WELCOME HOME ELDER WOFFINDEN!

The big day is finally here!! 

Welcome home Elder Jason Woffinden 

Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - Salt Lake International Airport -  10:12 a.m.

The return of Elder Jason Woffinden.  We are all excited to greet him and are waiting impatiently for him to come down that escalator!!  Six of our grandchildren dressed up as super heros to welcome him home.  While Jason was down in the Mexico Training Center, he was nicknamed, "Superman".  I think some thought he looked like Clark Kent.  Thus, we welcomed home our "Super" hero!!

We are so very proud of Elder Woffinden.  He LOVED his mission and the people he served down in the Long Beach area.  He has "returned with honor" back to his family!  The Long Beach California mission journey may be over, but life's journey continues forward.  There are many exciting times ahead.  Thanks to all who have supported him the past two years.    We love you all!

Love, Elder Woffinden's mom 

Grandkids dressed as super heros to welcome home their "Super" man!

Watching the escalator

The Grandmas

Mom and Dad with a couple of posters

Grandma Phyllis and Grandpa Warren

We see him!!  A tearful Elder Woffinden

Finally, coming down the escalator

Mom's first hug!!

Dad's first hug!

Welcome Home!!!

Ja with Grandparents

Ja with Grandma Phyllis

Ja with Mom and Dad

Ja and Brooke's family

Jason with Ashley and boys (Brian was out of town)

Jason with Lindsay's family

The Brighton High group reunited!!  Best group of guys!

The airport welcome home group!!

Welcome home sign at the corner of our new neighborhood!
Yellow ribbons and signs down the street to our home.

Welcome home sign with CA flag!  The little flag flew outside
our home for the entire two years.  It is a bit ragged!

My Last Sermon.

The Mann's have been super good to us here.

Well, this is it. To begin, I cannot believe how fast two years can really pass by. I remember my first week in la CMM in Mexico City and having thoughts such as, "Wow two years... that's a long time!" Or, "can I actually do this?" At times on my mission I really didn't think it was possible or that I even wanted to complete it. However, I changed and I grew to love my mission, the people, my companions and even the people who I wanted to hit in the head with a two by four because of the trouble they would give us, haha.

This really has been the best two years of my life, and I HATED it when people would say that back home. I always thought it was tacky or fake but, it really is true!! I have grown so much by living gospel standards and trying to put my will behind God's and allowing him to work through me. Was I perfect at that? No. But, we can't live a perfect life or even serve a perfect mission, so that's why we have the Atonement and all eternity to better ourselves!! I have come to know for myself that this gospel is true. How? By simply living it. You can't say something doesn't work or will work in your life if you don't try it out first, and I have and I have loved every minute of it! The experiences I have gained from these two years of service will forever live in my heart, and I will always love the people whom I have served, taught, and associated with. Christ lives and is our Savior and Redeemer and God our Father loves us and has provided us with everything we have for the benefit of his children and to help us return back to Him.

Our good buddies, the Gallacher family.

Thanks to everyone for the support, love and prayers from back home or here in good 'ol' Cali!! Gracias por todo que han hecho para mi!! Les quiero a todos de ustedes! No puedo esperar por los momentos buenos que tendremos juntos en poco tiempo! Me encanta la mision!! y ahora tengo que enfocarme en la obra del Senor por solomente una semana mas! Les vere pronto!! Que Dios los bendiga a todos!

Okay, now to update you all on the work here :) So... Emilia will be baptized this Saturday at 11 am!!! I am super excited and she has asked the Bishop to baptize her and for me to confirm her, so I am so happy that I get to do that on my last Sunday in the mission. However, Jorge and Xochilt didn't pass the interview. It's a really long story, but I will say that they will be baptized in February!! They just have to work on their testimonies a little more. Honestly, I was super depressed when they didn't pass. President Tew interviewed them and then he came out and informed us they won't be baptized at this time. When he said that, I about broke down into tears, it was crushing because I took it personally. I felt like I had failed them and not taught them well enough. It was really hard because I love this family so much and it was my last chance to get them baptized while I'm still in the mission. But, it's not going to happen. However, I am better now and I am prepared to watch their progress from afar and hopefully attend their baptism in February!! Amelia (different one) came to church yesterday with her whole family and they loved it!! All the little kids loved Primary and were super sad to leave because they had made friends and were eating donuts, etc., haha, so I was really happy about that :)

Okay, I expect to see this in the garage waiting for me when I come home!

The work is going great here! I am happy to see you all soon but, I am also super nervous to come home. Please note my flight has changed, and I think I will be landing in Salt Lake City at around 10:15 am now, so just wait in the airport until noon and hopefully I will show up! But, thanks again for everything!

Con mucho carino,

Elder Jason Woffinden

Only Three More Emails Left!

Yadira's sister, Janet got baptized! It was a great day!

Hey everyone! So this week was awesome! I am going to try to be as short but specific as possible...this week things here in Huntington Beach are amazing! The work here really is blowing up. Jorge and Xochilt and Emilia are all getting baptized for sure on January 23rd!!! Its official and we have their interviews this Friday at the church with President Tew.

It was great to see old friends and missionaries from Pico Rivera.

Jorge and Xochilt have come to church 3 weeks in a row and the most recent lessons we have had with them have been some of the best while I have been here in HB. We finished up teaching all of lesson 4 and the Commandments and we had the Bishop there (he speaks Spanish). Jorge bore his testimony and it really was one of the best I have ever heard! He expressed his gratitude for our examples and our persistence with him and his family, and also for the blessings God has given them. The said they wouldn't drink coffee anymore and that they wanted to go through with their goal of being baptized! We are currently teaching their youngest daughter, Naylea, right now and we are trying to get her up to speed with her parents. I am guessing she will be baptized sometime in February along with her two other sisters that we passed off to the YSA elders.

My good buddies, Elder Jumonville and Jorge.

Emilia is also super super solid! Probably one of the most prepared people I have ever seen. On Wednesday we were teaching her the Word of Wisdom and she chimed in with questions about the Law of Chastity and tithes and offerings! Her husband has been a member for 2 years, so with the help of the bishop of their ward, we taught her all three of those lessons in just 1 hour.

The Romero family.

Yesterday I was invited to go to the baptism of Yadira's younger sister Janet!! Back in Pico Rivera, Elder Brown and I found her while we were looking for Yadira. We started to teach her all the fundamentals, then we found Yadira, Yadira's baptism has impacted their whole family (except the mom--shes hates us, haha), but it really is amazing!

Ruby, a new member, and her daughter.

Since there are no longer any Despedidas in the mission, yesterday at the baptism I was able to say goodbye and take photos with a lot of friends and other missionaries I haven't seen in a really long time, and probably won't for a while either. Overall, it was a great afternoon up in Pico Rivera.

It as fun to see Elder Brown again.

This week was also a very wet week. It literally dumped rain here!! I haven't seen it rain so hard in a really long time. All streets were flooded and to be honest, it was a blast, haha. Elder Garcia, one of the elders  that we drive around, wrote the following in his email,  "OH HOW COULD I FORGET, El Nino hit on Wednesday, haha. That was kinda nuts...so much water...so much water, haha. Jason Woffinden (Elder Woffinden) was driving us home in it and he hit every puddle he could find. Lemme tell you...there was a point where we were hydroplaning and water was spraying on both sides of us...it looked like we had wings...so dope!"

So yes it was super fun, haha. But, due to the large amount of water, there was some serious flooding here in Huntington. So on Saturday we as a zone went to a couple local fire stations and helped fill sandbags for people to come pick up and use as a boarder around their homes and garages. It was a lot of work and some real manual labor--those things are pretty heavy, haha, but we are scheduled to do it again on Thursday and Saturday of this week.

Well, that's about it for this week!! I love my mission! I have seen so much change in myself, but mostly in others, and it will forever be a foundation block for me and my life after the mission. Thanks again for everything and for all your love and support! Keep it real and para siempre Dios este con vostros!!!

Elder Jason Woffinden

It's Been a Really GOOD WEEK!!!

I love singing in the choir!

Hello, so writing emails is getting harder and harder... but I will do my best.

HEY! whats up everyone? So this is going to be a really short but to the point email, so y'all ready?? Okay go!

GOOD WEEK!

Thanks, love you all!!

Elder Woffinden

Nah Jokes. So this week really was a good one though! We have seen so much progress and miracles happen here in Huntington Beach that it is truly amazing! Right now we have 7 people who have accepted baptismal dates, 5 of which are for January 23rd!! So it could be a super successful and blessing-filled last Saturday of my mission!! Please keep them all in your prayers! We were able to

Jorge and family at the LA Temple.

have Jorge Xochilt, Naylea and a new investigator we received, Emilia come to church yesterday!! It was so awesome! It's the world's best feeling when you are sitting on the stand in Sacrament meeting translating and you see all of your investigators walk in grab a head set and sit down! We have a lesson with this family tonight and I am pretty nervous honestly for these last weeks...they are working towards being baptized in two weeks and we still have a ton of work and teaching to do! So we might have to push their date back to the 23rd, but overall they are progressing really well. We had to pass off Angie this week to the YSA elders since she is 22 and she is GOLDEN!! I was able to sit in on one of the lessons with her, and she said when they paused for prayer, she offered a prayer in her heart and she said she received an answer and really does want to get baptized!! It was super cool!

The Tree of Life at the LA Temple.

We were able to have a super good church tour this week with Amelia with members Araceli and Leicy. We showed her all  the paintings in the church and explained them and tied them all into the main message of receiving answers to prayers. Once we made it to the chapel we watched the baptism of Jesus Christ from the bible videos then invited her to take as much time as she wanted and then offer a prayer about her baptismal date. She took about 15 minutes then stood up and walked over to us and we asked her how it went and she responds really well! I feel great, however I still haven't received an answer.... ugh I was shocked it was not what I was expecting at all. I learned a very valuable lesson that night about even if you work as hard as you can and are doing all you need to you still need to work within God's timing. So it was hard, but we are still working with her.

I do have some more good news! Last week I received a very interesting call from some sisters in the zone and they asked me if I could do a baptismal interview for their investigator. Of course I said yes. We discussed when and where and then they said, oh yeah, it will need to be in Spanish... umm what?? Why? Because she mostly speaks Spanish, haha. Yeah, so I requested to sit in on a lesson with her so I could watch the sisters teach her and see how much English she really does understand. Well, she can only speak very limited English, and can only read in Spanish and her husband has to repeat things for her in Spanish. So we made arrangements with the sisters to pass her off to us. It isn't a matter of who ends up teaching her, it's all about conversion and understanding in her native language. So we have been working with Emilia now and she is wanting to be baptized on January 23rd!!

 But everything is going good! I'm loving life and the mission is awesome.

Love you all, and see you soon.

Elder Woffinden

The Last Email of 2015

We had a great experience with this family at the LA Temple.

Hello everyone! Happy holidays!! It was such a good experience to Skype and see you all on Christmas Day. It's weird to think that my mission is coming to a close soon, however I still have some time left so I need to keep the work up! And speaking of the work, we have been having a fair amount of it here and I have seen a lot of good come from all the prayers, fasting and determination of missionary work.

A** is doing awesome! She told us that she has been a little busy, but she asked if she could extend her baptismal date to the 23rd of January because she wants more time to come to church and to keep learning before she takes that step. We will be having a church tour with her tonight at 7 pm, so please keep her in your prayers that all will go well. She said she knows what we are saying is something she wants in life, and that she wants to have us teach her youngest son's father (they're not married) the gospel so that maybe they could get married and live together. That would be awesome!

J and family at the LA Visitor's Center.

J**, X** and their family are also doing great! We had four of the five members of the family come to church yesterday!! It was their first time attending church,so obviously a new experience for them, however they enjoyed it and were able to see this isn't a white-member-only church. One of the speakers was a Hispanic woman who doesn't speak a whole lot of English, but she gave her talk in English and it was great!! We had a lot of fellowshippers swarm them after the meeting so hopefully they will become life long friends in the end. We went to the temple with them on Wednesday night as well and they thought it was amazing! "Un castillo!!" (a castle) in their own words. The tour went very well and they want to go again. They even told the sister missionaries there that baptism is on their minds and they are strongly considering it, so I hope they will keep working for their date on Jan 17th!

Christmas was great!! We were able to just hang out and play sports and watch "The Other Side of Heaven" at the Stake Center, then we Skyped. On December 24th and 25th we went caroling in the evenings as a district and it was super fun! We even found some really good potentials for the sisters in our district just by knocking on random doors and singing to them, haha, so it was a big success!

Elder M peeking at the presents under our tree.

The rest of our work is sort of slow, mostly one and done lessons, but we are trying to find more and more people. We have been doing really well however, and I am super happy and love it here in Huntington Beach!! We had 5 people at church yesterday so it was a major highlight of the week for sure.

I love you all and I pray for your safety and success! Gracias por todo!!

Con mucho carino

Elder Woffinden

Christmas-the Best Time of the Year!

Feliz Navidad from the LA Temple Visitor's Center.

Feliz Navidad mi familia!! Como estan?? What's up everyone?? Sorry it's such a late email... the MYlds software was down for a while, so nobody could email for the longest time. To be honest, this email isn't going to be very long since I will be Skyping home on Friday!!  I am super excited to see you all! I am grateful for all the Christmas packages and emails I have received! Thanks again.

My "Christmas Tree of Hands" from my family.

I am excited for the holiday season!! I can't believe it is going to be my final Christmas out on the mission... it's crazy, and also very sad! I want to make it the best one yet, so I have made plans with the district to do a "Secret Santa" for a family this year but, it's sorta hard to find good candidates since everyone is super well off here. The people whom we teach or see have all their trees, lights, and gifts, so it would be lame to give them more, but who knows, we will find somebody to go by I hope! This week we are going to go caroling again on la Noche Buena and la Navidad, so I am really looking forward to that. It was so much fun last year!

"Christmas Hands" tree - all decorated,

I forgot to mention last week that Elder P** did get transferred and now Elder M** is going to be the missionary who gets to "kill" me out here. He is 19 years old and comes from Boise, ID. He is a super cool guy.  He has been out 14 months and speaks really good Spanish, I mean really good, it's impressive. I am going to be learning from him then, haha.

Going to the LA Temple in a member's RV!

We had a great week and have been finding more and more investigators by using the new Christmas initiative, "A Savior is Born". We have seen a lot of progress in some investigators, but since elders W** and G** also came down here to Huntington Beach, the Zone was split and we lost many of our investigators and all of our less actives that we knew and taught. So to be honest, that has been a hard adjustment. The wards are different as well. I am just trying my best to mesh and get to know people like I did in the south of HB.

A** still hasn't come to church. That is a huge problem we have. She loves learning from us and is down to read and pray, but going to church always seems to be the main problem for our investigators. We have plans to stop by her house tonight with a super awesome member to help her get more fellowshipped and hopefully increase the odds of her coming out to church. Literally, all I want for Christmas is for her to be baptized before I go home, haha, If that happens, (which it will), I will be beyond happy and content with my mission. We have a lot of work to do especially since we're in a part of HB I'm not too familiar with, so pray that it all goes well!

Ja and Elder S

I can't wait to see you all this week! I hope everything goes great and that you all have a great holiday season! Thanks again for everything!!

Les quiero tanto!

Elder Woffinden

Visit to the LA Visitor's Center

Investigators at the Despedida.

Hey how’s it going my beloved family and friends!!  Well Christmas is practically here and it looks like I am going to be spending my last Christmas here in HB! Whoo, pretty stoked about that. I have been preparing myself and our apartment is all decked out with lights and the small little tree so don’t be jealous now :) It has been freezing here however! And yesssss.... I know you got destroyed with snow today; however it has been raining a good amount here.  But, it is good to hear from you all again.

At LA Temple with Elder P.

This past week was a fantastic week for us for many reasons, but the main one is that we had A** go to the LA Visitor’s Center! On Thursday night we left HB at about 5 and got to the temple at about 6:30 due to traffic.  As we left her house, we noticed that the member we had driving us showed up in a huge 35 foot RV that barely fit down the narrow streets. Ha-ha All of us, and her little kids loaded up into the huge RV and took the challenge of the 1.5 hour LA traffic.  It was awesome!  We about died like two times, but in the end, we made it there.  We had the Sister missionaries give us the tour and help teach her about the Church. She loved all the lights and Christmas decorations and we are looking forward to her
getting baptized the first week of January!  Please, please keep her and her daughters in your prayers.

At the LA Visitor's Center.

She was also able to go with us to the departing fireside last night and she thought it was super cool to see literally hundreds of missionaries in one sitting. Ha-ha.

As for the rest of the work, we have six investigators with baptism dates and A**, J**,  X** and A** are the most likely people to get baptized in the upcoming weeks. We dropped P** on Thursday sadly. She didn’t show up to the temple tour and it was just a big giant mess.  So maybe it’s just not her time, but I have tried for the past two months to get her to progress and she never has. The Lord always provides a way, and it was provided last night by our temple trip with A** and by finding more new people to teach.  As I look back over the length of my mission, I am so happy for all the hard work and great and wonderful people I have been able to meet, teach, and love.

Thanks again mom and dad for the Christmas package!! I am really grateful and excited to give out the little gifts to kids and I already passed out the Nativity books to the elderly ladies…so it was a big success! Tomorrow night I am looking forward to reading the Christmas story in Luke 2 and then giving the Nativity gifts you gave me to Akari and her family!  I feel it is the right decision and I know they will love them.

This past week I have been thinking a lot about the Christmas season and as to how selfish and

A Christmas package from home--yay!

spoiled I always have been and just mankind in general for always wanting and getting and never truly living or loving. As I took the word CHRISTMAS, I thought of how we never really focus on the CHRIST part only the MAS part which means “more” in Spanish.  We are always wanting more as human beings and are never really happy.  If we decide what truly is important and start focusing on the CHRIST rather than the MAS, I can promise a huge change in your spirits this Christmas season.

Well that’s about it for me here this week.  Oh I almost forgot, as we were heading home from LA on Thursday I got called to be a district leader here in HB... so yeah that's how I'm going to end the mission.  I'm pretty excited, but also was shocked at the same time.

Transfers--saying goodbye.

Thanks again for all you do! Love you all and be safe in all that snow!!

Love Elder Woffinden