December 24, 2012 -- Twas the week before Christmas

Well, 'twas the week before Christmas, and NOBODY's home.

We taught only less active lessons this week, and we tried seeing a ton of people. Most people either weren't home or didn't answer the door. Of the people that were there they said to come back after the holidays. That seems to be everyone's excuse.

In other news, we were able to go to the temple on Tuesday. It was an interesting experience as our member who was taking us at first said he probably would be able to take us to the temple, but might not be able to get us back. Then nearer to the day, he told us he'd be able to take us back and so that was a relief. Then when we went to call him the night before, he said he couldn't again. It was difficult to know what was going on. In the end he was able to take us back, so that was good.

This week was great because of the temple trip, but because everyone is going out of town for the holidays, we can't see anybody. Anyway, I hope everything's good and I will talk to most of you tomorrow!

--Elder Huffaker

News -- December 17, 2012

Well the biggest bit of news I have for all of you is that I will be coming home early.

Don't Freak! It will be a week earlier than ordinary. Let me explain: There is a domino effect here.

With the lowering of the age of missionaries the amount of missionary applications skyrocketed. As such, the time in the MTC has been shortened. There will be a change in call and release dates because of this. Now each mission will be affected by up to three weeks. Ours is only by one. The transfer after next will be a 5 week transfer, and so my return home date will be the 31st of July. I am sending a picture to prove it to you if you don't believe me (not that you wouldn't believe me). I just want you all to know, that when I come home the last day in July people will be there, and it wont be like the R.M. I'd prefer to have a good homecoming, not an empty one. You can read the paper I send, just so you know.

 

Anyway, this week was an okay week. We have gotten a couple new investigators, and also had to drop one recently. We hope to teach these people soon and they seem to genuinely want to learn. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we can keep them as well, as this area has a routine of having to drop them not long after getting them. A bunch of our lessons also fell through sadly, but we hope this next week will go better, although it is the holiday season, and the work seems to slow down naturally during this time.

Anyway, I look forward to Skyping, so be ready for that!

-- Elder Huffaker

The San Fernando Valley



You know you're in a LDS parking lot, when all the vehicles are minivans....

December 10, 2012 -- Another Week

Well this week was pretty good. We've done a bit of helping with Christmas lights, not too much although we offer it a lot.

So we also are starting to get more people to teach. Some of our efforts with the members and our knocking have started to pay off. We've had 2 new investigators this week, and hopefully one more this week. We also have another return appointment for the week after this. We are slowly but surely starting to see an increase of work here in our area.

We also had Elder Clark of the seventy come and visit us and talk to us about missionary stuff, of course. It was actually a great zone conference. He brought out many ideas that will help the members trust us, improve our teaching, and our teaching pool, and improve ourselves in general. I think from that zone conference we will see more improvement in our work. I hope the work will continue.
--Elder Huffaker

December 3, 2012

 

For starters, it does look a bit like Christmas here, not because of all the snow, or the Christmas spirit of giving and people loving each other (sarcasm!), but because of all the Christmas lights that are going up everywhere. Some people can go a bit all out. Griswold style.

 

 

I've sent some pictures of it so I hope you get to see them. The best one I think is the one of a snowman that has a sign that says "brr it's cold!" There's no snow on the ground, and the guy at the house where the snowman is, was mowing his lawn in a tank top and shorts! That's Christmas in Southern California.

Well this week Elder Wright and I have been doing a bunch of service. We've helped a lady with her, believe it or not, horse stalls! We had to shovel manure to get it out of the turnout area for her horses because the animal control people were complaining. Fun huh? That and we helped a less active member clean out his bird cages. More poop. We also helped an older couple put o up their Christmas tree. Even though I didn't get to help at home, I still got to help put up a tree!

 

In other news, we've still been knocking doors, and we have been trying to come up with new ways of finding people to teach. The only problem is that the ideas we are coming up with are being shut down constantly. Kind of annoying, but it's what we have to work with. Unfortunately nobody else is trying to come up with a way either. They won't give us a key to the ward building so we can't organize a church tour on our own, and like I said, our ideas are getting shut down.

There is a bit of hope however. One person we knocked into has really wanted to meet with us, but things keep getting in the way. He definitely wants to talk because he's got legitimate excuses, and has told us that there's things that have happened in his life that he really wants to talk to us about.

Then there's another lady who is the aunt of a member who has talked to her and we have an appointment set up with both her and the other guy who wants to talk to us. Both of them had appointments set up for tomorrow, and then in our e-mail today we have been told of zone conference tomorrow. So we have to reschedule our appointments, again! I guess the Lord just wants us to work for it, and with nothing else really going on here, we are definitely gonna WORK for it!

Hope all is well at home!

--Elder Huffaker

November 26, 2012

Transfer calls were made, and Elder Wright and I will be staying together another transfer. We will be here in the same apartment until January 7th at the latest. Christmas and New Year's will be spent here. He'll be here in his first area until his 6 month mark.

We have been working hard in this area and some of our efforts have been paying off. We have 2 potential investigators that seem super legit. The really cool thing is that it happened while we were knocking and the two of them were in the houses right next to each other.

We had an appointment set for yesterday, but it fell through. We don't think she is trying to avoid us because her kids are members. We are going to be trying by another time during the week. We are still knocking on doors because, even though we have been blessed with some people to teach, it wont take up all the time we have. Which is fine, because our president wants us to spend time finding each day, and if we are teaching all day everyday we can't spend time finding.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was great here, we went to an awesome family who had us there for a while, and we were able to help out a bunch. Dinner was at 7:30, initially at 5, but oh well. We even got some leftovers, which are nearly gone.

In other news, I was asked to give a talk, and I gave it yesterday in church. The youth speaker had forgotten that she was speaking or wasn't told or something (uncertain at this point) and so there was extra time for me. Fortunately for me, I've had experiences with having too little prepared, and so I have gotten into the habit of over-preparing. Which in this case helped, because I consumed plenty of time, and the speaker behind me had to even cut his short. I felt bad for that one. As far as I can tell everyone liked it so that's good.

We'll see how this next transfer goes. Christmas presents of ties would be appreciated.

-- Elder Huffaker