SPECIAL REQUEST FROM ELDER MATHEWS:
I just have one request as time goes on these next months. I just want to ask you all that you don't mention anything about how much or how little time I have left on the mission in letters or emails or anything please. It’s not that it makes me think about home a lot but it just makes me realize that I don’t have as much time left as I’d like. So just these next few months until I get home, please don’t say anything about time. Thanks :) I just want to focus everything out here for the time I’ve got left.
We just finished a great week here in Tarragona. It was truly a week full of miracles and more blessings that I could possibly have imagined in a week, ha-ha. I didn't feel like we did anything different to be honest. But I do feel that we are receiving the blessings from the Lord for the previous weeks of added work that we've started putting in. In order to raise the bar and increase the pace at which we work as missionaries, we have also raised our standards. Instead of being content with maybe 5 investigators in church, we raised that level to make us work that much harder. And we are seeing the blessings from it.
This entire week we had people come to us and say that they wanted to learn more or the members told us that they had friends or family members whom they wanted us to teach. It was absolutely incredible to be a part of this great miracle and I'm positive that there will be many more this week.
One member told us he wants us to teach his young daughter the Gospel because she just came from Bolivia and she's really interested in the church and he wants her to learn about it as well. The second counselor in the bishopric came to us yesterday at church and said that his niece was coming that day from Nicaragua and said that she had already been to church, talked with the missionaries once, and wanted to be a part of this restored gospel. It's incredible to see the things that the Lord does as we actively do our part.
This weekend we actually had a really good visit with an inactive family. The husband was bishop in the ward years ago and I'm honestly not sure why they don't come because they totally act and seem like a normal, active family in the church. But we went and got to know them a bit better and I feel we got off to a really good start with them. They have a 15 year old son who just immediately latched on to us and wants to play some basketball or something with us sometime, ha-ha. We'll see if we can get some young men from the ward here to help us with that. Their family is fantastic and it was interesting to see that most members, even if they are inactive, still have something of a testimony of these things. And the only thing we need to do is rekindle that fire that they once had so that their future generations can also have the blessings of the gospel in their lives.
Everything else here has been great, too. I can't believe that it's already February pretty much and that the winter is winding down. It hasn't gotten below freezing yet here, not even really early in the morning, which has been pretty nice. But I do miss snow, ha-ha. Hopefully this next winter brings some :).
I hope all is well back home and that you are all safe and healthy. I miss you all a ton and love you all lots!!!!
