!Hola¡

Thank you all for your emails! I am so happy right now en el CCM. I don´t know where to begin with my letter to all of you. Let me start by saying me amo Mexico! I will try to write en ingles (English) but right now I have so much Español running through my brain that it´s going to be really hard. I´m also going to try to keep it organized but I´m warning you now, like Mexico it´s going to be MUY LOCO!

I guess I´ll begin with the not so interesting plane ride to Mexico. I start where I last saw the people I love. After riding up the escalator I boarded the 6:00 flight to Dallas Texas. Most if not all my district was on that very flight and I didn´t even know it. I sat by a very charming young elder named Elder Connors. He is also going to Tampa, Florida. We had so much fun talking on the plane ride. In Dallas, I met the girls who would soon be my best friends in the CCM. We ate Einstiens Bagels and then boarded our flight to Mexico. And this is where it gets good.

I would like to start by saying I love Spanish, I love Mexico and I especially love my compañera Hermana Brough. We talked basically the whole way to the CCM and didn´t even know that we would be companions. So you can imagine how awesome it was to find out that she was to be my other half for the remainder of my stay in the CCM. BTW, Brough is pronounced b-ruff. She and I are best friends! I adore her! We are so alike. We were definitely put together by divine inspiration. She´s from Kaysville, UT. I take comfort in the fact that she looks vaguely like and acts just like another of my best friends (Georgina). We have a saying that we comprised our second day here and that is, "nosotros somos campeones!" (We are the champions). She lifts my spirits daily with her cute and quirky personality.

Mexico is crazy. VERY crazy. Nothing makes sense. There are really nice houses next to shacks and everything is a bright color, every building, every animal, every poster, every food , you name it! The CCM is the nicest place other than the temple that I´ve been to in Mexico. (Well, technically it´s the only other place I´ve been to.) We live in little casas (houses) and they are all different colors. Ours is pink! At night it´s hard to tell the color, and the house next to ours is a light purple, so on more than one occasion we have gone to the wrong casa...haha

Another thing you should know about the CCM is that it´s pristine clean except for all the little leaves. There are these trees that shed little tiny leaves all over the place! I sweep our room every day if not twice a day. There are lots of palm trees too. The birds here are so pretty! There are always parrots flying around. They are bright green! I love them. Also it rains every ten minutes! I thought Utah had mood swings, well it´s nothing compared to the weather in Mexico! When it rains it pours and the streets fill up and there is no point in wearing shoes.

I also want to describe to you the sounds of the MTC because there are so many sounds. Apparently there is a Catholic school nearby that shoots off cannons all the time either that or there is construction going on, nobody really knows, but it literally sounds like we are in a warzone! I fall asleep to the sound of cannons, rain, dogs barking, and gunshots. We try not to think too much about the gunshots... or the sirens. Everything within the CCM is peaceful though. BTW I should have included this earlier but the baño en the Dallas airport es not as good as Georgina made it out to be.

So what is the typical day in the life of Hermana Mathis like? Well imagine 9 hours of studying Spanish and 3 hours of studing the Libro de Mormon. I´ve learned so much Spanish in this first week. I can pray, bear my testimony and give the first lesson all in Spanish, the second lesson... not so much. On the first day in the CCM we taught an investigator. Luckily we taught in English but this was not the case on Thursday. We totally failed to teach our first "real" investigator the first lesson. We told him that until the restoration the gospel was no longer in the cute. We now use that phrase to describe the way we look every day. "Oh Hermana you are lookin in the cute today!" Haha. You see cute is tierno and earth is tierra. We laughed it off though. Me and mi compañera are the biggest dumb blondes you´ve ever met. We managed to lose both of our keys on the first day. Don´t ask how. Then we both set our alarms to 6:30 p.m. on accident and woke up late our second day. Haha. Then because we lost our keys and woke up late we joined the wrong district because we were running so late. We didn´t even realize it until halfway through the earthquake schpeel. BTW did I mention they have a ton of earthquakes down here. And the city is build on a lake so it´s actually sinking. Nevertheless we still manage to learn muchos.

Five days a week we go to the gym, we run, we bike and we play futbol with the "natives." Also we share a room with two Mexican Hermanas. They are so cute! They teach us most of what we actually retain. The bad thing about sharing a room with them though is that we got them sick. We´ve both been sick since we got here. We had colds but we´re over them now.

My district is awesome. There are 7 elders and the 2 of us Hermanas. There used to be 8 elders but one of them went home the first day due to severe anxiety. We have so much fun together except the elders kind of stink because they sleep through class while we study our little behinds off, and they somehow happen to know more Spanish than us. It´s infuriating! The elders are Elder Smith (district leader) and his companions Elder Skeeter and Elder Campbell. Elder Dickson, Elder Winkle (who was actually in children's choir and high school choir with me) and Elder Conver, Elder Christopherson.

Sorry I have to write fast I don´t have a ton more time. But I want to tell you all about the spiritual experiences I have been having. Let me just start by saying that without the Spirit misionos are nada. I have learned the most important thing about missions and that is that we are not the teachers, the Holy Ghost is. We have one investigator right now, (he´s actually our teacher but we´re not supposed to know that). His name is Ignacio. Our first lesson didn´t blow over too well because we wrote everything down and the spirit was lost. We didn´t maintain eye contact and we didn´t even testify. Our second lesson we decided not to write anything down and it was perfect... well almost. Then this past Sunday in church they called on me to give a talk in Spanish. So naturally I was frantic. But I stuck to the words I knew and I really tried to convey the spirit, it was awesome. An awesome Spanglish talk. I talked out the importance of the Book of Mormon. I feel so blessed to teach the modern day Lamanites.

The Spirit is SO strong here. I feel it everyday. So much that I cry, I cry muchos. This gospel is the most amazing thing. I am completely happy in it´s entanglement. That moment when you know with all assurity that Jesus lives is the most amazing moment of your life. Nothing else matters. I want to share a scripture with you and that is Alma 5:16 it´s my new favorite:

"I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?" (Alma 5:16)

Can you imagine the day you come to see the Lord? I can and I´m exited for it.

I love you all!
Sincerely,
Heather Mathis


P.S. probably the funniest moment this week was when we tried to tell some Mexican elders than our brains were fried but what we actually told them was that our brains were naughty. Haha!