Monday, May 4, 2015

Service With a Smile!

Great new member!
What’s up everyone!? How has this past week been for you all?? I hope it was an amazing one! I can’t believe Mother’s Day is this Sunday... it has come so fast I can’t even believe it! What are your Mother’s Day plans? I am still trying to find someone here who has a computer or iPad they can lend us to use for Mother’s Day.  We have been unsuccessful as of right now so I hope and pray that I can find a member this week that doesn’t have plans.  Happy birthday to Tyson!! Hope today is a bomb bday and hope the family is doing well :)

Well for me, I had a pretty good week. It really flew by pretty fast. We had another week full of service opportunities work at the "sheep ladies” farm, food bank etc.   We also found a couple of new investigators by knocking doors and contacting and they are investigators de oro!  Hopefully, cross your fingers and pray that they don't end up hiding from us or dropping us this week.  Ha-ha. Also I got into a car crash this week while on exchanges... pretty intense it was a rollover accident and everything! Nah, just playin with ya, it was just a fender bender and I wasn't driving, thank heavens! But I’ll explain more in a bit :)

Just like home...  Getting out those old stumps!
But I'm glad that you saw a pic of me at the baptism this week! Ha-ha that’s super funny!  It’s so good to be back up here in Whittier and to see J** and her family occasionally! The baptism was for George’s son, it was amazing! G** is one of the sickest members here and he just barely got the Aaronic Priesthood and has made amazing strides in changing his life around to be where he is at now.  I was able to see all the families from my first area and it was great!

Super Heros to the Rescue!
Service with a SMILE!
Okay as for Elder B** and myself this week we have been doing really good! We both get along really well and are pretty much on the same page now for the work and what we need to do to help this area progress. My main goal is to leave this area better than I found it so I will stay strong to make that goal and really focus my time and talents to the task. This week we did have more investigators drop us and also we had to hand off some to the Singles Ward Elders.  Our teaching pool got cut in half once again. D** called on Saturday and was really nice about it, but said that right now just isn’t the time or place for her to hear us out even though she loved what we taught and how she felt.  Maybe she will come back to the church later on... who knows. But we also passed off G** to the Singles Ward Elders which was a good decision since he barely speaks and understands Spanish so that would just be awkward at church, etc.  As for success, we found 2 news investigators E** and A** who are both fluent Spanish speakers from Mexico so that was a great blessing! We had great lessons with them both about the first point of lesson 2 which talks about our pre-earth life and how we have a purpose in life by a loving Father in Heaven. Both seemed pretty interested and were very open to having us come back and teach them more when they have more time this week. However, there is no way I am teaching them without members present in the lessons, I have seen over the course of my mission the difference it really makes when the members help us teach rather than us by ourselves and the success rate of people coming to church doubles. We have a whole new pool of investigators who have only been taught 1 or more lessons.  This week, I plan to really focus on setting some baptism dates and establishing a vision for both the investigators and how we can help them get closer to God and the Savior.

Serving at the Food Bank
Okay, I was on exchanges with Elder P** in his area while Elder L** was with my companion.  We were off to a really good exchange. We had a bomb dinner and then had a good lesson on the Holy Ghost to help a family in our ward.  As the night continued to roll on, we were going by potentials and investigators and we were having the most success.  We were heading to visit some more people and were driving down this little street where we saw a group of gang members standing in the middle of the street talking to somebody in this giant blacked out truck.  We decided to try to maneuver around them, but then saw that there was a parked truck on the other side therefore making our passage impossible. So I told Elder P** to stop.  He either didn't hear me or something, but he kept on going and yup we ended up hitting the back of the truck in front of everybody. Ha-ha. It was a terrible night after that having to fill out paperwork while everybody else around us was filming us on their phones, making crude jokes about us and pretending to be "injured" etc. It was ridiculous. Thankfully, the owner was a pretty nice Hispanic man so we were able to fill out the information and leave.   Like I said, the accident wasn't bad at all, but we had to spend all the next day at the office filling out more paperwork and forms and talking to the vehicle coordinator.  It was just a huge waste of time. But besides that little minor setback, the exchange was good and so was the rest of this week. We have seen great progress in certain people we teach even though they won’t come to church yet.  I am confident that if we remain consistent that eventually they will decide to come and change their lives.

Elders of Pico Rivera-Whittier.
That's about it for me this week! It was a great week full of ups and downs and lots and lots of walking. But I hope all is well for everyone who reads my blog! Stay true to the faith and trust in God and all things are possible.

Con amor,
Elder Woffinden

1 comment:

  1. PUT YOUR BACK INTO THAT STUMP AND BEND YOUR KNEES!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete