Baptism In Ximeno Branch

Another great baptism in Ximeno Branch!

This email is from August 17, 2015

What’s up!? Another week has come and gone by.... its crazy right? Time is a very interesting thing, but it also scares me.  At times you have so much of it and then you blink and it dwindles down.  This past week for Elder J** and I was honestly a hard one for us.  We had to drop three really solid investigators who just wouldn’t keep commitments.  We have also been struggling to find here. However, I am going to start on a positive note!

The Ximeno branch is blowing up!! Especially La familia Huerta!! On Friday night at 9:58 pm, I received a call from Elder M** (who is in my old area of Ximeno).  He told me that D**'s mom has decided to get baptized after seeing her daughter baptized and confirmed! WOW I was past pumped. I couldn’t believe it.   I had no a clue that she was even investigating the church at all because when I was there she had no desire to talk to us. Look at her now, she is a changed woman and will be blessed forever for the decision she just made. God always has a time and a place for everyone. Whether it’s today or tomorrow or a year from now it doesn’t matter. If God wanted to baptize the whole world I am pretty sure he would do it, but the great thing is that he patiently waits for people to grow and eventually make the decision themselves, and it is amazing.

Okay so for the rest of my week. We had a lot of great lessons taught and thought we were making some great progress with R** who was a new we picked up from a referral from the sisters. We had a great lesson of Friday night with Hna A** and she bore her testimony for like 15 minutes which was fantastic! She even offered a ride for Rosa to church and she accepted and said she would be there. SO while at church on Sunday, I have to sit on the stand to translate for the members who need translation.  I see the A** family come in without R**... so I thought they had forgot to pick up my investigator, but it turns out that they passed by and she said that she wasn’t ready to go.  So they had to leave.  After Sacrament meeting, we left the church to go by and see what’s up. When we arrived we saw her and she immediately said, "esta bien si yo no ir a tu iglesia??  Which means is it okay if I don’t attend your church?? And we were all what?? And then she dropped us... she was very nice about it, but honestly it crushed me because I really thought she was ready, but I guess not.  Her time will be later in life.

Elder H (my first companion) comes to visit!

Okay, to answer your questions about L**.  We passed by him on Wednesday night with Hno M**. We had a great discussion and Hno M** was awesome! He was super helpful and offered all the help he could to help L** get to church.   He offered him a ride in his specialized vehicle which transports people who are in wheel chairs because that is his business he owns.  He also offered to stay with him at church to help him out even though he is in a different ward in the Stake, and many, many more things.  But in the end L** said No!  He wants to get baptized, but honestly lacks the faith and the desires to do something about it.   We pretty much dropped him and said we would pass by every now and then until he gets better. So the work has been struggling a lot, but we still were able to find a couple of news this past weekend.  We are hopeful to meet with them more, but still don’t know enough about them to determine if they are "golden" or not.

On Friday night, we were able to attend the wedding of all weddings!  Not even joking. If you have ever seen the movies where the boyfriend or girlfriend go and visit the "in-laws" and the house is ginormous and the party is just super, super fancy with nice cars, decorations and incredible things…. that was the wedding I went to at the M**’s home.   It was crazy! Ha-ha  We pulled up into the gated community and I swear we were maybe one of five cars that wasn’t either a Porsche or nicer.  The food was amazing and it was just a great Seapoint party. The M**’s home is the biggest lot in HB and it overlooks the Pacific Ocean and is a real amazing site to see and experience. I wanted to take photos, but figured it would just be weird so I’m sorry.  It was super fun being with all the members and getting to watch the reception and the "dance party" afterwards which really threw me through a whirlpool of memories. Ha-ha  Oh well, there was a ton of music I have never heard before so it was whack.

Anyways, I know this email was maybe not the most joyful one, but Elder J** and I are still doing well and are hopeful to succeed and see on how we can turn HB around. I love and appreciate you all and hope to hear from more of you next week :) Gracias por todo lo que hacen por mi!!


Los amo a todos

Elder Jason Woffinden