Summer??

I know it's only February...but it's pretty much summer here, ha-ha. This past week we had some gorgeous weather :) Who knew that in the middle of winter that I'd be walking down the street in 80ish degree weather? I'm loving it! But there are both good things and bad things about that. The good stuff is that it's really nice outside at the moment when we work. The bad thing is that it's February and it's already that hot...so I'm not really looking forward to what it's going to be like in August, ha-ha. That'll be a killer. Hopefully it won't be too hot but we'll see.

This past week was really good too missionary wise. We had lots of success and we're always striving to improve. Last week I think I wrote about a young man named Ivan, a friend of a young woman in the church here. Well, he just continues to amaze me. This past week we had an activity in the church and the four of us missionaries went to help set up and clean up, etc. There were a lot of non-members who came and a lot of youth as well and we tried to make it an opportunity to find new people to teach. At one point our ward mission leader, Jordi, made an announcement that we, the missionaries, were going to introduce ourselves, and we had no warning ahead of time, ha-ha. So we sorta just got up in front of everyone and presented ourselves a bit and shared a short testimony. Afterwards a young man came up to us and asked us a few questions and as we were answering, about 15 others swarmed around to listen. Ivan was one of them. After we had talked a bit, Ivan turned to this kid and told him, "You should come to church with me this Sunday. I came last week and it's changed my life and I know it will change yours." Ivan is only 15! And for a 15 year old Catalan young man, that is incredible. He said that he believes that the church is true and he wants to continue learning. He said he's buying a white shirt and tie so that he can wear it on Sundays. Gotta love missionary work :)

We actually just got back a few minutes ago from a pretty fun adventure up into the mountains here nearby with a member in the ward. He drove the four of us to a small town and we went hiking. It was way fun and the view was incredible and we got to see a deserted old town that's over 100 years old. But man am I beat now, ha-ha. It was a decently long hike and kinda steep at parts. I'm not quite sure which was harder, going up or coming down. But it was a lot of fun and it was way neat seeing the old town up in the middle of this cliff/plateau thing. But now after this we're just going back home and crashing until we have to go out and work again which is great. I think I might take more naps when I get home, too, ha-ha. I never really did and now that I'm out here, I've realized just how great they are on Preparation Day :)

Well, take care everyone back home. I hope that you're all doing fantastic because I know I am :) Thanks for everything you do and for your love that I feel. Until next week!

New Mission President!

We just found out this past week who our new mission president will be. His name is President Mark L. Pace. He gets here July 1 and he'll be my mission president for about the last three months of my mission. It's kind of exciting to think that we'll be having a different mission president but also sad because President Hinckley has been incredible. I think the exciting part is just waiting to see what President Pace will be like. He served a mission in Madrid a while back so he should know the Spanish culture pretty well, which is great. I'll let you know more details as we learn more about him and what'll be happening.

This past week was a really good one for us, and our district as a whole. We were met with lots of success and things are picking up even more here as we've been working together as a district with the ward members. Things just pop out of nowhere and we're all pretty excited because as we look into the future, things are just looking even more incredible. This past weekend we had a baptism of Camila!! She's the daughter of a member and it was great. The only little problem was that we went earlier in the day to fill up the font and when we came back it was almost overflowing, ha-ha-ha! So we turned off the water obviously and had to start emptying the font with buckets, ha-ha. It was quite the experience. After about 15 minutes of doing that we decided that the water was low enough to be alright. Luckily it was :)

This past week Carnaval started as well. Carnaval is a big party holiday where people get into some crazy costumes. It was pretty interesting, ha-ha. We still had to go out and work obviously and Elder Watkins and I were coming back to Tarragona on a train from another town nearby at around 9:40 and we had to run to catch the train. The neat thing is that you can pay on the train when they come to check to see if you have a ticket. But sometimes the ticket guy doesn't make it all the way through the train by the time we get off sooooo we sometimes don't pay, ha-ha. But once again we had to run and jump on the train as it was about to leave and just wait for the guy to come. We were almost stopped in Tarragona when the guy came. Some luck huh? So we did end up paying which is fine but it's become sort of like a game for us to see if we make it there or not without paying, ha-ha. When we were back in Tarragona we went down the main street to get home and it was packed. We had forgotten that it was Carnaval and that they were going to have a big parade. So we couldn't cross the street for a while because of the parade so we just had to stand and wait there. It was pretty neat though because they had some floats and some extravagant looking costumes and it was way intense. Makes me sorta wish we had Carnaval back home, ha-ha. Elder Watkins and I decided to walk down the main street with our cameras taking a video. We held it right in front of our stomachs and just walked. So I'll be able to send that home and you'll all see a little bit of what it was like :)

Yesterday we had an incredible experience with a young man named Ivan. We were at church talking with people and this young woman in our ward, Lesly, came in with a friend. He stayed for all the meetings and then afterwards Lesly grabs me and my companion and says that Ivan wants to learn more. The crazy thing is that he's 15 and she's only 16 and she's an incredible member missionary. We had the visit with him that afternoon and it went so well. It was a little strange to teach him at first because he's only 15. Jared, my little brother, is 15, ha-ha. This young man had a lip ring and an earring with some spiked hair and he honestly didn't look like your ideal person to teach. But we saw a different side of him that showed what he really valued. He's interested in learning more and said that he wants to come back to church next week, which is way exciting. It's funny because the way he came to church was so simple. He just texted the member and asked her if she wanted to hang out that day and she said that she had to go to church and then just asked if he wanted to come. It's that easy! We invite people to come to church alllll week and they don't come and then a member invites them and they do, ha-ha. So lesson to learn: invite friends and others to come. It's actually pretty easy :)

Transfers are March 6 just so you know, and I'm not sure if I'll be getting transferred or not. There"s a good chance for both, ha-ha. So I'm not really sure. So just keep that in mind if you're planning on sending letters again :)

Work=Blessings

Another great week has come and gone! We had so many great things going on this past week and I can't go a day without realizing just how little I do and just how much the Lord does in this great work. This past weekend, one of our investigators, Meybely, was baptized!! :) She was truly a miracle. I'm just going to recount a little bit about how we met her and her story. In the beginning of January, Elder Watkins and I were doing great and we had high hopes for a lot of people who we were teaching. But as the month went on things just stopped going as well. People stopped progressing as much, it was harder to meet with them, and then people who had plans to get baptized just all of a sudden didn't want to. So it was really frustrating and we were stuck. We began to work extra hard to find more of the prepared children of the Lord to help them to come to the Gospel and we set some great goals and some really good plans. We made goals to talk to more people on the streets, ask for more references, and to make sure that we were doing all that we could in our power to find people. In the end, we didn't end up teaching a single one of the contacts that we did. And we had to have done a few hundred that first week! But the Lord saw that we were really working to find people and that we were being the servants that he needs and so he blessed us in other incredible ways!:) One of those ways was through a member named Alberto. He's in the bishopric here in our ward and one day he came up to us and said, "Elders, my niece is coming from Nicaragua next week. She's been to church quite a bit and already listened to the missionaries once and she's going to be baptized here. So when she gets here we'll set up a time for you to come." We could hardly believe what we heard! There we were, in church after a week of hard work, frustrated because of the lack of success we had been having, and the Lord blessed us with someone!:) She arrived and we went over the next day and she was absolutely incredible! Everything we taught, she already knew. We would ask her questions and she would give answers as if she had been a member for her whole life! All we had to do was give her the information and that's it! She was truly prepared by the Lord before coming to Spain and Heavenly Father blessed us because of our efforts to be a part of this young woman's experience with the church. It truly is a miracle and it truly was a reward for what we have been doing.:) So basically what I learned from all that, and I've learned it more than once, ha-ha, is that even though things may seem hard and impossible at times and we don't understand why something is happening, many times the Lord is waiting to see what we'll do. Are we going to just throw our hands up in the air and say, "Why me? Why this?" or are we going to set goals and make plans to continue forward? I know that as we choose the second answer that life just goes better. Everyone knows life isn't easy. But the real test is what we choose to do when the hard parts actually come. Don't get discouraged; keep moving forward; and let the Lord pour out his blessings that he has waiting for you because I know He will :)

I love you all and I'm excited for another great week. We have another person, Camila, preparing to get baptized this week as well so I'll have her story coming up next week, ha-ha. Stay healthy and safe and see ya next week!

Snow??

I'm really cold right now, ha-ha. Great opening to an email right? But the winter cold finally came and it came hard. And it looks like it's here to stay for a while instead of coming and going for a day or two. And you know something else? We actually saw snow!!! I saw my first snow in over a year and however long it's been, ha-ha-ha. It was great! But don't get too excited for me. It wasn't enough to do anything to be honest. While waiting for our train to go to a zone meeting, a few flakes started falling and we all got kinda excited! Shows just how childish we can still be, ha-ha. But there's one missionary from Bolivia who was with us and he's never seen snow in his life. So you can just imagine how excited he was. He took out his camera and was having fun there. Most of the snow we saw though was while we were on our way to the meeting. So we didn't really do much with it unfortunately. I'm kinda glad though that there isn't a lot of snow on the mission because it would make working outside so much more miserable. It's bad enough with the cold and then the wind. Add snow and it's just miserable weather! I think being out in the cold so long finally took a toll on us because my companion and another Elder in our apartment both got pretty sick with some head colds and I got a little one. Luckily we're doing better but still got the typical runny nose and everything. But all is well :)

Saturday at one point was so windy that I could lean forward and the wind would hold me up. It was insane how strong the wind was. The only problem though was that as I was leaning forward, the wind decided to just stop, ha-ha. So I almost nailed my face on the ground! Luckily I didn't though. It smells good though to be honest to have the cold here. Yeah maybe it sounds weird to you all but for me, winter has a certain smell and I finally got to smell that again :) That's one thing I'm looking forward to back home. But let's hope that there's actually snow this next winter!

Things are going great here though. We have some great investigators and one is actually getting baptized next week! She was truly a miracle who just fell from heaven right into our laps! She moved here from Nicaragua to live with some family who are members and she had already gone to church a bit back in her country and wanted to join. So all we've had to do is just teach her and she eats it all up. She's been prepared before we met her and she's an absolutely incredible young woman! I'm excited for this weekend :) We have a few more investigators who are moving along and we expect a few more baptisms within the next few weeks. So stay tuned! Ha-ha.

Today is another colder day but we're heading out to see a lighthouse by the coast. Hopefully it's not too terribly windy and stuff down there. We're gonna get bundled up and all but still. It's about time though that we get out and do something, ha-ha.

I don't really have a whole ton to say this week since we were in a two day meeting. It was great but if I were to write how I felt and what I learned, I'd be here for a longggg time!:) And I think you'd all get bored, ha-ha. Just know that things are going incredibly well out here. The members love us and I love them :) ha-ha. And I just can't get enough of this!:) My invitation to all of you is to be missionaries at home. If you do that, you will find greater happiness because you will be doing what the Lord expects of us. We aren't a passive worshipping religion. We are active and moving. And if we aren't part of that, then we aren't truly living what we believe. Stay active, open your mouths, and you'll see the blessings :)

I love you all! Miss you lots!!

February

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!!!!