Baptism Week!!

Y was baptized!!

 Email from August 3, 2015 (The Woffinden family moved.  Thus the late post)

What’s up everyone!? Wow can’t believe that my family actually moved... ha-ha so weird! It’s for sure going to be weird for me coming home to a new house and adjusting to all that craziness. However, congrats on the move it’s gonna be a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the end! Also mom I am glad you received the package that I sent home for your b day!  I’m sure the picture will look good hanging up in our new house! But super excited to give you all a nice sunny SO CAL shout here from HB!

Elder H - heading home next transfer

To begin we had a very successful and fun filled Sunday! Where did I begin? Yesterday I was blessed with the opportunity to go back to Ximena to do the confirmation for Daniela! It was super good and it also makes my day going back to my old areas and seeing old friends and investigators etc. Daniela is a super awesome girl and will be a very strong example and member in the Ximeno branch. After talking and catching up with people we headed straight up to Pico Rivera for the Baptisms of Y** and R** (Elder T** and J's old investigator.) So it was pretty cool we both had a baptism on the same day from our old areas.  It was great to go and be a part of! The baptism was great and it was weird being back in Spanish Ville again.   I wasn't used to going to church or baptisms in Spanish so it made me miss it a lot. But the baptisms went great.  After the initial baptism, they all got dressed were able to bare their testimonies with all of us present.   It was amazing! R** was first to speak.  She was a complete Atheist before see met the missionaries and she didn’t believe at all in the Bible or in scriptures in general.  To see the change that has taken her and humbled her was incredible. After Y** shared her testimony, and to be honest, I almost cried it was so good! She expressed gratitude towards Elder B**and I being led by our Heavenly Father to her home to talk to her and teach her the Gospel! She also said she wasn't sure why she answered the door to us in the first place.  She used to be the girl who would see missionaries and go inside her room and not give us the time of day, but she decided to try it and look what happened!! She explained how she prayed and prayed but received nothing in return... not until we had her come to a church tour. At the tour we asked her to sit in silence in the chapel for as long as she wanted to just pray and listening for answers.   Sure enough, that was the key and she hasn't looked back since! Super happy. I was so happy yesterday it was unreal! The mission has been Hard, but it has also treated me very well and I have made relationships I will never forget which is amazing.

Elder J and I chillin and doing some shopping on P-day!

For the rest of the week, both Elder J** and I had a good week. We taught a lot and we both feel like we had a successful week. This week was full of more baptisms for other missionaries of our district and on one I was asked to translate for the baptism from Spanish to English which is a million times easier than English to Spanish. Ha-ha. Our investigators are doing really good! I would say only two of them are really progressing and that is A** and M**.   We are hoping to find more and teach more this week. We have been reading in the child’s Book of Mormon stories book with A** to help her understand and also enjoy the pictures. With M**, we have taught her everything and so have many missionaries before us… she just needs to get married! Unfortunately her "husband" doesn't want any of that which is sad. We have been working with the Pacific Shores ward to help L** come to church with the foot and eye issues that he has. If he can just come to church he will be baptized! So please pray for us and to help him find the desire and a solution to attend with us. This weekend I had a pretty fun surprise happen to me! Braxton Halford AKA Elder H**, my trainer, called me and took us to lunch with his GF!! Ha-ha   It was great being able to see him and talk and laugh with him just like the good ole times. But what made it better was that we went and taught two lessons together after lunch! And I could actually speak Spanish now when before I couldn't, so I hope that blew his mind away.  Ha-ha.

Sweet ride!

But I am doing well, the mission is great and I love being out here. Of course there are hard days, but it is always worth it in the end when we are patient with God and his timing. The end of the transfer is this week and it’s going to be weird having so many of my friends going home again... I’m jealous (jk) But crazy how fast time can fly!

Hope all is going well back home! Good luck with everything especially the move! Send more pics when you can.

Con mucho amor

Elder Woffinden

Another great week!

Cute D's baptism

This email was from July 27,  2015.
Feliz cumpleaños a mi hermosa madre!!! Hope you have a great 35 birthday :) haha I for sure look forward to getting photos of all the b day jazz and of my new niece, baby Summer!!

Wow, well another week has come and gone here in Huntington Beach.  I can’t believe it sometimes. I am headed towards the sunset of the mission and I can feel it.  It’s weird. The very last of my friends from Ximeno, Compton and old Whittier days go home in two weeks.  Crazy, I will be left a lone man in this dreary world of new missionaries, ha-ha  Well we had a sorta slow week, it was not as eventful as the past couple weeks.  However there is great news! Yesterday I was blessed to be able to go to cute little Daniela baptism!! She is 10 and got baptized around 4 pm yesterday! It was great to see her family and the little Ximeno branch that I truly came to love. The service was great and the food and mingling with old friends afterwards. I hope you get the photos I sent home?? Daniela has asked that I do the confirmation of the Holy Ghost next week at their church which of course I will do! I am pumped for that! Also I heard from Elder B** that Y** from Pico Rivera is going to get baptized this coming Sunday!!! WHOO!! I pray it all goes well and I am super excited to attend that. The Lord has for sure blessed me and the people I have been privileged to be around and serve.

Great times in Ximeno branch 

Okay so as for our area it has started to die down just a little bit, we have had to drop some investigators and others have either been doing the classic one and done or just moved??  You get excited for lessons and plan your whole day on working with a certain group of people but when they ditch, cancel, or ignore us it’s always hard, but that’s missionary life. A** has been out of town so we haven't been able to teach her and her cousin J** that we picked up but she has been super busy with her quincenera so has had no time. We have been going by more potentials to find new investigators, but that has been a very sloooow process of work. SO please pray for us to find some good potentials this week!! My ankle is a whole lot better so I have been able to walk more and more and even played soccer and B ball today... haha yeah couldn't resist!  Also this week I was able to go on exchanges with my little "osito" haha Elder V** I call him osito because it means little bear since he is just a small adorable little latino guy, but he's awesome. We had a pretty good exchange in his area and our goal was to help them find that day since they need more to teach and we ended up finding 2 news and 1 of them is 16 and has some great potential! On Saturday morning, we both woke up super early at 5:15am and decided to go for a long run.  We went to "mile square park" which is a mile long on each side so 4 in total and just killed it! Man it felt super good!! I need to burn off these beautiful love handles I have out here! Nah jk!

So creepy story happened to Elder V** and I on our exchange.   As we were walking down this neighborhood we noticed this young girl probably 16 or 17 years old and she was just down the street staring at us and didn't lose eye contact once.   We blew it off and walked a different way towards the potentials house, but as we came to the next street there she was again! haha She had moved and was now staring at us again! We were all what the frick?? So we blow it off again but low and behold it happens again on the next street!! AHH she can teleport and is possessed! haha now we’re like okay she is going to eat us or something. Finally get to the house phew... walk down the alley way to the back and knock on the door. In the corner of my eye, I see a figure down the alley way and so I turn and it’s her hiding behind a car staring at us. Ha-ha! By this time we just dipped outta there. But as we were leaving, she disappeared we didn’t see her again..... sooo weird. Sorry for the completely random story but it was freaking weird. ha.

But things are all good here for me in HB. Hoping to have a better week full of more teaching and baptisms/confirmations this Sunday!! It’s gonna be sweet! Love you all and just want to give everyone a shout out of thanks for the support, emails and love from home, you're the best!

Hasta la semana que viene!

Elder Woffinden