Transferred to Huntington Beach South

Y came to Church!

What’s up!! Hey how are things for everyone?? Super good to hear from you all again. It’s always awesome. Lots of questions for me but I will try to answer them the best that I can. To start off, I know everyone knows that transfers are here and that there was a good chance in me being transferred, and it came true! I am getting moved to Huntington Beach South which covers the beach and all the tourist spots, etc. (aka temptation avenue so they call it here!!)  ha-ha  My companion is going to be Elder J** and if that name sounds familiar it is because he was here with me in Pico Rivera for 2 transfers and then was transferred out last transfer.  Super excited to head down to the beach, but it is going to be very, very tough being there in the middle of July. (Ha ha) There is no Spanish ward down there so we actually will cover a whole stake of English wards. I heard that on Sundays we have to go to three or four different wards that are all white wards and when we do bring investigators we have to translate the meetings into Spanish for them. Yeah, it’s gonna be a journey that's for sure, but I am ready for the challenge.

I have put on a little weight!

I also completed my two week Book of Mormon reading goal on Friday and it was awesome! I have never read the whole book that fast before and I truly can say it helped me out a ton to appreciate the book and how it blesses lives. I have a goal to complete it every transfer which means I will read it 5 more times before the end of my mission. It takes 9 pages of reading a day for 6 weeks to do so I am pumped!!

So that is what’s happening here with me! Pico was great! I loved it here, the people were awesome and the work totally humbled me as it always does. The Lord always makes sure to wake me up to realize that nothing happens here unless we are asking and relying on him and his infinite wisdom.

J is giving him a punch!

There is a story I want to share that actually happened on Saturday with our new investigator Y** that we have been teaching.  She is progressing great! She doesn't have a real strong knowledge in God as to who he is or if he really exists. She has grown up Catholic and only went to church when she was forced to go to Misa. We have been really focusing on teaching her about prayer and how God is a loving father figure to her personally. There is absolutely no point in teaching the lessons to an investigator who has no idea who God is.  Even if we explain it, she has to internalize it or else it is just words. So we had a church tour with her on Saturday afternoon. We had many members from both English and Spanish wards at the church due to a bridal shower and two baby showers that all happened in the gym (which we were invited to and gladly participated in after – ha ha) We went into the chapel and had a very short but powerful lesson about church and why we go and why God wants her to go. I had a question pop into my mind to ask her how her praying has been coming along and she responded that it has improved by a lot of gradual progression. So we then invited her to take as much time as she needed and to offer a silent prayer by herself while we moved to another part of the chapel to give her some alone time. We told her to pray for a specific question to help her know if this is something good.  She took about 15 minutes and it was pure silence the whole time while we sat there prayed and just meditated. It was very powerful! When she was done she explained how she had never had anything like that happen to her and how she had felt such a peace and calm fall upon her. She was very moved by it. We then later invited her to be baptized with the promise that she can always feel that way.  She accepted for the 26th de julio!! Pretty sweet! She also came to church yesterday and LOVED IT!!  We watched “Meet the Mormons"  :)

One of our great investigators

As for Elder B and I, the rest of our week was pretty good. Sorta slow with a lot of the work, but we spent a lot of time performing service. We did about 12 hours this week for IFC, and we also helped a business move furniture around.  Aka, I was the "dolly" and moved the furniture. ha-ha. It was freaking hard! But it was great and it always makes you feel good when you are helping others out!

Elder B's Hump Day!

Things are great!! The despedida was awesome yesterday! As always, I’m sure you all saw some photos from that.  ha-ha   It always makes my day seeing all the members and friends I have grown to love on my mission!!  It really makes me know how blessed I truly am and how I would do anything for each one of them. But that's it for me this week!!

Hasta la semana que viene!! Los amo a todos mucho!!

Con mucho carino y amor

Elder Woffinden