September 10, 2012

Hello to everyone at home.

Okay for starters, as you know I was getting transferred and we had no idea where and with whom. I have been sent BACK to Santa Clarita, in the Mint Canyon ward this time. This ward was combined with another ward as a missionary area, but was recently separated. Well, Mint Canyon is quite the hilly area, and yes, I am back on bike. Only now it is fairly hot, so that adds another factor to the difficulty.

My companion is Elder Muhlestein, who is District Leader, and on a side note, his first area he served in was Sherman Oaks. For those of you not keeping track, my first area was Sherman Oaks. He has been out 6 months longer than me, which is the same amount of time as my trainer, Elder Morgan. Last Saturday there was a baptism in this area. Many of the investigators they were teaching were just recently baptized. So I come in to the area on Thursday, and two days later, a baptism! The efforts in getting the people baptized were not mine at all, so don't be confused. I just got a freebie.
Well, we had the baptism at the Canyon Country building, the one I went to during my last time in Santa Clarita. We did NOT get a ride, so the bike over was a bit further, and we were in our suits, and it was hot, and there were hills, AND it was windy. All in all, in that one trip, I think we did it all for being on bike. Let me tell you, air conditioning is a beautiful thing.

But anyway, as I was saying, the investigators were all baptized for the most part.  Other than that, the other investigators haven't been able to be seen lately. So that puts my companion and I in finding mode. We will be trying to work with the members, and doing much of our own finding efforts. The ward is bigger than my last one, and there are a lot of youth. Our dinner calendar is fairly full, and the members are fairly into doing missionary work. So working with them should not be too difficult. Hopefully. Anyway, so that's our area for the most part.

In the apartment we live in, we have the other missionaries who are covering the other ward that was split. The missionaries covered both Solemint and Mint Canyon, and so it's split now and we cover Mint Canyon, leaving them with Solemint. The senior companion is a musician and is 5 weeks away from going home, and his companion is a new missionary who's been out for 2 months. They, unfortunately, do not have a lot of work in their area, but have been doing better recently. They had just found a family to teach, so that's excellent for them. They like to keep the apartment clean, so I guess I have to work harder on that (because I'm not very good at that. Working on that, sorry!). They get the car because their area is bigger, but our area is still pretty big. Not as big as the Canyon Country 1st area I served in, but still a good size. Well, all in all, it's been quite the week, and I hope all is going well at home!

-- Elder Huffaker