I'm Staying!!!!!!!

Well, as the subject line states, I'm staying at least one more transfer here in Mataró!!! :) I was so nervous waiting to see if we'd get a call from President but the time just ticked on and a call never came, haha. I'm so happy that I have at least one more transfer here. Things have been picking up and we have so many amazing people to teach right now and it would have torn me up inside to have to leave them. But now all I have to worry about is why they won't keep commitments or whatever, haha. But yeah. I'm staying just so you all know :) The next time I'll find out if I'm leaving is around September 19 ish.

This week though was a hot one man! And I mean hot. For some reason the sun decided to just bake us this week and we sure did get a little bit of sun. Luckily we have visits during the hottest part of the day, usually, so we don't have to be out in it that much. But when we didn't have visits, man was I warm. I've been carrying around a little handkerchief that I brought from home so I can sorta clean up the sweat once in a while, haha. It comes in handy too :).

Well, I thought I'd let you all know about some of our amazing investigators that we have. One of them, Ana, who has a baptismal date for the 27th, is still doing fantastic. She's reading in the Book of Mormon, she loves meeting with us and she accepts everything like it's no problem. The only obstacle is that she still hasn't come to church! She's had to work every Sunday but this coming Sunday and the next she has for sure off from work. But of course Satan knows that and she said that she might be going out of town this weekend to visit some friends and family which means she wouldn't be able to come to church and then that would mean that she can't get baptized on the 27th :( My companion and I have been doing lots of praying and we have a visit with Ana on Thursday and we're going to see if she can come anyway. We kinda need a miracle or some other help because we're doing all we can and now it just comes down to her and the Lord. But I trust that the Lord has a plan for her and knows better than I do :).

We set another baptismal date with a woman named Zulma. She's from Bolivia and to be honest she's been a little less than the best investigator over these past few months. We dropped her for a while because she just didn't progress but then we saw her last week on the street and she asked if we could pass by so we did. The visit went really well and she accepted the invitation to be baptized! Her date is for the 17th of September unfortunately. We wanted it to be the 27th as well since she's been taught a decent amount and has come to church already but her schedule for work is ridiculous. She said in September she'll have a more solid schedule so that's why we set it for the 17th. But we'll see if we can bump it up, haha.

Mataró is going fantastic. Elder Mathews is going even better. I even got a compliment the other day from a few people! As some of you may know, I've sorta gotten a little bigger...as in fatter, haha. And so I've started to eat healthier and eat less. And I've actually seen results! And apparently the members have too! haha. On Sunday I was talking to some people here and there and then they'd just randomly stop and say, "You look a little skinnier. Are you eating ok?" haha. For me that was awesome. But now whenever we go over to a member's house, they make me eat a lot more haha. But I was all excited when they told me. So there is still hope for me!:)

I love you all though and thanks for your love, letters, and support that you send. I miss you all but my goodness does time fly. Until next week!

Welcome August!

It was a pretty interesting week to be honest. Started out a bit wet and slowly got drier, haha. This past week I went on exchanges up in a city called Girona which is a pretty awesome place. I've been there once before and I was actually supposed to go there instead of Mataró when I had my hernia surgery, but hey I'm not complaining :). The last time I went up there it was raining pretty good and yep, you can probably guess what happened while I was there this time: it rained....a tonnnnn. It started raining right when the train pulled into the station and it came down in buckets and buckets. We didn't have umbrellas because we weren't expecting rain at all. So we had to run to the apartment for a bit but from the station and the overhang across the street, we got soaked! There wasn't anything we could really do and so we just went for it, haha. We were running through puddles and jumping over mud and everything and when we got to the main street to cross, it was literally a river. I am not kidding, haha. There was a good five inches of water and sometimes more. And there was no way around it which meant that we went right through it, haha. It was quite the start to the experience. It rained allll day and all night and then started raining again the next day. I guess I'm just not meant to be up in Girona, haha. But that was pretty sweet. Speaking of rain, Saturday we passed by our recent converts, Maria, Tania, and Jorge, and as we got in it started raining. This week was a very wet week, haha. Well, we didn't have umbrellas yet again and we were just hoping that we wouldn't get too wet. But I was taught a very good lesson that day by a little 10 year old girl. She offered the opening prayer and in it she said, "...and bless the Elders when they leave that it will stop raining so that they don't get wet..." I was a little skeptical to be honest because it did not look like it was going to stop at alllll. But right as we stepped out their door and went to the streets, it stopped raining until we got on the bus to go to our next visit. On the bus it started raining again but then when we got off at our stop, the rained went away. It was an incredible little experience for me that taught me that the Lord answers the prayers of the faithful. I almost laughed afterwards but it was such a great learning experience for me. Shows me just how little faith I have sometimes. At least I know that I can always improve :)

A few weeks ago we received a reference from the office of a man who lived at the very edge of our area that we hardly ever go to since it's so far away and it's such a small town and we have no members that really live out there. But we decided to pass by two weeks ago and as luck would have it he wasn't there. We left a note telling him we passed by with our number and the next day we got a text from him saying that he was out of town but wanted us to pass by this past Sunday, yesterday. So we went and he was home this time! We went in and started talking and he immediately started asking us if we could talk about the Book of Mormon. He sorta caught us off guard because we had never seen the guy and we didn't know how he knew about it already. So we started talking and it turns out he's English!!! hahaha. He said that when he lived in England he saw missionaries a lot and they contacted him in the streets once in a while but he never really got to sit down and talk. And so while he was there visiting a few weeks ago he saw the missionaries again and just felt that he needed to look for the missionaries in Spain, which happened to be me and my companion. So we brought a copy of the Book of Mormon and a DVD that he wanted and we had a great visit. He's very open and anxious to learn but he's also very intellectual which means he was asking lots of questions about physical evidences of the Book of Mormon. But the visit went great and the Spirit was there. As I was bearing my testimony about it all, a peace and quiet just came over us and I felt the Spirit bearing witness of the book to him. He loved our visit he said and told us that he wants us to come back. But the catch is that he's going out of town for three weeks, haha. So we won't see him for a while. But that's alright. It was another opportunity to see that the Lord is preparing people all over the world and of all different races to receive the Gospel. Maybe I won't be here to see David baptized, but he will be someday in the near future.

Today we actually had a District get together and had a ping pong tournament, hahaha. It was so fun. And for not playing for months and months, I didn't do too badly actually. I even won the tourney, haha. Not bad huh? But too be honest, the other Elders weren't that great. My little brother and sisters play better, haha. But it was still way fun to play :) Gotta do something once in a while right?

I guess I should inform you all that transfers end this week. I'm not sure if I'm staying or not but if I'm leaving, I'll email my new address next week to you all. I love you all and miss you lots! Until next week!

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 :)