped add to the spirit that was there and to helping her feel more fellow shipped and not alone.  We have a set with her tonight so I am very excited to get her going again towards her B-date in a month or so!

Ja hangin' with Michael J statue

Okay so also this week something amazing happened to us on Friday! We had just gotten back from dinner and I was feeling really sick because I’m pretty sure I have ruined my stomach from all the Hispanic food and hot salsas and spices every day.  I get sick every time we eat, but anyways, I had the impression to text a member in the branch who has a friend named C** who they have been wanting us to teach. We hadn't been able to teach her and so I figured we never would, but I decided to text the member to ask if we could maybe meet with her some time in the future.  Within like 20 seconds after sending the message, she responded back with, "She’s here right now! Come teach her!"  I was shocked because to be honest our night plans looked pretty bad, but now I was on Cloud 9!!  I was so excited. We taught her at the member’s home and set a B-date for the end of February.   She came to Stake Conference yesterday and is excited to meet with us this upcoming week! Pretty sweet miracle!!

Also this week on an exchange, I taught English to a group of Cambodians.  I was the instructor to help them study for their citizenship test coming up, it was hilarious!  I had no clue what they were saying.  All I did was read the questions and waited for their memorized responses in English.  Ha-ha   They were very loving and said I was" funny" so it was a fun experience.

Elder S heading home!

I want to tell you about some more crazy experiences we had this week.  On Thursday night, I was on exchanges with elder T** in the Cambodian area. We were off to a pretty good night when as we were walking down a busy street.  We saw a lady sitting at the bus stop bench crying. After getting a closer look, I was overwhelmed with the smell of alcohol and knew she had been drinking a lot. So we decided to talk to her to see if we could help her. We tried to talk and even shared a scripture with her to help lighten her mood.  All of a sudden, she looks at us and says, "Okay you can do one of two things here, go buy me another beer or watch me kill myself by walking in front of the next oncoming car in the road"   -__-    That was my facial expression as we had just been put into a terrible situation.   We tried to call her bluff and then she got up and started walking across the street with oncoming traffic. So we freaked out and chased after her getting her across the street alive.   Long story short, we walked her to a bar and pretended to follow her inside but didn't. She had given us a card with her son’s name and phone number and a note saying, "I’m sorry!"  We called him told him where she was and then left. It was insane! I am so glad I didn't have to witness her getting hit by a car.

P-day - visiting the music store.

Well on a better note to end my email.  On Saturday, we were able to attend a conference where Elder Ronald A. Rasband spoke. It was fantastic! Probably one of the best ones I have attended. He gave a lot of great advice and came here because he felt like he needed to help the Long Beach mission out which was pretty cool! But that's a quick review of my week. We had a lot of good times and bad times, but it was overall a great week. Hope to hear from more of you next week!!

Thanks for all the love and support.

Con mucho carino,
Elder Woffinden.