Monday, July 6, 2015

It's Great to be in Huntington Beach

Welcome to Huntington Beach!
HBello!!! Get it?? Hey how’s it going everyone?? Wow, what a great week it has been being down here in Huntington Beach, minus the fact that I sprained my ankle pretty bad while playing sports today. So, I am just chilling at the church emailing with my ankle the size of a softball. It’s huge!! But, this area is very different from any other area I have served in that is for sure. There are 4 Spanish elders here and Elder J** and I cover all of HB while the others cover Fountain Valley so it is a pretty big area to drive and to work in.

Halfway done with our daily 6-mile run.
To answer questions about my companion, he is from Kansas and has been out on his mission I think for 7 months. I served with him up in Pico Rivera when he was getting trained by Elder C** and the follow up training by Elder T**, so I really know him pretty well already. Our apartment is pretty sweet and big, and we are only like 3 miles away from the actual beach which is pretty sweet. However my first day I arrived here I received a lovely parking ticket notice for the "street sweeping" which was super stupid! $44--all for the streets to get swept and never look clean, haha.

Here in HB we cover 4 separate wards and go
G** from Pico Rivera and me.
to 3 Sacrament meetings every week! Yeah, I about died doing that yesterday. I had to translate in Sacrament meeting for a couple of Spanish people with the head sets and all!! It was sooo hard. I can do Spanish to English, but from English to Spanish, and especially a testimony meeting when people are explaining how their grandfather was in WWII, and his plane got shot down in flames, etc., let’s just say I was way out of my league! Thankfully, there was a returned missionary from El Salvador whose Spanish was pretty dang good! So he helped me out a ton and took over for some of the meeting. I feel pretty stupid since his Spanish was so more advanced than mine but, I guess that's just the price you pay serving in the states,  especially with it being Fast Sunday. We have the richest ward in the mission called the Sea Point Ward which we cover and the people in that ward are beyond loaded with cash! Their homes are crazy and have just the nicest cars and pools, etc., so it is a huge culture shock to what I have been used to serving on my mission. But, all the members are very cool and nice, and the dinners have been just like home, so no complaints here.

Okay, so for the work, we have a young girl named A** who has a baptismal date for the July 26!
Our new way of contacting--Surf-tacting!
We set it on Tuesday and she is super, super prepared! She has been getting taught since she was 4 and she is 9 now so she knows everything like the back of her hand. The only issue was her father wouldn't let her be baptized and has been pretty strict with all the kids when it comes to church. The mom is already a member and wants us to get her baptized and feels her husband will ease up this time and sign the papers. SO please pray for A**! We are pretty much white washing her since I am brand new in the area and know nothing or nobody, and Elder J** doesn't have an idea either, haha. So it’s just like Compton again! However, we had a pretty successful week and taught a fair number of lessons and the members are pretty willing to help out with the sets that we have. I still don’t have too great of a knowledge of our investigators since I have only been able to meet about half of them, but I am hoping to report more about lessons or experiences with them in my next email.

We are trying to teach this super awesome couple from Argentina, but they never have time.  I just
Saying goodbye to Y** in Pico Rivera
have a feeling that they will progress due to this one lesson we had with them my first night in the area. They said they have been wanting to think about becoming Mormon, but don't want to be rushed especially the wife since she had a stroke recently and is like half paralyzed on her left side of her body. SO, hopefully we will be able to progress with them this upcoming week!

Elder J** and I have been having a great time though, and something happened that was pretty cool on Thursday while we were out contacting and visiting potentials with a member. We were walking down this street called Florida when I saw this super nice Maserati and Porsche sitting in this guy’s drive way. SO I was all whoooa!! Dude, let’s go take a look at this! So as we
Our new mission car--a $300K Ferrari.
approached the house, I see this brand new gray waxed-up Ferrari with the windows down sitting in the garage, haha. I immediately went up and knocked on the door. This super jacked ripped guy opens the door with his shirt off and is all, whats up? And I replied hey bro, can I look at your Ferrari?? He paused and said, "yeah sure," haha. So we all went into the garage to look at all these super nice cars and bikes that he has. As I was looking at his car I was wondering how he was able to afford a $300 thousand dollar car and all these other toys when I noticed all around his garage there were pictures, posters, and ads--all of him as a world champion MMA fighter, haha. I forgot his name sadly, but he is from Brazil and he and his brother are like double black Jujitsu fighters that have been living here for about 10 years. We had a great discussion but, sadly he was not interested in our message or what we had to offer him... but I did get some great photos, so that was pretty sweet!

My Zone and District are pretty cool! Being by the beach is awesome, we are there just about every day driving past or walking around. Every day elders F**, R**, J** and myself wake up at 6 am to go to the church to do Insanity tapes in the gym, haha. It is great, but it killed me this week since I am so out of shape. On Saturdays we do our beach run which is a 6-mile run from the elder’s apartment down the boardwalk by the beach and then back. We did it this past Saturday during the 4th of July and it was packed!! I guess every year here in HB they go all out for the 4th of July and all the streets from Main on down get shut down for parades and EVERYONE goes to the beach and sets up camp for the fireworks which are launched off the pier. We were able to run by it at like 7 am while they were getting ready and it looked super fun!

Saying goodbye to another great family in Pico Rivera.
Our 4th of July was good! We had a decently successful teaching afternoon, but at night, nada! But we were able to watch the fireworks with some cool members from the Sea Point Ward and it was super cool! It reminded me of home when we go to the firework shows in Sandy. We also were able to do some service here and have now signed up at the old folks home here twice a week, every week, haha. It is super fun!! We play bingo with them and all other sorts of games. They are all nice old ladies (there were about 9 of them) even though a couple of them are the bossiest people in the world, haha. We do it every Thursday and Saturday and just go and have fun with the seniors. One of them grabbed me by the hand and asked, "you are such a good looking young man, why are you not in the films!?" haha. Then she asked how old I was, and when I replied 22, she said, “well too young for me,” haha. It was great!

Say hi to my new pet, Willie!
That’s about it for me!! Things are going good! I’m not going out to work tonight since I can barely walk but, I look forward to this week! Hope all is well with everyone and just know I love and miss you all! Have a great week!



Elder Woffinden

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