Elder Huffaker

Elder Huffaker

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

January 28, 2013


Hey everyone. Well this week was a bit of a slow one again. We are working on getting appointments set up with people we are trying to meet with. We currently have about 3 people we are meeting with pretty regularly.

One of them we meet with every Saturday, but he had to cancel for some reason or other. Now if you don't know, as missionaries we ALWAYS leave something with the people we teach unless we are prompted otherwise. Last week with this guy, we were trying to teach him, and he's been a bit resistant. Well, this time, we were pretty bold and blunt. We decided to just leave him to think about what we told him. It was pretty harsh and extreme, but hopefully it was what he needed. Since he cancelled we haven't been able to talk with him for about a week and a half. We hope things go well this coming Saturday, and hopefully he will have a different perspective on why we are here. Cross fingers on this one.

Also this last week we have been going around to the youth and inviting them to carry a Book of Mormon with them at school one day and leave it out in plain sight. Elder Chaney had a friend do that in his home ward and so it got a few referrals for the missionaries. We are hoping for the same effect.

During this we met with a family in the ward whose kids need gospel help. One of them says they don't have a testimony. Well what we do as missionaries is help people get testimonies, so we are going to go through the lessons with them. Their dad says we were an answer to prayers. It's amazing to see how the Lord makes things happen. The Lord works through mysterious ways, that's for sure! We just hope that they take it seriously. We think they will.

Well, we are hoping for a great week and we'll see what happens. Hope all's well!

--Elder Huffaker

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

January 22, 2013

Hello everyone. I don't know much what to say here, as this last week was quite jumbled. We went all over the place seeing everyone we could. We've done some knocking and a bunch of other stuff. Because of that, I'm having a hard time remembering what exactly has gone on this week and in what order.

To start off though, you should know, but if you don't, yesterday was MLK day, so we didn't do e-mailing that day. As such this letter is coming to you on Tuesday.
One thing that I can remember happening is that we helped our ward mission leader move stuff for his brother into a house in our ward. His brother's house has burned down and so they needed somewhere to stay and so we helped them with a bit of the moving process. Not a whole lot, but we had quite a hard time getting a desk into a room that the door was in the corner and the desk was bigger than the door. I was glad to help, but I do not want to be there when they move that out. Especially since this is a temporary house, and so he'll be moving out soon.

In other news, all in all, this week was a little on the slower side, but we are hoping this week will be better. Well, I guess we always hope the coming week will be better, no matter how good the last week was.

Not much else to say, a few people here still have their Christmas lights up. They're only 11 months early. Oh well. Hope all is well at home!

-- Elder Huffaker


Elder Huffaker (R) and his new companion, Elder Chandy (with the purple elephant!)

Monday, January 14, 2013

January 14, 2013

Well you're waiting for the name of my new comp. He's from Athens Ohio, he's been out about 4 months, he's a convert, heeeeeee's Elder Chandy! So he's 24, almost 25 and was a convert in 2010. He's out here serving a mission and is now with me.

Well in other news, at the start of this transfer, we have received our first 18 year old missionary. I can't remember his name, but he's the first, and only we have here in this mission. Also, a missionary who just came out was baptized 14 months ago. I've been out 17 months, so President had everyone there who was out 14 months or longer raise their hand. He said that this could have been one of your baptisms. It's really quite amazing that he'd gotten baptized while I'm on my mission, when I was in Sherman Oaks. It's pretty cool.

Well, this week we've spent time getting the members acquainted with Elder Chaney. We have been doing a bunch of referral seeking from the members, and inviting them to share something like a pamphlet with a friend or someone they feel prompted to. We keep working and doing our best and hopefully the work here will continue to increase. Hope all is well at home!
--Elder Huffaker

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Transfer 13

Well, as of today I am officially on transfer 13.

Elder Wright is getting transferred and so I will be getting a new companion. I will be staying here in the Solemint ward. With the Mint Canyon missionaries that live with us, one of them is leaving - Elder Wells. So Elder Muhlstein, who was my companion at one time, is staying there. This will be his last transfer.

There is a slight possibility, so don't count on it, but they could combine our areas. They used to be combined while I was in Canyon Country 1st Ward, and it could happen again. Not likely though, and so you'll just have to wait until next Monday as the transfer meeting is tomorrow. I will let you know though.

Well, for news about the area, Elder Wright and I hadn't felt that the area was building a whole lot. However, when looking back at the last two transfers, we had 1 investigator at the beginning, and now we have 7. That's a much better number to have. We are also looking at having 1 or 2 more here soon. We'll see. I want you all to know that I am grateful for my time here with Elder Wright. He has been a great companion, and he has taught me plenty. I know it sometimes seems like the more experienced missionary doesn't want to learn from the younger missionary, but there is always something to learn from everybody. After all, most times we are teaching someone older than us. It has been a great 12 weeks with him. In fact, this last week we have probably taught the most lessons in a week than we ever have. We are happy about that.

I hope to continue building this area and teaching the people we have with my new companion. Hope all is well at home!
--Elder Huffaker

Sunday, January 6, 2013

December 31, 2012

Well, this week was rather interesting. It was cool to talk to all who I was able to.

Well, when counting our numbers this week, even though it is Christmas week, we had more lessons this week than any other week! I believe that most of them were lessons with less active members, but still, turns out we did a lot of work this week with lessons (not that we don't do work other weeks, this week just seemed a little more productive).

We had been getting the response from people to "come back after the holidays", and now we are getting "come back after New Years". With all the responses we are getting like this, there is a lot of people who we will be stopping by to see, "after the holidays".

I guess the best thing we are seeing is that there is a less active family who we have been trying to get in with for forever, that started out with the husband just talking to us a little bit. Then it proceeded until eventually he would talk with us a bunch. Then one time we actually got let in and met the wife. Now we have an appointment set up with them this week, and will be teaching them. It's pretty cool to see this happen throughout our time here and makes us feel a bit satisfied that we have done something, instead of nothing happening for our entire time here.

This area is progressing slowly but surely, and hopefully we will see some baptisms in this ward coming up soon. Hope all went well for your Christmas, and will go well for New Years!

--Elder Huffaker

Friday, January 4, 2013

Skyping for Christmas

From Marilyn:
 
The best part about Christmas Day, is Skyping with your missionary! (Or Skyping with your family, if you're the missionary.)
 
Here, Cameron shows us that he's wearing the new tie that we sent him for Christmas:
 

(We don't really want to know what his current tie count is... he's got quite the collection!)


 
Merry Christmas!!