Gotta love July!!!

Hola!! This week was a pretty awesome week. But I'm not sure why to be honest, haha. We didn't have a ton of stuff, but we were pretty busy. We didn't do much I don't think that merits a huge exclamation point...but it was just a good, solid week :). To start off, we have an investigator with a baptismal date now! :) Her name is Ana and she's from the Dominican Republic and she is incredible. She's a contact that I did on the bus a few weeks ago right before the transfer ended and we've been meeting with her regularly, and this past week we extended the invitation and she accepted!! It was a great visit and we had our recent converts, Maria and Jorge, there to help us out and their testimonies were incredible. I'm so stoked, haha. The only problem for me is...her baptism date is the 20th and I don't think I'll be here :(. Same with this other investigator who is finally getting married and won't be baptized until September. I think I'm getting transferred since I've been here now about five months, which is about average for a missionary here. But we'll see. I still got two weeks so I'm not going to jump ahead, haha.

We're still working on Elder Carroll's residency here. For some reason we've just encountered little problem after little problem and it's been so annoying. We went to Barcelona Thursday to stay the night because we were going to go do the residency stuff in Barcelona instead of Mataró early Friday. But it turns out we didn't need to do anything so we fixed up some stuff in the office and then just came back, haha. It was a fun little trip though. So we came back today, this morning, to do it all and they said that we have to come back next Monday because all his papers are still in Madrid and it's a holiday in Madrid, tomorrow and Wednesday are holidays here, and then that just leaves Thursday and Friday. What a mess, haha. But sooner or later we'll get this done...hopefully.

We had a good solid week though, like I said earlier. We had a ton of visits set up and quite a few actually happened. And like always quite a few didn't, haha. Saturday we had a loaded day and we were actually going to have to do splits to cover everything. We had two members set up to come with us and things were looking great, but then one by one our visits starting falling through. And then one of our members fell through so the split wasn't going to happen. So instead of having like seven visits that day, we had one, hahaha. Man that was crazy. But instead of getting discouraged we just kept going and actually stayed upbeat and happy which is so key to this work. I hate it when a companion, or myself, gets discouraged because it's just so much harder to work. But things are really starting to pick up here. Our number of visits is starting to increase, we're finding more people to teach, I have a good companion who wants to work, and it's just a good time of the year! haha. The temperature has cooperated too so that helps a bit :) This week it’s rained pretty hard a few times which helps with the temperature but it's still nice and sunny and warm. Good ol July. Can't wait for August haha.

I love you all! Know that I pray and think about you all (not too often of course ;)) and that I absolutely love this work. There is no greater work and no greater cause than furthering the kingdom of God on the earth. Until next week!

Elder Mathews

Where'd the sun go?

It is currently cloudy, wet, rainy, and a bit colder than what it's been the past few weeks and even months actually. I'm not really complaining about the welcomed colder air. But I would like some dryness and sun :) It kinda makes it hard to talk with people on the street when everyone has an umbrella or they just want to hurry to get out of the rain. But that's what makes it a little fun :) Yesterday we didn't really think it was going to rain even though it was slightly cloudy and overcast so we didn't exactly bring an umbrella. Well, we were in a visit with some members eating with them when it started to rain, haha. And lucky us we got to go out and walk in it! It sorta stopped but then at one point it just came down hard. We got caught in the middle of a street and had to run to find cover for a little to see if the rain would let up. We saw the bishop with his family in their car and we eventually went over to talk to them but after we were all soaked already. But being a former missionary, bishop already understands what just happened, haha.

This week was a lot better than our other weeks. We've been seeing a steady improvement in the work and the number of people we are teaching which is fantastic. We had an incredible visit with a woman named Leanor this past week as well. She called a couple of Sundays ago to ask her friend if she could come to church with her and of course the friend said yes :) We met her at church and set up a visit and the visit was amazing! The Spirit was so strong there and I know that she felt it as well. She said that while she was at church listening to all the talks, testimonies, and classes that she just saw something in everyone there. She said that everyone had something that she wanted; the people were happy and didn't seem like they had any problems. And she said that she wanted that so badly. As we were teaching and bearing testimony about what it was that she noticed and how she could have that, the Spirit flooded the room. It was the most powerful teaching experience I have ever had on my mission! She is an incredible woman who has been prepared by the Lord to receive the Restored Gospel. It's incredible how just one visit like that makes up for months, days, or weeks of rough spots. There is no greater joy than sharing the gospel and seeing it impact and change people's lives.

Another little miracle story this week was also incredible. We have this investigator named Nestor and we've been teaching him foreverrrrr. The only reason why he can't be baptized right now is because he's not married to the member he's living with. So we've been working with them about that, the ward has been working with them, and we've kept teaching him. A while back he couldn't come to church a lot because of work but then he lost his job and hasn't missed a Sunday for the past few months. He used to have a doubt about Joseph Smith but as we talked about everything he knows and all that's happened to him, he realized that everything happened for a reason. He said himself that he lost his job so he could come to church and to learn more and to overcome that doubt that he had. He and his wife-to-be are going to the town hall to set up a date to get married and by this week we'll know when it is :) I'm so excited for him because he said he wants to have his baptism the same day as the wedding. The only sad part is that I most likely won't be here :( After working with him for five months, seeing him progress, getting attached to him like that, and then having to leave is the most heart wrenching thing ever! I'm so happy for him but I'm just going to be so sad if I have to leave before his baptism. But the Lord has His own plans for us so I have to accept His will. The rest of the week has been going well though. My companion is doing good and he's learning slowly but surely how to be exactly obedient. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth though, haha. But he's learning :)

I hope you all at home are doing well and that the summer isn't too hot back home. I love you all so much and I miss you all a ton! It's incredible to see the changes in people back home and even in myself in just a short nine or ten months. I've grown and learned so much and I can never replace this time that I've had to grow and progress. Hopefully I'm not too different by the time I get home. I still want to keep my friends, haha.

Love you all and talk to you soon! :)

Buenos dias:)

It's crazy how fast this summer is already going. It's already about mid July and the time has just been flying. I'm sorta glad the summer is going by quickly because that means the heat will go away:). But at the same time it means I have less and less of my mission :(. I guess that's a good motivation to work even harder though right?

This week was less than amazing, haha. But it was still good. We had a fantastic week set up with lots of visits and we thought it was going to be awesome. And then one by one the visits started to fall through and everything turned upside down, haha. I'm sorta used to that happening once in a while but man it never gets old. We just had a good laugh at the end of the week and just kept going. Since a lot of our visits fell through we had lots of time to do contacts and just talk with people on the street. We had a hilarious one that my new companion, Elder Carroll did. It was so funny. He saw this family at a cross walk and we went up to them and he said, "Hola. Buenos dias...um....yeah...." hahaha and that's all. They walked away and we went our way and I was just dying laughing. He thought it was kinda funny too and it was a good learning experience for him.;) And it's something that made my journal entry I'm pretty sure.

This past weekend we had a ward activity up in a park in Mataró that was soooo fun. We brought some investigators with us and they had a really good time. There was food, games for the little kids, soccer and sports for the youth (and us :)) and then the kids had some water balloons and stuff. Well, they all thought it would be great to gang up on the missionaries and get us all soaking wet, and I got drenched, haha. It felt soooo good though because it was hot out and there was a light breeze. But eventually the little primary activity turned into a ward water activity, haha. The bishopric got into it, we got our water bottles and other people got into it. It was a lot of fun. The only bad part was I didn't have clothes to change into. But the sun eventually dried us off :) My feet are doing a lot better. I had to wrap them up to play soccer though at the activity. And now instead of my feet hurting because of my blisters, my calves, my quads, and whatever else is sore, haha. It's been a longggg time since I've played any kind of sport. But I absolutely loved it at the activity. And yes my team won :)

Well, the work here is still going great. The only bad part is that our investigator who was supposed to get baptized this weekend left for France and won't be coming back for a long time due to residency and legal problems :( So we'll just have to find somebody else to replace him. It was kinda sad though when he told us. But that's just how it is sometimes on the mission. Other than that, things are going so good. I love this work and I know that there are people all over Spain, and all over the world, who are ready to hear the restored gospel. I love you all and I miss you lots. But before you know it I'll be home giving you all hugs :)

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July!!! It's pretty quiet down here mostly because the rest of Spain could care less that it's our Independence Day. We were going to have a Zone BBQ in the Stake Center in Barcelona today but that got cancelled last minute because something happened and we couldn't get the Stake Center. Soooo we sorta just decided to chill here in Mataró which is fine with me. I like to just sit and relax sometimes at home. I even take naps on some Preparation Days when I have time. :) Today might be one of those days, haha. But since I didn't have a lot of time to write last week I'll update a bit about what's been going on. I'm training a brand new Elder, Elder Carroll! He's from outside of Dallas, Texas and he's very excited to be out working. He's got a pretty good foundation for the language already, which is fantastic! But obviously he's still learning and sometimes he doesn't understand what people say and he gets frustrated a bit. I have to keep telling him to be patient because he keeps telling me that he's going to learn the language by this transfer. That's all great and stuff but it doesn't really happen like that. The Gift of Tongues is real and we really do have the help of the Lord learning the language, but it just takes time. It'll take him a few months before he'll be able to understand almost everything and say almost everything so I just gotta keep telling him to be patient and not to beat himself up all the time. So far we've gotten along well.

This past week has also been a week of miracles. One of them was a family we found. A few weeks ago my former companion and I received a reference from a contact we did on the bus. We've been trying to get in contact with this guy but we hadn't for a few weeks. But as we were just doing contacts on this one street, I saw a dad, a mom, and a little boy walking up the street and I had the strongest impression to go talk to them. I first asked if they wanted help with their groceries since they had just gone shopping and they said no but then I just changed it to talking about the church, haha. Tricky huh? ;) But as we were talking they said that we could pass by again and share more about our message and I started writing down their address and everything and then I realized that they were the reference that we had been hunting for for those past few weeks! It was incredible! The Lord put us in their path so that we could find them.:) I know that the Lord's hand is always in this work and that I have the great blessing to see that every day. I would go on and just keep talking about these miracles but I don't think you all want to sit at the computer for about three hours, haha. But this work is amazing. It's so amazing that I put blisters in my feet, lol. I've never had problems my whole mission until this past week when they got pretty bad. On both my feet I got these deep blisters on the balls of my feet and it hurt so bad to walk. One of our members found out and she offered to help me with them and of course I said no. It's my feet! haha. And I didn't wanna gross her out :) But the next day it just hurt too much and I asked for her help although I was a little bit embarrassed. So we went over and she took a little razor blade and some other stuff and went to work. And now they don't hurt nearly as bad. I gotta thank her somehow. I got some great pictures from it as well, haha. But man what a week.

Today we'll be listening to some good ol USA music from MoTab :) So I hope you all have a great and fantastic week. I love you all so much and I know the Lord is watching over us here on the mission and you back home.

Entrenador

Sorry for the delay on the email. Things have been crazy the past few days because it's been transfer week and you know what?...I'm training!!! President called Saturday and told me that I'd be training a brand new Elder in Mataró. To be honest I was a bit nervous and scared because I didn't know how capable I'd be. I still feel that way, haha. But I am so excited to be with my new companion, Elder Carroll. He is such a great missionary and already knows so much about the language and the gospel. It's incredible! He's from the Dallas, Texas area, which is pretty sweet. And since I'm training that means my address stays the same :) Unfortunately, I have to keep this relatively short because we have to get out and work and we have lots to do to get Elder Carroll situated. But I'll have lots more to write on Monday the 4th of July! :)

Love you all!