Third Week in CMM

Buenos Dias Mi Familia y Amigos!!

The CCM Campus. It's been hot, but it finally rained.

Thanks so much for the email, I love hearing from you. Okay well this past week was so good and so hard at the same time. I will start off with the hard part. The language is coming very slowly as I expected and it’s not easy when that’s all your surrounded with.  We have been teaching investigators for two weeks now and we had been struggling with being able to speak.  I understand about 80 percent of what they are saying, but actually having to come up with sentences about the gospel and everyday life is my difficulty.  However, we did get one of our investigators, Jorge, to commit to baptism!  Even though his real name is Hermano Cruz and is a teacher here it still was good to have that feeling even though I think it was out of pity.  Ha-ha.

I love the colorful cement houses here.

Sundays are fantastic here. They are full of devotionals that consist of movies such as the Testaments etc. and devotionals with General Authorities.  We watched a broadcast of David A. Bednar, and it was awesome. He spoke with such power that I literally felt like it was directed to me.  It was about turning away the natural man in us and becoming more like Christ.  He said that we can’t only live off of a testimony we have to be fully converted to the knowledge to really be happy and to stay active after our missions. He said you will never fall away if you are fully converted and that it is not my mission, it is the Lord's and I am here for the people not myself.  So my zone and I decided to only pray for others and to not once mention ourselves.  We are hoping that we will see the difference it will make in our everyday thoughts and actions.

Yeah, it really does look like a prison.

Now having said that, yesterday was one of the most humbling days of my life.  My companion and I were feeling a little over confident with our investigator so we found out that they had assigned us a new one and her name is Leslie. She spoke sooooo fast and we couldn’t understand her at all. We had been joking around and didn’t have the Spirit with us which is a big a no-no here.  You will never convert someone about anything you say no matter how flattering your speech is or your looks.  The Spirit had to be there and it wasn’t. So therefore we couldn’t speak, it was awkward and she had no idea what we were talking about it was just a mess.  So I was very unhappy last night and we decided to all promise to never let that happen again because it truly was humiliating for me.

I'll be there in just a few weeks.

Wow I'm glad you all are doing so well! Words can’t describe how much I truly miss you all. Can't believe tomorrow will be my third Wednesday here in the CMM, it really has gone by fast! HA so here I think I already mentioned, but some days we go completely without power. Ha-ha. It is crazy having to do anything without it. There is a stomach virus going around and people are getting very sick, three in my zone already in a week. I think it's the water,  but I'm not sure. Pray for me so that I don’t get it cause it is nasty! Oh it rained last night. I was so excited. It has been very hot and humid here so I had been hoping to see some rain and it did, but only for like a minute but it still felt so good.

My basketball buddy, Elder Fowlks is now serving in Chile.

My friend Elder Fowlks left yesterday for his mission to Chile. It was sad seeing him leave, he was my basketball buddy and we would play 1-on-1's all the time, and of course I would win.  Ha-ha.   He is from West Jordan and I got his email so I hope to keep in touch. I am sending you guys a photo of us today.

There's a gym right over the fence from the CCM.
So near, yet so far! Did I mention they call me
Superman here?

I almost forgot, all my teachers here call me Clark Kent, ha-ha, because they think I look like Superman. It is so funny, everybody calls me that now.

I miss you all so much! I look forward to Tuesdays more than you know. I am getting a free haircut today which is great.  I hope you all have a great week! I love you guys and miss you all so much. Stay safe and make sure to represent that Cali Flag for me, haha. I can call home when I arrive in the Phoenix airport on the 25th so I look forward to that! Don’t worry about me, my struggles are very little to what other people's are.   You are all in my prayers.

Much love,
Elder Woffinden (aka Superman)

First P-day in Mexico City

Hola!! Oh my gosh P-day is finally here... it has been a long and very hard week for me. The language is super stressful and they don’t really tell you what to do here they just expect you to learn Spanish on your own. My companions name is Elder Dougherty he is from Wisconsin and he is about 5’ 10” 120 lbs. so big difference in size.  He is a very hard and dedicated worker which is good.  I room with two more elders, Elder Carr from Seattle and Elder Marshall from California. Elder Dougherty is serving his mission in Anaheim so we are in bordering missions which is cool.

It is beautiful here the weather is awesome around 70's in the day and 45 at night so it gets kinda cool there are palm trees and all kinds of cool birds here all around campus.  We taught our first investigator on Friday he is an actor but it is still super stressful.   We did not do so well he speaks no English and we speak no Spanish so you can already assume how that went.  Ha-ha   We invited him to read the book of Mormon but realized we had forgotten to bring one with us to give to him so that was super embarrassing.   We teach Jorge our investigator every day and it is so frustrating because we can understand very little so we just always have a blank stare our faces.

I will be honest I am super home sick and I didn’t sleep hardly at all on my first night here.   This is just so hard and I am not used to having every minute of my day planned and Spanish is so hard especially when your teachers speak very little English.  I miss you guys so much and I miss my friends like crazy, but I know I need to pray for help so that I can overcome these challenges I am facing.   So there are power outages like every day here so we will just be sitting in class and the power will randomly go out and we are left without power for a while it’s crazy. The food is good but I have eaten a lot of strange things already and it has made me pay for it if you know what I mean. ha-ha.   It is dry here not very humid, hard to believe there are mountains and the city looks just like the fevellas in Brazil very poor and multi-colored homes all compacted together.

I'm so jealous that dad got to go skiing I want to go so bad! I miss being able to have my own freedom to do whatever I want all the time and working out here is okay they have a gym, but it is not Gold's that’s for sure.   I get to work out for 1 hr. everyday so that is nice.  I play basketball and lift weights.    So every time somebody showers the bathroom floor floods so it is slippery and dangerous every time we go in there.  It is hard being an older Elder. Oh and there is a Elder Whetten here and he is going to Long Beach also!  He is already half fluent in Spanish so I feel pretty stupid around him.   Our Casa is pretty cool but crowded we have two sets of bunk beds and of course I got the bottom and barely fit in it.  ha-ha I am double the size of a lot of Elders here so it’s fun.  There is music all night coming from the city and it is super annoying we have heard gun shots and dogs barking all throughout the night,  The CCM is guarded by a huge wall and security guards with assault rifles so its intense.

As you can tell today is P-day and I am so excited to do laundry, and to play basketball and take a nap so excited for that.  We wake up at 6 every day and I am sooo tired when I get to bed at 1030 its unreal how tired I get here.  Well I love you so much I miss you and I miss America, but Mexico is pretty cool.  I hope you all have a fantastic week and stay safe! I will send photos today and you guys can do what you please with them. Once again I love you and I can’t wait to see you guys again. Enjoy the little things is something I have learned to do here so far. God speed and have a great week!  Can’t wait to hear from you guys again!!

Love, Elder Woffinden

First letter from the CCM

Hola family! I have made it here in Mexico City and wow it is HUGE!! So many people and the city is massive and very crowded and dirty with lots of graffiti, stray dogs and people selling food in the middle of the roads or fire dancers in the road performing haha im not kidding. It is mountainous here so i feel sorta at home.

It took 3 hrs to get from the airport to the MTC haha we were waiting for more elders to come and the vans were late to pick us up. We are all about to go eat and i am starving! The Elders and Sisters here seem really cool i am about to go meet my companion in like 10 minutes. The MTC is beautiful and very big the facilities are so nice and it looks like i will enjoy my stay here! (hopefully) haha.

Just wanted to say that i made it safe and am doing okay there is a big culture shock right now but it will pass im sure. 90% of the missionaries i have talked too are from either salt lake or utah county so we all get along very well. I Love you all and look forward to hearing from you guys!! Thanks for all your support and love! Look forward to hearing from you soon.


Love,

Elder Woffinden

Farewell to Elder Jason Woffinden

Elder Jason Woffinden has been called to serve a mission in the California, Long Beach Mission.  He will be speaking Spanish and will report to the Mexico Missionary Training Center on February 12, 2014.   

Missionary Setting Apart - February 11, 2014

Elder Woffinden with Mom and Dad.

Elder Woffinden with the Williams.

Elder Woffinden with the Graehls.

Elder Woffinden with Oldroyds.

Jason with Grandma Phyllis

Jason with Grandma and Grandpa Davis

Ja with his Nieces and Nephews

Ja with Mike and Bailey

Jason's great friends!!

Jason's flight to Mexico City was early Wednesday morning (Feb 12th).   Since his flight was at 6:15 a.m. and all the sisters have new babies, it was decided that the family would say their goodbyes the night before. Mark, Jason and I finally went to bed close to 2 am, so when the alarm went off that morning at 4:00 a.m., it was EARLY.

Farewell from the porch at 4:30 a.m.

 

Here are pictures of the airport and our "quick" goodbye.

Ja with Mom and Dad

Jason and Dad

Final Hug!

We had to leave Jason at security. Our good friend, Dave Baker, has security clearance at the airport and wanted to take Jason to the gate.  I know it was fun for Jason, and nice to know that he got on his flight safely.

Dave and Jason

Final wave before security

Last wave.. heading up the escalator.