Happy Halloween!

Carving pumpkins with my District.

Hello my family!! Whats up?? Thanks again for the emails! (Mom and Dad, haha, jk). I’m still here in Huntington Beach and I’m just trying to finish this last week of the transfer off strong. It’s crazy to think that I only have 2 transfers left after this week! Wow... 12 weeks. It’s going to fly by and I can’t believe it. I need to leave it all out here on the field her in HB because I am pretty sure I am dying here. Speaking of the work, we had a pretty slow week honestly, it was not very exciting. However, I will do my best to make it interesting :)

Visiting our good friend, Ann Ward.

This week we were able to visit a very good friend of ours in the hospital named Ann Ward who just turned 90 a couple of months ago. She is the sweetest lady ever. She reminds me of Grandma Phyllis, haha. She is from South Carolina and her accent is fantastic. She will talk to us for what seems like hours, but it is super fun. She isn’t doing too well, so Elder J** and I went and gave her a blessing on Wednesday and also paid her a visit on Saturday and she was doing tremendously better! So we hope she keeps improving. I am pretty sure I sent a photo of her to you.

 The rest of the week was slow like I mentioned. We couldn’t find anybody home and L** and P**, two of our solid investigators, have just disappeared from off the face of the earth and won’t get back to us so, oh well. I really don’t know what else to do. That just means more and more finding! That pretty much explains my entire mission, haha. 

Good news! To help with our finding we received a text on Tuesday night from the APs telling us to come to the office for a gift, haha. So we did and the gift was a brand new 2016 white Toyota Corolla! Pretty sweet! We turned in the 2011Ford Fusion and got the newest car in the mission, so we feel very special! :) It is leaps and bounds better than our old car. What’s even better is, since we have a new car, we get 1,050 more miles to drive for the month! So to use all these extra miles we had to go to the good old DMV in North Huntington! Elder J**’s license expired so he had to go get a California license so he could drive. Like all DMVs, it was pure death--the lines and waiting were terrible.I brought study materials and actually had a good conversation with some Hispanics from El Salvador, so it wasn’t too bad. Thankfully Elder J** passed so we don’t have to go back there again.

Elder R** 21st birthday!

On Wednesday night we had Elder Passey meet us at the church for the baptism interview for A** and she passed!! It’s official, November 14th at 3pm so you all need to be there!

On Saturday night we attended a multi-ward "Trunk or Treat" party for Halloween and it was awesome! We dressed up of course as missionaries so everybody loved our outfits... but it was good going back to the good old days, trick or treating with pillow cases and walking around the church with all the little kids in a Halloween parade, haha, it was great! At the end, with our pillow cases stuffed with candy, we walked around to all the kids under the age of 5 and gave them our candy, haha.

Honestly, there isn’t a whole lot more to talk about for this week. The work is slow, but we are still being hopeful and relying on the Lord to provide the means for us to keep going and to truly take his "yoke" upon us to pull our half of the burden.

Thanks again for everything!

Love you all!

Elder Woffinden

New Investigators in Harper Park, Who'd Have Thought?

Crusin' in the rain in HB.

Hey what’s up my family!? It’s super good to hear from you. Thanks for the emails and support you bring me all the way from the foreign land of Salt Lake City, Utah! Also, happy late birthday to my wonderful sister Brooke!! Happy 25th b-day!!! :)

Who is Voniece? And, why are there no cakes and cookies?

This week was a pretty good week for Elder J** and me. We experienced a lot of highs and some lows, but felt the hand of the Lord especially with the work. For the past three transfers that I have been here in Huntington Beach, we have served in four wards and out of the four wards, two of them have been pretty successful with having Spanish speakers in their boundaries for us to teach. However, two of them were super, super "white" and claimed to only have members living there. One ward in particular was the Harper Park Ward. I have never had an investigator in that ward and honestly, I never thought I would with how small and white the boundaries are, but good news, we found 6 investigators in that ward alone this week!! One is a pretty cool family that I will explain more about in a second, but the others are teenagers in high school whose parents all speak Spanish so we hope to pick them up soon.

You're not going to hit me with that ball are you?

As for the week, we had a slow one honestly. We didn't teach nearly as much as we normally do. A**'s baptismal interview is this Wednesday. We have finished her program, now we just have the painful wait until November 14th when she will be baptized. L** was out of town this past Sunday so we are going to have to move her date back a week. I’m not really sure what else to say for the work other than it’s going good and that we are hopeful to have more success. We had many people out of town such as L** our main and most solid investigator. She went up to San Francisco for the weekend with her husband, but hopefully she will come back tonight. We had a hard time finding many other investigators home throughout the week and it was the same situation with all of the less active members, so we had a slow week for sure. The success we had in Harper Park Ward was one family we taught on Friday night and it turned out to be a solid lesson! On Tuesday we contacted the mom and she told us to come by on Friday at 6:30 since she was busy with her English homework for college. We brushed it off like, sure... okay see you then… wrote it down and were positive it was going to be like any other contact. But as the week rolled on, we had a shocking surprise. Within one knock of the door, the husband F** opened the door wearing just a rug, well not literally a rug, but it was his chest hair which I thought was a rug, hahaI He was all, “oh hey, come in, come in!” At that moment we were a little shocked and not sure what to do, but we went in. Then the wife dropped what she was doing and was even more excited than he was and was all, "Hello!! We have been waiting for you! Please sit and make yourselves at home". By this time, I am shocked and can’t believe that the lesson is actually going to happen. Both Elder J** and I are wondering what is going on? Why are they being so nice? Haha.  It went great! Their youngest son Esau even came in during half the lesson and we taught him as well. So, that was a good tender mercy for sure. This coming Wednesday is A**’s baptismal interview at the church. We have completed her program and now have to painfully wait for November 14

Elder Ja--Machete Man

This week we did a lot of service for many old ladies. This one lady had the "Congo jungle" for a yard. She handed me a machete and told me to go to work, haha. So for about an hour I was having a grand old time hacking away at vines, trees, bushes, attacking spiders and who knows what else, haha. While I was relentlessly attacking her bushes, Elder J** took down her huge tree that had over grown so we created quite the pile of trash. It was super fun and she actually loved being able to see her back yard.

Well, that’s about it for this week. I hope all is going well back home! Good luck with all the remodeling in the new home. Thanks again for everything and have a great week! Go Utes! I heard about the win!! Super dope!!

Con mucho carino!

Elder Woffinden

A Great Week After a Great General Conference

The BIG 21 for my comp, Elder J**

Hey family, what’s up??

I thought this Conference was awesome! I’m sure like many of you it was crazy to receive three new Apostles, but I did say that Ronald A. Rasband would be one of them! The other two were a surprise. There were a couple of talks that really stood out to me from conference. President Uchtdorf’s from the Priesthood session was one of them. It was great! There were many others, but at the moment my mind can’t recall them so, oh well.

Unfortunately for me this weekend, and especially today, I was sick again!! I re-caught the same cold I just got over last week and have been hacking my lungs out, literally, haha. How did you all enjoy Conference weekend?? Yeah, I have to agree that Pres. Monson’s really struggled with his talk. It’s crazy to me that he has been a General Authority for almost as long as you have been alive Mom, haha.

 This past week was awesome!!! Don’t worry, I am feeling better. I went to the doctor and they gave me some antibiotics that kicked out the monster bug that was wrecking me, haha, so I feel much, much better!!

I got my release papers telling me when I will be coming home and they said January 26^th, so that is the day then! I have thought a lot about going home early, but President Tew told me it would be impossible to send me home in December before Christmas, and I also want to serve the full time that I signed up for, so I will see you all at SLC International on January 26th!!

Today being P-day has been a good day. It is Elder J**’s birthday, so while we were grocery

Elder J**'s birthday sweet roll.

shopping, I bought us and Elders Rhodes and Oniki some cinnamon rolls and a 21 candle and we had a little b-day breakfast, haha.  It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do considering we had no food... Oh well, haha.

Okay, there is a lot to talk about last week, so much I am trying to remember it all, but I will start with the work and with my investigators. A** is super good!  The baptismal date is still planned for November 14^th and she is just a champion. We are reading with her in her little children’s Book of Mormon and she truly loves it all. So we are just biding our time till the day comes. We have L**! She is the miracle story and investigator that I want to tell you about.  L** is a middle aged woman with 5 children and her husband Oscar (who doesn't like us, but whatever). She has a wine collection of over 600 bottles, but hardly ever drinks she says. It’s only a hobby to collect the bottles?? Okay... ha, but we made tremendous progress with her this past week. We taught her about the Restoration and also the Plan of Salvation and had two of the most powerful and successful

Having a good time with Elder O** 

lessons of my mission, hands down. When we first met her, I’ll be honest, I was thinking “,… well here we go again,” as I was looking at the huge Mother Mary shrines and all the candles in her home. So I was very skeptical of her progressing. However, do not under estimate the power of God and the Holy Ghost!! I have truly seen how conversion comes through them and not my selfish self. As we finished teaching lesson one, we invited her to read Moroni chapter 10 and to pray about it. She was determined to do so, and she did!! She explained how she felt so at peace and how it was one of the best feelings she has had. She also brought up to us how she is dealing with a lot of hate and anger towards people in her family for things they have done to her and she started to cry. She wanted to know what she could do to feel the peace and love she desires in her life. Immediately the thought came to me to explain about baptism and to invite her to be baptized. So as we did and she didn’t hesitate for a second. We told her that it is the first step to finding peace, forgiveness and the love she needs to forgive and be healed. We invited her to be baptized November 1st and she said YES!!! I was so shocked and happy I think I looked stunned when she accepted, haha,  but as the week rolled on and we taught lesson two, I can truly see that she has potential and really will commit! She promised to come to church on Sunday but, early on Sunday morning she cancelled because she had to go to the hospital to visit her mother-in-law.... Satan is working hard on her now and it makes me so irritated!! We just need to be patient and help her make those necessary steps. We currently have 4 baptismal dates set and we are hopeful that all will go through! So please pray for A**, L**, L**, and M**.

The Huntington District

On Wednesday as we were heading home from our District Meeting, we received a call to go give a man who was not a member a priesthood blessing. So we went right away. He was having surgery for bladder cancer I think. All four of us went and gave L** a blessing and it was super good! It was the first Spanish blessing Elders Rhodes and Oniki had participated in and they said it was cool to be a part of it. Elder J** anointed him and I gave the blessing. We were also able to do some good service this week at the old folk’s home and also at a member’s home, so it was a great week for us all. We are doing well and I can’t believe how fast the time is flying by!

Well, I hope the best for everyone and I love you all!!

Gracias por todo que hacen para mi! En verdad ustedes son una gran bendicion para mi!! Los amo mucho :)

Elder “Lobo” Woffinden

It Was a Great Week in Huntington Beach!

The brave Huntington Beach Zone and the Jabanero Challenge. I can't resist!

Hey family, what’s up! How was everyone’s week? It was super good to hear from you all again. I always appreciate all the emails and support from back home.

Well to begin, I want to start by saying this week was an awesome week! It was super cool and we truly had a lot of miracles and successes from the Lord. We set three new baptismal dates and found a young woman we are positive will be baptized on the October 24^th.  I will explain her story in a

Little pieces of dynamite!

second. We had a great week working with the members, but also had a good week on finding and really sifting out the investigators and dropping those who aren’t interested at the moment.

This week I received a letter in the mail from church headquarters with my "trunky papers"... wow, crazy!! I come home in less than 4 months and I only have two more transfers after this one. I honestly have no idea what to do with my life, so I had an interview with President T** to seek his counsel on what I should do or what would be best for my return date.

As for the work here in Huntington Beach, we had a great week! I want to say that A**’s baptism is set up for October 24th and it’s a 90 percent “yes” as of now! I’m super happy and excited for her! We also had an amazing find this week of a young girl named R**. We have seen this girl in the past, but she would always avoid us and hide whenever we would walk by. But, last Wednesday we went by her house and decided to knock on her door. It was early in the morning so she had just awakened and opened the door and started talking to us. She wasn’t super interested at first, however she allowed us to share a message. We set up a time to visit again later that afternoon when she would be properly dressed and ready etc. So we passed by again at 4:00 PM. She was home, but was clearly going through a rough situation at the moment. We talked to her sister outside when all of a sudden we heard this wailing and bawling coming from inside the house. We were shocked at what happened, but her sister ran in to see what was wrong. Five minutes later they both came out crying and told us how her boyfriend had called and confessed that he had been unfaithful to her with someone she was very close to, she was a mess! We told her that we would pass by on Friday when things weren’t so fresh and chaotic. On Friday we arrived at her house and taught an amazing first lesson! She started to cry and really opened up to us and explained how she felt good and that she had hit rock bottom and wanted a solution or way to happiness. We committed her to pray that night to God for the first time and to ask for answers and guidance, and she agreed. We then asked when we could see her again and she told us tomorrow morning. So on Saturday morning we passed by again. She was home and super happy to see us! We sat down and started talking when she opened up and said, "…okay, I need help. I have two problems, the first; I can’t forgive anybody, so I need help with forgiveness. The second, I have an uncontrollable pot addiction and can’t stop.... can you guys help me find relief and peace in my life?? “ Right then and there the Spirit came in and my companion told her the blessings that come from living the gospel and opened up baptism to her and invited her right on the spot! She didn’t even hesitate. She said, "Yes, I will do anything to get baptized and feel peace in my life.” So she accepted a baptismal date for October 24th as well!! WHOO!! Now, the bad news.... She doesn’t speak Spanish and so we will have to pass her on to the Young Single Adult elders.... ugh, frustrating! But it’s still cool how the Lord blessed us to find her!

I like running through the sprinklers, but this is ridiculous!

Right after that we went to dinner and heard that the U of U completely trounced the Oregon Ducks in football, haha, sweet!! Also that night, we had a very powerful quick lesson where we found a new investigator and her mother. Both of these ladies are named Lupe and are awesome! We had a very spiritual lesson on prayer and the love of God in our lives. They loved talking to us and were cracking jokes, it was just great. The daughter then asked why there are so many different faiths in the world and why we all don’t believe in the Virgin Mary. So we set up a return appointment for tonight to teach the first lesson!! So please wish us luck!

That pretty much sums up the teaching and major highlights of the week. We struggled finding our less active members this week because everyone was busy with work or school. Hopefully, we will have a better week with them next week. The work is going well, the people are awesome, and HB is beautiful! Also, the Blood Moon last night was freaking sweet, haha!  I’m sure you all were watching intently.

I hope for the best for you all. Please stay safe and keep working hard!!

Love Elder Woffinden 

The Power of the Atonement and Forgiveness.

Huntington Beach Zone

Hey what’s up everyone! How’s everyone's week been? Mine has been super good minus the nasty cold I have had since Friday and now left with no voice to speak. Ha-ha. Hoping I will be better by tomorrow. Transfers were this week and both Elder J** and I are staying again for our third transfer together. We both we sort of shocked.  I thought it was going to happen… headed to round three!   Ha-ha. This will be the second longest companionship I have had second to Elder A**! HB is doing well and don’t listen to what you hear on the news about a huge storm.  It was a Tsunami that we had here from the earthquake that happened in Chile (keep them in your prayers).   We only had like 12 inches of water come up so it really wasn’t anything at all.

Elder Woffinden in disguise

As for the work here, we have been making small strides but things are looking up. We are going to teach A** tonight and have some good news from the mom. So apparently with her siblings the only time the dad agreed to allowing them to be baptized was when they came and asked him personally. Soooo we will be talking to her about that and helping build up the courage to do so. I really feel like it will be a huge turning point for her! We appreciate all the prayers on her behalf.  We have other investigators who are progressing well. M** is doing well however is incredibly skeptical of us and loves to let us know that she is Catholic. We took a member out with us who is from Chile and he just dominated the lesson. We didn't get to speak at all... it was good because she loved him.  She did say she would come to church this week so we will see! She has two full lists of anti-material that she wants us to have answered... so we are not going to waste our time since there is no point to it. Her son came home from the hospital he has Cystic Fibrosis and is in really bad shape...I felt terrible because that was the day I knew I had the sore throat and cold and mid lesson she brought up how he can’t have contact with anybody outside with colds, etc. and here I am sick as a dog .. It was bad. Que the quick exit!  But other than that we are still in the finding and sifting phase of the work. As for L** and the winery house we still haven’t been able to catch her at a good time... so I hope soon.

Elder O and Jason

P-Day Basketball Fun!

This Sunday was Stake Conference and it was super good. The Stake President gave a talk that really humbled me. A lot of people think that missionaries are without flaws or weakness. The reason I mention that is because earlier in the day I was reading in my journal from about a year ago. It was when I was in Compton white washing. Things that I had written out of frustration, disappointment, and anger really took a toll on me and as I read my remarks and I felt sick and ashamed of myself. I know we had a hard time then, but I couldn't believe how egoistical I was only thinking about myself. SO for the whole morning and majority of conference I was super depressed and disgusted with myself knowing that people may read my journal one day and think I was a horrible missionary. However, the President’s talk was on the atonement and forgiveness.  He mentioned a story about when he was a child and had to clean Tupperware containers for his mom to remove nasty spaghetti stains. He mentioned on how he didn't understand how some stains took longer to soak in the bleach because of the degree of the stain, but as he left it in there for more time and it always came out clean. I then realized that I have since learned from my "journal entry" mistakes and ever since then my journal entries and my attitude have been way more positive and uplifting.   As long as I keep doing better, my posterity will see the change and not make the same mistakes I did. So it reminded me of 2 Ne 4: 15 which went perfectly with it. So yeah that was something I learned this past week.

Our District

Other than that everything else is great, there was a baptism in our district and we had a bomb pancake study session at the Sea Point Ward Mission Leader’s home again (every Saturday).  I love it! I hope to report more next week on our new investigators.

I love you all and hope everything goes well back home! Thanks for all the love and support you all bring to me. Have a great week.

Elder Woffinden

A Pretty Good Week; 4 New Investigators and $100

The Newport Beach Temple

What’s up my family? How’s it going? Thanks again for the emails. Last week we went to the Newport Temple. It is like half the size of the LA temple, but is still a very beautiful temple! We all need to go there soon, and with Kobe, no? I wish! He lives outside the mission in Newport Beach, but there is a guy in our ward that took his Bentley to the one Bentley shop in LA and Kobe’s was there getting repaired, haha. I guess his wife totaled it, haha.

As for the week I had here in Sunny HB, it was pretty good!! It was an incredibly hot and humid week which made it horrible walking around... my clothes are at that point where it shows I have been out 19 months, haha. All the pants keep getting holes, tears, stains, etc. and my shirts are pretty much gray, haha. It’s useless. I’m just looking forward to the big bon fire I am going to have when I leave to destroy all my nasty clothes!

We had a good week of finding since we found four new, pretty solid people to teach and had a lot more lessons than the past two weeks, so that is always good and positive news! In my district we did what is called a "blitz" where the other Spanish elders came into my area for a whole afternoon to help us find and teach more lessons to speed up the work here. It was very successful. We found two new investigators by doing it and have more pretty good potentials to try and go by this week.

As for everyone else we are teaching, they aren't really progressing at all. A** is awesome but still needs permission, and everyone else won’t keep commitments. However, on Saturday night we had a really good finding experience! For some reason every single time I don’t want to contact or knock on a door but overcome that urge and do it, something good happens. So, we passed by the house of a woman named L** to see if she still lived at the address written down. It was 8:00 pm and I didn't really want to be there at that street. However, she was home and answered the door and was showing interest within seconds, which caught me by surprise. When we asked her if we could share a message, she gladly accepted and opened her door to come outside. When I looked into her house I saw hundreds of wine bottles throughout the whole house! I asked her how many she had and she replied around 600 or more.... Wow, the Word of Wisdom is going to be an issue here, haha. But, we taught her the Plan of Salvation and as we did, she broke down in tears explaining the loss of her father and how he meant so much to her and how she wanted to know where he was. We explained it all to her and had a great chat. We will be returning tonight, so please pray that all goes well!!

Transfers are this week.  I can’t believe how fast that time flew by. Six weeks seems like nothing now when it used to feel like years! I am confident I am going to stay but have a feeling Elder J** is going to leave. I’m not sure, that’s just my opinion. We both have done good work down here, so I am grateful to be his companion and whatever happens, happens.

Good news! I don't have to translate at Stake Conference this Sunday! I thought for sure I was going to have to, but they said I don't have to this time, haha. Yes!! However, I have improved a ton by doing it and my partner, Elder P**, is killing it as well, so it is all good.

We had another week of service also! We got to help a guy named Mr. Huntington (yes, that is his last name, haha, and I already asked him if he owned HB, haha) move into his house by moving very heavy furniture up his 3 story house, yea...I love couches and treadmills, also a gun vault. Yeah, it nearly killed us, haha. As we were leaving, he asked us if we wanted lunch?? And we said, sure sounds awesome. He opened his wallet and hands us a one hundred dollar bill, haha! We were all, uhhh...are you sure?? He just said; please go somewhere nice, haha. Okay! It’s good being in HB.

Well, I am not sure what else to report, that’s pretty much all that has happened, but all is well here. We’re just trying to keep our heads above water. Thanks again for everything. I love you all very much!! Have a great week!!

Elder Woffinden

Newport Beach Temple

Temple P-Day at Newport Beach Temple

Hola Mi Familia!! Sorry I didn’t email yesterday it was Labor Day and it was not our p-day because we had temple p-day today!! And to start I am exhausted..... I didn’t get any sleep last night and we woke up at 3:50 am to make it on time to the Newport Beach temple session.  I love that temple! It’s pretty small, but it is beautiful and looks a whole lot different in person than in the photos for some reason. I hope you all get the photos that I send home of the temple trip. So if I fall asleep during email today, I am sorry.  Ha-ha.

Elder J and I

We had another rough teaching week here in HB. We did have some great things happen, but the work is still in a little rut. However we had two very cool experiences happen to us this week which I will explain.

First experience: On Saturday night Elder J** and I had just finished a lesson with L** when we received a text from the Sisters saying they had received a call from a woman in the hospital and she needed a blessing ASAP. They asked if we could go do this for her.  It was 7:45 pm and we were a little ways from the hospital and visiting hours closed at 8 pm. We had a dilemma here.  Do we go all the way to the hospital or go in the morning? We ended up going.  Upon arrival, we got to the front desk and the guy there said there was no one in the hospital by the name we gave him.  Then a woman came down and was so happy to see us. She was, "Elders!" “I can’t believe you actually came! I was praying that you would come here tonight to visit my friend who is struggling at the moment."  This woman was from Anaheim and asked us to come upstairs.  We ended up talking with this woman who is in the mental ward because of the recent death of her 21 year old son.  She has no desire to keep living and says her life is worthless.  We sat there and talked to her for a little while and gave her a blessing to help her situation. It was an amazing experience and I am so glad that God trusted us to be where we were able to answer his message and help someone in need.

Love these guys!

Temple P-day - with the Sisters

Second experience:  Last night we had dinner with the ex- mission president of the Salt Lake City South mission.  We were talking with President Miller about our work situation and how it’s a real struggle. He gave us a tip and an idea to try out. He advised that with our next contact or door approach we should try asking the people if they would like a free English class right there and then in their home. After an English lesson, and when we have built some trust, we could then teach a gospel lesson.  So we ended up trying that and it was amazing! Worked like a charm! We met a woman named M** and she was not openly talking at first, but when I asked her if she would like to learn English her facial expression was pure shock then turned to excitement. She allowed us to come inside and we ended up teaching her some English.  Her whole perspective of us completely changed and she opened up so much!   She told us she has a son age 15 who is dying in the hospital and she can barely visit him because she has no car and can’t leave the house because of her other little kids. So we shared a gospel message with her and will visit her tomorrow!! It was awesome.

Sister companions with the same last name!

So those are some of the really cool and great things we had happen this past week. As for A** she is doing awesome! I love that little girl she is so awesome! Super smart and is a testimony builder to me as to how we need to live the gospel no matter what age we are. Her dad is getting a little better and I have a gut feeling he is going to let it happen, but still not sure. Just keep them in your prayers please.

Everything else is going good though. The area is a great place to be even though the work is hard.  I love it here and the members are awesome! We had a pancake study session on Saturday morning at the Seapoint Ward mission leader’s house.  It was awesome!   He made us chocolate chip pancakes which are my favorite, and we had a joint study group with the other elders.   We were able to study together and share insights with a super bomb family. They speak Spanish in their home and English outside of their home because the wife is from Spain and Brother S** served his mission there.  All his little girls are completely fluent in Spanish which I thought was super cool!
I hope you all have a great week this week and keep working hard! Good luck finalizing the move into the new home and I’ll keep you all in my prayers! Gracias por todo!!


Love Elder Woffinden