March 25, 2013 Transfers

Okay so first off, if you have been paying attention, you would know that this transfer was a 5 week transfer. So if it seems a bit short, it is. Just so you all know, I am being transferred.

Last transfer I was called as a District leader, and I will be staying as a District leader wherever I go. I will know tomorrow, but I do know that it is a car area. Elder Chaney will be staying here, and he will actually be training a new missionary. Basically for me that means he will need to be to the transfer meeting early tomorrow, and as such I will need to be with him. Well, the District leader training will be after the transfer meeting, so I will be staying there from 9 to 2:30. Either Lunch will be provided, or Ima be really hungry.

I will let you all know next week where I will be, although I can tell you I will NOT be in this zone (at least I'm 95% sure I won't be). Just as a recap, I've been in this zone for 7 transfers now. We'll see.

Well, so you all know, I did say last week that we were planning on a baptism for yesterday. Well it did happen! There was a lot of stress and work to get it to go through, and Sunday evening was going to be the ONLY time we could do it. The weeks around it just wouldn't work and the day we planned wouldn't work either. The bishop was there, (the new one for the ward called at the beginning of this month) and I was tellin' him, there's no way this can't happen, we gotta make sure it goes through. He was like yeah we do! It was quite the intense process.

We filled up the font and set up all the chairs. If you don't know, baptismal fonts usually take over an hour to fill. This one took about an hour and a half. Don't worry, we were there with plenty of time, and we actually started the baptism only 5 minutes late. They usually start 15-20 minutes late. I think we did pretty good.

Anyway, her name is Khamilah, and her parents are divorced. But both sides of the family agreed to have her baptized and none of them are members. It was really awesome there with the speakers, the spirit was really strong. I felt awesome, leaving Solemint with a baptism. Going out of the area with a BANG! For your benefit, attached are pictures of who was baptized and her mom with her mom's boyfriend.

Well also so you know, I ended up being called in a couple days before Sunday to be one of the speakers. I was told to give the talk on Jesus Christ, and I could go anywhere with that that I wanted. Well, I went with the Atonement. I used President Packer's talk from General Conference in November. The youth speaker before me was told he would speak this month, but wasn't given an exact date. Well it turned out to be this Sunday. He was to talk on Dating from the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. He did pretty good for an impromptu (last minute speech for those who don't know).

Well when it was my turn, I thought I'd have a little fun by using a quote I heard from Tucker Jeppson before he left on his mission. So, I get up there and say that he did pretty good on his talk, and how he mentioned the dating after his mission. I proceeded to use the quote which was "Any money spent on a woman before your mission is money spent on another man's wife." Well, the ward got a good laugh out of that one. Then came the best part that was a real ego booster for me. I announced that I would be leaving the ward for transfers on Tuesday, and then from the ward comes this "ooohhhhhhh" of disappointment. It at least made me feel good knowing that with Elder Wright and with Elder Chaney I worked hard, and also tried to have fun (good missionary fun). So I know I did my best here, and the ward could tell.

I also said that we would be stopping by before I leave to say goodbye. After Church, just as we were about to leave, I went and shook a member's hand and he said "so when are you coming over?" There was no "are you going to stop by?" or anything, he just said, "when are you coming?". Which I thought was cool because I wanted to stop by them before leaving, and they said I could stop by after the baptism.

It's really been great serving in this ward. The members are awesome, even though the work was a bit on the lower side. We did our best to build it. Also, I have 3 transfers left, so where I go will probably be my last area. There is still a chance that I could get transferred after that, but not likely. Hope all is well at home!

--Elder Huffaker

March 18, 2013

Well another week has gone by. I guess the biggest thing to happen this week was exchanges. We did exchanges with another set of missionaries in our district, and then we also did exchanges with our zone leaders. They were back to back, and both times I stayed in the area, so my companion was tired of all the switching by the end of it.

Not much else happened this week. Although, we still have a baptismal date for this coming Sunday! It's going to be a bit of work to make sure that happens, but we're hoping!

--Elder Huffaker

This is what happens to the couch when you're trying to keep another elder awake.

Elder Chaney's future is so bright, he's got to wear shades!

March 11, 2013

Hey everybody. I guess this week in news is that we are allowed to e-mail friends as well as family. Other than that, it's the usual here.

We are still trying to meet twice a week with our investigator who has a baptismal date. We've had to work out the kinks of her date because of ward activities. However the weeks surrounding it will be difficult to do it as well, so we determined that Sunday would be the best day and in the evening because two wards meet at that building and we don't want interruptions. We hope this will go through because it will be difficult to baptize her around that date and would probably be pushed back further than what it is.

Also, we have gotten in with a former investigator who we hope to start meeting with regularly. What's cool about her is that when we were over there she said that someone she knew hates Mormons, and she said " Well do you hate me then? Because I'm on the verge of becoming a Mormon?" Lots of hopes for her. The only problem is that she has to go to the doctor frequently and with her business, it's hard to meet all the time. We are going to be persistent a bit and hope things go well.

Other than that, it's been the usual here. We're still trying to get the ward excited about missionary work as our referral is the one getting baptized and she was a member's friend. That's the way missionary work works best!

Hope all is well at home!

--Elder Huffaker

(Some photos that Cameron sent this week. They found an interesting park....)

 

March 4, 2013 -- Mission Split!

Hey All!

Well for starters, I have just found out that this July they are going to split our mission. For the last month of my mission I will be either in the San Fernando Mission, or the Bakersfield mission. If I stay here I will be in the San Fernando Mission. I've sent Mom and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa the image for the mission boundaries, so ask them if you want to see it.

Anyway, if you've been keeping up with my past letters, we have had an investigator we've been meeting with for the past couple weeks, and have just recently invited her to be baptized. She agreed, and we set a date for the 23rd of this month. The best part is that she is a referral from some of the members. We are trying to take this and show the rest of the members what can happen through referrals. We hope that people will get excited about missionary work and will provide us with referrals. As missionaries we are supposed to do the teaching, and the members are supposed to do the finding.

We hope things will continue to improve, and I myself can say that over the course of my time here, things really have improved. Hope all is well!

--Elder Huffaker

New Transfer, 5 Week Transfer

Well as my subject says, this transfer is the 5-week transfer, so our mission will be shortened by a week so that we will be on the schedule for the MTC.

Anyway, so you all know, Leadership calls were on Monday night. So I've been called as the new District Leader. I've got 8 missionaries in my district including me that I now have to deal with (just kidding!).

Anyway, so mission experience last week: Elder Chaney and I were knocking doors and we knocked on a door, and we heard footsteps and nobody came to the door. So we knock again, and hear a thud, like someone jumped off the stairs. Then this kid opens the door. Pretty sure it was a little boy, but he had long hair and he could have just been a chubby girl, but we aren't sure. Anyway, so we ask, "is one of your parents here?" and he says "Yes." So we say, "Will you go get them?" He says, "no". So we ask again, "Will you please go get one of them?", and he says "no," again. So we just hand him a restoration pamphlet and tell him to give it to one of them. He takes it and shuts the door. It was rather interesting.

Anyway, so this week was alright. We have actually had to drop some of our investigators because we just aren't able to meet with them and can't teach them. So we are just wasting our time there and they are in our records so we will just stop by from time to time. It's kind of sad to have to do that, but that's the way things are sometimes.

But on the positive side, we had lunch with a referral and her mom two weeks ago, and I think I wrote about that last time. Well, we have taught them both twice since last Monday and will be teaching them again today. Our referral will probably be baptized here in the coming month, although we haven't actually extended the invitation. That'll probably happen soon though. Other than that, our week was pretty usual.

Hope all is well at home!

--Elder Huffaker