The LAST Week -- July 29, 2013

Well, if you read the last e-mail I sent, I told you we had a very busy week planned. Well, it all happened.

The move with our investigator was a bit rough, but we were able to move her and got it all done in one trip. We are very relieved that she is moved and we know she is too. This last week in my spare time I have worked on getting stuff packed. It's not easy, but I am getting it done. It shouldn't be a problem since we just spent almost all Saturday moving our investigator. It took from 8 to 5 to move her, and we started getting things sorted at 7. Things like getting the moving truck and the member to drive. Well, we are sore and exhausted from it, but it is done. What a way to end!

Also I have had my final interview with President. That took place on Sunday. It was a great experience. Oh and we did go to the temple on Friday and President payed for our lunch there. That was an amazing temple trip as well.

Anyway, anyone who will be at the Lewiston Airport on Wednesday at about 3:30, I'll see you there!

--Elder Huffaker

July 22, 2013 -- Last Full Week

Hi Everyone! Well, we are moving in to the last full week of this transfer, my last full week as a missionary!

Well, as far as this last week went, we had a complete polar opposite of the week before. We had several appointments that we had all lined up to meet with people both new and current investigators. Unfortunately all of them cancelled. We had put together a list of people that we wanted to visit while out in the area, also as backups if things like this happen. Since all of our appointments cancelled we were able to knock down a bunch of the list we had. Hopefully we will be able to meet with those people that cancelled this coming week.

We will also be wanting to finish that list we made so that Elder Ruiz and his new companion will be able to go out and find new people to teach. That is our main focus for this week. I will also be working on making sure that I get all my stuff taken care of. The mission has provided a list of things I need to do before I go home. So in my spare time I will work on that.

Also, Elder Ruiz has not gotten his visa yet so he will be staying here. However, when his visa comes, as I said before, he will be leaving asap. He might not be here much longer, he might stay a few more months. Who knows?

Also for this week, it will definitely be a busy week! There will be no time for me to be homesick. We have district meeting tomorrow, on Wednesday we are helping an investigator get ready to move, on Thursday we are doing weekly planning, on Friday there will be a departing missionary temple trip, on Saturday we are moving that investigator and it will take a while because of all the stuff she has, and then Sunday is church, Monday is Preparation day, Tuesday is the transfer meeting and departing missionary training, and then Wednesday again will be the departure!

 

Somewhere in all that mess I have to go to the office to do a departing missionary interview. Wonder where that'll fit! We still have to call the office to find that out today, they called us and we have called back, but no answer so hopefully we'll get that worked out and fit into our crazy schedule.

The lame thing about this time of year is that everyone is on vacation. So a bunch of the members are out of town and will be for part of the summer. Fortunately since we already know I'm getting "transferred" we know what we need to do and get transportation to the transfer meeting and I need to get my stuff all packed. That's one thing that's beneficial for this last transfer!

Well, I don't know what else to say, this week was kind of a bummer. I'll see you all next week though!

--Elder Huffaker

Week 4 -- July 15, 2013

Well, for starters, this week was a pretty good week. We met with some people and found new people to teach. We have also set 3 baptismal dates. Just this week we, found people and set baptismal dates with some of them. It has been a really great week. The current dates are for the 4th of August. Even if they aren't baptized on that day, they are on the path and so it will be fantastic to teach them until I come home. Feel like I'm leaving with a bang, just like I did Solemint ward.

Also, one of the members in the ward called me trunky, but then one of the sisters in the disrict said, she'd seen trunky and I'm nowhere close. Well, don't get me wrong, I am definitely excited to come home, but as you all know, I have been doing this for 2 years. It will be difficult to leave. I hope to be able to continue to work until the end.

My companion still hasn't gotten his visa, and will probably stay here. I wouldn't want to affect him in a bad way, so I am trying to stay focused. Hope all is well at home, see you soon!

-- Elder Huffaker

July 9, 2013 -- Halfway Through the Transfer

 

 Hey All!

 

Well as the subject suggests, it is now halfway through the transfer. For those of you who want to know, I have just received my travel itinerary. I actually got it today before we came to do e-mail. From the looks of it, it tells me that I'll arrive in Lewiston at 3:25 pm on Wednesday the 31st of July. If you want to be there, you have the information.

 

 

Well, this week was the Fourth of July. We went over to a family's house who invited us over. That would be the Wrays for those of you who know (the same family that let us Skype). Well they were pretty patriotic with their setup and it was pretty cool.

 

 

 

Brother Wray is an excellent grillman, and so we had some great food. It was enjoyable. We had the ever so early curfew of 9 pm (no different than any other night) so we had to make sure we were in by then. Elder Ruiz and I actually were in a little before then. We could hear the fireworks booming outside well into the night.

 

 

The next day we had a zone meeting at 8:30 in the morning. While we were traveling, we saw how smokey the sky was from all the fireworks. One elder commented that it tasted like metal outside. I couldn't really tell a difference, but it sure looked hazy.

 

In other news, at the meeting we were told the new times for our District Meeting. It has changed from 11 on Fridays to 8:30 on Tuesdays. As such I now have to prepare a training for tomorrow morning. It is actually a much better time to have District Meeting, and in fact, at the leadership meeting we had (June 26th) I was the one who suggested Tuesday mornings. The reason I suggested it though was that I have talked with other missionaries about the timing of district meeting and Tuesday mornings just seemed like the best time to have it. We will start that this Tuesday and it will continue on for the rest of this mission. Of course, I will only have 3 more meetings.

 

Well, other than that, not much else happened the rest of the week. Hope all is well at home!

 

--Elder Huffaker

 

July 1, 2013 -- JULY. [and the Mission-Split]

Well first off, before it happens, Happy Fourth of July! Our stake did a missionary musical fireside last night in honor of Independence day (yeah it was in June, but oh well). Our President was there and it was a pretty well done event. We were told to be there ate 5:30, so we made preparations to be there then. For us in Sylmar, it took us about 30 minutes to make it. Still it was a nice program.

For all of you who are paying attention, our mission has now been split! As of TODAY, the San Fernando Mission is just the Santa Clarita valley and the San Fernando Valley. That's it! Eventually there will be 220 missionaries in this mission, so there will likely be 2 sets of missionaries in wards. Not all wards will get missionaries, but most definitely will. It would be cool to see it happen, but it probably won't happen in my time. This is what I get to see, and it is the start of a new, or recently re-formed, mission.

In other news, there were meetings this week up in Santa Clarita. One on Tuesday from 9-5 for new missionaries and their trainers; one Wednesday from 9-5 for all leadership (Zone Leaders District Leaders and Sister Trainer Leaders); and one Thursday from 9-5 which was zone conference where everyone in the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys needed to be there. If you up on what's going on, Elder Ruiz and I had to be at all 3. Yup. Fun stuff. And to top it all off, we still had District Meeting on Friday (that one's only for an hour and a half). Four days in a row we had meetings. I think I'm done with meetings for a while. From what we understand, there will be one more Zone Conference in July. That will be my last meeting. After that I shouldn't have any more meetings.

Just as a reminder, my departure date is still set for July 31st. No changes have been made, so don't freak out. I have not received an itinerary, I will inform you as soon as I do.

Also, Happy Canada Day! I only say that because we have a sister from Canada in our district and she is from Canada. It is today, and lots of people made the comment that this is our (the United States) month, and to get their own month.

Anyway, as I said earlier, we have been in meetings all this week. We haven't had a lot of time to do our proselyting, and since I'm training a visa waiter, we have an extra two hours of study. We are spending a lot of time inside and not out working. I guess we will just have to work extra hard this coming week.

Also, yesterday was 5th Sunday (you all should know!) and it was missionary Sunday. So the ward had a youth speaker give their testimony and then Elder Ruiz and I and our ward mission leader all gave talks, on guess what? Missionary work! Of course it would be on missionary work. As I said about my last talk, I've learned to not write out my whole talk, but to have notes. That way, whatever comes to me is what I say. I have to work on it though as my talks end up being longer than planned. I guess I can talk when I get going. I was supposed to give a talk for 10 minutes, but it ended up being about 20 minutes. Whoops! Anyway, I think it was a good talk, a lot of people came up and said something to us. Maybe they're just being polite, but I couldn't say. We had a bunch of people come up to us.

Well, other than that not much else happened this week, we are still working hard, and studying hard to for that matter. I'm picking up a bit of Portuguese, and Elder Ruiz is working on it. We are trying to find someone who speaks Portuguese so he can practice, but no luck. Still, it doesn't hurt to look!

Anyway, hope all is well at home!

--Elder Huffaker